Stephen Batchelor (born 7 April 1953) is a Scottish

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

author and teacher, known for his writings on Buddhist subjects and his leadership of meditation retreats worldwide. He is a noted proponent of agnostic or secular Buddhism.

Early life and early education

Batchelor was born in

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, in 1953. When he was three years old, his family relocated briefly to

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, where his parents separated. He relocated with his mother Phyllis (b. 1913) to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, where he was raised in a

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

environment with his younger brother

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

Watford Watford () is a town and non-metropolitan district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of Central London, on the banks of the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne. Initially a smal ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

. He attended Watford Grammar School for Boys, leaving in February 1972.

Buddhism studies and career

At age eighteen, he embarked on an overland journey which eventually led him to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He settled in Dharamsala, the capital-in-exile of the

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

, and studied with Geshé Ngawang Dhargyey at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. He was ordained as a novice monk in the

Gelug file:DalaiLama0054 tiny.jpg, 240px, 14th Dalai Lama, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Kalachakra ceremony, Bodh Gaya, Bodhgaya (India) The Gelug (, also Geluk; 'virtuous' ...

tradition in 1974. A few months after ordination, he sat a ten-day Vipassana meditation retreat with the Indian teacher S.N. Goenka, which proved a lasting influence on his practice, and aroused his curiosity about other traditions of Buddhism. He left India in 1975 to study Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and doctrine under the guidance of

Geshe Rabten Geshe Rabten (1921–1986) was a Tibetan geshe born in Tibet. He was a student at Sera Monastery in Lhasa, and achieved Geshe status before leaving Tibet in 1959. He became known as a debater, scholar, and meditation master. Lama Yeshe and La ...

. He initially studied at the Tibet Institute Rikon and later in Le Mont-Pèlerin, both located in Switzerland. During this time, he also assisted Geshé Rabten in establishing the Tharpa Choeling, which is now known as Rabten Choeling. The following year, he received full ordination as a monk. In 1979 he moved to Germany to work as a translator for Geshé Thubten Ngawang at the Tibetisches Institut in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. In April 1981, Batchelor travelled to Songgwangsa Monastery in South Korea to undergo training in

Zen Buddhism Zen (; from Chinese: '' Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka ph ...

under the guidance of Kusan Sunim. At the monastery, he met Martine Fages, a Frenchwoman who had ordained as a nun in 1975. He remained in Korea until the autumn of 1984, when he left for a pilgrimage to Buddhist sites in Japan, China and Tibet. Following the death of Kusan Sunim, Batchelor and Martine Fages laicised in February 1985 and married in Hong Kong, then returned to England and joined the Sharpham North Community near Totnes, Devon. Over the course of the next fifteen years Batchelor lived at Sharpham, he became coordinator of the Sharpham Trust (1992) and co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry (1996). Throughout this period he worked as a Buddhist chaplain at Channings Wood Prison. From 1990 he has been a Guiding Teacher at Gaia House meditation centre in Devon and since 1992 a contributing editor of '' Tricycle: The Buddhist Review''. In August 2000, he and Martine moved to

Aquitaine Aquitaine (, ; ; ; ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former Regions of France, administrative region. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the administ ...

, France, where they live in a village near Bordeaux. Batchelor is a member of the core faculty of Bodhi College, which focuses on interpreting the early texts of Buddhism, such as the Pali Canon, in a manner applicable to the modern world. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Pragmatic Buddhism.

Secular Buddhism

Batchelor argues for a secular, naruralistic Buddhism, devoid of supernatural frameworks. As a lay Buddhist author, teacher, and self-designated scholar, he has increasingly turned his attention to the earliest teachings of Buddhism as recorded in the

Pali canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...

. Additionally, he has shown an increasing interest in Hellenistic philosophies, particularly the skeptical philosophy of

Pyrrhonism Pyrrhonism is an Ancient Greek school of philosophical skepticism which rejects dogma and advocates the suspension of judgement over the truth of all beliefs. It was founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BCE, and said to have been inspired ...

and Montaigne's approach to Pyrrhonism.

Works

Books

* Batchelor, Stephen. ''Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism''. Foreword by John Blofeld. Grove Press, 1983 . * Batchelor, Stephen.
Flight: An Existential Conception of Buddhism
'.

Buddhist Publication Society The Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) is a publishing house with charitable status, whose objective is to disseminate the teachings of Gautama Buddha. It was founded in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1958 by two Sri Lankan lay Buddhists, A.S. Karunaratn ...

, Wheel Publication No. 316/317. 1984. *Batchelor, Stephen (editor). ''The Jewel in the Lotus: A Guide to the Buddhist Traditions of Tibet''. Wisdom Publications, 1986. . * Batchelor, Stephen. ''The Tibet Guide''. Foreword by the

. Wisdom Publications, 1987. . (Revised edition: ''The Tibet Guide: Central and Western Tibet''. Wisdom Publications, 1998. .) * Batchelor, Stephen. ''The Faith to Doubt: Glimpses of Buddhist Uncertainty''. Parallax Press, 1990. . * Batchelor, Stephen. ''Buddhism Without Beliefs''. Riverhead Books, 1997. . *Batchelor, Stephen. ''Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil.''.

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

/ Riverhead Books, 2005. *Batchelor, Stephen. ''Confession of a Buddhist Atheist''.

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, 2010. . * Batchelor, Stephen. ''The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture.'' Foreword by the

. Echo Point Books & Media, 2011. . * Batchelor, Stephen. ''After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age''. Yale University Press, 2015. * Batchelor, Stephen. ''Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World''. Yale University Press, 2017. * Batchelor, Martine and Batchelor, Stephen. ''What is this? Ancient questions for modern minds''. Tuwhiri, 2019. * Batchelor, Stephen. ''The Art of Solitude''. Yale University Press, 2020.

Articles and book-chapters

*Mackenzie, Vicki. "Life as a Question, Not as a Fact: Stephen Batchelor – author, teacher and skeptic." ''Why Buddhism? Westerners in Search of Wisdom.'' HarperCollins, 2003. . pp. 142–62. * Batchelor, Stephen
"A Secular Buddhism"
. Journal of Global Buddhism 13 (2012):87-107

Editor

*Kusan Sunim. '' The Way of Korean Zen''. Translated by Martine Fages Batchelor. Edited with an introduction by Stephen Batchelor. Weatherhill, 1985. . (2nd Revised Edition: Weatherhill, 2009. .) *Watson, Gay, Stephen Batchelor and Guy Claxton (editors). ''The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and Our Day-to-Day Lives.'' Weiser Books, 2000. .

Translations

Shantideva Shantideva (Sanskrit: Śāntideva; ; ; ; ) was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda. He was an adherent of the Mādhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna. Abhayadatta Sri also li ...

. ''A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life''. Translated by Stephen Batchelor. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1979. . *Rabten, Geshé. ''Echoes of Voidness''. Translated and edited by Stephen Batchelor. Wisdom Publications, 1983. *Rabten, Geshé. ''Song of the Profound View''. Translated and annotated by Stephen Batchelor. Wisdom Publications, 1989. . *Batchelor, Stephen. ''Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime''. Riverhead Books, 2001. . This is a translation of the ''

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā The ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' (), abbreviated as ''MMK'', is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. It was composed by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (around roughly 150 CE).Siderits and Katsura ...

'' (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way) by

Nagarjuna Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, ''Nāgārjuna''; ) was an Indian monk and Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy, philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most importa ...

Photography

* Batchelor, Martine. ''Meditation for Life''. Photography by Stephen Batchelor. Wisdom Publications, 2001. .

Libretto

Batchelor authored the libretto for '' MĀRA: A Chamber Opera on Good and Evil'' (2017). Its music was composed by Sherry Woods.

References

External links

*
Official biography

The Māra Opera Project
* Downloadable talks a
Dharmaseed
an

Interviews and documentaries

Short documentary film
about Stephen Batchelor made for Netherlands TV. April 2008. English with Dutch subtitles.
TV interview
on ABC News, 9 March 2010.
"Starting from Scratch: A talk with Stephen Batchelor"
ricycle: The Buddhist Review. 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16. * of a talk based on ''Confession of a Buddhist Atheist''. Fora.tv, 19 March 2010.
Audio Interview Series
on Buddhist Geeks Stephen Batchelor. {{DEFAULTSORT:Batchelor, Stephen 1953 births Living people Converts to Buddhism from atheism or agnosticism Scottish atheists French atheists Scottish Buddhists French Buddhists Buddhist writers Students of S. N. Goenka Converts to Buddhism Writers from Dundee Buddhism and atheism Scottish librettists Buddhist music