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Secular Buddhism: Stephen Batchelor’s Four Tasks, and the Debate Around Them

The Buddha’s teaching as tasks rather than beliefs — what secular Buddhists practise, and why many Buddhists disagree

What is secular Buddhism?

Secular Buddhism is a modern, mostly Western approach that keeps the Buddha’s ethical and contemplative teachings while setting aside, or holding agnostically, the traditional claims about rebirth, karma across lifetimes and other realms, and that focuses on human flourishing in this life. Its best-known voice, Stephen Batchelor, reads the Four Noble Truths as four tasks to perform rather than truths to believe. Traditional Buddhist teachers such as Bhikkhu Bodhi and Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu argue that rebirth is woven through the Buddha’s teaching and cannot be removed without loss, so whether secular Buddhism is a recovery of the original dharma or a new training derived from it is a live disagreement.

Secular Buddhism grew mainly out of Western lay practice in the late twentieth century. Stephen Batchelor, who describes forty years of study and practice in the Tibetan, Zen and Theravāda traditions, is its most prominent voice; the Secular Buddhist Network dates the trend’s development from his Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997), and his After Buddhism (Yale, 2015) argues that the Four Noble Truths may have begun as tasks to be performed rather than truths to be believed — “a task-based ethics rather than a truth-based metaphysics,” in his own summary. Organised secular Buddhism is small and peer-led: the Secular Buddhist Association, founded in 2011, merged in 2025 into the Secular Buddhist Network, which runs online discussion, meditation and reading groups. Popular voices such as Noah Rasheta’s Secular Buddhism podcast reach a wider audience. The movement sits beside, but is not the same as, the Insight Meditation movement founded at centres like the Insight Meditation Society, and it is distinct again from clinical programmes such as MBSR and MBCT. Traditional Buddhists and several scholars push back hard — that rebirth and karma are integral to the teaching, that the secular reading is selective, and that detaching practice from its tradition can turn it into self-help. This page sets out the practices as secular Buddhists describe them and the critiques beside them, and takes no side on whether secular Buddhism is “real” Buddhism.

Prácticas

Cómo se conectan estas prácticas

Every practice on this page reads the Buddha’s teaching as something to do in this life rather than something to believe about other lives. The four tasks turn the Four Noble Truths into a loop of embracing what happens, letting reactivity be, noticing when it stops and acting from that space; the reactivity practice works the middle of that loop; the ethics practice grounds conduct in its effects now; and meditation and community are the supports the fourth task calls for. Two practices exist to keep the approach honest — holding rebirth as an open question while hearing the traditional case for it, and reading the early discourses critically, including one’s own reading — and the McMindfulness check guards against the drift its critics warn of, from a task-based ethics into private self-management.

What is the difference between secular Buddhism and traditional Buddhism in practice?

Both meditate, keep ethical precepts and read the Buddha’s discourses; the difference is in what the practice is for and what is believed. Traditional Buddhism, in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s description, accepts rebirth, karma and the wider Buddhist cosmology, and aims at liberation from the round of rebirth. Secular Buddhism, as Stephen Batchelor puts it, replaces that “logic of transcendence” with a “logic of care”: the goal is to embrace suffering and respond to it in this life, and claims about rebirth are set aside or held agnostically. Secular groups tend to be peer-led without vows, lineage or monastics. Bodhi also describes an “immanent” middle position that avoids doctrinal questions without rejecting them, and the scholar Richard Payne argues that secular and religious Buddhism are not mutually exclusive categories.

Can you be a Buddhist without believing in rebirth or karma across lifetimes?

Buddhists answer this differently. Stephen Batchelor proposes agnosticism — acknowledging honestly that one does not know what happens at death, neither asserting nor denying rebirth — and calls it a Buddhist middle way, while granting that the historical Buddha himself accepted rebirth. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi argue that rebirth is woven through the discourses, defines the stages of awakening and is part of right view, so setting it aside means practising a reduced version of the path, though Ṭhānissaro grants some benefit is possible without it. The teacher Gil Fronsdal practises a “naturalistic Buddhism” that does not require supernatural beliefs but does not reject them either. Whether that still counts as Buddhist depends on whose definition you accept.

Is secular Buddhism real Buddhism, or a new practice derived from it?

This is genuinely disputed, and the page takes no side. Secular Buddhists such as the Secular Buddhist Network say they do not claim theirs is the definitive Buddhism but regard it as founded on the historical Buddha’s teaching, stripped of later cultural and supernatural overlays. Critics answer that this reverses the history: Bhikkhu Bodhi calls secular approaches a pragmatic training derived from Buddhism rather than a more evolved dharma, and Philippe Turenne argues that Batchelor uses sources selectively, equates his reading with “original” Buddhism and represents traditional Buddhism unfairly. Batchelor himself has said a secular dharma may end up decoupling from traditional Buddhism and perhaps dropping the word Buddhist altogether.

What are Stephen Batchelor’s four tasks and how do they change the Four Noble Truths?

In the Buddha’s first discourse each noble truth comes with a duty: suffering should be completely understood, its origin given up, its cessation realised and the path developed. In After Buddhism Stephen Batchelor argues the doctrine may have begun as these tasks rather than as truth-claims, making the dharma a task-based ethics. Secular Buddhists summarise the tasks as ELSA — Embrace life, Let reactivity be, See reactivity stop, Actualise a path — and treat them as a feedback loop applied to real situations. The main shift is in the third: cessation becomes the noticeable moments when reactivity fades, rather than final freedom from rebirth, which is where traditional readers most disagree.

How is secular Buddhism different from mindfulness programs like MBSR and the insight movement?

They are related but not the same. The Insight Meditation movement — for example the Insight Meditation Society, opened in 1976 by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield — teaches vipassana and loving-kindness within the context of the Buddha’s teachings; the Secular Buddhist Network describes it as lay-oriented but still keeping teacher authority, lineage and nirvana as transcendence. Clinical programmes such as MBSR and MBCT teach mindfulness for health outside any Buddhist frame. Secular Buddhism is an explicitly Buddhist philosophy of life, with ethics and the four tasks at its centre, that uses insight-style meditation. Critics such as Ronald Purser worry that mindfulness detached from tradition becomes private self-management; Bhikkhu Anālayo disputes that charge for MBSR.

What do traditional Buddhists and scholars criticise about secular Buddhism?

Four criticisms recur. First, that rebirth and karma are integral to the teaching, not removable add-ons — the argument of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi, who warns that casting doctrines away may cut off the bloodline that keeps the dharma alive. Second, that secular readings are selective: Bodhi argues the much-quoted Kālāma discourse is misread as permission to believe what one likes, and Philippe Turenne argues Batchelor uses sources selectively and represents traditional Buddhism unfairly. Third, that detached practice slides into self-help, the McMindfulness critique Ronald Purser makes of mainstream mindfulness. Fourth, from Seth Zuihō Segall, a sympathetic practitioner, that the word “secular” implies rejecting religion and the sacred. Secular Buddhists have answered each, and the debates continue.

¿Cómo elegir entre ellas?

If you want to know what secular Buddhism asks of you day to day, start with the four tasks on one real situation, and use the reactivity practice for the moment-to-moment work. If the obstacle is belief — not being able to affirm rebirth — the agnostic inquiry and the ethics practice address it directly, and both include the traditional counter-arguments. If you need a daily routine, the secular-frame meditation points you to established methods; if you are practising alone and want company, look at the peer-led sangha practice. If you are weighing secular against traditional readings, read the discourses critically first. And if your practice has quietly become a coping tool, run the McMindfulness check.

Lo que estos enfoques no resuelven

None of these practices has been studied as secular Buddhist practice; the sources establish what Stephen Batchelor, secular Buddhist groups and their critics say, not that any of it produces a particular effect, and evidence from MBSR and MBCT trials concerns related clinical programmes rather than this approach. Secular Buddhism is also small and plural — the Secular Buddhist Network itself says it does not claim to be the definitive Buddhism — so no single description fits every secular practitioner. The central questions here, whether rebirth is integral to the dharma and whether a secular reading recovers or reshapes the early teaching, are matters of interpretation on which serious Buddhists and scholars disagree; this page reports the disagreement and does not resolve it. Several criticisms are known here through a scholarly review rather than the original chapters.

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Preguntas frecuentes

What is secular Buddhism?

Secular Buddhism is a modern, mostly Western approach that keeps the Buddha’s ethical and contemplative teachings while setting aside, or holding agnostically, the traditional claims about rebirth, karma across lifetimes and other realms, and that focuses on human flourishing in this life. Its best-known voice, Stephen Batchelor, reads the Four Noble Truths as four tasks to perform rather than truths to believe. Traditional Buddhist teachers such as Bhikkhu Bodhi and Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu argue that rebirth is woven through the Buddha’s teaching and cannot be removed without loss, so whether secular Buddhism is a recovery of the original dharma or a new training derived from it is a live disagreement.

¿Cómo funciona «Work with the four tasks: embrace, let be, see it stop, act»?

In the first discourse, as SuttaCentral’s translation renders it, each noble truth comes with a task: suffering “should be completely understood,” its origin “should be given up,” its cessation “should be realized,” and the path “should be developed.” Batchelor’s After Buddhism takes those duties, rather than the truth-claims, as the core — following, the Secular Buddhist Network notes, a line of interpretation from the monk Ñāṇavīra Thera in the 1960s — and summarises them as ELSA: Embrace life, Let reactivity be, See reactivity stop, Actualise a path. Framed as tasks, the teaching asks for a change in how you meet a situation rather than assent to a metaphysics, and secular Buddhists describe the four as a feedback loop rather than a ladder.

¿Cómo funciona «Let reactivity be, and notice the moment it stops»?

The second and third tasks carry the weight of the secular reading. In the summary the Secular Buddhist Network gives, the “origin” of suffering is reactivity — the craving the discourse describes as repetitive and indulgent — and the task is to know it and step back from it rather than act it out. The third task reads cessation not as a final escape from rebirth but as the moments when that reactivity actually fades, which can be noticed, “beheld” and valued in ordinary life. Learning to see those moments makes non-reactive response feel available rather than theoretical, which is what the fourth task builds on.

¿Cómo funciona «Ground your ethics in this life, not in karma across lifetimes»?

Secular Buddhists describe the dharma as practical ethics for flourishing in this life. Two early discourses show reasoning that does not need rebirth to work. In SN 55.7 the Buddha teaches householders to reflect that what they dislike — being killed, robbed, deceived — others dislike too, so “how can I inflict it on someone else?” In AN 3.65 a person free of ill will wins “four consolations in this very life,” the second being that if there is no other world they still live free of enmity and happy now. Batchelor’s 1992 essay argues that shifting concern from a future life to present dilemmas demands a compassion-centred ethic.

¿Cómo funciona «Hold rebirth as an open question, and know the case against doing so»?

In his 1992 essay Batchelor grants that the historical Buddha accepted rebirth, then proposes a third option beside belief and disbelief: agnosticism, “to acknowledge in all honesty that one does not know,” neither adopting the literal traditional account nor treating death as annihilation. He argues this keeps the question of death alive as a matter of existential encounter rather than consolation, and calls it “not an excuse for indecision.” Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu argues the reverse: that rebirth is woven through the discourses, defines the stages of awakening, and serves as a working hypothesis without which the path cannot be fully understood. Holding both arguments keeps the inquiry honest in both directions.

¿Cómo funciona «Sit in a secular frame: mindful awareness without a cosmology»?

Secular Buddhists keep meditation at the centre; one group leader quoted by the Secular Buddhist Network calls mindful awareness of daily experience “the primary method” for coming to terms with life’s pleasures and pains. The methods are largely those of the Insight Meditation movement and of satipaṭṭhāna, not new techniques; what changes is the frame — attention serves the four tasks in this life rather than progress toward release from rebirth. Scholars note that this frame has a history: Robert Sharf traces “bare attention” to twentieth-century Burmese reform movements, and David McMahan describes modern meditation as detraditionalised and privatised.

¿Cómo funciona «Practise in a peer-led community without religious affiliation»?

The Secular Buddhist Network says secular Buddhists advocate “fully egalitarian, inclusive, and democratic sanghas, where there is little or no distinction between teachers and other practitioners,” and its own groups — monthly discussion, weekly meditation, reading, ageing, political activism — are autonomous and peer-led. Batchelor points back to the Buddha’s “fourfold assembly,” in which monastics and lay people had equivalent roles. A community makes practice something done with others rather than alone, which the fourth task — cultivating a path — explicitly includes.

¿Cómo funciona «Read the early discourses critically — including your own reading»?

Batchelor’s method in After Buddhism alternates close readings of the earliest texts with portraits of the Buddha’s followers, looking for teachings that “do not appear to be derived from the pre-existing context of Indian culture.” Secular group leaders name a secular reading of the Pāli canon as their primary source and “no sacred cows.” The Kālāma discourse is the favourite text: it tells its listeners not to go by tradition or scripture “but when you know for yourselves.” Bhikkhu Bodhi warns that this passage is often quoted out of context, and Philippe Turenne argues that Batchelor uses sources selectively. Reading critically means applying the same scrutiny to your own reading as to the tradition’s.

¿Cómo funciona «Test your practice against the McMindfulness critique»?

Ronald Purser’s McMindfulness, as reviewed by Majd Jamal Hammoudeh, argues that mindfulness detached from its context has been privatised and “neoliberalised,” making individuals responsible for stress that has social causes. Bhikkhu Bodhi, a traditionalist, describes secular approaches as a “pragmatic program of training derived from Buddhism,” not a more evolved dharma. Bhikkhu Anālayo argues back that, at least for MBSR in healthcare, the McMindfulness label is not justified and that early sources already used mindfulness for health. Running the check keeps secular practice tied to ethics and care, which secular Buddhists themselves say is its point.

What is the difference between secular Buddhism and traditional Buddhism in practice?

Both meditate, keep ethical precepts and read the Buddha’s discourses; the difference is in what the practice is for and what is believed. Traditional Buddhism, in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s description, accepts rebirth, karma and the wider Buddhist cosmology, and aims at liberation from the round of rebirth. Secular Buddhism, as Stephen Batchelor puts it, replaces that “logic of transcendence” with a “logic of care”: the goal is to embrace suffering and respond to it in this life, and claims about rebirth are set aside or held agnostically. Secular groups tend to be peer-led without vows, lineage or monastics. Bodhi also describes an “immanent” middle position that avoids doctrinal questions without rejecting them, and the scholar Richard Payne argues that secular and religious Buddhism are not mutually exclusive categories.

Can you be a Buddhist without believing in rebirth or karma across lifetimes?

Buddhists answer this differently. Stephen Batchelor proposes agnosticism — acknowledging honestly that one does not know what happens at death, neither asserting nor denying rebirth — and calls it a Buddhist middle way, while granting that the historical Buddha himself accepted rebirth. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi argue that rebirth is woven through the discourses, defines the stages of awakening and is part of right view, so setting it aside means practising a reduced version of the path, though Ṭhānissaro grants some benefit is possible without it. The teacher Gil Fronsdal practises a “naturalistic Buddhism” that does not require supernatural beliefs but does not reject them either. Whether that still counts as Buddhist depends on whose definition you accept.

Is secular Buddhism real Buddhism, or a new practice derived from it?

This is genuinely disputed, and the page takes no side. Secular Buddhists such as the Secular Buddhist Network say they do not claim theirs is the definitive Buddhism but regard it as founded on the historical Buddha’s teaching, stripped of later cultural and supernatural overlays. Critics answer that this reverses the history: Bhikkhu Bodhi calls secular approaches a pragmatic training derived from Buddhism rather than a more evolved dharma, and Philippe Turenne argues that Batchelor uses sources selectively, equates his reading with “original” Buddhism and represents traditional Buddhism unfairly. Batchelor himself has said a secular dharma may end up decoupling from traditional Buddhism and perhaps dropping the word Buddhist altogether.

What are Stephen Batchelor’s four tasks and how do they change the Four Noble Truths?

In the Buddha’s first discourse each noble truth comes with a duty: suffering should be completely understood, its origin given up, its cessation realised and the path developed. In After Buddhism Stephen Batchelor argues the doctrine may have begun as these tasks rather than as truth-claims, making the dharma a task-based ethics. Secular Buddhists summarise the tasks as ELSA — Embrace life, Let reactivity be, See reactivity stop, Actualise a path — and treat them as a feedback loop applied to real situations. The main shift is in the third: cessation becomes the noticeable moments when reactivity fades, rather than final freedom from rebirth, which is where traditional readers most disagree.

How is secular Buddhism different from mindfulness programs like MBSR and the insight movement?

They are related but not the same. The Insight Meditation movement — for example the Insight Meditation Society, opened in 1976 by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield — teaches vipassana and loving-kindness within the context of the Buddha’s teachings; the Secular Buddhist Network describes it as lay-oriented but still keeping teacher authority, lineage and nirvana as transcendence. Clinical programmes such as MBSR and MBCT teach mindfulness for health outside any Buddhist frame. Secular Buddhism is an explicitly Buddhist philosophy of life, with ethics and the four tasks at its centre, that uses insight-style meditation. Critics such as Ronald Purser worry that mindfulness detached from tradition becomes private self-management; Bhikkhu Anālayo disputes that charge for MBSR.

What do traditional Buddhists and scholars criticise about secular Buddhism?

Four criticisms recur. First, that rebirth and karma are integral to the teaching, not removable add-ons — the argument of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi, who warns that casting doctrines away may cut off the bloodline that keeps the dharma alive. Second, that secular readings are selective: Bodhi argues the much-quoted Kālāma discourse is misread as permission to believe what one likes, and Philippe Turenne argues Batchelor uses sources selectively and represents traditional Buddhism unfairly. Third, that detached practice slides into self-help, the McMindfulness critique Ronald Purser makes of mainstream mindfulness. Fourth, from Seth Zuihō Segall, a sympathetic practitioner, that the word “secular” implies rejecting religion and the sacred. Secular Buddhists have answered each, and the debates continue.

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