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

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371–380 of 423 posts

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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to the Americans who remove photos of Pacific Island people wearing their traditional clothing despite genitalia being covered. Tell that to every human on HN and see if they start wearing their nighties and undergarments, and bikinis to their silicon valley workplaces. It's not a free-for-all, so don't pretend that cultural norms don't exist. Jeez, this "I'll take what I want and fuck ya'll" American cultu…

What an inane comparison. Jobs are voluntary, and you're free to quit over the dress code. And there's no way to decide what's "permitted" use of a piece of apparel anyways. Cultural significance changes within cultures, and individuals within it are not uniformly sensitive to informal use. What would you do to iconoclasts? They're culturally appropriating too. Are they allowed to introduce lighthearted use? The "cul…

> And there's no way to decide what's "permitted" use of a piece of apparel anyways.

This is where the problem is. You misunderstand what I'm saying. Nobody is stopping you from wearing whatever you want.

When people call out cultural appropriation, they aren't trying to ban something; merely point out a faux pas.

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

#372
post #234

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.

Wow this guy really wants to divert the online conversations attention away from 90s Italian TV comics... I wonder what they're hiding..

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And prior to Dobbs the US was part of a small handful of countries that guaranteed the “right” to kill humans that had developed a face, feet, hands, and could suck their thumbs. Abortion law requires balancing individual autonomy against a nascent human life. It’s not an issue where “progress” marches in a single direction. That’s why considering the actual legal effect of Dobbs is critical. We replaced a regime tha…

Many, many nations allow 2nd trimester and late term abortions, though those are always extremely rare and often have complicating circumstances. I don't tend to respect people who use the fringe case to argue the mainstream point as I find it disingenuous.

Only two EU countries allow elective abortions—what we’re talking about here—significantly into the second trimester. The Netherlands applies a viability standard similar to Roe, and Sweden draws the line at 18 weeks.

Every other EU country has found that a fetus is sufficiently developed at 12-14 weeks that its life can’t be extinguished absent extenuating circumstances. For that reason, you can’t sweep them under the rug because they’re rare compared to first trimester abortions. When society draws a moral line—and every EU country recognizes society’s right to draw a line here—we don’t just dismiss conduct in the wrong side of the line on account of it being relatively rare.

And drawing the line at 12 weeks versus viability makes a big difference. In Germany, which bans abortions after 12 weeks absent exceptions, 97% of abortions occur in the first trimester. In the Netherlands, which permits abortions to viability, only 82% of abortions occur in the first trimester. Given the 600,000 abortions annually in the US, there are likely tens of thousands of fetuses killed each year that would have been protected under German (or French or Italian or Spanish) law.

Your effort to dismiss that as a “fringe” issue underscores how far out of the mainstream Roe took us. It turned conduct that the vast majority of the EU deems illegal, which occurs likely tens of thousands of times annually, into a Constitutional “right.”

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an inane comparison. Jobs are voluntary, and you're free to quit over the dress code. And there's no way to decide what's "permitted" use of a piece of apparel anyways. Cultural significance changes within cultures, and individuals within it are not uniformly sensitive to informal use. What would you do to iconoclasts? They're culturally appropriating too. Are they allowed to introduce lighthearted use? The "cul…

> And there's no way to decide what's "permitted" use of a piece of apparel anyways. This is where the problem is. You misunderstand what I'm saying. Nobody is stopping you from wearing whatever you want. When people call out cultural appropriation, they aren't trying to ban something; merely point out a faux pas.

Yes that is the motte to this bailey. Of course the actual consequences can range from being fired to being expelled to being publicly defamed as a racist. You still haven't given a way to decide what is or isn't a faux pas. I'll give the answer since you won't: it's whoever complains the loudest. In practice what is and isn't allowed is totally arbitrary. The only people who ever argue for that are power tripping moral crusaders.

As a reminder, all of this is about a pretend problem that produces no damage and has no victims.

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

#375
post #246

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 Ayahua…

All Buddhisms are not created equal.

I'm always amazed to see westerners, who are otherwise very weary of cultish behavior within Christian denominations, embrace and praise Eastern cults.

Osho is not a wise man, given his actions.

Thich Nhat Hanh deserves history's attention.

A horrible and oppressive introduction to Buddhism is actually worse than no introduction.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many varieties of Buddhism. It is a mixture of eastern culture and knowledge in general, including many generations of empirical psychotherapy, religion, philosophy, etc. Some varieties of Buddhism, like some schools of Zen, do focus heavily (or entirely) on meditation practice. Zen does not traditionally focus heavily nor entirely on meditation practise, for example it has a heavy amount of ritual and ch…

> Overall there is no Buddhist lineage over a century old that I'm aware of that has its primary focus on meditation. Do you mean specifically in Japan? Because many of the Tibetan lineages have Dzogchen [1] or Mahamudra [2] meditation as their primary focus and go back a thousand plus years. There are even lineages of householder or itinerant yogis called Ngagpa [3] that have long traditions of meditation training,…

Indeed sorry I have almost zero knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism, I’m only aware of East Asian Buddhism and Theravada

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

abortion has been a natural right for thousands of years. women cerainly don’t need you nor the state to intercede in what is essentially a right to bodily autonomy.

It’s as “essentially” about human life as it is about “bodily autonomy.” As to “women”—they’re voting for these laws. The Mississippi electorate that voted in the 15-week ban at issue in Dobbs had 25% more women than men. And the large majority voted Republican.

ah, well if mississippi is doing it, that just settles it once and for all i guess. diehard partisanship gets us nowhere. women wanting to coerce other women is nothing new, but it’s still against our natural rights.

and yes, it’s essentially about the woman’s life too, i agree there.

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

#378
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alongs…

This might be something Americans think about legslislation, but in a European context legislation in practice is not something you just rip off, either you increment it or subtract it.

Essentially you will notice a lot of European Supreme courts and constitution is very different than usa.

But besides that, there are now calls in multiple European countries to make abortion a right.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West violently occupied most of the non-Western world and forced its culture on to those peoples.

This doesn't explain why I as an individual cannot adopt and adapt non-Western perspectives, values, and religious beliefs. Why should the actions of people long dead to whom I bear no relation other than shared skin color mean that I have to go to contortions to avoid adopting valuable ideas into my own life?

Good thing article did not said "cant" and instead explicitly endorsed adoption.
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