ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the example of the Triratna community as a way of exploring academic debates about the nature of 'Western Buddhism' and its relationship to questions of social change, environmentalism and the wider 'waste economy' or 'rubbish society'. It focuses on the idea that the Western turn to Buddhism represents a particular kind of coping response to the ways in which the traditional pillars of identity in industrial society — work, class, gender, organised religion — have been laid waste by the emergence of the liquid, 'postmodern' world associated with the post-industrial era. The chapter discusses Kenneth Burke's analysis of the 'grammar of motives' to explore what he would elsewhere call the 'frames of acceptance' through which a number of London Buddhists explain their relationship to Buddhism and its role in their lives. The popularity of 'right livelihood' and Buddhist practice suggests that the process can also lead to alternative forms of living that emphasise community, care and engagement.
