[HN Gopher] Five mildly anti-Buddhist essays
___________________________________________________________________
Five mildly anti-Buddhist essays
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 59 points
Date : 2023-01-06 22:14 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (sashachapin.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sashachapin.substack.com)
| dav_Oz wrote:
| Long lasting (religious) traditions inevitably will weave
| universalities of the human condition into the fabric of cultural
| practices.
|
| If one traces back Christianity historically, it grows more like
| a sponge taking in concepts and practices from its cultural rich
| surroundings. Before becoming the official "religion" of the
| Roman Empire it was wildly heterodox. Early Christianity is a
| wild ride. Even after being domesticated, latinized, canonized,
| homogenised and ultimately politicized looking back on the time
| line it unfolds like a fractal of cultural manifolds (e.g.
| "negative theology" [0] or more recent "existentialism" [1]).
|
| "Buddhism" was spread - locally more limited - similarly through
| conquest and enforcing social order but never gained the momentum
| of "Christianity" or "Islam" and thus in its smaller and more
| fractions contains more "diversity" and is harder to point to as
| a monolithic block.
|
| The exercise of bringing something to the table by being even
| mildly anti-Buddhist, anti-Christian, anti-#insert_religion_here#
| strikes me as fruitless in these globalised times and kind of
| weirdly _pre-anthropological_.
|
| The observations obviously stem from personal experience with
| different facets of modern/westernized Buddhism and is more
| descriptive of the author than the subject which is put
| sneakingly forward.
|
| [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existentialism
| davesque wrote:
| Having grown up in Boulder, Colorado, one of the epicenters of
| self-regarding, American Buddhism, the author's skepticism is
| relatable.
|
| I imagine that almost every kid from Boulder goes through a
| Buddhist phase. Some come out the other end with useful
| introspective skills. Hopefully, they also managed not to acquire
| the odor of self-righteousness in the process. But the chances of
| avoiding this actually seem pretty slim. I knew a lot of folks in
| the scene who came off like caricatures. And of course their
| practice didn't seem to bring them any recognizable successes in
| life.
|
| That being said, it still feels like Buddhism has more of an
| empirical quality than any other major belief system I've
| encountered. But, practically speaking, the difference ends up
| seeming marginal. At the end of the day, it's still a religion.
| It takes an unusual kind of personal to distill something useful
| from becoming involved with it.
| gizajob wrote:
| If a philosophy doesn't work for you, then don't follow it...
| bitforger wrote:
| It makes me sad that many people will use this as an opportunity
| to write off Buddhist practices. Please don't! It has personally
| helped me greatly. Just remember:
|
| 1. The goal is to end suffering, so if a practice is making you
| suffer stop doing it.
|
| 2. Do what works for you. The only truth is what you can directly
| experience in the laboratory of your life. All the other
| teachings are just suggestions.
|
| And if you'd like a concise overview of Theravada Buddhism (which
| is somewhat easier to grok without the added teachings of
| Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen, etc.) I highly recommend [1] and [2],
| the second of which can be read in a day or two.
|
| [1]: https://a.co/d/iiAtDs5 [2]: https://a.co/d/asUIQUR
| [deleted]
| csours wrote:
| Is there a name for believing in something enough to make it
| work, but not so much that you really believe it will solve your
| problems?
|
| Like Agile Software Development - you can make it work, but it
| won't solve your problems. You still have to solve your problems.
| See also test driven development.
|
| I was raised in a strict Christian Fundamentalist religion, then
| I fell in love with rational skepticism, now I think I'm a
| humanist (whatever that means)
|
| I think humanity has evolved religion uncountable times over the
| centuries - our minds strongly desire an organizing principle. It
| is highly inefficient to avoid coming to a conclusion; but many
| important details hide behind things that are both true and
| satisfying (see Field Guide to Human Error by Dekker for how this
| applies to airplane crashes).
|
| I would ask that at least once a week, identify a thing that is
| satisfying and true, and list details that hide behind that
| conclusion.
| guerrilla wrote:
| pragmatism a la William James
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Believe
| csours wrote:
| Thanks!
| johndhi wrote:
| My background is as a follower of Osho (the guru from Wild Wild
| Country). I have read some of the Buddhist texts (Dhammapada,
| Diamond Sutra), and I've spent some but not a ton of time with
| "Buddhist" teachers.
|
| My view of this article: while I appreciate anyone writing about
| religion today, I don't really love what the article says and it
| sounds a bit like a general criticism of organized religion from
| someone hoping it's something it of course isn't.
|
| What does it matter that your friends aren't serious or religious
| enough for your liking? This is ultimately a solo pursuit. What
| does it matter that you can find a sutra from Gautama that sounds
| sexist? This isn't about Gautama. What does it matter that an
| interpretation of what Gautama said is 'modern' or 'original'?
| This isn't about that.
|
| This (religion) is about your personal religiousness. Your
| spirituality. There's a lot of beauty in the world of Buddhism to
| experience. It isn't for me, either, but I'm not angry or
| resentful about that.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| This person is part of a weird New Wave of Twitterati Buddhists-
| not-Buddhists who are happy to throw out huge chunks of the
| dharma in the name of going their own way. It's not bearing good
| fruits. This person also wrote a long screed on divorce that was
| really about spritzing their favorite perfume scent and barely
| mentioning the person they divorced except as backdrop to the
| great "I". [1] It's a new wave that thrives on egoic displays
| like these, undermining big portions of very helpful dharma
| teachings like ethics.
|
| Look folks, I know it's vogue in a post post post world to
| deconstruct all the things but there's a reason why Buddhism has
| thrived for thousands of years producing good, kind people and
| rebel dharmas have withered on the vine. Yes, there are
| exceptions but overall, it's been wildly effective as a method
| for awakening that also spares others violence. That said, there
| are good rebel dharma people out there like Daniel Ingram who do
| promote ethics as an essential cornerstone of practice (and it
| is, try it).
|
| The Twitterati of dharma are not it. They do not come bearing the
| gift of conscious revolution, they come bearing more poisoned
| seeds of self delusion because that's what Twitter thrives on:
| the grand illusion of Self thrumming to the crowd of their
| creation.
|
| In this particular article, Sasha declares that endgame
| meditation looks like more neuroses, pride and immoral acts and
| that's the dirty secret of the community. Well, yes, when your
| community looks like Twitter and you think you've endgamed
| Buddhism, that is what it will look like because you are not
| actually attained in anything other than building shrines to
| self.
|
| Sasha then declares at the end that one should build strong
| attachments to things and allow them to wound you, the exact
| opposite of craving and bondage, which the Buddha asks us to
| avoid. This person is playing games with the Buddha, playing
| games with dharma, and writes for a crowd that will pay them to
| continue playing these games.
|
| My ultimate point here, which weaves in with some of the rebukes
| I've been writing lately here, is more focus needs to be placed
| on fundamentals and _really grokking them_ with the aid of actual
| accomplished teachers who have spent decades endgaming your
| chosen practice. People of real ethical fiber. People who do not
| need your money to continue existing, do not want it, and have no
| motive to take it. People like Thannisaro Bhikku [2] or honest to
| God forest monks or other renunciates who demonstrate supreme
| compassion, generosity, and whose actions are blameless. These
| are people worthy of giving advice on the topic.
|
| [1] https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/my-recent-divorce-
| andor-d...
|
| [2]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B9%ACh%C4%81nissaro_Bhik...
| syawaworht wrote:
| Yea, I don't think he's reached a point where he's seen the
| territory apart from the map. His post is still a lot of
| confusion running in circles in the space of concepts and mind.
|
| When it is seen clearly how the mind is delusion, then the rest
| of the teachings fall naturally from that observation.
| WhiteBlueSkies wrote:
| I've lost count of Tibetan masters that have abused their
| students. Buddhism is simply not what is thought of on first
| sight and he is absolutely correct about it.
|
| It's an incredibly depressing religion. The premise is
| basically get off the wheel(of samsara) and exist or cease
| existing in Nirvana and or keep suffering.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| This is why I write returning to fundamentals of practice,
| which is not Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is the
| psychedelics of Buddhism: it's not for everybody and many
| people have touched its live wire and been smoked including
| teachers who Tibetan Buddhist students are taught to view as
| infallible deities. Zen has this same set of problems to a
| lesser degree. Go back to basics. Practice what is good at
| the beginning, the middle and the end. What brings harmony to
| you and your relationships. Let that be your test.
|
| The depression is assuming life has the lasting qualities
| we're seeking and continuing to be disappointed until we are
| crippled. People try and put that on Buddhism because they
| refuse to see it. The Buddha was actually offering an
| incredibly hopeful message: see this mass of aggregate
| sensations for what it is and be liberated, be truly happy
| without dependence on conditions, without dependence on the
| world to offer you anything.
|
| All it takes is to see people, interacted with people who are
| living examples of this, paragons of whatever is furthest
| away from this "depression" you ascribe to Buddhism. They
| walk around with huge smiles on their face. Every interaction
| with them is pure love, pure compassion. They do not have bad
| days and here they are with nothing more than a robe and a
| bowl to their name.
|
| May all people know real kindness, real happiness. I'll tell
| you here and now, what Sasha is peddling is not it. I
| strongly condemn what Sasha is offering and other teachers
| who assume the mantle of power for their own egos. He has
| abused his position of authority to distort the message of
| the Buddha, to bring confusion to the path and has brought
| confusion to his own life that is disharmonious, a life of
| more attachment not less, a life of imbalance not balance and
| he is passing out this message to anyone who will listen.
| This is very bad practice, very bad ethics, because he
| condemns not only himself, he condemns anyone who buys into
| his poison.
| WhiteBlueSkies wrote:
| But you can't just drop Tibetan Buddhism just like that.
| It's a tradition going back thousands of years and I think
| Dzogchen should be the Northern star in a mad world taking
| us to peace and happiness. After all they say it's the
| highest vehicle for liberation. So it's very sad to see
| them producing people which are accused of ethical
| transgressions.
|
| What do you consider the paragon of Buddhist practice?
| Maybe I can check them out online. I've hung around DhO and
| people complain that Buddhist practitioners have more of an
| emptiness dryness aspect to them as opposed to lively
| joyous qualities of other traditions like Advaita. I'm not
| impressed with Zen masters. They espouse very dry rigorous
| qualities and they don't appear to me carelessly joyous and
| happy.
| nativecoinc wrote:
| I have been part of a Tibetan sect (a Western sect
| associated with Karma Kagyu). The people there said that
| Tibetan Buddhism was the most advanced form of Buddhism.
| But also that it was only for those who were ready for
| it. Theravada Buddhism to them would be the simplest
| form: less powerful but probably also less dangerous.
|
| Those people wouldn't for one second judge a person who
| wanted to practice a "less advanced" form of Buddhism.
| It's all about what the person is ready for, according to
| them.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > But you can't just drop Tibetan Buddhism just like
| that.
|
| You can if you're doing a "no true Buddhist" argument.
| dang wrote:
| If you like this, Evan Thompson's book "Why I am not a Buddhist"
| (a riff on Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian") is an
| interesting critique of Buddhist modernism.
|
| His father started the Lindisfarne Association, which was a sort
| of highbrow hippie ecumenical colony, well known in the post-60s
| counterculture (somebody here will know a lot more about this
| than I do!), where the likes of Stewart Brand and the Dalai Lama
| would rub shoulders on panels. So he grew up around spiritual
| luminaries and consciousness-raisers. The American adaptation of
| Buddhism matured in circles like this, so he had a front-row
| seat, but from a child's perspective.
|
| There's an interesting discussion at
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSq98tNTlM&t=9s between Thompson
| and Robert Wright, who wrote "Why Buddhism is True" and who,
| although he oddly insists he isn't, seems exactly the sort of
| well-intentioned Buddhist modernist the OP (and Thompson) are
| writing about.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| This is really interesting. Thanks a lot for sharing.
|
| Right now I am reading quite a lot of stuff by Christopher
| Hitchens, which as you might know was very vocal about
| religious topics (and very much against most of it).
|
| I haven't found much that he has said about Buddhism [0], but
| I'll check Thompson's book very soon.
|
| [0]:
| https://trueancestor.typepad.com/true_ancestor/2007/05/chris...
| spicymaki wrote:
| I practiced Zen Buddhism for many years and left my sangha due to
| many of the points that Sasha brought up:
|
| Many of the teachers and students I knew were not rising above
| their neuroses. Many of them were masking their life problems
| with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with
| them. We would cycle through the same concerns repeatedly without
| any progress. I started to figure out that the process was to
| drop the issue and disengage with it. The problem is that does
| not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you
| need to face your problems constantly in the real world.
|
| I agree that many modern Buddhist schools stray away from the
| Buddha's original teachings (as we know it from the Pali Cannon).
| Many branches won't even really teach what Buddha said; only
| interpretations from later traditions. We did not talk about
| Buddha much in Zen practice at all. Much more time was given to
| Dogen, and the Chinese masters than to Buddha. In Zen everyone is
| a Buddha so Siddhartha Gautama (O.G. Buddha) gets marginalized.
| There is also a pantheon of Buddhas which dilutes things even
| more. Buddhism has a pretty straight forward thesis (Four Noble
| Truths), but it has become esoteric after centuries of
| appropriation and reinterpretation.
|
| Modern Western Buddhism pushes meditation above all of the other
| practices. We spent more time meditating than anything else,
| which was different than how the early Buddhists and even how
| most Buddhists in Asia practice. This leads to people thinking
| that all they need to do is sit and not change anything about
| their lives and it will magically work out. In fact in Japanese
| Zen Dogen essentially states that sitting with the correct
| posture (zazen) is enlightened practice itself. This
| enlightenment is transitory, so one could imagine that the longer
| you sit zazen the more time you get to stay in this enlightened
| state. You can see how this could become an obsession. This in
| practice leads to a lack of engagement which would have you
| thinking you are actually putting in the work, but you are just
| eschewing reality.
|
| Buddhism has a rich tradition of debating and challenging
| teachers. In fact the Pali Cannon is full of these debates.
| However, these days if you bring up a question or objection to
| some teachers they don't really engage with you. In Zen you can
| cover up inconsistencies with esoteric vocabulary and wave it
| away. Just sit and it will be okay.
|
| Buddha in the Pali Cannon was actually more human than we give
| him credit for. He made mistakes and learned from them (even
| after nirvana). He got old and died. He scolded his monks for
| breaking monastic rules. The Buddha represented in the Pali
| Cannon can be raw at times which goes against the ideal Buddha
| archetype.
|
| +1 from a long time fan of the Buddha
| gizajob wrote:
| And yet Dogen did tons of zazen. Try a different Sangha.
| There's flakes everywhere.
| sandinmyjoints wrote:
| I imagine you may already be familiar with his work, but
| "Buddha in the Pali Canon was actually more human than we give
| him credit for" is a huge theme of Stephen Batchelor's recent
| books such as Confession of a Buddhist Atheist and After
| Buddhism. His focus on lived experience, pragmatism, and the
| four great tasks (instead of four noble truths) has really
| resonated with me.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Your comment is so insightful and interesting.
|
| I am not sure whether I'd agree with everything you said, but
| simply because I only tangentially got exposed to "western" zen
| and buddhism, through some zen monasteries in California. But
| you put certain things/concepts in words that I didn't manage
| to express clearly by myself, so thanks for that.
| giardia wrote:
| This post got me wondering, and I hope somebody in here can
| inform me. Wasn't Zen one of the only schools that wasn't wiped
| out in Japan because they didn't place so much emphasis on the
| warrior priest? I seem to recall some shogun or another felt
| threatened and purged almost all of the Buddhist monasteries at
| the time.
|
| Seems like the Zen school wouldn't be such a threat if they
| just sat inside all day working on their posture.
| nequo wrote:
| > This leads to people thinking that all they need to do is sit
| and not change anything about their lives and it will magically
| work out.
|
| Do I understand it correctly that you're saying that such
| people only try to practice samadhi instead of sila, samadhi,
| and panna? So that they neglect most of the noble eightfold
| path?
|
| The Thai forest tradition has been very meditation-focused (as
| was, in my reading, the Pali canon) but they emphasize the
| importance of the rest of the eightfold path too. The Pacific
| Hermitage had good discussions uploaded to YouTube for
| example.[1] And the UK and Australia branches seem to have had
| a similar sutta-centric and practical focus.
|
| [1] https://youtube.com/@PacificHermitage
| dang wrote:
| > Many of them were masking their life problems with the
| Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them
|
| The phrase "spiritual bypass", which I'm sure you know (it is a
| cliche by now) is often used to describe this phenomenon. I
| recently learned that it has a specific origin: it was coined
| in the early 80s by the psychotherapist and Buddhist John
| Welwood, who had a lot of experience with it in spiritual
| communities. There's a great interview with Welwood from 2011
| about this. I have a pdf somewhere, but all I can find online
| at the moment is this excerpt:
| https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-
| by....
|
| The relationship between spirituality and therapy is endlessly
| fascinating to me. (Edit: it's no coincidence that the OP
| eventually ends up talking about IFS.)
| robocat wrote:
| IFS -- I am guessing Internal Family Systems:
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model (I
| live on one edge of world and many therapies are alien to
| me).
| colordrops wrote:
| My experience with modern western Buddhism is that insight and
| self improvement are explicitly treated as two separate things,
| especially in non-dual traditions. You can achieve insight
| without bettering yourself, though it is certainly recommended
| to better yourself. Often therapy in parallel is recommended to
| students.
|
| In a study where no-self is an objective, it is no mystery why
| problems with a particular ego are not always addressed.
| prisonality wrote:
| > He made mistakes and learned from them (even after nirvana)
|
| His very first attempt to transmit the Dhamma ended up in
| failure (the guy before the first five) - and that made him to
| question, worked on and fixed the way it was delivered.
| Viability1936 wrote:
| It's very weird seeing people online have debates about Buddhism
| that actually have nothing to do with what the historical Buddha
| taught. Everything mentioned in the article and most comments
| here are akin to making arguments against Christianity based on
| why Joseph Smith was a fraud. To point out that vajrayana is
| mostly in direct contradiction to what is in the pali Canon and
| the Chinese agamas is a historical fact, not a no true Scotsman.
|
| The op was hard to finish after the immediate misunderstanding of
| the sutta on metta and bandits cutting you limb from limb. If
| you're interested in these topics, there are people who practice
| and understand them. As a general rule, it's probably not a good
| idea to form your opinions on meditation practice from self help
| blogs.
| prisonality wrote:
| It feels the entire article is one big strawman: I tried to
| find for words like: "four noble truth" or "eightfold path" and
| couldn't find them -- I'm not surprised.
| thefaux wrote:
| I was recently reading Richard Hamming's The Art of Doing Science
| and Engineering which has a quotation (page 25) allegedly from
| the Buddha which I think gets at the heart of many of the issues
| described in the article: The Buddha told his disciples, "Believe
| nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter
| if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own common sense."
| I say the same to you--<i>you must assume responsibility for what
| you believe.</i>
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Buddha didn't invent Buddhism and none of the scriptures or
| discourses were written down until almost 400 years after he
| died. As Alan Watts used to say, Buddhism is essentially Hinduism
| "stripped for export", given you really can't be a Hindu if you
| don't live in place where others are Hinduing.
|
| Much of what we know about his words and lessons were memorized
| by his followers, some of which had perfect audio recall. Buddha
| himself was purported to be capable of projecting imagery into
| the minds of others.
|
| Buddha likely indicated asceticism should be avoided and most
| would find some ease in the work they must do to be satisfied
| with life by following a middle way, or measured and balanced
| approach to living life as a householder. His followers were the
| exception to this guidance, as they sought a higher understanding
| and ability to teach others the dharma.
|
| This middle way is mostly derived from the logic of ethical
| behavior, and these truths may be discovered without assistance
| if one considers and puts attention on them. The Four Noble
| Truths are just a means to remember the pickle we find ourselves
| in with our thoughts and conditions and give way to the Noble
| Eightfold Path which indicates where we tend to wander from the
| path of understanding and peace with ourselves and others.
|
| Past that, the only way to see the truth of things is to sit and
| note breath until you see the truth for yourself. Then, suffering
| is reduced and you continue on, as if having seen the solution to
| a puzzle you didn't know the answer to a moment ago. This is the
| more advanced route and not suggested for householders, nor
| should householders attempt to teach the dharma to others.
|
| In short, being a householder following the path means you be
| present with your thoughts. Here. Now. Avoid negative emotions.
| Speak your truths. Avoid dissonance. Break it where it helps the
| most people. And, above all, die well.
| chasil wrote:
| Krishna in the Bhagivad-Gita is incredibly violent. He
| slaughters the armies of friend and foe alike (Arjuna and his
| brothers) and reveals himself to Arjuna as a fanged eater of
| worlds.
|
| Gotama Buddha tried to defend himself from Mara before the
| Bhodi tree, until he stopped in realization that the earth
| himself would protect him. I believe that is the most violent
| act of Gotama Buddha, but I am not certain.
|
| There is a profound difference here.
| balsam wrote:
| Now that you mention it, Christianity is Judaism stripped for
| export. And that's discounting the BBC take that Jesus was a
| Buddhist monk.
| wolfhumble wrote:
| It would be if it wasn't for Jesus Christ, but then being a
| Christian wouldn't make any sense at all.
|
| From a Christian point of view - see Romans 11:11-31 - the
| Jews/Israel is seen as the cultivated olive tree, and all
| Christian Gentiles - i.e. all Christians that are not Jewish
| - are seen as "a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to
| nature, into a cultivated olive tree" i.e. the Jewish/Israeli
| tree (Romans 11:24). So as a Christian Gentile you therefore
| take part in God's words and promises to the Jews/Israel as a
| grafted olive tree.
|
| But Jesus Christ brought something completely new to the
| table. He say about Himself that He came to fullfil the Law
| and the Prophets of the Old Testament (Matthew 5:17-20). He
| also said: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one
| comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
|
| In this way Christianity is not Judaism stripped for export,
| Jesus Christ is the culmination of all that was said in the
| Law and by the Prophets.
| saulpw wrote:
| > As Alan Watts used to say, Buddhism is essentially Hinduism
| "stripped for export"
|
| Except a fundamental pronouncement of Buddhism is "anatta" or
| "anatman", which is aggravatingly translated as "no-self".
| There are many layers to this "no-self" but one of them is that
| it is direct stated opposition to the Hindu Atman, the highest
| Self, which can be experienced as a kind of unitive state. The
| Buddha was effectively saying "Hinduism practice, yes, and
| Atman is along the path, but don't stop there, beyond this Big
| Self is No-Self".
| nativecoinc wrote:
| I learned nothing new from this piece.
|
| - Buddhist monks being celibate is well-known
|
| - Being comically (to a normal person) non-violent (the
| mutilation example) as an ideal is also known
|
| - Either you accept Dukkha as self-evident based on your own life
| experience because you realize that all good things are
| temporary, or you have to go deeper and have to consider the
| implications of eternal "rebirth" (a belief that you cannot use
| your experience to interrogate)
|
| - If merely "the doing of non-evil" is too simple and
| unpassionate to you you can merely take on the small task of
| being a Boddhisattva and save all beings from Samsara
|
| - "Meditation didn't solve all my problems" (paraphrase)-you
| should have read the "chop wood carry water" fine print
|
| > If the conclusion you take from this story is that you should
| be Buddhist, you are absolutely missing the point. The point is
| that we should experiment with everything and pick what best fits
| our situation, reverence be damned.
|
| The author critiques Western Buddhism[1] and yet gives a firm
| "should" for individual ecclecticism, the ultimate Western
| spiritual-but-not-religious lifestyle. Might be nothing wrong
| with that, but it is for sure not a _should_. There _are_
| benefits to trying to stick to one or a few traditions. Maybe,
| for example, the tradition fits your personality and you trust
| the teachers.
|
| > There is a giant hole in the middle of Buddhist contemplative
| teachings. This is the disinclination to engage with mental
| content. [...]
|
| > However, as a default meditative stance, it is an
| overcorrection. First of all, it can lead to, essentially, a
| scolding relationship with the mind, in which you dismiss all of
| your desires and fantasies as undesirable "ego mind."
|
| See the slight of hand? "A giant hole" in the teaching becomes
| "can lead to". The first part is what is taught, while the latter
| part is the interpretation of the student. Of course that often
| does happen, but having a "scolding relationship with the mind"
| is _never_ recommended by any meditation teacher. It is a common
| trap that the student is taught to watch out for and avoid.
|
| > However. My friend Jake, reading this section, correctly
| pointed out that I am engaging in Salad Bar Criticism. People who
| like Buddhism point at some areas of the giant Buddhist meme
| cloud--the giant mass of traditions, observations, and modern
| derivations--and nod approvingly. I am pointing at other areas of
| the giant Buddhist meme cloud and making grunting noises. I can
| only hope that some of us are learning something along the way.
|
| How postmodernist to critique your own essay before we do.
|
| [1] But "Asian Buddhism" is also bad so... or maybe he gives it
| one point for authenticity and deducts one point for
| backwardsness, evening things out?
| akomtu wrote:
| That was a pain to read. It's like an overview of software
| written by a psychologist who argues that curly braces cause
| depression.
|
| If you want to understand buddhism, learn its history, its
| relationship with Bon, learn how it advanced from India to Tibet
| and China, read the debate between Kamalashila and Hashang, and
| learn about the three branches of buddhism: sutra, tantra and
| dzogchen.
|
| All buddhists have the same goal: understand what the true
| reality is, but their methods differ. When you hear about ascetic
| monks - these are mostly caricature western views on the sutra
| followers, they indeed have many rules that they follow
| religiously. Tantrics believe that working with energy is a
| better way, so they have elaborate rituals, they use emotions and
| other forms of energy, and they aren't shy of sex; quite the
| opposite: many lose control and slip into black magic. Dzogchen
| followers take the steepest direct path, and reach the top
| "within one life within one body"; the famous matrix movie, even
| though a caricature, captured many dzogchen ideas right: by
| observing your perception carefully, with utmost attention and
| presence, you'll notice something, and by completing treg-chod
| and thod-gal practices, you'll reach direct perception in one
| life.
| airesearcher wrote:
| The author has a very limited understanding of Buddhism - and as
| he even mentions, he has not studied Vajrayana, the higher levels
| of the teachings. Therefore he doesn't really have a clue and
| frankly is just intellectualizing about what he does not actually
| understand. There are MANY completely incorrect portrayals of
| what Buddhism is about in those essays - based on his many wrong
| views and limited knowledge. This is a case of someone who failed
| to overcome the delusions of their own mind and instead decided
| to let it write essays about why that failure is not actually a
| failure. Nice try, but just digging a deeper hole in Samsara.
| quonn wrote:
| How is ,, Vajrayana, the higher levels of the teachings"? It's
| one of three large subgroups. It would be like calling
| Catholicism the higher level of the teaching as opposed to
| protestant forms ...
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| BSWA focuses the 'early Buddhist texts' https://bswa.org
|
| Their YT is great https://youtube.com/@BuddhistSocietyWA
|
| Related is https://suttacentral.net
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I'll never understand how some people have enough free time to
| write this many words just to say " _actually_ religion is flawed
| ". It's like the guy thought Buddhism was gonna solve all his
| problems, but it didn't, so now he's grasping at all these things
| that pissed him off and passing it off as something others should
| read.
| odiroot wrote:
| > Also, the modern focus on meditation is, well, modern--a result
| of Buddhism finding purchase in the psychology-loving West as a
| sort of innovative lifestyle choice. Most lay Buddhists of
| history did not engage in meditation.
|
| This is the part that resonated the most with me. Never
| understood this (western) obsession with meditation. I have a few
| friends, born and raised in Buddhist homes; not a single one of
| them was taught to meditate.
|
| In any case, I still have a lot of respect for Buddhism. Remember
| your good friend, breath.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Meditation is the fundamental novel thing in Buddhism that
| western religions simply don't have. Prayer has kind of the
| same benefits, but as a layperson I've never experienced
| anything at a Protestant or Catholic church as powerful as
| Buddhist group meditation. It's like experiencing AR but
| without technology, drugs, herbs.
| kibwen wrote:
| I think this is the effect that singing hymns is supposed to
| provide, though doubtlessly the euphoric effect is most
| pronounced in a grand cathedral with its glorious acoustics.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| Maybe the author overstates and understates some things but I'm
| glad to see some pushback on this pass that Buddhism seems to
| get. One only need look at Myanmar to see that Buddhism isn't
| necessarily so perfect.
| hulitu wrote:
| From Christianism: "Do what the priest says, not what the
| priest does".
| sheldorx wrote:
| Would HN allow a blog post titled "five mildly anti-muslim
| essays"?
| dang wrote:
| In principle, sure, but I don't think it's a meaningful
| question because the contexts around Islam and Buddhism could
| not be more different, at least in online Western culture,
| which HN is part of. If an article appeared with that title, it
| would already have a completely different meaning and be
| written for a completely different reason. You can't take such
| a title as an abstraction and perform substitutions on it and
| get meaningful results.
|
| Edit: I suppose I should clarify one more bit. For HN we would
| decide this based not on the title, but rather on the article--
| whether or not it can support an intellectually curious
| conversation without devolving into flamewar, as the site
| mandate calls for
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). My take on
| the OP was "yes it can", although we're starting to see
| religious flamelets eating into the margins even in this
| thread.
| elefanten wrote:
| I certainly hope so. It would be quite surprising and
| unfortunate if not.
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