Why I’m Not A Buddhist

Wednesday, 22 April 2026, 1:48 pm
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

It’s strange how one can sometimes have more in common with people that hold opposite views than one does with people who hold very similar views. Such is the case with Buddhism, a ‘godless’ religion with which I have much sympathy, but little simpatico.

To its eternal credit, Buddhism has not joined the ranks of believers willing to kill or be killed for their idea of God. The belief in a paternalistic, patriarchal, all-knowing “Creator” (that is, monotheism) is a projection from humankind’s childhood that’s become one of the biggest stumbling blocks to spiritual growth in the 21st century.

Monotheists in the USA don’t venerate the sacred, but the projected power of the human mind and American military might. However just because there is no separate Supreme Controller in heaven does not mean there is no such thing as immanent intelligence.

There is no Creator in Buddhism, and therefore many refer to it as a philosophy rather than a religion. To that extent, I feel an affinity. But that also marks the point of my divergence with Buddhism.

For one thing, Buddhists still revere tradition and ritual, which are impediments to realization. They’re like people who say, “The tooth fairy is ridiculous but all rituals are” out of one side of their mouths, and then, out of the other side, they say, “the superstitious and the sacred are often the same thing." (Actually, they’re antithetical.)

Also, whereas Christianity’s theology of evil has ended in the worship of power and wealth, Buddhism has no philosophy of evil. At least none that I know of in its transplanted versions. It seems that Siddhartha’s final encounter with Mara before his illumination is as far as his latter-day followers are willing to go.

For example, a reader expressed the view, common among American Buddhists, that “there have been many creations and destructions of the universe…the universe has gone through such perils as we are seeing on earth many times.” Such a perspective carries detachment to the point of absurdity.

It’s even more grating to hear Buddhists expound willful ignorance by saying things like, “I see the light and darkness in a large overview.” Self-comforting bullshit like that allows adherents to separate themselves from the world, while seeing themselves as rising above it.

This practice of detachment works well for many in our hyper-individualized culture, grafting studied indifference onto the unexamined roots of egoism by believing “I’m transcending the smaller self.”

If the Buddha taught that kind of false detachment, he wouldn’t have given the world the “noble eightfold path.” But the eightfold path has splintered eight thousand ways.

Despite the many "schools" of Buddhism, there is no method to meditation. That’s a main reason Buddhism has made no difference in America, much less stopped the descent of man into self-made darkness.

With all due respect to ancient Buddhist sages and teachers, how is the 5th century BCE spiritual and cultural explosion ignited by Siddhartha Gautama relevant to our 21st century world? Despite claims to the contrary, Buddhist spirituality, which organically emerged in India, China and Japan, has not transplanted well to Western soil. That’s especially true after decades of grafting Buddhism onto the lifeless tree of American culture.

In dead cultures where Buddhism has been transplanted, one now hears blather such as, “what is hidden behind habitual activities is a cacophony of textured, sensual experience – the lifeblood of human culture itself.”

Many Buddhists set themselves above the cultures they’re inextricable from, purportedly promoting the inner life through the retreat industry, which has prospered as the west’s emptiness became acute. Thus they indulge in one of the “three poisons” of Buddhism – aversion.

Of late, some leading Buddhists, under the guise of embracing ordinary life, have set the banality of evil in America against the straw man of “becoming special.” They moralize about “experience that takes on an even, steady flavor.”

The Zen bromide, “chop wood, carry water” becomes "be mindful" as one “eats chips and watches Sale of the Century,” since that too “reveals itself to us as sufficient, satisfying, even luminous.”

Instead of awakening people from “the sleep of ignorance,” such “teaching” enables more and more people to sleepwalk.

In the end, Buddhists see themselves and the world through the lenses of Buddhism’s traditions and teachings, just as Christians see themselves and the world through the lenses of biblical scripture.

To see ourselves and the world as things are in the present however, we have to remove all lenses, since they inevitably distort perception.

Perhaps the greatest flaw of transplanted Buddhism is the failure to see that insight into and freedom from conditioning and consciousness do not require tradition and ritual. Indeed, tradition and ritual prevent transmutation.

Finally, Buddhism has given a bad name to individual transformation. Though lip service is given to society’s tar pit of individualism, in practice American Buddhism has reinforced individualism to the point of solipsism.

The creative explosion ignited by Siddhartha 2500 years ago was a regional phenomenon. Over the centuries, its fire slowly diminished by being encrusted with the numerous traditions of Buddhism. And by adopting the west’s materialism and individualism in recent decades, the flame has been extinguished even in India.

Though science and technology have advanced exponentially because the west prized reason over inner life since Aristotle (with Locke codifying rationality as the cornerstone of the Enlightenment), inwardly and psychologically, we’ve reached a dead end.

Political movements simply can’t cut it. Paradoxically, despite or because of the darkening of the human mind and eclipsing of the human heart in our age, we're free to ask anew: What is the relationship between awakening insight within ourselves as individuals, and the human condition and crisis as a whole?

The experiment of grafting and growing Buddhist philosophy and practices onto the dying trunk of western civilisation has failed. But without turning to teachers authorized by a multiplicity of traditional lineages, the revolution the Buddha ignited provides a precedent for the chaotic global culture of our time.

That is if enough human beings hold the question: Can there be an explosion of insight in human consciousness per se?

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail