Sold to the highest Buddha, eh? I can't see this working. Business already has a God - The Market.
Haha - come for the salary, stay for the religious indoctrination! :)
Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
31–40 of 423 posts
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#32How would these people react if they learned that the Buddha said his teachings were to last only 1000 years* if women were not included in the Sangha? And will only last 500 years after women were included?: > “But, Ānanda, if women had not obtained the Going-forth from the home life into homelessness in the Dhamma & Vinaya made known by the Tathāgata, the holy life would have lasted long, the true Dhamma would have…
Well, I don't think there's a conspiracy - accesstoinsight.org is actually an old site that is missing many suttas. It even links to a new updated website (e.g. from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.053.th...) and if you change the URL the sutta you mentioned is actually there: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN8_51.html.
But regarding this, and other, anti-women references in the Pali canon, the passages could be corruptions that don't reflect what the Buddha actually said. Or they could be authentic statements the Buddha made due to genuine beliefs and/or wanting better cultural acceptance to help the survival of early Buddhism. In either case it's not a disaster for Buddhism, which emphasizes the need for individual wisdom & compassion, rather than blindly following some real or imagined leaders.
Personally I think these are most likely to be corruptions because the suttas contain many more passages that are respectful of women & nuns. For example https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.044.than.html
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sutta central is the main Pali canon English translation source nowadays, also access to insight is mainly home of Thannisaro, not Bodhi Sutta central has it https://suttacentral.net/an8.51/en/sujato?layout=plain&refer... As for that sutta, the Pali canon is absolutely huge, the Mahayana sutras even more so, the majority of the latter haven’t been translated into English even. Most Buddhists, even historically, do no…
Buddism has always adopt in order to stay relevant. There are many ways to achieve enlightenment. Maybe US Buddhists will find their own unique path forward.
There was a great saying by Ajahn Chah, who always seems to be quotable. He said "How come everyone says Buddhism is old-fashioned and needs to be adapted? No-one ever accuses the defilements as being old-fashioned and outdated; no, they're always up-to-date."
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has spend long time meditating in Buddhist monasteries, I would say they don't care. Sutras are just teachings. You may learn from them and value them, but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic religions are. You don't have to parse everything Buddha and ponder it endlessly. Sometimes he just wondered about the future of the discipline. He also changed his mind when others presented arg…
> but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic religions are. You mean modern Buddhists aren't. Early Muslims considered the Buddhists they encountered as "people of the book." Source: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2018/14...
was it b/c muslims also lived by the book and buddhists just retaliated in kind?
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#35>imbue work with a spiritual aura What? >"turn workplaces into productivity-centered 'faith communities.'" Huh? >"Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism" Appropriation feels like a strong word. Are we not supposed to try new ideas from outside the tech industry? Ever? Chen's thesis in this article feels like a dramatic take.
You can try whatever you like, I think the angle is more about how meditation of various kinds are being adopted while other pieces of their source may be neglected, and this is in service to corporations and capitalism. I don't think it's inherently bad, but the insinuation is it's putting more of the spiritual/community stuff that we got from religion into our work, by moving stuff like mindfulness and conscious 'loving-kindness' into the corporate setting. Centralizing your needs into the hands of big corp :)
I don't feel like I can speak to the usage of appropriation or other wokespeak though.
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who has spend long time meditating in Buddhist monasteries, I would say they don't care. Sutras are just teachings. You may learn from them and value them, but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic religions are. You don't have to parse everything Buddha and ponder it endlessly. Sometimes he just wondered about the future of the discipline. He also changed his mind when others presented arg…
> but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic religions are. You mean modern Buddhists aren't. Early Muslims considered the Buddhists they encountered as "people of the book." Source: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2018/14...
The earliest Buddhist texts were written down centuries after the death of the Buddha. Buddhism started as an oral tradition.
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#37How would these people react if they learned that the Buddha said his teachings were to last only 1000 years* if women were not included in the Sangha? And will only last 500 years after women were included?: > “But, Ānanda, if women had not obtained the Going-forth from the home life into homelessness in the Dhamma & Vinaya made known by the Tathāgata, the holy life would have lasted long, the true Dhamma would have…
Disclaimer: I’m an atheist. I don’t believe this is the gotcha that you think it is. Every single school of thought, religion or otherwise, has good and bad parts. Taking the overwhelmingly good aspects of Buddhism to understand how to lead a better life, is not invalidated because the Buddha said one thing you dislike. It’s naivety to desire 100% perfection from everyone/thing.
One of the agreed-upon principles common to the largest Buddhist denominations is that our world was not created and is not ruled by an omnipresent, omniscient God.
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#38How would these people react if they learned that the Buddha said his teachings were to last only 1000 years* if women were not included in the Sangha? And will only last 500 years after women were included?: > “But, Ānanda, if women had not obtained the Going-forth from the home life into homelessness in the Dhamma & Vinaya made known by the Tathāgata, the holy life would have lasted long, the true Dhamma would have…
As someone who has spend long time meditating in Buddhist monasteries, I would say they don't care. Sutras are just teachings. You may learn from them and value them, but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic religions are. You don't have to parse everything Buddha and ponder it endlessly. Sometimes he just wondered about the future of the discipline. He also changed his mind when others presented arg…
My own personal experience differed from yours. In a retreat in Burma I observed a lot of traditions, which made it very clear that men had a higher standing than women. When forming a line for going to lunch, the monks were first, then the laymen, then the nuns and then the laywomen; only the monks ate on a raised platform, but not the nuns or laypeople etc.
This was not just old books, which nobody cared about, but pervasive everyday practice.
I very much believe that you had different experience and am happy for it. There’s a lot of Buddhists and different traditions and it’s very difficult to generalise. I myself also practiced in - more western - communities, where there was no noticeable gender imbalance. But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are sexist.
Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#39Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation
#40For Hindus, Buddha was just one of the 10 avatars of Vishnu and he came for a time and purpose. It was never meant to be a separate religion but just took Hindu teachings on meditation and enlightenment and got adapted into another "ism". All the core teachings lie in Hindu scriptures, including Yoga, Meditation etc.
For Hindus, claiming everything in the subcontinent as their own seems like a favorite passtime. Jainism, Buddhism are not part of Hinduism and never were.