Who Was the Buddha?

> The Americans who adapted mindfulness in the late-20th century drew on a 19th-century revival of meditation in Burma. And so rather than transmitting an ancient practice, they instead promoted a new spiritual discipline, formulated when Burmese Theravada was suffering in the shadows of the British Empire.

> A feature of the modern mindfulness movement, inherited from fairly recent Burmese innovations, is its appeal to the laity, and hence its essentially therapeutic, rather than salvific, aim. Nothing could be further removed from the Buddha’s radical ideal of sagehood. By insisting on ascetic discipline and a life of homeless wandering, Gotama presented mindfulness as a total life commitment. Practised in this way, attending to the constituents of experience can be transformative: Gotama claimed it is a way of undoing one’s mentally constructed world, along with all its unsatisfactoriness and suffering.

I'm not sure what the author means by saying 'they instead promoted a new spiritual discipline'. I grew up in Burma in a Theravada Buddhists' household. We all knew well that the asceticism is the core of Buddhist teachings. The person who rekindled the meditation practice that is now popular in the west (there are various kinds of meditation beside that method and they are practiced by different groups of people who believe in different things in Myanmar/Burma) was Goenka [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._N._Goenka]. So I'm not sure why the author is saying that 'they promoted' as if Burmese people promoted this. Also, the popularity of Vipassana meditation happens actually much, much later than British rule (like in late 1960s or even later). So there is no connection with it becoming popular and the British Empire.

Most Buddhists in Burma (the one who are somewhat educated about Buddhist scripture) believe that they have to become monks (ascetics) to attain Nirvana, the ultimate goal of any Theravada Buddhists. There is no way they would attain Nirvana without giving up their secular lives and that is clear to everybody thanks to the scripture. So I'm not sure why this author is misinterpreting/misrepresenting the role of Burma in this rise of meditation practice as well as the belief of Burmese people regarding Buddha's teachings.

Having said all that, I became an atheist since 8th grade. The main reason being that I see Buddha's ascetic teachings to be impractical in modern day world. The sole reason Buddha and his follower ascetics can live such peaceful lives was because there were thousands of people earning day to day living and growing food. That's one of the fundamental problems of Buddha's teaching. It is not practical for survival (the bodily reality aka evoluntionary reality as I'd like to put it). Another big issue I have with this seeing of everything as suffering is that if one does that, s/he is simply messing with her/his own mind (meaning making one's mind suffer more than necessary just like puritanical way of seeing sex/masturbation as sinful and shameful behavior). If we learn to see the desire and perturbations as natural (instead of sinful like how Buddhists are taught to see), ephemeral, and even sometimes enjoyable/exciting/stimulating, the whole life in front of us becomes much brighter. Basically, I personally believe that Buddhist's way of seeing things is useful when we need to remind ourselves to not go over the top

Exactly. And the existence of Buddha himself might well be very allegorical.

I love your answer, but I am afraid most buddhists believe that there was a historical buddha.

> So it makes sense, that Buddha has left his family to sit under the tree. But for me this is such a denial of the human nature and thus it feels unnatural, unwise and just like other religions and sects with their doctrines and dogma.

The separation was a during his spiritual search. After he attained what he was looking for he reunited with his son.

Sometimes we have to go away to figure things out. After he reached his goal, the Buddha spent the next fifty years surrounded by people whom he taught and counseled.

Let me flip it for you. What about Alexander the great, or other historical figures? Shouldn't he have stayed home with his family instead of starting a senseless war and then dying in India?

How come this double standard is always trotted out against the Buddha, when all these other conquering, massacring guys get away with it?

Just because the teachings of Jesus aren’t presented in the format you prefer doesn’t mean they can’t be.

It’s not hard to do this, so I’ll leave that as an exercise for you.

Who said the framework has to be useful for atheists?