The Buddha Meets Socrates: A Philosopher's Journal

By Harrison J. Pemberton

The Buddha Meets Socrates: A Philosopher' s Journal is a first-person account of teaching and learning. In 2004, Harrison J. Pemberton embarked on a journey to teach Western philosophy to a group of young Buddhist monks in India. One scholar in particular was poised to study: His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje. Together these great thinkers generated a dialogue of teaching and learning, looking at the work of Western philosophers and comparing it to Buddhist philosophy, questioning how the Buddha and Socrates might meet. The Buddha Meets Socrates chronicles this process of inquiry and exchange.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rabsel Publications
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9782360170340

Book preview

Introduction

Kalimpong

In many a book about India, in the first sentence there is some description of the well-nigh overwhelming onslaught of impressions, the astonishing contrasts, the sheer density of people, the shabbiness and the beauty, the squalor and the magnificence, the turmoil and the tranquility; and obviously this first sentence is no exception.

The locus of this account of a meeting of East and West is the city of Kalimpong in West Bengal, the Darjeeling District, in northeastern India. It is just south of Sikkim and the lofty Himalayas. On a ridge four thousand feet high, and on a parallel just south of Florida, Kalimpong is never too cold and being so high never too hot. As we saw on the trip up to Kalimpong from the train station down in Siliguri, the scenery is alpine but with tropical lushness complete with banana trees, wild orchids, bamboo more than one hundred feet high, and haughty monkeys beside the road ready to pick up any edible trash motorists may toss out. It is said that people live a long time here. Shangri-La?

Kalimpong during Monsoon. Photo by the author.

Hardly. The town is shockingly grungy by our standards, the streets ragged and little more than a rough surface surrounding holes, the traffic a fluid congestion accompanied by incessant horn-blowing, the small shops shabby and much in need of fresh paint, hundreds of dogs completely indifferent to human beings and vice versa, all seen, as we arrived, in a drenching monsoon that should have ended weeks earlier than our October arrival. Not an endearing beginning.

As the monsoon finally rained itself out, however, and as we came to know the town better, the picture changed. The cars and trucks are driven by professional drivers, and though to an American driver who is uncomfortable if another vehicle or pedestrian is closer than three feet, here they pass one another with a comfortable three or four inches. Fender-benders are extremely rare, and there is no evidence of road rage. It is quite amazing and takes some getting used to. The shops, shabby as they may be on the outside, are neat and clean on the inside, with a friendly person ready to help—and to bargain. All in all, Kalimpong works. Never mind that there are frequent power outages; after a while the lights come on again.

In New Delhi, three days before we reached Kalimpong, Pasang, the director of the school where we would stay, spotted us late at night in the crowd at the airport. What a pleasure it is to be met by a friendly and helpful person in a busy and confusing airport half way around the world! He took us to the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute where we could enjoy some much needed rest. The next day he showed us around Delhi and arranged our train tickets. The following day, he took us to the train, indeed, to our very compartment. Moreover, he called ahead so that when we arrived in Siliguri after our twenty-four hour train ride two monks in red robes came to our compartment, took our bags, and ushered us to a shiny SUV for the two hour trip up the mountain to Kalimpong.

Erik Curren and I came here in the fall of 2004 at the invitation of Shamar Rinpoche, the highest-ranking lama under the Karmapa, the spiritual leader of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. I knew Erik as a student when I was teaching at Washington and Lee University in Virginia in the mid-eighties. After he graduated, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Irvine, only to move into a bleak job market. After several teaching posts, one in Czechoslovakia, he saw brighter possibilities in the business world and then in lobbying work for environmental causes in Washington, all the while becoming more and more interested in Buddhism—so much so that he gave himself a couple of years’ retreat at the Bodhi Path Buddhist Center in Virginia, just south of where I live in Lexington. There, I met with him after a hiatus of some twenty years.

When Shamar Rinpoche made one of his periodic visits to the center, which he founded in 1998, the three of us were talking, and after some philosophical reference Shamar Rinpoche said rather casually, Oh, I know so little about Western philosophy and the monks at the school know even less. Then, he turned to me and said, Why don’t you come to India and teach us Western philosophy? I wanted to blurt out, Say when! but probably said something more casual but still affirmative. That was in the fall of 2003, and I knew by the end of that academic year I would retire after teaching philosophy at Washington and Lee for forty-two years. I was already wondering if I had made the right decision to give up teaching, so the suggestion was exciting. Teaching Buddhist monks in India? I hardly knew what to think, but I was indeed attracted.

In the spring, Shamar Rinpoche decided that October would be the best time for me to come to Asia; and moreover he said that Erik could come also, for he could help him on other projects. Erik remarked that because we would be going in October I would have the whole summer to read up on Buddhism, and Shamar Rinpoche made a curious remark. He said Oh no, don’t do that. The monks must adjust to you, not you to them. I thought about that often as I diligently read up on Buddhism during the summer.

I was most pleased that Erik could come with me; for though I had been to India briefly thirty-two years earlier, Erik had been to Kalimpong recently and would be a most welcome guide and companion.

There was a more important purpose for these plans. I was to teach Buddhist monks, yes, but one in particular who stands out in every way, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje. Then twenty-one years old, he has been poised to be more and more prominent as the Karmapa in the international scene as well as in India and neighboring predominantly Buddhist countries—Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. The responsibility he takes on is enormous, and he is preparing himself assiduously. I was deeply honored and privileged to be one of his teachers and, as I found out very quickly, I was pedagogically rewarded, for the young Karmapa is intellectually very strong indeed. As we shall see, he is both firmly founded in Buddhism and confidently open-minded. Moreover, he speaks English fluently. I could not imagine a more rewarding opportunity after my retirement.

For the reader no more informed than I was at the time, let me add here some words on Tibetan Buddhism. There are four major lineages or schools each with its spiritual head. The Dalai Lama is a leader in the Gelug school; the older Karma Kagyu school speaks of its head as the Karmapa, and there are two others, the Nyingma, and the Sakya schools. The Dalai Lama is not the head of the other lineages any more than the Pope is of the Protestant denominations, but he, like the Pope, is the most prominent on the international scene.

The young Karmapa is the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu school, but Shamar Rinpoche, first in rank under the Karmapa, is the main administrator. He oversees numerous Buddhist centers all over the world, and he does it all with great efficiency and good humor as though it were easy. When the 16th Karmapa died in 1981, it fell to Shamar Rinpoche as the top-ranking lama to recognize the reincarnated next Karmapa. This he did. He recognized the young Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje, when he was eleven years old, and he has since supervised his education, all the while administering the elaborate Karma Kagyu school.

Wednesday market in Kalimpong. Photo by the author.

There has been, however, serious controversy. Situ Rinpoche, third in rank under the Karmapa, working outside the traditional procedure but with the support of the Chinese government in Tibet, recognized another boy as the 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley. The Dalai Lama, though in another school, the Gelug school, but perhaps in an attempt to improve relations with the Chinese, gave his support to their candidate; and with his enormous prestige has made Orgyen Trinley prominent in the media. Several books have been published that argue in favor of Ogyen Trinley or just assume his priority. With judicious scholarship and thoroughness, Erik Curren has explored the tangled complications of this affair in his book, Buddha’s Not Smiling: Uncovering Corruption at the Heart of Tibetan Buddhism Today. Unfortunately, this controversy continues, but there is hope that in time there will be a peaceful resolution in the Buddhist manner. The young Karmapa regards all this with admirable realism and calm. Because my concerns were strictly pedagogical and philosophical, these complications were set aside and did not enter our discussions at all.

Shamar Rinpoche provided a small house near the school for Erik and me, and as we were moving in a young man helped us and announced that he was to be our cook. Our young cook, Dawa, was from Bhutan and had been serving the Karmapa’s parents. Because they were away, he came to us. He is a very good-natured young man, pleasant to have about, and a splendid cook. We were treated well in Kalimpong!

The rain let up a bit the next day when we were to meet the Karmapa. Dawa brought us two diaphanous silk scarves, one white, one yellow, and showed us the proper way to greet the Karmapa and then offer the