Buddhism and Horror

I occupy a rather peculiar niche in life — I am both a practitioner of the Buddha's serene and non-violent dharma, and a devotee of the grotesque, fantastical, and blood-spattered art of nightmares commonly known as horror fiction. Both aspects of my life arose organically and without conscious design. I became a horror writer first — in the late 1980s — for the simple reason that the horror genre allowed me to contact my writer's voice. I became a Buddhist a few years later, in 1994, for another simple reason: I was tired of my habitual misery.

From the very beginning, these two parts of myself had a tense marriage. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness and the ethical precepts seemed at odds with the almost masochistic delving into the hideous that is standard operating procedure for the horror novelist. Yet both of these things nourished me. My writing allowed me to explore ideas about reality and the world that healed me. My Buddhist practice allowed me to soften my identifications and gain more joy from life. Interestingly enough, Buddhism did something else for me: it helped me become a better horror writer. Why? By learning how to stay in the body, my investigations into the macabre became more grounded and authentic, and the writing became more chilling.

Inevitably, it seemed, horror fiction and Buddhism would merge more fully. I began writing Buddhist-themed stories. Both my completed novel, White Light, and my novel-in-progress, Raptures, are novels that draw heavily on Buddhist philosophy. Over the years, my Buddhist friends, bemused and somewhat stunned by my chosen form of expression, have asked me, "What is Buddhist horror?" I've given this question a lot of thought, and I've come up with two answers, one philosophical and the other pointing specifically to the content of my own work.

Philosophically, Buddhism and horror have one very important thing in common: both embody a radical skepticism about the nature of so-called "consensus" reality. In horror fiction, when reality is torn apart, our sense of safety is shattered and fear is likely to arise — but we may learn a lot about the world of our minds in the process, about the simple things we take for granted, and we'll have fun doing it. An English ghost story is a perfect example of this "tearing apart" of reality, as are the "cosmic horror" tales of H. P. Lovecraft. In Buddhist practice, when insight arises fear will result when the ego, desperately holding on to its habits and identifications, recoils at the yawning emptiness before it. In that case, the ego can be trained to release itself and the experience of insight may become sustained. In the case of a really good horror novel, the reader's imagination about reality may be altered forever and certain aberrant images may burn in the mind for years.

“Buddhist horror” as expressed in my own novels takes this form: people’s dreams, fantasies, and obsessions become physically embodied and follow them around, terrorizing their waking life. It isn't any ancient demon from "out there" they have to worry about, no space aliens, giant worms, vampires, ghosts, zombies, or engineered world-ravaging viruses — it is simply the contents of the human mind given flesh. Now that's what a Buddhist would find scary.

There is in Buddhism the basic teaching that all conditioned things arise from unconditioned Mind — thoughts, dreams, physical objects like ashtrays and planets, concepts, philosophies, viewpoints — it all arises from the primordial emptiness which is reality itself. When beings identify with the conditioned, they suffer. When they let go of such identifications, they can release into the true nature of unconditioned Buddha Mind. Between these two poles (which are really the same, samsara and nirvana being one) a life of struggle and joy ensues. And as long as people are afraid of facing reality — the truth of impermanence and death, the emptiness of all composite things — we will need an art of fear to help us navigate the phases of the path that leads us to knowing who we truly are. Horror is really about being playful with our existential dilemmas, and in a sense, perhaps this describes Buddhism as well. For the moment, this is the best way I know of describing the intersection of Buddhism and horror.

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