Superstition

I’m reading Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma, a new translation of Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s core teachings. It’s interesting in that in the long form of extended talks, Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s teachings are very different than the short one-liners and vast oversimplifications usually attributed to him — hence why I’m not even linking to the wikipedia article about him.

There’s a long section about superstition, and the often negative impact that beliefs in various gods, monsters, fairies and such have had in the Thai countryside. What’s interesting though is that the root of superstitious belief is unchecked desire, hence:

Please don’t think there’s no superstition in modern cities. In such places, people will, if anything, be more superstitiously inclined. This is because development for them consists in getting more and more. They have desires, more desires, and extreme desires. When someone tells them that acting in such and such a way will fulfill their desires, they seize on that with alacrity.

Superstition requires less of an investment: a superstition is a less tiring and much simpler proposition than finding out something for oneself. Superstitious rituals require little input or effort. The offerings at shrines usually cost much less than what people want in return. Participating in superstition is less wearisome because it’s so easy to do. Chanting an incantation of just a few lines is a tiny investment, yet vast riches or flocks of sexual partners are expected. Children thus pick up many prayers and formulas easily, rather than putting in the time and effort required for real learning.

Santikaro, the translator notes:

In this chapter, Ajahn Buddhadasa gives examples relevant to his diverse Thai audience in the 1980s. Readers today might reflect on superstitions of our own cultures and times, such as materialism and individualism, beliefs such as “the wisdom of the market,” and understanding health as primarily deliverable by chemistry and technology. Western readers may harbor old beliefs inherited through our family trees and Asian cultural practices that, even if beneficial, have not yet been verified in direct spiritual experience and can become superficial distractions. Please use the Thai examples to look for one’s own unacknowledged superstitions.

Readers from outside Southeast Asia might enjoy these Thai examples as impetus to reflect on how their own forms of Buddhism are infiltrated by capitalist individualism, celebrity worship, and “superstitious psychology,” in addition to Indian beliefs not proper to Buddhism.

Stepping back, it’s easy to see much of what we consider “rational” Western thought is merely our superstitions.