Dr Evan Thompson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Evan recounts his upbringing in his father’s intentional community, the Lindisfarne Association, and shares stories of childhood encounters with teachers of Zen, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Yoga, and more.

Evan traces his intellectual and academic trajectories, and reflects on the problems of community dynamics and religious perennialism that his father’s community faced.

Evan then outlines his critique of what he calls ‘Buddhist Exceptionalism’, as laid out in his book ‘Why I Am Not A Buddhist’.

As part of this critique, Evan addresses subjects such as why Buddhism is not a science of the mind (or of anything else), why presentations of the historical Buddha used by figures such as Goenka are a useful fiction, the problems of borrowing the authority of science for the purposes of Buddhist evangelism, and the surprising influence of Protestantism on Buddhism’s development in Asia.

Evan also reflects on the future of Buddhism and explores the question, ‘what is enlightenment?’.

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Video version: www.guruviking.com/podcast/158-why-i-am-not-a-buddhist-evan-thompson

Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

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Topics include:

00:00 - Intro

01:23 - Evan’s upbringing in his father’s intentional community

06:38 - Exposure to Zen via Richard Baker Roshi

09:34 - Zen takeover of the Lindisfarne Association

11:13 - Childhood encounters with Buddhist, Sufi, Yoga, and Christian teachers

14:29 - Evan’s distaste for Chogyam Trungpa’s scene

16:48 - Fractious community dynamics and the Zen takeover

21:19 - Problems of perennialism

25:03 - An ecology of mysticism

26:32 - Religious superiority

28:18 - Evan’s intellectual development and academic trajectory

35:36 - Buddhist exceptionalism and the Mind & Life Institute

41:20 - What is Buddhist modernism

44:065 - Evan’s misgivings about Buddhist exceptionalism

47:37 - Evan summarises his critique

49:21 - Reactions from colleagues

54:44 - Why do elite academics engage in Buddhist apologetics?

56:58 - Goenka’s useful fiction of the historical Buddha

01:01:09 - B Alan Wallace and religious vs academic register

01:04:19 - Exceptionalism as evangelism and exhortation

01:05:20 - The core philosophical engine of Buddhism

01:07:41 - Buddhism is not scientific

01:10:56 - Personal experience and ‘test and see’

01:15:59 - Is Buddhist philosophy uniquely rich?

01:21:12 - What is enlightenment?

01:25:00 - Awakening as a regulative ideal

01:27:20 - What counts as the experience of awakening?

01:32:28 - Protestant Christianity’s surprising influence on Buddhism in Asia

01:40:23 - What would convert Evan to Buddhism

01:42:22 - Exceptionalism harms Buddhism and science

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To find out more about Evan Thompson, visit:

- https://evanthompson.me/

For more interviews, videos, and more visit:

- www.guruviking.com

Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James