Buddhist modernism

After a failed mountaineering expedition to China and a foot injury that ended her outdoor adventures, Sydney lawyer Marie Byles embarked on a spiritual journey.

From the early 1940s, at her Cheltenham home, Ahimsa, Marie began a serious study of the Buddhist texts. Ahimsa, named after the precept of non-harm, was a modest structure, built to minimise damage to the local flora and fauna. It was a place where Marie practised her Buddhist ethics and developed interpretations that would influence later generations of Buddhists.

The State Library has the most comprehensive collection of Marie Byles’ writings, among them her unpublished autobiography, four books, and over 100 articles on Buddhism, other religions and matters of ethics. Marie’s books were published in England, with Footprints of Gautama the Buddha also released in the United States, and her articles appeared around the world. Marie’s writings reveal a knowledge of Buddhism gained not only from sacred texts but also from extensive travel and practice.

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Marie had also been writing articles for well-regarded journals, developing many of the ideas that would help shape Buddhism today. She promoted an approach that was compatible with modern science and inter-faith understanding, arguing that a belief in rebirth, for example, was not necessary to appreciate the basic truths at the heart of the religion. She believed that Buddhist ethics and practices could help people to minimise the difficulties in their lives, and emphasised the day-to-day benefits of harmless and kind thoughts, speech and actions, and of mindfulness and meditation. She also developed Buddhist approaches to a range of modern issues, including environmental problems, changing roles of women, and methods of peaceful reform.

Marie argued that the Buddha’s teachings could help to address the global spread of environmental damage in modern industrial times. She drew upon simple examples from the Buddhist texts, such as the steps that were taken to avoid disturbing nesting birds. She thought the Buddha’s advice to avoid ‘onslaught on creatures’ should be understood as applying to all aspects of the environment. She argued that the precept of ahimsa now meant that harm to the entire living natural environment should be minimised, and compensation should be given for unavoidable damage. From as early as the 1940s, Marie used this argument to press for full protection of the state’s new wilderness areas.

In Australia, Marie’s Buddhist ideas were communicated not only through her writings, but through the media and her network of contacts. She was featured in People magazine, in frequent stories in the Sydney Morning Herald, and in several radio broadcasts. She helped to establish the Buddhist Society of NSW in the early 1950s, hosting Buddhist events, meditation sessions and meetings at her home. She also discussed Buddhist ideas with her many bushwalking, pacifist and feminist friends. Her ideas and example influenced people such as Sydney Buddhist Gillian Coote, who, after learning about Marie through a mutual friend, made a film about her life, took up bush regeneration, and became a Zen priest.

Before her death in 1979, Marie donated Ahimsa to the National Trust. She had lived simply there, growing her own vegetables, consuming little and practising bush regeneration. She had helped to establish a local community group, used her legal skills to help charitable causes, and funded meditation huts for Buddhist nuns in Burma. Today, Ahimsa is listed on the State Heritage Register for its historical, aesthetic and social significance, and seen as a testimony to Marie’s life as a conservationist and feminist. Ahimsa is also an expression of Marie’s Buddhism, and a significant site in the history of what has become the nation’s second largest religion.