British Buddhism, secular mindfulness, and the politics of sustainability

ABSTRACT

The environment for Buddhist organisations in Britain has changed since the period of their initial establishment. As a result of the rise in popularity of secular mindfulness and the spread of Buddhist teachings, Buddhist groups in Britain are forced to consider their sustainability in a crowded spiritual marketplace. This article examines the recent growth of secular mindfulness teaching by Buddhist groups in Britain, drawing on new qualitative research with British Buddhist groups and teachers. I argue that ‘secular meditation’ approaches have been variously adopted by Buddhist groups to appeal to a wider range of people, bringing in much-needed revenue for financial sustainability as well as carving out greater cultural relevance. However, the boundaries between the ‘secular’ and the ‘Buddhist’ are not always clearly demarcated. As ideas and labels they operate in symbiosis, enabling Buddhist groups to navigate multiple audiences simultaneously, sustaining and developing their position in the public sphere.

KEYWORDS:

• Buddhism
• Britain
• secular mindfulness
• meditation
• meditation courses
• sustainability
• secular
• economics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ‘Hippie Trail’ refers to the overland passage from Europe to India, taken by young people embracing a counter-cultural lifestyle, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s.

2 In this study, the majority of my interlocutors were based in England, Wales and Scotland, with a more limited number of participants from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The term ‘Britain’ is used in this article to reflect this dominant demographic. However, it is important to note the differences between the areas that make up the British Isles in the way that Buddhism has become established, and currently operates (see Cox 2013).

3 As the British Buddhist scene is a relatively small one, in order to protect participants’ identities, I will not indicate which specific organisation my interlocutors were drawn from, nor will I give enhanced detail about the organisations and their locations where this might compromise anonymity.

4 In the article that follows, I will place terms like ‘secular’ or ‘non Buddhist’ in quotation marks (or use other indicative markers) when I want to be clear that I am reflecting the functional emic use of the term or concept by my participants, rather than indicating my academic judgement of whether a certain teaching is secular or otherwise.

5 The statistics for England and Wales, and Scotland and Northern Ireland are separated here, as the census process differs.

6 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021. Last accessed 5 January 2023.

7 The combination of religion and ethnicity data from the 2021 census was not available at the time of writing.

8 To appreciate this further, see the research undertaken during the British Ritual Innovation Under Covid-19 Project (BRIC-19), https://bric19.mmu.ac.uk/. Last accessed 29 June 2022.

9 This is with the exception of Elisabeth Williams-Oerberg, Brooke Schedneck and Ann Gleig (2021) and their work in Ladakh will be discussed later in the article.

10 Both Headspace and Ten Percent Happier are widely available online apps that offer support to learn and practice meditation. They both acknowledge the Buddhist roots and origins of certain practices (and the founder of Headspace, Andy Puddicombe, was a Buddhist monk), but they self-describe as secular.

11 Compassion Cultivation Training is an eight-week programme, developed at Stanford University by Buddhist monk Thupten Jinpa, which teaches practices based on developing compassion for oneself and wider society in order to enhance emotional wellbeing (https://www.compassioninstitute.com/the-program/compassion-cultivation-training/). The 16 Guidelines is a programme affiliated with the Buddhist organisation The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), initiated in London in 2005, and offers courses focusing on the development of ‘universal values such as humility, kindness, courage, compassion, empathy’ (https://www.compassionandwisdom.org/about-us).

12 For a description of the FPMT’s universal education pillar (one of five pillars of service), see https://fpmt.org/education/secular/universal-education-for-compassion-and-wisdom/. For an exploration of the FPMT more widely see, Jessica Falcone (2018) and, in relation to Britain, David Kay (2007).

13 Upaya typically translates as assistance along the Buddhist path (i.e. assistance towards spiritual liberation) using skilful means, whereby the teacher adapts the way they might deliver a message or teaching depending on the audience. This is something that the historical Buddha, Siddharta Gautama, is seen as doing and Rahmani (2020, 262) notes is an approach articulated by secular mindfulness teachers, including Kabat-Zinn.

14 Right Livelihood is one part of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path to eliminate suffering. Although financial sustainability is essential for organisations and individuals, most of my participants were concerned with sustainability in the ‘right’ way, that could be deemed in accordance with Buddhist ethics (sila). For an exploration of how one prominent Buddhist organisation in Britain, Triratna, puts Right Livelihood into practice, see https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/right-livelihood.

15 There is a growing debate about race, racism, and the diversity of non-heritage sanghas in American Buddhist communities, including in relation to the appropriation of secular mindfulness. For example, see the work of Nalika Gajaweera (2021) and Joseph Cheah (2011). However, this field of research is currently in its infancy in the UK context, although Sharon Smith (published posthumously) introduces these issues in relation to two British Buddhist groups (Smith, Munt, and Yip 2016).

16 The Five Precepts are commonly articulated in British Buddhist circles as: Not killing, not taking what has not been freely given, no sexual misconduct, not lying, no taking intoxicants that cloud the mind.

Additional information

Funding

The research discussed in this article was funded by a British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group (SOCREL) seedcorn grant.

Notes on contributors

Caroline Starkey

Dr Caroline Starkey is an Associate Professor of Religion and Society in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds, UK. Caroline’s research focuses primarily on the establishment, adaptation and development of Buddhism in Britain. She was involved in the first national survey of Buddhist buildings (funded by Historic England, with Professor Emma Tomalin) and she is particularly interested in gender, authoring Women in British Buddhism: Commitment, Connection and Community (published by Routledge) in 2020, and is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Gender and Society (with Emma Tomalin), published in January 2022.