Stumble He Did

The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha by Stephen T. Asma.  HarperOne.  256 pp. $14.99  ***1/2

Talk about your feeble excuses for reading a book: I was getting my computer worked on when I noticed this book on a nearby work desk.  I picked it up and flipped through it, had a vague memory of somebody or other recommending it.  I was especially attracted to the subtitle of the final chapter, “Transcendental Everydayness.”  In a way that seems to me what Zen is all about.  So I ordered and read the book, and it was a great antidote to the dour bitterness of Sabbath’s Theater.

Asma is the opposite of bitter, even in the face of some difficult experiences.  He teaches classes in Buddhism at Columbia College in Chicago (which I admit I’ve never heard of) and somehow got an opportunity to teach Buddhism for a year in Cambodia.  He jumped at it, despite the fact that he was leaving behind a pregnant wife, and made the most of his yearlong experience.  I have a longtime interest in Cambodia, because my wife’s program at Duke sent a number of students there and I responded to their writing about the place.  I also, to say the least, have a strong interest in Buddhism.  So I dived right in.

Though he says he “also loves” Zen, Asma considers himself a Theravada Buddhist, and asserts that, in contrast to other forms of Buddhism, Theravada is the “whole enchilada.”  He’s scornful of what he calls California Buddhism (I was never clear on what he means by that.  There’s a major Theravada center, Spirit Rock, in California) and dumps all over Tibetan Buddhism in particular, saying it’s far from the original teaching of the Buddha (he makes that argument persuasively, though I think Tibetan Buddhism is a deep practice[1]).  I wasn’t sure what he meant by whole enchilada; we do seem to be mixing our cultural metaphors.  You could argue that, because Theravada monks sometimes live in the forest, are celibate, do not handle money, and live in poverty, they are the most authentic Buddhists.  I figured that was the argument he might make.

In what sense Asma is then a Theravada Buddhist I do not know.  He’s not a monk, leads a very secular lifestyle, eats plenty of meat, drinks copiously—long evenings of drinking where he winds up drunk—on one occasion uses marijuana (eating it on a pizza!), and though he does meditate sometimes at the local temples, doesn’t seem to have a daily practice (maybe, in his defense, he just didn’t mention it).  I know a lot of Zen Buddhists, and Tibetans for that matter, who practice a stricter form of Buddhism than he.  I do think it’s possible to argue that the Pali Canon is the only authentic teaching of the Buddha, and that anything else is bogus.  But I myself happen to think that the broad tradition of Buddhism is beautiful, and that subsequent teachings—including some Tibetan teachings—have vastly deepened the tradition.  The original teachers in all religions have had their commentators.  Paul’s letters are as much a part of Christianity as the Gospels.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book about a year in Cambodia, and he covers various aspects of the country well.  Cambodia is officially a “Buddhist” country, and Asma suggests that Buddhist philosophy is deeply embedded in Cambodian culture.[2]  That may be true, though the prevailing Buddhism is a very secular kind, and Cambodia is a country where life is cheap, and which has a violent and heartbreaking recent past.

Asma doesn’t avoid that, has a whole chapter on Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  He visits a museum about that period and tours the Killing Fields themselves.  That chapter is heartbreaking and difficult to read.  The weird situation in Cambodia today is that people who participated in the murder of many of the country’s best citizens are still living there, and some may be involved in the government.  That part of Cambodia’s history is hardly “Buddhist” (though every government has its horrors.  No country lives up to its spiritual ideals).

Asma does seem to have been changed by his year in Cambodia, and hoped to take those changes back to Chicago with him.  I must say the Transcendental Everydayness that the book advertised doesn’t amount to much.  Slow down.  Pay attention to what you’re doing.  (Who can argue with those things?  A “California Buddhist” named Shunryu Suzuki advocated them as well.)  Asma says that many Cambodians could sit for hours at a time doing absolutely nothing, just taking in the world around them, and I’m sure that’s true, but it was just as true of the Mexico I visited some years ago.  Poor people everywhere lead a simpler and more mindful life, including those who sell pork skins in the Zocolo all day.  I understand what it’s like to want to bring the lessons of another culture into a place where you live.  And I think it’s possible to do that.

I don’t think this is a great book about Buddhism, though I appreciate Asma’s honesty, and enjoyed arguing with him as I read.  The man is full of himself and full of ideas about Buddhism (as a professor should be), many of which seem peculiar to him.  But it is a great book about living in another culture.  I don’t think it was really a quest for enlightenment.  But the man definitely did stumble.

[1] Despite the problems it’s been having lately.

[2] I must admit—I hate to keep sniping at Asma, but he’s a first-rate sniper himself—that I don’t think Buddhism is primarily a philosophy.  I understand that the Pali Canon is vast, and Asma seems to have read at least parts of the Abidharma, which is vast as well.  But I feel strongly—and Asma seems to agree with this—that the heart of Buddhism is in the simple (though startling and profound) teachings of the Four Noble Truths, and that Buddhism is primarily a practice.  It’s a way of living your life.  The ideas are secondary.