Throughout the Buddhist world there are Buddha-statues in all kinds of styles. There are also stupas, mandalas, lotuses, and (in the Mahayana) numerous variant Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other symbolic figures. These figures are focuses and emblems of Buddhism as a religion, and they are also objects of worship, from a simple bow to an elaborate ritual lasting several hours. What is the point of all this?

Most Buddhists will explain that Buddhist symbols and rituals are reminders of their ideals, reminders of their commitment to those ideals, and motivators at a profound level which appeal to their aesthetic sense and power their emotions towards the ideal. Buddhist symbols and ritual help to develop saddha (faith), in which the heart is directed towards a higher Reality. It is not enough just to have an intellectual idea of Buddhist ideals and practices, they may say: we also need to work at an emotional level. Public Buddha-figures and collective worship also helps to bring the sangha (community) together with a shared sense of purpose[1].

This is the theory, but what is the experience? My own experience of about 20 years of varying levels of participation in Buddhist rituals is that they have only rarely had the intended effect. It is true that I have sometimes had a positive aesthetic response to the Buddha figure, or to the whole shrine on which it is set – but no greater than my aesthetic response to other things, such as works of art or landscape. Having shared symbols, and participating in ritual, may also at times have helped to make me feel part of a community; but more often I have felt alienated and oppressed by the collective aspect of ritual. Once the novelty had worn off, habituation to symbols and rituals created a regular response of boredom and alienation. Often I tried to ride through this, or accepted people’s assurances that if I just kept doing it I would reach a breakthrough. Occasionally, indeed, I have had unexpectedly positive experiences of ritual, but the general pattern is that the longer I did it, the less meaningful it became.

Of course, my own response is conditioned by my particular temperament. However, I have heard many other Western Buddhists confess to alienation from ritual. Very often their motive for continuing was simply faith that if this was what prescribed by a religion with so many other positive things in it, then it must be useful in the end. Of course, some people appear to take to it readily and enjoy every minute of it, but amongst those who are practising Western Buddhism there is at the very least a large minority, possibly even a majority, who are to some degree alienated from it. This is not counting those (probably many) who have been put off from being involved further in Buddhism because of the symbols and rituals, and have then voted with their feet.

This is not because symbol and ritual is, in principle, a bad idea. Symbols and rituals are quite a basic part of the human condition. In most households you will probably find a mantelpiece, or some other place, where the values of the household are symbolised, whether individually or collectively. If we did not have Buddha-figures we would probably have fine-art prints, or rock’n’roll memorabilia, or tasteless ornaments. Ritual, whether individual or collective, is just a further extension of this kind of value-symbolisation. Rituals may help us focus our energies, adapt to changes, or simply feel part of a caring community. Even those of us who don’t feel the need for regular religious ritual will usually participate in weddings, funerals, family gatherings, or farewells for colleagues at work.

No, the problems with Buddhist symbol and ritual seem to be related, like most of the other problems in Buddhism, to dogmatic metaphysics. Because the tradition is associated with revelatory authority, people go along with the forms of ritual associated with the past, rather than designing new rituals which are better suited to the needs of the present context. People try to engage with the symbols and the rituals because they are part of the tradition, but they are deracinated, having little connection with their culture or the rest of their lives. This makes it very much harder for the symbols and rituals to be successful in their supposed function of inspiring a positive emotional response.

Dogmatic metaphysics also comes into play to make this situation worse in common Buddhist response to this situation. Because of Buddhist idealism for the unenlightened, and the tendency to believe that it is the individual’s mind that should be adapted to the circumstances rather than the other way round, most complaints about symbols and rituals will be met with an assurance that one should persevere and work at adapting oneself to them in order to get the benefits. No-one, generally, thinks about adapting the symbols and rituals to the needs of the participants, or if they do so it is in a rather marginal way, tweaking the traditional forms rather than designing new symbols and rituals from the beginning.

Then, a more profound problem lies in the symbols and rituals themselves. As I have been indicating, for example, in relation to symbols of love in Buddhism in chapter 3, Buddhist symbols tend to be symbols not of the path but of its goal; they are idealisations rather than symbols of the experience of spiritual progress; they symbolise metaphysical absolutes rather than aspects of human experience. I have already mentioned the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara as a particularly grotesque example of this, but even the simple Buddha-figure itself is often an idealised figure (I will come back to this point in the next section). Not only Western Buddhists, but even traditional Buddhists in Eastern countries might benefit from an overhaul of Buddhist symbols which addressed this question.

The theoretical purpose of symbol and ritual in Buddhism is laudable. People need symbols. However, they need symbols which reflect their aspirations, and that they can whole-heartedly respond to. In collective settings people also need symbols which are open to a wide range of people and are not alien to the audience. Finally, people also need symbols which help them progress in the right way and in the right direction, rather than just encouraging attachment to a metaphysical idea. For most people in the West, current Buddhist symbols are not doing any of these things, and it is not sufficient for a minority to respond that the symbols work for them, unless they want Western Buddhism to degenerate into an esoteric cult for a few people, something like the Rosicrucians. Much more radical thinking is needed about symbols without delay.