Criticism of Buddhism

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Criticism of Buddhism has taken numerous different forms, including philosophical and rational criticisms, but also criticism of praxis, such as that its practitioners act in ways contrary to Buddhist principles or that those principles systemically marginalize women. There are many sources of criticism, both ancient and modern, stemming from other religions, the non-religious, and other Buddhists. Critiques can be philosophical, questioning doctrines such as impermanence, interdependence, and emptiness, or practical, focusing on instances where practitioners may have acted inconsistently with the religion's core ideals such as compassion, nonviolence (ahimsa), and the alleviation of suffering. [1] Some Buddhist communities work to address historical inequalities and reinterpret teachings in ways that are socially inclusive and ethically consistent. [2]

Contents

Criticism of historical behavior

Buddhism and women

Women are often depicted in traditional Buddhist texts as deceitful and lustful. The Buddha himself said in an early text [a] that a woman's body is "a vessel of impurity, full of stinking filth. It is like a rotten pit ... like a toilet, with nine holes pouring all sorts of filth." [3] Isaline Blew Horner and Diana Mary Paul are worried about the discrimination against almswomen and laywomen in Indian Buddhism. [4] Kawahashi Noriko observes that the contemporary Buddhist community in Japan is rife with two views, one that women are inherently incompetent and the other that women need to be dependent on men for their liberation; and that the Japanese Buddhist community has consistently ignored women themselves, as well as feminist critique. [5]

Buddhism and violence

Thai Buddhist Monks blessing the primary pillar of a school during Exercise Cobra Gold - a set of humanitarian exercises in Thailand Thai Buddhust Monks with members of the Thai Royal Army during a blessing.jpg
Thai Buddhist Monks blessing the primary pillar of a school during Exercise Cobra Gold - a set of humanitarian exercises in Thailand

Buddhism is often described as a pacifist religion due to its teachings advocating principles such as non-harming and non-violence. One of the five precepts for lay Buddhist practitioners is ahimsa , meaning to refrain from harming others. However, in different scriptures and commentaries, this precept is subject to various influences. [6] [7]

Buddhists in Japan, Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka have all faced criticism for their involvement in violence. [7] During the Cold War era, the Thai monk Kittivuddho asserted in an interview that killing communists did not violate the principle of non-violence. [8] In Sri Lanka, during the civil war, Buddhist monks served as chaplains providing religious services to soldiers. Monks who opposed this, such as Gananath Obeyesekere, Mahinda Deegalle and P. D. Premasiri, stated that violence is generally considered un-Buddhist and a distortion of the Buddha's teachings. [9]

Doctrine

Miracles

Buddhist texts contain a range of paranormal phenomena, such as the Buddha's mysterious origins, and some Buddhists claim that the Buddha himself levitated while meditating. Scottish philosopher David Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , was skeptical of all religious miracles and advocated treating them in the same light. [10] [11]

Karma

Buddhist karma and karmic reincarnation are feared to potentially lead to fatalism and victim blaming. Paul Edwards says that karma does not provide a guide to action. Whitley Kaufman, in his 2014 book, cross-examines that there is a taut relationship between karma and free will and that if karma existed, then evil would not exist because all victims of evil just get "deserved". [12] Sallie B. King writes that karma often leads to stigmatization of people with disabilities and people of lower social status (e.g., Dalits in India), especially for people with disabilities, as the Buddha's own words in the Cūlakammavibhanga Sutta are used to justify the stigmatization. [13]

Whitley Kaufman offers five criticisms of karma: [14]

  1. The Memory Problem: People have never found reliable evidence for the existence of reincarnation, and therefore, people have no way of knowing the specifics of the evils they have done in their past lives, and naturally, they cannot atone for them, which brings the whole theory closer to the theory of vengeance.
  2. The Proportionality Problem: It is difficult to determine the evaluative relationship between a person's good and bad behavior.
  3. The Infinite Regress Problem: Karma leads to the problem of infinite regression, where one cannot know where the first karma came from.
  4. The Problem of Explaining Death: Since death is often viewed as the greatest evil in Buddhism, but everyone inevitably experiences death, this may weaken the rigor of the karma discourse.
  5. The Free Will Problem: Karma's existence contradicts free will.

Hell and damnation

A depiction of Hell scenes in 19th-century Burmese temple paintings Buddhist hell.jpg
A depiction of Hell scenes in 19th-century Burmese temple paintings

It has been observed that monks threaten their audiences with the torments of Hell, linking salvation to regular offerings and verification. [15] [16]

In imperial China, bereaved families would pay monks to chant at their homes, offering alms to the monastic community in return. [17] In Japan, Buddhists have faced criticism for their involvement in funeral rites and ancestral worship. Some deceased individuals receive posthumous Buddhist names, which exert a direct positive influence on their afterlife status. From very early times, posthumous Buddhist names were conferred based on merits accumulated during the deceased's lifetime at temples (such as donations or services rendered), alongside monetary contributions from surviving family members. However, due to the commodification of Buddhist names in Japan, this practice is facing increasing scrutiny. Inoue Shinichi of the Foundation for the Restoration of Buddhism has drawn parallels between Buddhist names sold for cash and Catholic indulgences. [18]

Rui Han wrote that the concept of the problem of Hell does not apply to Buddhism, as Buddhism does not recognize a triune deity. In Buddhism, individuals fall into Hell due to the accumulation of karma, not divine punishment. [19]

Sectarianism in Buddhism

Buddhist scholars use terms such as "early Buddhism" to describe Buddhism before the early religious schisms. About a hundred years after the death of the Buddha, the Buddhist community began to conduct gatherings such as "councils" to resolve the divisions that existed at that time. However, a series of schisms still occurred, leading to the birth of many schools of Buddhism, and Buddhists sometimes use very pejorative terms to characterize other schools that do not share their beliefs. [20] [21]

Criticism by other religions

Jainism

A Jain defense of its dualism of lifeless matter and everlasting soul, against the Charvaka denial of this existence, and what is described as the Buddhist notion of the impermanent or transient nature of the soul (consciousness), is articulated in Chapter 8 (verse 62–70) of Atmasiddhi Shastra , a 19th-century text by Shrimad Rajchandra. [22] In this defense, living bodies are equated with dead bodies, to posit that matter (Pudgal) cannot produce consciousness.

Taoism

Since the fall of the Han dynasty, Chinese Taoism and Buddhism have accused each other of copying their texts. Since at least 166, Taoism had propagated the idea that Laozi or one of his disciples went to India to become the Buddha to subdue the barbarians in the West. The Buddhists also fought back, and these debates continued until the middle of the 9th century. [23] [24]

Shinto

Hirata Atsutane, a Shinto fundamentalist and Japanese Kokugaku scholar, wrote a biography of the Buddha from a critical perspective. Atsutane's book was subsequently banned by the shogunate, but it was still widely disseminated among Japanese intellectuals and caused considerable embarrassment to the Buddhist community in Japan. [25]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The text is from the 转女身经 (The Sūtra on Transforming the Female Form), one version in Chinese originally reads: "此身便為不淨之器，臭穢充滿，亦如枯井、空城、破村[...] 此身如廁，九孔流出種種不淨".

References

  1. ↑ Lopez, Donald S. (2001). The Story of Buddhism. Harper Collins. ISBN   9780060699765.
  2. ↑ Gross, Richard (1993). Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism. SUNY Press. ISBN   9780791414040.
  3. ↑ Faure, Bernard (2003). "The Rhetoric of Subordination". The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender. Princeton University Press. p. 56. ISBN   978-0-691-09171-6.
  4. ↑ Yuichi, Kajiyama (1982). "Women in Buddhism". The Eastern Buddhist. 15 (2): 53–70. ISSN   0012-8708. JSTOR   44361658 . Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  5. ↑ Noriko, Kawahashi (2003). "Feminist Buddhism as Praxis: Women in Traditional Buddhism". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies . 30 (3/4): 293–294, 300–302. ISSN   0304-1042. JSTOR   30234052 . Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  6. ↑ Jerryson, Michael (2015). "Buddhists and Violence: Historical Continuity/Academic Incongruities". Religion Compass. 9 (5): 141–150. doi:10.1111/rec3.12152. ISSN   1749-8171 . Retrieved 7 November 2025.
  7. 1 2 Nilay, Saiya; Stuti, Manchanda (1 May 2025). "Monks Behaving Badly: Explaining Buddhist Violence in Asia". International Security. 49 (4). doi:10.1162/isec_a_00510. ISSN   0162-2889 . Retrieved 7 November 2025.
  8. ↑ Satha-Awand, Suwanna (2013). Tichonov, Vladimir M.; Brekke, Torkel (eds.). Buddhism and violence: militarism and Buddhism in modern Asia. Routledge studies in religion (1 ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 187–205. ISBN   978-0-203-11102-4.
  9. ↑ Satha-Awand, Suwanna (2013). Tichonov, Vladimir M.; Brekke, Torkel (eds.). Buddhism and violence: militarism and Buddhism in modern Asia. Routledge studies in religion (1 ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 105–112. ISBN   978-0-203-11102-4.
  10. ↑ Rockwood, Nathan (December 2023). "Locke and Hume on competing miracles" . Religious Studies . 59 (4): 603–617. doi:10.1017/S0034412522000464. ISSN   0034-4125 . Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  11. ↑ Twelftree, Graham H., ed. (2011). The Cambridge Companion to Miracles. Cambridge Companions to Religion. Cambridge University Press. pp. 11–12. doi:10.1017/CCOL9780521899864. ISBN   978-0-521-89986-4.
  12. ↑ Burley, Mikel (June 2014). "Karma, Morality, and Evil". Philosophy Compass . 9 (6): 415–430. doi:10.1111/phc3.12138 . Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  13. ↑ Flanagan, Owen (22 June 2017). A Mirror Is for Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 168–171. ISBN   978-0-19-049979-2 . Retrieved 14 May 2024.
  14. ↑ Kaufman, Whitley R. P. (2005). "Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil". Philosophy East and West . 55 (1): 15–32. doi:10.1353/pew.2004.0044. ISSN   0031-8221. JSTOR   4487934 . Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  15. ↑ Teiser, Stephen F. (2003). The scripture on the ten kings and the making of purgatory in medieval Chinese Buddhism (1 ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 7, 10. ISBN   9780824827762.
  16. ↑ Berezkin, Rostislav (18 May 2023). "A Tale of Wonders in Performance: The Precious Scroll of Wang Hua in the Storytelling Tradition of Changshu, Jiangsu, China". Religions. 14 (5): 670. doi: 10.3390/rel14050670 . ISSN   2077-1444.
  17. ↑ Teiser, Stephen F. (2003). The scripture on the ten kings and the making of purgatory in medieval Chinese Buddhism (1 ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 21-23. ISBN   9780824827762.
  18. ↑ Covell, Stephen G. (2005). Japanese Temple Buddhism: Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation. University of Hawai'i Press. pp. 165–187. ISBN   978-0-8248-2856-1. JSTOR   j.ctt6wr21b . Retrieved 4 November 2025.
  19. ↑ Han, Rui (31 March 2025). "Kamma and the Buddhist Hell". Religions. 16 (4): 446. doi: 10.3390/rel16040446 . ISSN   2077-1444.
  20. ↑ Gray, David B. (2016). "Buddhist Sectarianism". In Powers, John (ed.). The Buddhist World. London; New York: Routledge. pp. 368–370. doi:10.4324/9781315688114. ISBN   9781315688114 . Retrieved 29 July 2024.
  21. ↑ Baruah, Bibhuti (2000). Buddhist sects and sectarianism. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. pp. 39–42. ISBN   978-81-7625-152-5 . Retrieved 29 July 2024.
  22. ↑ Doshi, Manu (28 December 2008). "7". Atmasiddhi Shastra in English. Shrimad Rajchandra Adhyatmik Sadhana Kendra.
  23. ↑ Auerback, Micah L. (2016). A storied sage: canon and creation in the making of a Japanese Buddha. Chicago (Ill.) London: University of Chicago Press. pp. 120–125. ISBN   9780226286419.
  24. ↑ Raz, Gil (October 2014). "'Conversion of the Barbarians' [Huahu] Discourse as Proto Han Nationalism" . The Medieval History Journal . 17 (2): 255–294. doi:10.1177/0971945814545862. ISSN   0971-9458 . Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  25. ↑ Auerback, Micah L. (2016). A storied sage: canon and creation in the making of a Japanese Buddha. Chicago (Ill.) London: University of Chicago Press. pp. 135–160. ISBN   9780226286419.

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