The Agnostic Buddhist: A Secular Vision of Dharma Practice

Stephen Batchelor · 22 Jun 1996

Stephen Batchelor did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The Buddha's teaching is pragmatic and agnostic: he left questions about the soul and life after death undeclared.

Their wordsThis passage shows quite clearly both the pragmatic nature of the Buddha's teaching, as well as its agnostic bent.
Our reading
Buddhism has repeatedly lost its agnostic dimension by becoming institutionalised as a religion with dogmatic beliefs.

Their wordsBut if we look at Buddhism historically, we'll see that it has continuously tended to lose this agnostic dimension through becoming institutionalised as a religion, with all of the usual dogmatic belief systems that religions tend to have.
Our reading
The word "Buddhism" is largely an invention of Western scholars, and it wrongly frames the Dharma as one more creed.

Their wordsThe very term "Buddhism," a word for which there is no exact equivalent in an Asian language, is largely an invention of Western scholars. It suggests a creed to be lined up alongside other creeds; another set of beliefs about the nature of reality that we cannot know by other means than through faith.

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