Why is buddhism popular

Both Buddhism and Daoism benefited from this exchange. Daoists expanded their ideas about the cosmos and ways to structure their monastic orders. Buddhists gained a lexicon that made it easier to teach their tradition. Over time Buddhism became a popular force in the lives of the Chinese, from the common people to the emperor himself.

In fact, by the sixth century, Buddhism rivaled Daoism in popularity and political influence. It was during this time, and over the course of the next three centuries, that major schools of Chinese Buddhism formed.

Jains believe that acts of violence, greed, selfishness, dishonesty, just to name a few, obscure the soul while deeds of kindness and reparation liberate it. Jains are the followers of Jinas, who are conquerors.

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Articles Why did Buddhism become so popular? Ben Davis March 28, Eventually, I stopped attending my Zen sessions for reasons that I describe in detail elsewhere.

One problem was that meditation never really tamed my monkey mind. During my last class, I fixated on a classmate who kept craning his neck and grunting and asking our teacher unbearably pretentious questions.

I loathed him and loathed myself for loathing him, and finally I thought: What am I doing here? By that time, I also had serious intellectual qualms about Buddhism.

I concluded that Buddhism is not much more rational than Catholicism, my childhood faith. One of Buddhism's biggest selling points for lapsed Catholics like me is that it supposedly dispenses with God and other supernatural claptrap.

This claim is disingenuous. Buddhism, at least in its traditional forms, is functionally theistic, even if it doesn't invoke a supreme deity. The doctrines of karma and reincarnation imply the existence of some sort of cosmic moral judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with nirvana or rebirth as a cockroach.

Those who emphasize Buddhism's compatibility with science usually downplay or disavow its supernatural elements and even the Dalai Lama has doubts about reincarnation, a philosopher who discussed the issue with him once told me. The mystical philosopher Ken Wilber, when I interviewed him, compared meditation to a scientific instrument such as a microscope or telescope, through which you can glimpse spiritual truth.

This analogy is bogus. Anyone can peer through a telescope and see the moons of Jupiter, or squint through a microscope and see cells divide. But ask 10 meditators what they see, feel or learn and you will get 10 different answers. Research on meditation which I reviewed in my book Rational Mysticism , and which is usually carried out by proponents, such as psychologist Richard Davidson suggests how variable its effects can be.

Meditation reportedly reduces stress, anxiety and depression, but it has been linked to increased negative emotions, too. Some studies indicate that meditation makes you hyper-sensitive to external stimuli; others reveal the opposite effect. Brain scans do not yield consistent results, either. For every report of heightened neural activity in the frontal cortex and decreased activity in the left parietal lobe, there exists a contrary result.

Moreover, those fortunate souls who achieve deep mystical states—through meditation or other means—may come away convinced of very different truths. Shortly before his death in , the Buddhist neuroscientist Francisco Varela a friend of Trungpa told me that a near-death experience had showed him that mind rather than matter constitutes the deepest level of reality and is in some sense eternal.

Other Buddhists, such as the psychologist Susan Blackmore, are strict materialists, who deny that mind can exist independently of matter. Blackmore looks favorably, however, upon the Buddhist doctrine of anatta , which holds that the self is an illusion. However, it does not mean that the existential security theory is independent or even conflicts with the generic psychological dynamics on the individual level highlighted in these studies.

On the contrary, they can mutually supplement each other. Thus, even though we consider the subjective measure of health from the perspective of existential security, it also has implications for the relationship between social and psychological dynamics and religiosity. Specifically, popular religion in many Eastern societies has always been attractive to those with poor health status. One reason is that popular religion practices promise immediate rewards Stark et al.

Actually, many people in China worship folk religion deities out of pro-health intents, as shown in many existing field studies e. Besides the immediate rewards, another reason for the propensity of those with poor health to endorse popular religion is that popular religion, as part of traditional Chinese culture, provides a unique discourse to define and cure disease, such as mental illness Lai and Surood ; Lam et al.

Therefore, it is not uncommon that those who are sick in traditional China are prone to turn to specific folk religion practices. One example in this light is the practice of calling soul jiao hun , which is used to call back someone's lost soul Cohen ; Harrell and generally believed to be associated with spiritual healing Harrell As for the popular religion among lower class individuals, one readily noticeable reason might be the potential monetary rewards e.

This can be consolidated by the widespread worshipping of the god of wealth caishen in contemporary China Ma ; Yang and Hu Additionally, relative to the high literacy requirement of other religions in China, popular religion has a lower threshold. These explanations do not conflict with the hypotheses drawn based on the existential security theory. What the existential security theory emphasizes is that in a society where meeting basic needs is more in question such as traditional agricultural China , people may have a strong reliance on religious or even magical endeavors.

However, in the process of moving toward a welfare society, such reliance may be weakened. In this light, existential security theory is consistent with previous studies in that feeling of low existential security implies stronger psychological, cultural, and economic dynamics motivating people to practice popular religion, and vice versa. Also, seen from this perspective, the growth of existential security is related but not equivalent to the modernization process, especially in light of the fact that modernization in China is part of a cultural and political project driven by the state.

Anthropologists have highlighted the functional roles of popular religion in China's rural areas, leading the authors to include rural residency as an independent variable predicting popular religious participation.

We expect to find this association because many scholars understand the resurgence of popular religion in rural areas in the context of its communal and cultural functions, while popular religion is not thought to serve these functions in urban areas Ahern ; Dean , ; Eng and Lin ; Feuchtwang , ; Tsai ; Weller The resurgence of popular religion in China is part of the conscious restoration of cultural tradition in China's rural areas.

In addition to its cultural importance in rural areas, on the communal level, popular religion functions as a source of social interaction and group ritual in rural China. Popular religion is an important part of everyday life in rural China's communities. In fact, the most important places in rural areas before the communist government came to power were local temples and ancestral halls, and popular religion was deeply connected to communal social life and solidarity Dean The resurgence of popular religion in China is seen as a restoration of this role.

Another reason to expect those in rural areas of China to be more involved in popular religion is provided by research on the communal functions of popular religious rites as a way to provide a supplementary universe to that of the ruling orthodoxy Feuchtwang Rural residents in China are far removed from the politics and the power structure of the nation and have little opportunity to participate in the political process.

Popular religion is seen as a way for people in rural areas to symbolically participate in elite roles. Moreover, research on popular religion in northern rural China finds that monastic Buddhism is less important in these areas; thus, it may be true that the lack of institutional Buddhism in rural areas leads casual Buddhists to participate more in popular religion DuBois In short, previous work indicates that popular religion does not play as important of a cultural and communal role in urban areas.

Given empirical research and theorizing that highlights the important role popular religion plays in rural areas compared to urban areas , we recognize rural residency as an independent variable and expect it to be positively related to popular religious involvement.

In summary, previous research and theoretical considerations prompt us to include religious identity, level of education, measures of existential security, and rural residency as important independent variables associated with popular religious adherence.

In the following analysis, we investigate the predictive power of these variables on popular religious adherence using representative, nationwide survey data. Attempts have been made to conduct large-scale surveys of religion in mainland China, but the reliability of these surveys has been called into question and the data collected in these surveys have not produced much scholarly work. The questionnaire was designed by researchers at Baylor University and Purdue University, administered by Horizon Information and Consulting Company Limited, and included 88 questions concerning religious beliefs and practices as well as other social and political opinions and attitudes.

A multistage probability sampling method was employed to select the cities and towns in the survey. Households were randomly selected within neighborhoods and a KISH grid procedure was used to randomly select respondents from each household. In total, 7, respondents 16 years of age and older completed the face-to-face interview.

The response rate is rather low at 28 percent; thus, the data set is weighted to reflect population parameters using the Census of China. We use binary logistic regression to explore the relationship between the key independent variables and popular religion in China. For the dependent variables, we select practices and beliefs that are widely accepted to constitute popular religion in China.

Over the past 20—30 years, there has been a scholarly debate over the use of the term popular religion and its meanings see Bell ; Teiser Some scholars claim that popular religion is the religion of the folk class, an antithesis of elite religion Feuchtwang ; Harrell , ; Jordan Furthermore, as China modernized under CCP rule, popular religion came to be defined as feudal superstition by intellectuals and the state for a review, see Goossaert and Palmer ; Nedostup ; Overmyer In this light, we do not engage this debate in the current research.

Instead, we examine popular religion by focusing on its representative beliefs and practices because—despite the debate over defining popular religion—there seems to be some consensus as to what practices and beliefs should be called popular religion.

Popular religion usually entails practices like ancestor worship or rituals for asking favors, worship of local deities, and beliefs in local deities, souls, spirits, and the active role of gods in personal affairs Teiser Thus, some of the variables in the SLSCR do portray what is considered to be popular religious belief and practice. We include only variables that measure beliefs and practices found in Teiser's article on defining popular religion in China, which includes things like ancestor worship, belief in and praying to folk Gods, and participation in rites and rituals.

These measures are also employed in a recent descriptive study on Chinese folk religion Yang and Hu We incorporate these variables into binary logistic regression models as dependent variables.

We recognize that there may be some debate over labeling some of these variables as popular religious adherence—especially making and fulfilling a vow, which is also found in institutional religions. However, we believe that it is more appropriate in an empirical study to apply broad measures of popular religion rather than focusing on definitional theoretical debates as mentioned above. Besides, the aspects of Chinese popular religion shown by our measures have been addressed in previous research, e.

Thus, the meaning of being Buddhist or Daoist is not clear. This is especially true in China where religious identity does not necessarily denote exclusive or strong commitment. Something unique to the SLSCR is that respondents could select more than one religion in answer to the question. Because China's religious landscape is a rich tapestry of interrelated religious traditions and practices, this type of survey question is appropriate.

Analysis in this study includes respondents who selected the above options in any of the iterations. For example, a respondent is considered a Daoist if he or she selected only Daoism in response to the above question or if he or she selected Daoism and something else. Most respondents only selected one religious affiliation. We measure existential security with three variables. Questions on personal and household income resulted in large amounts of nonrandom missing data over 50 percent missing.

Hence, we choose to use an alternative measure of income based on interviewer's assessments of the economic status of the interviewees' family lower, average, middle—high, high. Do you think the social inequality is a serious problem where you live? Measures of inequality are often used in macro level tests of existential security theory e.

While we use individual-level data, the same logic applies to macro level tests of existential security—those who feel that inequality is a serious problem or who have a low assessment of their overall health should have higher levels of existential need and be more likely to participate in religion.

Families with higher economic standing should have less existential need and be less inclined to participate in popular religion. Additional control variables are also included. These are gender 1, male; 0, female , Chinese Communist Party membership 1, yes; 0, no , ethnicity 1, Han; 0, others , marital status 1, married, 0, not married , and age of the respondent.

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the independent variables used in the models. Table 2 shows the dependent variables measuring popular religious belief and practice by self-identified or casual Buddhists respondents who identified as Buddhist but have not formally committed , formal Buddhists respondents who have ritually committed to Buddhism , and the rest of the non-Buddhist population.

The clear descriptive pattern here is that self-identified Buddhists participate in and believe popular religion at higher rates than the rest of the population and—contrary to expectation—formal Buddhists believe and participate at higher rates than self-identified Buddhists. Table 2 also shows that veneration of ancestral spirits is a widespread practice in China, but other popular religious practices are not as widespread.

Belief in ancestral spirits and belief in destiny are also fairly common and popular religious beliefs are generally more widespread than popular religious practice.

The most telling trend across tables 3 and 4 —showing results of the binary logistic regression models—is that being a Buddhist, whether self-identified or formally committed, significantly increases the odds of holding popular religious beliefs all six measures and participating in popular religious practices all seven measures. This is strong evidence for the conflation of popular religion and Buddhism in contemporary China on a large scale.

In many cases, identifying as a formally converted Buddhist is the strongest predictor of popular religious belief and practice: belief in spirits and gods [ odds ratio [OR] Identifying as a Buddhist who has not ritually committed is often the second strongest predictor of both popular religious belief and practice. In short, analysis shows that there is a strong relationship between identifying as a formally committed Buddhist and popular religion.

Additionally, the odds of popular religious involvement are higher for formally committed Buddhists than for casual Buddhists. This is contrary to what we expected based on theorized differences between institutional and loosely organized religion as well as attempts to modernize institutional Buddhism.