Hedonism & Buddhism

On the West Coast, acquisition of wealth and spirituality are constant companions on the road to enlightenment

Of all the spiritual faiths that have been imported to the West—be it Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism and so on—Buddhism, in its varied ethnic traditions, seems to resonate particularly strongly among westerners searching for a depth to life beyond crass commercialism and the acquisition of wealth. With more than 150—and counting—different Buddhist groups, you could say Buddhism is thriving in Vancouver.

Imagine you’re an upwardly mobile Yaletown professional with a half-million dollar condo in a gentrified brick warehouse and a 2011 Mini Cooper parked in the secure underground lot. In other words, you’re generally satiated in material comfort. Let’s face it—some of us have so much stuff that we need to rent storage lockers in which to keep it. So how does Buddhism, a faith that aims to break the cycle of longing and attachment to objects and emotions, thrive in a place like Vancouver, awash in pleasures of the senses and, like any metropolis, inundated with billboards, advertisements, offers and promotions enticing us to acquire more? Local Buddhist thinkers and practitioners shed some light on how this ancient religion of the east impacts life in the west.

Shin Buddhism first took hold on the West Coast at the turn of the 19th century, with the arrival of Japanese immigrants. Zen Buddhism became popular in the 1920s among western spiritual seekers. Then, the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 resulted in a diaspora of well-educated Tibetan Buddhist monks, many of whom first fled to India and then dispersed to Europe and North American. Some ended up on the West Coast, creating nodes of Buddhist thought and practice. Vancouver is one of those nodes.

“I think it’s safe to say that Buddhism is healthy here,” says Larry DeVries, who teaches in the South Asia and Religious Studies department at Langara College. “There are those who practice Buddhism and welcome and seek material comfort, and others who practice a more austere and ascetic form.”

For some, Buddhism is an antidote to consumerism. For others, it’s a corollary, DeVries says. What’s clear is that Buddhism appeals to people searching for a sincere and ethically framed life.

“Once you’ve accumulated a certain amount of wealth, what are you going to do, acquire more, or grow as a person?” DeVries asks.

Brian Ruhe is a lay Buddhist teacher, who offers a course through the Theravada Buddhist Community of Vancouver, which attracts a mostly middle-aged demographic. He agrees that material success and Buddhism are not necessarily incompatible, but the difference is in the level of attachment, which naturally makes Buddhism an attractive spiritual alternative to affluent westerners.


“I think Buddhists would suspect that if somebody works hard, becoming wealthy and successful, that they have good karma,” Ruhe says. “The real question is attachment. Being poor does not make you spiritual. Buddha didn’t romanticize poverty. You can still be poor but strive and obsess over wealth.”

Ruhe posits another theory about why Buddhism has a particularly strong and growing following in the West. By most measures, Canada belongs to that club of post-industrial countries, its cities burgeon-ing with soy latte-sipping creative class of techie nerds, artists and information age entrepreneurs who telecommute and work unconventional hours. This is partially true—we still mine, log and make things in factories, but we live in a country with the relative luxury of leisure time. And Ruhe believes this gives us time for spiritual contemplation.

“I think Buddhism is well-suited to a society like ours. It’s got a great future here. We have money and leisure time that we can devote to reflection,” Ruhe says.


Langara College’s Larry DeVries agrees. In fact, he goes a step further and believes we have a responsibility to engage in reflection and introspection in a country where “we don’t have an AK-47 thrust into our hands at the age of 12.”
We are, however, a distracted culture, obsessively checking text messages on our mobile devices, tuning into reality TV programs that glorify human vice and celebrate deception and greed. That’s why contemporary Buddhist thinker Ken Jones says it’s difficult to imagine a more relevant context for Buddhism than the capitalist industrial society with its “egotistical enterprise, competitive conflict and the struggle for status.”

Jessica Main is program director at University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Studies and an adherent of Shin Buddhism. She says the clash between crass consumerism and the dharma path is an ongoing struggle in the west.

“Just look through Shambhala Sun,” Main says about the widely-read Buddhist magazine published in Halifax. “There’s a lot of consumption of Buddhist items, ads for meditation pillows, texts, courses, whatever. It’s a matter of survival for some Buddhist groups, and I think practitioners struggle with this paradox.”

She calls her own path toward Buddhism ambivalent, neither a rejection of Christianity nor the values of western society, but rather a consequence of encounters with inspiring people that occurred while she was doing graduate work in Japan.

A fascinating aspect of Buddhism in Vancouver is its diversity. Contrary to popular perception, the local Buddhist community includes more than just adherents to the Tibetan form of this religion. For example, there are three different Thai Buddhist centres or groups, two Burmese, and one each devoted to Laotian, Sri Lankan and Cambodian devotees, each open in varying degrees to non-ethnic followers. Yet Tibetan Buddhism perpetually garners the most attention, even though there are less than 200 ethnic Tibetans living in Metro Vancouver. The high-profile, widespread support for Tibetan independence that causes soccer moms to put Free Tibet stickers on the bumpers of their minivans helps. So too does the globetrotting
14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, who routinely visits Vancouver and packs auditoriums around the world with his endearing humour and Buddhist wisdom.

The Vancouver Shambhala Meditation Centre belongs to a network of centres founded in 1973 by Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who is largely credited with popularizing Buddhism in the west. Tsering Shakya teaches Tibetan studies at UBC’s Institute of Asian Research and says the sheer number of Tibetan Buddhist centres in Vancouver is testimony to its popularity on the West Coast. He attributes some of this popularity to the fact that it often attracts middle and upper-middle class, well-educated adherents who are adept at communicating their faith and ideas. Shakya says the differences between the way western and ethnic Tibetans practice Buddhism are evident the moment you step inside a temple. When Shakya visits the Tsengdok Monastery on Angus Drive with fellow Tibetans it’s a profoundly social occasion.

“We bring our families. There are babies crying and kids running around. For us it’s very social. When westerners go to their centres they want absolute quiet and contemplation,” Shakya says with a laugh.

And that is perhaps Buddhism’s greatest challenge to the west and the Yaletown urbanite who has it all; when surrounded by messages imploring us to acquire more—a new car, the latest mobile device capable of offering up a thousand apps you’ll never use, a packaged holiday to an all-inclusive resort, and so on—quiet contemplation and a search for depth and meaning beyond the dollar sign, may be our only refuge.

Words | Andrew Findlay