Thich Nhat Hanh's View Of Buddhism

The perception of Eastern religions in Western culture has always been partial and full of bias, mainly due to unfamiliarity, orientalist influences, and modern assumptions. In relation to other Eastern religions, Buddhism seems to be more widely accepted by the West, but not without some caveats. As an introduction to Buddhism for a Western audience, author Thich Nhat Hanh effectively shows aspects of Buddhism that he deems most important and most relevant for the Western audience to understand in his book The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. Based on Hanh’s book, one could assume that spiritual practices, worship of gods/deities, and other inherently religious elements are mostly absent from Buddhism. It could also be believed that his beliefs

One kind in particular are called “Supreme Yoga Tantras”, which involve the “sexual union” between a vajra master and a female partner. It is meant to transform the vajra master into a deity and facilitate a new plane of existence and consciousness. This ritual, along with many other similar practices, all seek to create an accelerated path to enlightenment. A typical misconception in the West is that Tantric practices are exclusively about “exotic” sexual ceremonies, but they also include a variety of complex rituals that worship deities. This draws upon a large pantheon of gods, including Sakra, ruler of the “Trāyastriṃśa Heaven”, and Brahma, the god of creation, among others. Many of these gods are believed to be Bodhisattvas, and can be consulted by humans for mundane benefits and/or aid in the journey to enlightenment. They are usually represented through spiritual objects that symbolize them, or chants that ask to draw upon their powers. Rituals also often involve a mandala, a complex lattice design meant to represent the relation of our earthly existence to the center of the universe and the Buddha. The practices these people follow and their traditional Buddhist perception of cosmology is a large part of Vajrayana Buddhism, and provides the Tibetan people with many spiritual forces to worship and incorporate into Tantric practices. Cosmology, rituals involving sexual unions, chants, and elaborate arrangements worshipping gods are completely absent from Buddhist Modernism, which creates an even larger rift between Vajrayana Buddhism of Tibet and Hanh’s presentation to the West. One could even say that Buddhist Modernism alienates these spiritual qualities of Vajrayana Buddhism by not acknowledging them, and this stark departure of beliefs is a main reason why negative modern assumptions are formed regarding Buddhism in