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Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

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Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#241

Post by rg111 »

akprasad wrote: post #222
rg111 wrote: post #197

> Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists, Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities, burning incense, worshiping at an altar — those are all fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reform…

You seem to take the author's language here as describing early Buddhism, but I think she is describing the observed history of Asian Buddhism, presumably East and Southeast Asian Buddhism. I think this is a clearer reading given that she starts with "Asian Buddhists," focuses on the Burmese tradition, mentions again "for most of its history in Asia ," mentions Jack Kornfield who studied in the Thai tradition, etc. F…

It's fair is she mentions that she is describing Buddhism as per current SE-Asian practices.

Then it is fair.

> The problem is if you mistake this white American Buddhism for all Buddhism, or claim that this is the “right” or “only” way to practice Buddhism.

But she wants to make the readers believe that her version of Buddhism is the "right" way to do it? And she is rebuking the white Buddhists for deviating from it?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#242

Post by rayiner »

sg47 wrote: post #234
RicoElectrico wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bet such a sketch would cause outrage these days. I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society. For all our social progress in this millennium, we regressed in many ways people don't readily notice. This was mostly an American thing in the past; but it spilled into Europe over time.

We have regressed by overturning abortion, enacting subversive election laws and in general destroying the fabric of democracy.

> overturning abortion

More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongside eugenics (alongside which it originated) as a mistaken wrong turn in the arc of progress.

[1] In a series of cases, most recently RR v. Poland, the EHCR has declined calls to overturn Poland’s near ban on abortions, deciding them on narrow grounds that the government had prevented abortions that were legal under exceptions to Polish law. It has gone only so far as to suggest there is a right in case of risk to maternal life.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#243

Post by NoraCodes »

javajosh wrote: post #139

>It feels anti human. Because it is. The zeitgeist on the left (so, academia) is consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and a great deal of intellectual work has been done to post hoc rationalize these feelings and package them in catchy phrases. Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some technically useful meanings to anthropologist…

> To stop seeing the world as purely an evil constructed on the mass graves of the innocent. Even if it were true (and in some sense it is) this is still the world we have. [...] To be sure, some things can be done, within a generation or two. Maybe three. But after a while, what's done is done and you have to move on.

Putting aside the rhetorical tools you're discussing, what would you say to people who currently feel the effects of these historical, and contemporary oppressions? People with unwanted pregnancies who find themselves unable to access abortions, African-Americans who are descended from families that were unable to purchase property they would have been able to afford due to redlining and are thus at a disadvantage, Gen X Jews whose parents were denied entry to elite schools and whose families thus suffered economically, gay and trans people who are currently, in the US, facing a government that has all but stated it wants to eliminate even the tenuous hold on legal existence they have?

I am all for telling people to find the good in the world. There is a lot of it! But some of these negative phenomena that sociologists describe have real consequences for real people in the present day, and I don't really see how "just stop thinking about it" is a solution for them.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#244

Post by rg111 »

pessimizer wrote: post #216
rg111 wrote: post #197

> Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists, Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities, burning incense, worshiping at an altar — those are all fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reform…

That paragraph has specific names and references so I can verify what is being said. You're just offering bare contrary claims and drama. > Where do I even start? Start with a claim you think is wrong, and explain how it is wrong with enough information that I don't have to trust you.

Read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught". You will know how far deviated incense burning and bowing to pictures are from Buddha's teaching.

Buddhism is a very rational philosophy. If you study Buddhism in the light of it being a protest against established thiestic, ritualistic religion in India, these will start making much more sense.

As far as McMeditation is from Buddhism, the same is true for regular people worshipping Buddha like a god.

Religion might have democratic elements, but truth isn't democratic.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#245

Post by writeinpencil »

haswell wrote: post #225
javajosh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That some (on the left) have picked up on academic usage of some words or models is perhaps more accurate, and the misuse of words and terms. That is absolutely true. And there has even been some pushback from the academics who coined these terms. But, in the end, words are tools, and tools meet a need, and there was apparently a great need for a new narrative that explained personal feelings of failure and self loa…

I recently discovered Sam Harris, and started going down a bit of a rabbit hole that is his body of work. He has his critics, and I haven't spent enough time in his materials to have a fully formed opinion of my own, but I found that following his work unearths some interesting insights about these culture wars. His arguments about religion and society's collective unwillingness to have an honest conversation about i…

"Above all, no zealotry." --Talleyrand

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#246

Post by mekoka »

routerl wrote: post #192

In the 21st century, in the West, "Buddhism" is treated as a set of stress-relief techniques and slogans. This isn't strictly limited to the West: at least two of Taiwan's Four Great Mountains (i.e. schools of Buddhism) are similarly inclined, with additional cultish elements thrown in for good measure. The cultish elements had already developed independently within corporate cultures, but adding Buddhist slogans and…

A way in is better than no way at all.

A friend of mine was concerned about a similar (mis)use of psychedelics in the service of productivity. Except that neither Buddhism, nor psychedelics discriminate in the kind of insights you end up with. So as workers are encouraged to boost creativity through microdosing, employers might be surprised to see some employees quit after they got curious, took a bit too much Ayahuasca one weekend, like it's described in some part of the microdosing forum, and started reevaluating their life as a result.

Similarly with mindfulness, first you dip your toes with some guided stuff, organized twice a week by HR. Next thing you know YouTube is suggesting you check out this Osho guy and Thich Nhat Hanh, where you find out you've only been scratching the surface. Then one day you quit your job because it disagree with your conception of right action.

A way in.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#247

Post by rg111 »

realreality wrote: post #219
rg111 wrote: post #197

> Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists, Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities, burning incense, worshiping at an altar — those are all fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reform…

If you read the “Inquiry of Ugra”, you’ll see that the ideal layperson is nothing like the average American Buddhist. The layperson is supposed to live like a monk and hope to be reborn as a proper monastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugraparipṛcchā_Sūtra

This is just an answer to one person's enquiry.

I have read another which I cannot remember the name for.

Buddha, with the help of ten directions, tells a layman to do his ten-fold duties.

One of them is keeping his wife happy, another one is about having friends, another one is about earning money and growing wealth.

Please read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught".

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#248

Post by mensetmanusman »

andsoitis wrote: post #212
javajosh wrote: post #139

>It feels anti human. Because it is. The zeitgeist on the left (so, academia) is consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and a great deal of intellectual work has been done to post hoc rationalize these feelings and package them in catchy phrases. Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some technically useful meanings to anthropologist…

> personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing Do you think the Christian concept of "original sin" planted (at least some of) the seeds for this mental model? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

self-loathing is technically a type of sin… but that doesn’t mean peoples conceptions match the teachings (they often don’t).

CCC 405

“ Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants.

It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering, and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin — an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence.”

Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.”

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#249

Post by InitialLastName »

namlem wrote: post #185
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness." Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of inequality and systemic threats to the continued survival of the species. The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about what is still happening now - and how the narratives from the past continue to be used to justify it. Ignoring this is neit…

Obsessing over injustices you have no control over is neither normal nor healthy.

Right, but we've built a world where people are loudly obsessed with issues they have (infinitesimal) control over because if they paid attention to issues closer to home they might look up from their phones, and the advertisers can't have that.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#250

Post by mensetmanusman »

namlem wrote: post #183
wrycoder wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing I’d suggest that it’s not about those things for the accusers themselves. It’s simply about gaining power. And they do it by preying upon “personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing” in other well-meaning people. They’ve discovered that yelling “cultural appropriation” works quite well with people who are constantly looking for other people to feel sorry for - whic…

I don't think so. I think it really is about guilt and shame, because these people just rebranded Catholicism without realizing it. Most of them probably grew up Catholic I bet, and internalized Catholic ideology to such a degree that they can't help but view everything through that lens.

Europe was Catholic long before the US, so it’s something else unique to the US…
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