The Monk and Philosopher

The father is a secular humanist who writes stringent critiques of religious piety. The son, once a promising scientist, is a Tibetan Buddhist and translator for the Dalai Lama. Contrary to some popular reports, they are not estranged; rather, the father,a famous western philosopher, is curious about the son’s eastern religious beliefs, and allows him space and opportunity to present them in the extended conversation which comprises the tome, The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life.

Combined within the binding of this work is not only a conversation between father (Jean-Francois Revel) and son (Matthieu Ricard), but also a sort of dialogue between east and west, an agreeable disagreement between two athiesms, the Western secular denial of a transcendent personal Creator (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) and the Eastern philosophical denial of the religious Hindu traditions which comprises the sophisticated Buddhist system of thought.

Throughout the course of the discussion we see, more than anything, the west’s embrace of eastern values through the father’s curiousity about the son, as well as the west’s secular ignorance and stupidity about its own religious traditions. Many of Revel’s statements, for instance, regarding Christian traditions and mystery are unfounded and struck me as odd and obtuse; while many of Ricard’s statements about Buddhist beliefs, while seeming more in line with my own understanding of religious tradition, often struck me as self-contradictory and confusing.

For instance, on several occasions Revel makes broad sweeping statements in critcism of Tibetan Buddhist peity, using almost archaic Reformation language, levelling the argument of "empty superstition" in an uninformed manner, sort of like trying to cut butter with a chainsaw. For one instance of many, Revel falsely claims, "In Catholicism, to light a candle in a church implies the very superstitious idea that the candle can earn us either the grace of a saint, of the holy Virgin, or even of God himself, and grant our wishes."

One might wonder how Revel defines "superstition" or whom he queried about the practice of candle-lighting, which certainly can become a superstitious act, but is not necessarily so. Rather, it is most often a symbolic act, representing steadfastness and veneration for those whom one honors, as well as symbolizing the light that enlightens the heart darkened throough cosmic ruin and personal sin, and is therefore imbued with inherent meaning and beauty. Revel too easily grasps the potential denigration of an act, and fallaciously represents it as the act itself, revealing basic misunderstandings and flaws in his critique of his own western heritage. Revel constantly repeats similar genetic fallacies throughout the discussion, which his son sometimes eloquently refutes.

In this instance, Ricard offers: "Such customs are useful outer supports allowing believers to communicate with an inner truth. I know from experience that when ordinary Tibetans offer thousands of butter lamps (the equivalent of candles) they’re well aware that the light they’re offering symbolizes wisdom dispelling darkness. The prayer they’d be making as they offered lamps would go something like, ‘May the light of wisdom arise in myself and all living beings, both in this life and in lives to come.’ Even very simple people are aware of the symbolism."

Father and son continue to discuss metaphyics, compassion and love, reincarnation, karma, politics, meditation and the differences between western secular philosophy and eastern spirituality.

Unfortunately, Revel’s secular view is a bit dated and rigorous; he would fit in more with the perishing scientism of the last century (and the one previous to it) than with the current philosophical debates surrounding, for instance, the nature of mind, computationalism, and other, less discursive or empircal models. Like Nietszche, Revel is unaware of the nature of the mysteries of his own religious traditions, and in rejecting degradations, commits fallacious steps of logic without, perhaps, realizing the manner in which his own secular assumptions are more like blinding faith than are the very traditions he attempts to refute. In other words, he is a fundamentalist for atheism, owning all the negative connotations that may be attached.

If this were a book by Revel himself, I would have thrown it across the room (such as when, again, he defines "free-will" as the unlimited ability to do anything one wishes, which is not the definition any advocate of free-will would agree with--even Kierkegaard admitted that free-will is limited by necessity). Revel represents well, then, perhaps, a dying or even dead secularist scientism in the west, (which in recent years has sought to revive itself through various popular books that basically regurgitated well-refuted 18th and 19th century arguments for atheism).