ABSTRACT
The main extant Buddhist groupings have been referred to throughout the book under the umbrella regional categories of Southern, Northern and East Asian Buddhism, and with reference to the Therava-da and Maha-ya-na traditions of religious transmission. These categories are helpful to gain an understanding of the important contrasts between different kinds of Buddhist doctrine and practice but they simplify a complex picture of affiliation, overlap and variation. Once it was common in Religious Studies to look for the
essence of a religion and to seek to characterise it accordingly. Thus, the question might be asked, ‘What are the essential characteristics of Buddhism?’ More recently, rejection of essentialism and focus instead on diversity has swung the pendulum to the opposite pole, and the idea of ‘multiple Buddhisms’ is heard in university classrooms. Perhaps a ‘middle way’ makes most sense. As we have seen in this book, there are features of Buddhist ethical principles, doctrine, meditative and ritual practice which are widely shared or could be seen as variants on the same theme in at least the mainstream Buddhist traditions. However, how these are applied in
practice may vary considerably and even in one country and tradition, there may be opposing interpretations of Buddhist teachings. It is also hard to pin down key specific features that are universal to Buddhism and which could work as defining characteristics either of Buddhism or even of any of its major traditions. The traditional decentralised nature of the Buddhist order and the lack of integrating hierarchical authorities to speak for Buddhists or for major denominations of Buddhism does not help in this respect. These points would be true even before the twenty-first century. In today’s world, with adaptations of established traditions to new geographical areas and new social structural settings, such as modern cities, along with the rise of new Buddhist movements, defining features may seem more elusive. At the same time, increased international communication between different Buddhist traditions has brought interest in religious exchange and in finding areas of common ground. Such exchanges are not always limited simply to increasing knowledge of each other’s tradition but may entail real involvements, such as nuns from one tradition receiving full ordination in another where it is available.
