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

Did you?

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/biggest-misconception-about-...

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ten-misconceptions-about-b...

https://vividness.live/the-making-of-buddhist-modernism

The book you are referring to means nothing because it is a recent interpretation exactly as the author of the article is describing. From The Making of Buddhist Modernism:

>1. Rahula selects from the vast corpus of Buddhist literature certain features that can be interpreted in such a way as to resonate with a modern worldview, especially the Enlightenment, Protestantism, Transcendentalism, and science.

>2. This selection excludes or obscures other features of Buddhist literature, for example the many stories of miracles, magical feats, supernatural beings, and literal heavens and hells.

>3. When Rahula does address these, he tends to present them as ethically significant myth, symbol, or allegory.

>4. By focusing on elite literature, Rahula’s presentation occludes many features of the tradition on the ground, such as ritual, devotion, and exorcism, that are actually more central to many Buddhists’ lives than abstract doctrines. >Many ordinary Buddhists would not recognize much of what Rahula presents as their practices, attitudes, and beliefs. What he suppresses would give a fuller picture of Buddhism in its various historical manifestations. His emphasis on tolerance of other views, for example, is certainly not reflected in the many Buddhist polemical texts savaging opponents’ positions, or the religious conflicts in his own Sri Lanka that Buddhists themselves have participated in. What he refers to as “the Buddhist” is an idealized figure having little to do with living Buddhists. For example, in contrast to the pervasive practices among Buddhists for accruing merit in order to gain a higher rebirth, Rahula claims, on the basis of the doctrines of ana tman and impermanence, that “the Buddhist” is “never worried about” the problem of life after death. Rahula’s Buddhism is the idealized, textualized Buddhism of the orientalist scholars.

and it goes on.

“Well sure, womens rights might be good, but you see, the feminists twisted a good message and now they use it to push women away from motherhood and into corporations so the corporations make more profit and sell them more things”

Is it also bad when feminists encourage womens participation in the workforce?

SEAns can live their life as they see fit, they just shouldn’t demand that everyone conform to their version.

> occludes many features of the tradition on the ground, such as ritual, devotion, and exorcism, that are actually more central to many Buddhists’ lives than abstract doctrines.

Same goes here. Just because hundreds of thousands of people are practising Buddhism in one way, that doesn't become the only way or the actual way.

They shouldn’t want conformation from white western buddhists. That's what this Chen person is demanding.

If white western buddhists want to draw from Dhammapada and Buddha's teachings only, and want to completely ignore what SEAns do on the ground, then that's fine.

Again, please stop treating what actual Buddhism is in the lense of anthropology.

Treat it as a Philosophy like it was originally intended by the Buddha and fellows like Ashvaghosa, Buddhaghosa, Nagarjuna, etc.

Please do not let the SEAns determine what actual Buddhism is.

I have seen and studied Buddhism in the context of Indian philosophy, and it matches the white buddhist version (like Robert Wright) far more than the worshipping, thiestic SEAns.

Please study some Buddhism. And read debates of Nagarjuna (you need some level of rigor, experience in STEM/logic, to get them).

When you read the logics of Buddhists versus Nyaya and Nyaya-Vaisheshika, you will start to get how right western buddhists are.

Theistic, worshipping, candle-lighting Buddhists of SEA are nothing like what these guys were.

What SEAns practice as Buddhism is no more actual Buddhism than the white western Mindfulness guys.

You are so out of depth.

You don’t need to believe in any religion, though even theists are very selective followers. The point is to use philosophy from religions/etc to inform your own worldview and improve your life.

Speaking of Theravada, I read a book recently that might interest you about some of the less known meditation practices in their history [1]. Some of the formulations the author writes about reminds me a lot of various Vajrayana methods and "signs" that are taught. The Thai forest tradition of Theravada was my first encounter with formal meditation practice and the first samatha technique I learned from it has a lot of overlap with things I later encountered in atiyoga. Which makes a lot of sense, the traditions are a lot more syncretic and interconnected than many modern teachers would lead you to believe.

[1] https://www.shambhala.com/esoteric-theravada.html