Buddhist Romanticism

Romantics developed the theory of the microcosm: that because each
human being was shaped internally by the same forces that operated
externally, a study of one’s inner emotions was neither self-indulgent nor
egotistical. It actually gave objective knowledge about the forces acting on a
larger scale in the cosmos. At the same time, knowing the latest scientific
findings about external processes at work in the cosmos would give
objective knowledge of the processes working internally, in one’s own body
and mind.
So, instead of gazing only inside and exalting the Self over the world, the
Romantics looked both within and without for better ways to know both
self and world so that they could better foster the forward evolution of
both.
Because this fact is so poorly understood, we have the ironic situation in
which some modern Buddhist teachers, while denouncing the Romantics
for being unscientific and egotistical, propose that Buddhism should be
altered to fit in with the paradigms of modern science or to place greater
importance on our collective interconnectedness—unaware of the fact that
both of these proposals are exactly what the Romantics themselves would
have espoused. This is one of the reasons why modern Buddhist teachers,
though sometimes open about the fact that they are altering and updating
the Dhamma as they interpret it for the West, are nevertheless unaware of
where their interpretations come from.
Given these many levels of unawareness, it should come as no surprise
that Buddhist Romanticism has rarely been questioned. It is simply
accepted as a valid version of the Dhamma for our place in time. Even the
scholarly literature on Western Buddhism—to the extent that it has taken
note of Buddhist Romanticism—tends to view the rise of Buddhist
Romanticism as both necessary and good in terms of the laws of cultural
change. The scholars themselves rarely stop to ask where those supposed
laws came from. And it turns out that they originated with the early
Romantics. In fact, as we will see, the academic study of religion is one of
the main vehicles by which Romantic views on religion have been
transmitted to the modern world.
But there is a further irony. One of the principles of the Dhamma that has
been adopted by Buddhist Romanticism is that the Dhamma should not
simply be accepted on faith. Instead, it should be put to the test, in practice,
to see if it really works. But if the Dhamma is filtered through Buddhist
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