On Buddhist Exceptionalism: Is Buddhism the Religion for the Contemporary West?

Popular presentations of Buddhism often depict it as superior to other legacy religions because it allegedly has no god, accords with neuroscientific claims that there is no autonomous self, requires no dogmatic beliefs or rituals, and is compatible with contemporary Western values and scientific naturalism. I dispute this “Buddhist exceptionalism.” I argue that these claims are false or misleading when applied to traditional forms of Buddhism. At the same time, elements extracted from Buddhist traditions can be interpreted in ways that support some exceptionalist claims. These are importantly different positions. I defend a modified version of the latter approach while rejecting claims of Buddhist superiority, since comparable pragmatic extractions can be made from other legacy religions. Whether such extracted elements constitute a contemporary Western form of secular Buddhism, and whether traditional Buddhist communities would recognize such a form as valid Buddhism, remain open questions, and the proposal already faces some resistance.