A LESS SUBTLE PROBLEM is Armstrong's repeated insistence that the Dhamma "could not be understood by rational thinking alone. It only revealed its true significance when it was apprehended 'directly,' according to yogic methods, and in the right ethical context." By "yogic methods" she probably means the disciplines of mindfulness and meditation. But over and over she emphasizes the sophistication and difficulty of the "yogic methods" the Buddha learned prior to Enlightenment. Again, the unstated message is that the dhamma is not practically approachable by a modern westerner, at least not without learning exotic eastern ways.

Armstrong also seems certain that the dhamma is not capable of being defended or supported by discursive argument. Or at any rate, she does not even attempt to sketch its philosophical underpinnings. This is strange. Armstrong is certainly capable of dealing with abstracts and logical argument. And Buddhism is quite respectable as a philosophy, as coherent and complete in its account of the universe and the human condition (I would claim) as anything produced by Plato or Aquinas. Armstrong completely neglects this aspect of the dhamma, leaving the impression that it can only be entered through those "yogic methods."

Armstrong's "Buddha" will make some non-Buddhists aware of Buddhism, and may give Buddhism greater visibility and respectability in places where it is unknown today. It is not a book I'd recommend to anyone who already tries to follow the Eightfold Path.

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH host Terry Gross on the February 21, 2001 edition of the NPR program "Fresh Air," Armstrong elaborated upon her views of Buddhist practice. Around 12 minutes into the program, Armstrong comments on her understanding of the great difficulty of the Buddha's "yogic methods." The following is an approximate transcript of her words (but I am not a trained stenographer):

"Before you began to meditate, you had to undergo a lengthy series of mental, physical, and moral disciplines. ... When you finally mastered this morality and this self control and a degree of serenity... You had to sit in an absolute stillness... the yogin sits absolutely motionless [like] a stone or a plant. ... Next, he refuses to breath. Breathing is the most basic of our animal/human function. But the yogin practices a special kind of breathing, which has all kinds of physiological effects as well as effects on the personality and induces a sense of calm, practitioners have found. Finally you begin these extremely difficult exercises of concentration which enable you, not to look at objects through a veil of subjectivity -- how do these things affect me, do I like them, do they make me feel secure -- but to see things as they are. Then, if you were very, very skilled, you are beginning to be ready for the higher states, which some teachers think, would bring you to enlightenment.

Now, if you come to Buddhism by reading a book like the Venerable Henepola Gunaratana's "Mindfulness in Plain English" or a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, Joseph Goldstein, or Sylvia Boorstein -- to name just some of the Western teachers of Buddhist practice -- you simply will not recognize that Buddhist practice in Armstrong's words!

What in the world was she reading, that led her to this understanding of a horribly difficult, horribly sophisticated, deeply foreign and unreachable practice? Read a book like Larry Rosenberg's "Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Mindfulness Meditation" to see how completely and drastically Armstrong has misread and misunderstood Buddhist teaching on breath meditation.

Breath control, breath stoppage, breathing in special ways: these might be Hindu practices, or might be taught by naked Jain ascetics on the banks of the Ganges, but they are not, repeat not, elements of Buddhist practice! Not in Japanese Zen; not in Tibet; not in Burma or Thailand; and definitely not in Western syncretic Buddhism.

Unquestionably, Armstrong blew it on this point. She just got it wrong, with the result that she has depicted Buddhist practice as unapproachable and foreign and hence irrelevant to modern life.

NEAR THE END OF THE RADIO INTERVIEW, Armstrong remarks on her own experience with meditation:

My sister's a Buddhist and has been a Buddhist for 30 years, so Buddhism is in the family. But I know I would be hopeless at yoga. I tried meditation for years in my convent and I really flunked at it, it was not my thing. ... What I have taken on board from the Buddha is compassion...

Here again is the identification of Buddhism with Yoga. Terry Gross asks, approximately: 'Meditation has to do with silencing the mind. As a scholar, is it hard to silence the mind, when the mind is your greatest gift? Armstrong replies:

I wasn't good at silencing my mind in that way. And largely the kind of meditation I was being taught as a young girl was not right for me. And I think the Buddha would say, you've got to find a form of spirituality, a form of yoga, that is absolutely right for you... I think that my whole failure with meditation left me with such a sense of weariness, a sense of failure, that the thought of sitting silently now leaves me with a sense of dread.

This is very sad. There are (naturally) similarities between the kind of meditation taught in Catholic convents and Buddhist meditation.But it seems likely that a personal failure in her convent experience so prejudiced her against meditation in general, that she has deceived herself into believing that meditation is meditation is meditation, all teachings are interchangeable, and all of it impossibly difficult.

GO TO THIS PAGE IN THE READING ROOM to read Chapter 1 of Karen Armstrong's "Buddha," titled "Renunciation."

GO TO THIS LINK TO HEAR the "Fresh Air" interview in RealAudio format conducted by Terry Gross on her February 21, 2001 public radio program.

DAVID CORTESI is a technical writer, author of computer books published under his own name as well as many corporate manuals. He is a beginning student of Buddhism whose readings in the Pali Canon and Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Thanissaro Bhikkhu formed the background against which he judges Karen Armstrong's book.

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