An issue which comes up from time to time in circles related to Eastern Religion and spirituality is the problem of monetization of spiritual practices.
In effect, monetization occurs when the delivery of spiritual services has a price tag attached to it. A good example of this would be the multi million dollar New Age Spirituality industry, in which successful teachers of fields as diverse as Reiki to Mindfulness meditation, to psychic readings are able to make large incomes based on the provision and instruction of said practices to interested parties.
The common criticism of this monetization is that it detracts from the central message and philosophy of traditional religious practices and that it misrepresents the practices in the public world, as such, ultimately detracting from the integrity of said practices.
While this critique is valuable and welcome, it may serve us well to investigate the various means of monetization that occur in Eastern spiritual communities in order to more clearly understand how money relates to spirituality.
One of the most important first considerations in regard to this issue is that spirituality and money have a relationship which began much before the 20th century, and the charlatan spiritual teachers have a history perhaps as long as the existence of standardized religion itself. Probably the most conspicuous Chinese example of this (keeping in mind that this is a blog about Daoism) is the phenomenon of "Ban Xian" half immortals. Half immortal is a pejorative term used to describe fake Daoist medicine men who advertised themselves as having special powers to heal or to guide souls toward heaven upon time of death. These pseudo-shaman have come to occupy a place of both repudiation and mythology in China, and even among some of the most famous Daoist teachers of the twentieth century, there are many who are reputed to have used this method of spiritual trickery in order to build and maintain a base of devoted followers.
After the intersection of Buddhism, Daoism, and Western Theosophical culture in the 20th century, we find many similar "spiritual businessmen," who use the foreign and seemingly mystical nature of Chinese religion as a means by which to rope students in and earn a living through their provision of pseudo-spiritual practices such as Qi Gong, Meditation, Religious chanting and so on to a western Audience. This is not to say that all people engaged in these activities occupy the "half immortal" class, but certainly the very most famous names in American Daoism do. This has created a serious disdain among the aficionado community and not without just cause. When compared against the genuine religious practices and secular practices (I use the word secular to describe the movement among Chinese proletariats to investigate and practice religion and meditation outside of the temple. There is no perfect separation between religion and secular practice in China, so I only use the word secular as a way to designate religious ideologies of the commons) these "new age" pseudo-practices are found to be lacking and certainly do great damage to the propagation of genuine Buddhism and Daoism outside of China.
Having said that, academics who study the fields of Eastern Religion must also be honest about the other aspects of religious monetization.
Firstly, and most importantly, anyone who is involved in an academic field in which they discuss religious practices, and possibly even partake of them, must be willing to admit that their livings are earned through the monetization of religion, even though it may be indirect.
The second, and perhaps deeper cultural aspect of monetization is that virtually all monastic settings throughout human history have to greater or lesser extent relied on the charity of the communities surrounding them. At a Chinese temple there are always means by which to donate to the well being of the temple, and it must be noted that regardless of our romantic notions of spiritual life, very few spiritualists practice publicly without some degree of financial remuneration.
Spirituality is not free of money, nor is it free of advertising, internal conflict, or any of the other major problems affecting society at large. Spiritual communities are made up of people and for the most part, the basic requirements of life must be met before all else. We should not be too hasty to decry monetization, but rather perhaps adopt the attitude of maintenance of a certain degree of quality, integrity, and continuation of the original material and message from which these practices are derived.
This topic is of particular significance to me because I am a non academic writer on the subject of meditation in the Daoist Nei Dan tradition. Although the sources of my practice are completely legitimate (spawning from an informed view of traditional meditation documents and drawing upon 20th century secular reformers such as Chen Yingning and Jiang Weiqiao for inspiration), I have come to recognize a certain degree of what I feel to be unwarranted criticism from certain bloggers who are connected to the academic community. It tends to be the case that instead of attacking my work on merit of the theory it presents (which is extremely standardized and verifiable), I am attacked as being a member of the "new age," or "American Daoism" group. This is disconcerting, since much of my education in Daoism occurred in and around China and Taiwan in both secular and monastic settings, and that I have personally put great effort into researching and detailing the contents of traditional meditation documents from as honest a place as possible. I wonder in the future, how many other legitimate writers on this topic will also fall under attack as being fraudulent, simply based on the assumption that selling books is an inherently "unspiritual practice?"
Is it to be the case that the final word on Eastern Religion will be decided by academic community, or is it possible that people of diverse backgrounds and experience may be allowed to mutually exist within a market place of ideas, where better ideas are able to rise to the surface, and worse ideas are gradually picked apart and disappear?
As previously stated, monetization exists in all places in the spiritual world and as long as there are religious communities, there will never be religion completely free of monetary value. Character attacks and unfair categorization is not the right way to control quality in the spiritual community, and it would be much better to judge material based on understanding of theoretical merit and practical benefit, rather than simply through the lens of dismissing "Corporate spirituality."
About the author:
Robert James Coons is a "corporate spiritualist" who makes less than minimum wage from his excellent book on meditation "Internal Elixir Cultivation, the Nature of Daoist Meditation."
