Why is buddhism so popular?

[RedMoslem]

Why is Buddhism so popular in developed capitalist countries?
I've seen a lot of atheists and agnostics who tend to Buddhism and have interest in the Buddhist religion.
On some forums,many irreligious people tend to like Buddhist thinking,I'd assume because irreligious people don't like dogma and Buddhism doesn't contain any dogma.
But this is a interesting "phenomena" I've noticed since I've been looking at forums of religious,personal and political nature.

[Remus Bleys]

its a clear cut case of orientalism.
Buddhism in Western Culture is seen as some peaceful hippie liberal crap when it isn't. In addition, Buddhism has different views on God, so many take it as being somehow "irreligious." What furthers this is this lie on buddhism being all chill and shit - when its really as violent and repressive as any other religion.
Then, these liberals will go on and on about how Buddhist thought are different (and they certainly are, and may bring a new way of looking at things) to the point they mystify (orientalize) buddhists into an esoteric people, instead of uneducated, rural, materialized people.
Westerns actually into Buddhism I can tolerate (sometimes) though they are most definitely the exception. Nine times out of ten, these people are chauvinist imbeciles.

[TheIrrationalist]

I think it's people who perceive the materialist consumerist lifestyle empty and meaningless who turn to Buddhism. Then they want to find something greater than themselves, higher forms of being, meaning etc. And Buddhism represents this transcendence to them, connection with 'the cosmos'. They perceive it as bringing them closer to true meaning and away from the empty materialism. Also Buddhism seems 'nicer' than the good ol' Christianity. It's the 'spiritual crisis' type bullshit, devoting yourself to higher being or meaning is easy, and fulfills your empty material life.

Yeah, and lots of orientalist.

[SonofRage]

its a clear cut case of orientalism.
Buddhism in Western Culture is seen as some peaceful hippie liberal crap when it isn't. In addition, Buddhism has different views on God, so many take it as being somehow "irreligious." What furthers this is this lie on buddhism being all chill and shit - when its really as violent and repressive as any other religion.
Then, these liberals will go on and on about how Buddhist thought are different (and they certainly are, and may bring a new way of looking at things) to the point they mystify (orientalize) buddhists into an esoteric people, instead of uneducated, rural, materialized people.
Westerns actually into Buddhism I can tolerate (sometimes) though they are most definitely the exception. Nine times out of ten, these people are chauvinist imbeciles.

Accusations from someone who doesn't seem to know much about Buddhism. A one-sided opinion without anything to back it up.

Buddhism offers a solution to life's suffering and can be practiced in a nonreligious way. The Kalama Sutra is a good example of a scientific Buddhism: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html

I think it makes total sense that it would attract Western practitioners.

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[argeiphontes]

(Buddhism has no God. The Buddha(s) is (are) enlightened, but not a deity. Meditation and mindfulness are scientifically supported as beneficial.)

[Remus Bleys]

Accusations from someone who doesn't seem to know much about Buddhism. A one-sided opinion without anything to back it up.

Buddhism offers a solution to life's suffering and can be practiced in a nonreligious way. The Kalama Sutra is a good example of a scientific Buddhism: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html

I think it makes total sense that it would attract Western practitioners.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk
I did say not all Buddhists are chauvinists.
But are you going to act like the majority of Western Buddhists aren't orientalists?

[Kingfish]

Well orientalism as well a desire to find meaning and purpose once they realize the hollowness of consumerism does play a role in it. However what makes Buddhism more popular and lasting than other religions in this respect is firstly because it is a faith that can be very easily adopted as it works the greyzone between religion and philosophy well. Secondly and most importantly in my mind is the fact that meditation (which is demonstrably a beneficial practice) is a key part of its practice, accordingly just by getting people to meditate it can legitimately improve peoples lives through this alone regardless of the legitimacy of its dogmas.

[DasFapital]

For all the same reasons upper middle class white people hang African tribal masks on the walls of their home.

[synthesis]

I think there is some appeal to Buddhism in the West in that some people see it as essentially a religion and lifestyle of Stoicism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Why is Buddhism of interest to people? It gives interesting answers to common psychological quandaries that people have, but without as many metaphysical hangups as other religions like Christianity. It talks about how the various things which define our lives, including the repressive social institutions, are things which we are attached to out of acculturation, and don't really give us a sense of fulfillment. The methods of meditation are also useful in cultivating happiness and well-being - although it's not unique to Buddhists, meditation is sort of their specialty.

Why do people fetishize it? Orientalism, as others have mentioned, plays a huge role. People are looking for something spiritual, and many people have become alienated from Christianity, Judaism, etc by the most homophobic, sexist and patriarchal elements of these religions as well as the mythological commitment. People have misconceived notions, or at least overly simplistic ones, about Asian cultures and so misinterpret these traditions. A part of this is the perceived lack of religious fundamentalism or nationalist commitments. Of course, this just isn't the case - many Buddhist and Shinto orders in Japan endorsed the war effort and extolled the virtues of suicide tactics to save their nation. They also don't understand how these constructs are reactionary in themselves, by prioritizing a particular culture and giving it some kind of ideal, dehistoricized status above that of other cultures.

That's not to say that there isn't some truth to the idea that Buddhism is more friendly to science and empirical truth, and a level of public secularism. The Buddha also criticized casteism in his era (to a point at least) and his monastic order fits a sort of communal ethic, although it's not the same as what would exist in a socialist society (after all, monasticism is at heart a form of asceticism). It's not like the religion can't also be used for reactionary ends as much as any other faith however.

It's not only white upper middle class people who fetishize Buddhism too. I've seen it from working class folks and people of color. Their reasons are similar, although I think that there's an anti-establishment motive too, in the desire to associate with a religion which as far as they know has not historically justified their oppression.

[argeiphontes]

misinterpret these traditions. A part of this is the perceived lack of religious fundamentalism or nationalist commitments. Of course, this just isn't the case - many Buddhist and Shinto orders in Japan endorsed the war effort and extolled the virtues of suicide tactics to save their nation. They also don't understand how these constructs are reactionary in themselves, by prioritizing a particular culture and giving it some kind of ideal, dehistoricized status above that of other cultures.

It would be important to note how the content of Buddhism is "reactionary" in itself, and how it endorses suicide attacks, rather than just Buddhist people distorting it. I'm not a Buddhist or a scholar, but I've read about it some and haven't seen anything like that in the religion. In fact, it admonishes people to have compassion for all sentient beings, which sounds like a great principle to me.

"Be compassionate, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." -- Zeno of Athens

[d3crypt]

Because it seems cool or some shit? I never understood new age type crap either. To me it is all a bunch of bullshit that holds no bearing in reality. It seems like thought control to me. Who knows really?

[Art Vandelay]

Buddhism is in no way compatible with Marxism, regardless of whatever anyone has said. SCM's explanation though seemed to be pretty knowledgeable, I certainly don't know enough about it to make much comment. But to posit that one can be both a Marxist and a Buddhist, Christian, etc..or whatever else in that vein, that people have claimed on this site...simply shows a lack of understanding of Marxism.

[argeiphontes]

Buddhism is in no way compatible with Marxism, regardless of whatever anyone has said. SCM's explanation though seemed to be pretty knowledgeable, I certainly don't know enough about it to make much comment. But to posit that one can be both a Marxist and a Buddhist, Christian, etc..or whatever else in that vein, that people have claimed on this site...simply shows a lack of understanding of Marxism.

That could be true if one has to accept Marx's take on religion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion) in order to be a Marxist. The OP's opinion may vary. No biologist is a strict Darwinian anymore.

I for one happen to disagree with Marx's take on religion, which shows a very rudimentary (and I would say totalizing) understanding. In modern times, I would point out the ideas of Jung (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_interpretation_of_religion) and religious scholars like Mircea Eliade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade) that are richer and more useful understandings.

(If somebody has to accept everything about Marx, then I'm certainly not a Marxist, as my posts indicate.)

So yes, in the way you meant that, I would have to agree that you can't be religious and a Marxist.

edit: But nobody has to be a Marxist to be a socialist.

[Popularis]

Because there are a lot of assholes in the West, OP.

[Remus Bleys]

But to posit that one can be both a Marxist and a Buddhist, Christian, etc..or whatever else in that vein, that people have claimed on this site...simply shows a lack of understanding of Marxism.Too bad that wasn't the question.

[La Comédie Noire]

I would say because the practices and philosophy of Buddhism are amendable to a secular society. It gives you a way to cope with suffering that is largely absent of superstition, it starts with the harsh facts of life, you will get sick, you will get old, you will lose material possessions ect., and gives you a way to cope with them in the here and now.

[Remus Bleys]

I would say because the practices and philosophy of Buddhism are amendable to a secular society. It gives you a way to cope with suffering that is largely absent of superstition, it starts with the harsh facts of life, you will get sick, you will get old, you will lose material possessions ect., and gives you a way to cope with them in the here and now.
Maybe an orientalist, perverted, westernized version of Buddhism.

[La Comédie Noire]

Maybe an orientalist, perverted, westernized version of Buddhism.


:lol: You've discerned all that from one sentence?

Edit: Excuse me, two sentences ?

[Remus Bleys]

:lol: You've discerned all that from one sentence?

Edit: Excuse me, two sentences ?The way you go on about Buddhism, "superstition free" "Secular" and all that other shit is incorrect.

[La Comédie Noire]

I said Buddhism had aspects that were amendable to a secular society and that it was largely absent of superstition. The same goes for Christianity or any other religion. I didn't say all of it was that way or that Buddhism isn't backwards and oppressive in certain areas of the world.

So to wit:

Are there westerners who fetishize other cultures? you bet.

Am I, or any one in this thread doing that? I don't think so.

[Zostrianos]

The way you go on about Buddhism, "superstition free" "Secular" and all that other shit is incorrect.

Actually, he is correct. Buddhism in its original form is entirely devoid of superstition. As it spread and adopted local religious customs of various countries, it became tainted by them but original buddhism is very different and much more along the lines of what you believe to be "westernized". This is a post of mine from another thread on the subject:

The best intro to original Buddhism I've read is "What the Buddha taught (http://www.amazon.com/What-Buddha-Taught-Expanded-Dhammapada/dp/0802130313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344835878&sr=8-1&keywords=what+the+buddha+taught)"
The author (a monk himself) used the Buddhist scriptures in their original form and reveals a religion that was almost devoid of supernatural elements at its onset. Even reincarnation was not seen as the transmigration of one's soul or consciousness, but rather continued life in another form (e.g. our body will nourish different insects and bugs, and so we continue to live in them):

We have seen earlier that a being is nothing but a combination of physical and mental forces or energies. What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the nonfunctioning of the body? Buddhism says 'No'. Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole world lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth...As there is no permanent, unchanging substance, nothing passes from one moment to the next. So quite obviously, nothing permanent or unchanging can pass or transmigrate from one life to the next. It is a series that continues unbroken, but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it is not the same flame nor is it another. A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person.


As for life after death, it was regarded as an unknown in earlier Buddhism. The notion of a soul was also discarded:

Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self, or Atman. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding, reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of 'me' and 'mine', selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this view can be traced all the evil in the world.

There is nothing at odds with modern science in original Buddhism as far as I can remember reading.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/buddhism-and-anarchism-t173995/index.html?t=173995

[Tjis]

The buddhism that is popular in the west is quite unlike the buddhism as it is practiced in the east. Western buddhism tends to focus on meditation and building an understanding of cognitive processes. Eastern buddhism tends to focus on merit-making to gain a good rebirth, which in practice means supporting a large sangha (community of monks) through donations.

So orientalism is not a sufficient explanation for the popularity of buddhism. If orientalism were the reason, one would expect buddhism in the west to match its eastern counterpart a lot more, but the truth is that most people in the west, including orientalists, have no interest in supporting a bunch of monks for merit, a concept that simply has no roots in western culture.

The real reason for the popularity of western buddhism is that it has been adapted a lot from its eastern origins to fit western society in particular. People are stressed out and alienated and the dominant religions do not offer any solutions. Western buddhism offers solutions in the form of theory and practices which were originally primarily the domain of ordained monks. Rather than relying on the sangha, western buddhists rely on themselves, with the western sangha offering support in the form of philosophical books and places for retreat. This allows for a more free and self-directed religious experience rather than the stiffling religious formalities and rituals that are found in mainstream religions (including eastern buddhism).

Of course, orientalism is still a part of the initial attraction towards buddhism for many people. It's just not a sufficient explanation for why westerners remain buddhists.

[argeiphontes]

Is 'orientalism' being used as an accusation of something? What's wrong with taking an interest in cultures other than one's own?

[Tjis]

Is 'orientalism' being used as an accusation of something? What's wrong with taking an interest in cultures other than one's own?

Orientalism generally refers to an idealization of a pre-modern feudal eastern society. Which, in reality, wasn't all that ideal.

[Thirsty Crow]

Orientalism generally refers to an idealization of a pre-modern feudal eastern society. Which, in reality, wasn't all that ideal.
Not really an idealization, but a distorted fascination and institutional study of these cultures which has colonial dominance (and general dominance of Western culture) as its unvoiced assumption.

[Tjis]

Not really an idealization, but a distorted fascination and institutional study of these cultures which has colonial dominance (and general dominance of Western culture) as its unvoiced assumption.

Though in the case of westerners who are attracted to buddhism through orientalism, it is actually an idealisation of a simpler, more spiritual life. Much like how people used to admire 'noble savages'.

[Zostrianos]

Not really an idealization, but a distorted fascination and institutional study of these cultures which has colonial dominance (and general dominance of Western culture) as its unvoiced assumption.

Well colonial dominance (at least until a few decades ago) went hand in hand with a desire to wipe out non-western cultures and replace them with the old "white Christian" colonial ideal, which is what missionaries and colonists (especially Protestants) did to countless cultures, e.g. pacific islanders, most of whom have become Christian fundamentalists with a deep disdain for their past. Mcaulyism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaulayism)is a good example of this. This was also seen in scholarly books until the middle of the 20th century, where it was customary to portray non-western cultures as inferior to the Christian west. Another good example is how it was standard to rewrite history, e.g. by portraying the pre-Christian Roman empire and Europe as immoral savages, then Christianity came along and everything was great after that, ignoring the Church's much greater crimes.
Modern "orientalism" is much more positive than this.

[RedHal]

celebrating an austere lifestyle can only have mass appeal to middle class wankers.

when you have nothing, you're not going to be celebrating that.

[argeiphontes]

Though in the case of westerners who are attracted to buddhism through orientalism, it is actually an idealisation of a simpler, more spiritual life. Much like how people used to admire 'noble savages'.

Yet, there's something to be said for a simpler, more spiritual life. If someone hasn't experienced the lifestyle, it's easy to write it off as bullshit, which it isn't, because it prioritizes human qualities and values over consumerism and the trappings of modern capitalism.

Also, there seems to be the assumption that just because a culture is pre-capitalist, they couldn't have produced anything of value or significance for anybody else to want to participate in or borrow, which is also clearly false.

[Remus Bleys]

Yet, there's something to be said for a simpler, more spiritual life.Like, for instance, being seperated from class struggle? Whatever Waldo.

If someone hasn't experienced the lifestyle, it's easy to write it off as bullshit, which it isn't, What lifestylism are you advocating for here?

because it prioritizes human qualities and values over consumerism and the trappings of modern capitalism.What you are talking about seems to prioritize separation from class struggle and a bunch of individualist bullshit.
Fucking lifestylist.

Also, there seems to be the assumption that just because a culture is pre-capitalist, they couldn't have produced anything of value or significance for anybody else to want to participate in or borrow, which is also clearly false.Who the fuck is even hinting at that? Who?

[argeiphontes]

Have you been drinking, Bleys? Check post #25.

edit: Also, aren't you on shaky ground here? Or did your religion originate in Denmark?

[argeiphontes]

Like, for instance, being seperated from class struggle?

Why don't you increase their consciousness, then?



Whatever Waldo.
What lifestylism are you advocating for here?
Fucking lifestylist.
When Waldo has time and money to get away, Waldo seeks THIS (http://whiteblaze.net/forum/content.php) kind of simpler lifestyle. Waldo's even dabbled in the class-struggle-negating evils of *gulp* meditation. Even that meditation object recommended by that class enemy, Erich Fromm--the Ego! :ohmy:

[Tjis]

Have you been drinking, Bleys? Check post #25.

edit: Also, aren't you on shaky ground here? Or did your religion originate in Denmark?

Post #25 being mine, how does that post hint at nothing of value being produced by pre-modern cultures? All I'm saying is that there's a tendency to portray pre-modern times as much more rosy than they actually were.

I actually rather like buddhist scripture. I'm quite well-read on theravada and I meditate. I'm certainly not saying there's nothing of value to be found there.

[argeiphontes]

^ Fair enough. I retract it then.

edit: I was probably considering your use of 'idealisation' as a negative, I apologize. I would want to separate authentic Buddhism from what, say, Richard Gere does.

[Remus Bleys]

Why don't you increase their consciousness, then? Liberals like you make agitation difficult.


When Waldo has time and money to get away, Waldo seeks THIS (http://whiteblaze.net/forum/content.php) kind of simpler lifestyle. Waldo's even dabbled in the class-struggle-negating evils of *gulp* meditation. Even that meditation object recommended by that class enemy, Erich Fromm--the Ego! :ohmy:fuck you liberal

[Remus Bleys]

edit: Also, aren't you on shaky ground here? Or did your religion originate in Denmark?
Lets all sit down and pretend Christianity and Catholicism didn't originate from Grecco-Roman philosophy as well as Judaism.

When Buddhism becomes an established part of European culture, then we'll talk. Until then, your idealizing of them is a bunch of bullshit, and is as problematic as viewing muslims as bloodthirsty for infidels.

Unlike you, however, I don't ignore the shit my religion has done. Seriously, fuck this idealistic bullshit. I can't shake it, but that doesn't mean I don't hate it. Every major religion has done good and bad things, be it christianity, hinduism, buddhism, judaism or islam. Both the liberal and conservative views on these religions are all inherently reactionary at this point.

As compared to you with your bullshit that Buddhism is so peaceful and rational and pacifistic, along with being oh so secular.
Yeah, imposing european enlightenment principles on other cultures. How definitely not Orientalist.

edit: You called me Bleys. lol. So internet hardman.

[argeiphontes]

See, Tjis, when you're used to being constantly attacked, you develop a certain reflex that isn't always appropriate. :grin:

[Sharia Lawn]

It would be important to note how the content of Buddhism is "reactionary" in itself, and how it endorses suicide attacks, rather than just Buddhist people distorting it. I'm not a Buddhist or a scholar, but I've read about it some and haven't seen anything like that in the religion. In fact, it admonishes people to have compassion for all sentient beings, which sounds like a great principle to me.

"Be compassionate, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." -- Zeno of Athens


Actually, he is correct. Buddhism in its original form is entirely devoid of superstition. As it spread and adopted local religious customs of various countries, it became tainted by them but original buddhism is very different and much more along the lines of what you believe to be "westernized". This is a post of mine from another thread on the subject:

The best intro to original Buddhism I've read is "What the Buddha taught"
The author (a monk himself) used the Buddhist scriptures in their original form and reveals a religion that was almost devoid of supernatural elements at its onset. Even reincarnation was not seen as the transmigration of one's soul or consciousness, but rather continued life in another form (e.g. our body will nourish different insects and bugs, and so we continue to live in them):

We have seen earlier that a being is nothing but a combination of physical and mental forces or energies. What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the nonfunctioning of the body? Buddhism says 'No'. Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole world lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the non-functioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth...As there is no permanent, unchanging substance, nothing passes from one moment to the next. So quite obviously, nothing permanent or unchanging can pass or transmigrate from one life to the next. It is a series that continues unbroken, but changes every moment. The series is, really speaking, nothing but movement. It is like a flame that burns through the night: it is not the same flame nor is it another. A child grows up to be a man of sixty. Certainly the man of sixty is not the same as the child of sixty years ago, nor is he another person.


As for life after death, it was regarded as an unknown in earlier Buddhism. The notion of a soul was also discarded:

Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self, or Atman. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding, reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of 'me' and 'mine', selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this view can be traced all the evil in the world.

There is nothing at odds with modern science in original Buddhism as far as I can remember reading.

Marxists don't give a rat's ass about the "original" or "orthodox" or "pure" form of any ideology or belief structure. Ideology is not some abstract thing that you can dissect to its most authentic form, because that completely neutralizes our ability to interpret its contextual significance.

Belief systems, sets of ideas, etc. have no relevance or applicability toward any serious attempt at analysis outside of the material processes that they take shape through. We are not interested in raising to a pedestal the classical model of, say, Buddhism because that abstracts it from its historical process.

The way sets of ideas change over time in terms of how they are understood and promoted by people reflects not a corruption or betrayal of a particular doctrine but of the genuine necessity of it to adapt itself correlative to changing historical environments so that it (ideology) can perform its primary social task, the orderly reproduction of civil society through the institutional conditioning of false consciousness.

It may be completely true that Buddhists have taken or supported courses of action that are incongruous with doctrinal Buddhism, but to accuse them of distorting it or what have you only amounts of moralistic sermonizing that (apart from endearing you to no one) gets us nowhere closer to unearthing the fulcrum of the matter.

So you might very well say that Buddhism doesn't endorse suicide attacks, but whether it does or not is all very much irrelevant. That adaptation was consciously carried out by individuals, yes, but not with the knowledge of what that signifies historically and contextually more broadly, and not without reinforcing the piece that Buddhism plays in the sociological puzzle.

[argeiphontes]

It may be completely true that Buddhists have taken or supported courses of action that are incongruous with doctrinal Buddhism, but to accuse them of distorting it or what have you only amounts of moralistic sermonizing that (apart from endearing you to no one) gets us nowhere closer to unearthing the fulcrum of the matter.

So you might very well say that Buddhism doesn't endorse suicide attacks, but whether it does or not is all very much irrelevant.

You'll have to provide a Marxist analysis of Buddhism and how it relates to suicide attacks in WWII Japan for me to believe you. Just saying that No True Marxist would believe something isn't an argument, and doesn't apply to people who aren't Marxist. For a Marxist analysis to be true, it has to be more than just brow-beating people into accepting your line.

[Zostrianos]

It may be completely true that Buddhists have taken or supported courses of action that are incongruous with doctrinal Buddhism, but to accuse them of distorting it or what have you only amounts of moralistic sermonizing that (apart from endearing you to no one) gets us nowhere closer to unearthing the fulcrum of the matter.
So you might very well say that Buddhism doesn't endorse suicide attacks, but whether it does or not is all very much irrelevant. That adaptation was consciously carried out by individuals, yes, but not with the knowledge of what that signifies historically and contextually more broadly, and not without reinforcing the piece that Buddhism plays in the sociological puzzle.

Well I'm glad you brought that up. I think the heart of the matter is the notorious hypocrisy of many leftists (particularly authoritarian ones) who will endorse or excuse almost anything as long as it's done in the name of socialism. So you might very well say that Maoism doesn't endorse gang rape (http://books.google.ca/books?id=Ecaeybfrl1IC&pg=PA122&dq=tibet+chinese+soldiers+rape+wives&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5NVKUdvzGuPC0QH044C4BQ&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=women%20were%20raped&f=false) and the murder of innocents, but it doesn't change the fact that such were widespread during China's cultural revolution. And that one of the only dictatorships that succeeded in enslaving most of its people was a Maoist inspired Khmer Rouge. And supporters of Maoism (who will condemn even the slightest thing if it comes from religion or capitalism), either make excuses for Maoist crimes; claim they were just "mistakes" and they don't change the greatness of Maoist doctrine; deny they ever happened (the old "imperialist propaganda" line); or even support those very crimes ('the victims were all reactionaries who deserved it').

The best example of this hypocrisy is China's invasion of Tibet: when America invades another country, everyone agrees that it's an imperialist crime, but when China invaded Tibet (and I'm not saying Tibet was a good place under the Lamas), destroying most of its culture, and murdering and raping countless people, what do they call it? "Liberation".

When fascist regimes and old colonial powers enslaved entire peoples, we all agree it's an abomination. But when Pol Pot enslaved most of his people, worked to death in camps, you'll still find occasional leftists defending him, saying that ultimately he had good intentions and that we shouldn't condemn him for that, because his intentions were good. The conclusion being that any crime is justified if committed in the name of Socialism.

It's also interesting how hardcore antitheist leftists will bend over backwards to condemn all religion and religious practices, usually with no critical analysis or true knowledge of the subject whatsoever. They have to find something, always, even in the most benign ones. Some of the kind of stuff I've heard spouted again and again, and again on this forum:

- Jainism and original buddhism, which promote peace and non violence? "Pacifist liberal bullshit, counter revolutionary, 'invented' to keep the masses passive and oppressed"

- Meditation (which is scientifically (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation)proven to make life better): "superstitious bullshit, opium of the people; people shouldn't be happy in the present day and age, they should be angry and outraged so they can revolt. If they're happy they only think they are, they're actually deluded and oppressed without knowing it."

So let's bring it back to Buddhism, a philosophy originally created to make people's lives better despite the presence of suffering, a philosophy that most likely shed much less blood than Maoism. The few crimes and exploitation committed in the name of Buddhism (and its degeneration into feudalism in a few places), are they not to be seen as a corruption of an originally good doctrine? And if you think this is moralizing, aren't many modern leftists (myself included) also moralizing when we consider the 20th century's "socialist" dictators as corruptors of an originally good doctrine? And in essence the whole jibe against "morality" is itself hypocritical coming from leftists. The desire to have a revolution and create an egalitarian society is itself based on moral principles (objectively true morality in my opinion), where we want to see humanity and society collectively improve.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

The Buddhist notion of karma, in my opinion, is one of the most repulsive and fucked up religious metaphysical myths to ever exist.

All one needs to do is to take it to it's ideological conclusion. If people are given a 'worse-off' life for not being a good samaritan within the detached buddhist ethic, then it is safe to say that all people who are in intense poverty or are born into systems of oppression 'deserve' to live such a life, as 'punishment' for the supposed karmaic sins they committed in their past life. Similarly, the ruling classes could justify their extreme privilege and arbitrary despotism with the ideal that they had been little bhodissatvas in their past lives, thus they 'deserve' the ridiculous position and wealth they inherited, and that their position was justified by the idea that they were merely 'relaying punishment' to their slaves and serfs for shunning karma in the past life.

This disgusting conclusion to the crackpot myth reared it's head in almost every Buddhist society in India and Southeast Asia, most recently in pre-maoist Tibet.

Of course there are some hacks in the west who buy into the whole orientalist 'Eastern alternative' bullshit and lap up propaganda by religious cults like milk. Buddhism is just a boring form of escapism draped in mythological optimism that's paraded around as 'progressive' when the moderate Buddhist is no different to the moderate Christian or Muslim in terms of fundamentalism or whether they buy into supernatural shite.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Buddhism is in no way compatible with Marxism, regardless of whatever anyone has said. SCM's explanation though seemed to be pretty knowledgeable, I certainly don't know enough about it to make much comment. But to posit that one can be both a Marxist and a Buddhist, Christian, etc..or whatever else in that vein, that people have claimed on this site...simply shows a lack of understanding of Marxism.

I agree in that I don't think Buddhism and Marxism are compatible in the strictest sense. Marx was a materialist who analyzed history in terms of class struggle, whereas religion views history as a progression of spiritual consciousness. One could be a Buddhist and a Marxist in the sense that Marx was a Hegelian - in other words, in some broad, less committed sense of the term. For instance, one might adopt meditation and Marxist analysis of the economy without being committed wholeheartedly to some of the metaphysical positions of the other. It's hard to see how one would reconcile strict Marxist theory with a religion, however, or at least the institutionalized forms of these religions.

I do think though, that one can be a Buddhist/Christian/Muslim (etc) and a Communist - the issue is with the Marxist focus on a materialist explanation of history, which is obviously distinct from religious teleology in how its mechanics of the world play out.


Maybe an orientalist, perverted, westernized version of Buddhism.


The way you go on about Buddhism, "superstition free" "Secular" and all that other shit is incorrect.

Buddhism as a religious institution clearly includes superstitious practices. The Buddha himself, in his own words however, clearly disavowed the usefulness of such practices. Why that superstition and idol worship became a part of the Buddhist tradition is a much more interesting question once we understand that the roots of the religion are perhaps more radical for their time than the mythology pushed by the monastic system might indicate.


The Buddhist notion of karma, in my opinion, is one of the most repulsive and fucked up religious metaphysical myths to ever exist.

All one needs to do is to take it to it's ideological conclusion. If people are given a 'worse-off' life for not being a good samaritan within the detached buddhist ethic, then it is safe to say that all people who are in intense poverty or are born into systems of oppression 'deserve' to live such a life, as 'punishment' for the supposed karmaic sins they committed in their past life. Similarly, the ruling classes could justify their extreme privilege and arbitrary despotism with the ideal that they had been little bhodissatvas in their past lives, thus they 'deserve' the ridiculous position and wealth they inherited, and that their position was justified by the idea that they were merely 'relaying punishment' to their slaves and serfs for shunning karma in the past life.

This disgusting conclusion to the crackpot myth reared it's head in almost every Buddhist society in India and Southeast Asia, most recently in pre-maoist Tibet.


This is more true of conservative Brahminism than Buddhist philosophy. That's not to say that Buddhists didn't sometimes use the idea of Karma in the same manner, but the Buddha himself disavowed caste distinction and many sects of Buddhism did not believe that one's lot in life was determined by their birth position. On the contrary, many esteemed thinkers and leaders in various sects of Buddhism were born of low origin.

All feudal religions were used to justify the oppression of peasant classes. The Marxist argument of how class interest determines the nature of religious doctrine shows that. It doesn't mean that the ideas that are actually at heart of the religion endorse that - on the contrary, the whole point is that religious institutions will come to reflect class interests regardless of what the dogma actually holds.

[Vanguard1917]

It's partly about looking for purpose, meaning and so on, as others have said. But it also fits in well with a contemporary Western culture of individual self-absorption. When we're constantly being encouraged to navel-gaze and 'self-improve', sitting around meditating for hours probably seems like the way to go to many.

[TheFalseprophet]

Any one who thinks buddhism is an atheistic religion needs to read the dhammapada...

[bropasaran]

@topic

It's not Buddhism per se that's popular, it's pop-therapeutic Cafeteria Buddhism. It's basically just a form of social signaling to say that you're a 'nice' person, and maybe a way to do some begginer-level meditation- for purposes totally unrelated to Buddhism. If by Buddhism we mean accepting what Buddha actually taught (and we know what he taught, there are more then 800 sermons of his preserved) then Buddhism isn't really popular anywhere, let alone in the West.

Buddha was basically a morbid guy. He thought that everything is suffering, even if you don't suffer much now, you surelly will in some next life, and taught that you need to reject anything pleasurable in this world, or any world, including the heavens, so you can escape samsara. To help you do this, to realise "the drawbacks of sensuality" there are a bunch of his sermons that are basically torture porn. Take for example Maha-dukkhakkhandha Sutta, which has three parts- in the first part Buddha enumerates various types of physical pain in this world, from being bitten by mosquitos to being tortured in various ways. You are to go through it nice and slow and visualize. In the second part he talks about the allure of sensuality, the biggest one having to do with sex, so he asks you to imagine a young, pretty, handsome chick. Then he asks you to imagine that her old, sick, pissing and shiting herself, disfigured, dying, and being a corpse in various stages of decay including being eaten by vultures, hyenas and other animals. According to Buddha, any pleasure of the five senses binds you to samsara and therefore leads to suffering and you should literally make yourself revulsed by any pleasure. The third part of this sermons explains how even mental pleasures and feelings of bliss achieved in advanced meditative states suck, because they too bind you to samsara, so you should strive to not desire them either. You shouldn't desire anything for that matter, he explicitly says that you shouldn't even have a desire to exist (nor a desire to not exist). The aphorism that virtually defines Buddhism is "The cause of suffering is desire". The doctrine of rebirth, which includes various ghastly hells with ever so more imaginative tortures in them, and various indulgent heavens; and the doctrine of renunciation of any pleasure in order to escape the cylce of rebith- those are two main teachings of Buddha, he was clear about it: "I teach but two things. Suffering and the end of suffering." If Buddha's teachings are popular anywhere, that's news to me.


his is more true of conservative Brahminism than Buddhist philosophy. That's not to say that Buddhists didn't sometimes use the idea of Karma in the same manner, but the Buddha himself disavowed caste distinction and many sects of Buddhism did not believe that one's lot in life was determined by their birth position.Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta

"Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the condition, why inferiority and superiority are met with among human beings, among mankind? For one meets with short-lived and long-lived people, sick and healthy people, ugly and beautiful people, insignificant and influential people, poor and rich people, low-born and high-born people, stupid and wise people. What is the reason, what is the condition, why superiority and inferiority are met with among human beings, among mankind?"

3. "Student, beings are owners of kammas*, heirs of kammas, they have kammas as their progenitor, kammas as their kin, kammas as their homing-place. It is kammas that differentiate beings according to inferiority and superiority."

(*kamma = karma)

[Invincible Summer]

The Buddhist notion of karma, in my opinion, is one of the most repulsive and fucked up religious metaphysical myths to ever exist.

All one needs to do is to take it to it's ideological conclusion. If people are given a 'worse-off' life for not being a good samaritan within the detached buddhist ethic, then it is safe to say that all people who are in intense poverty or are born into systems of oppression 'deserve' to live such a life, as 'punishment' for the supposed karmaic sins they committed in their past life. Similarly, the ruling classes could justify their extreme privilege and arbitrary despotism with the ideal that they had been little bhodissatvas in their past lives, thus they 'deserve' the ridiculous position and wealth they inherited, and that their position was justified by the idea that they were merely 'relaying punishment' to their slaves and serfs for shunning karma in the past life.


Yes, this is an unfortunate result, if you indeed take the idea of karma to its logical extreme.




3. "Student, beings are owners of kammas*, heirs of kammas, they have kammas as their progenitor, kammas as their kin, kammas as their homing-place. It is kammas that differentiate beings according to inferiority and superiority."

(*kamma = karma)

Buddhism is about the Middle Path - finding the centre between extremes. Such gross injustices excused with the notion of kamma would be quite "un-Buddhist." I wouldn't be surprised if some Buddhists did hold these notions (there are extremists in all religions), but there isn't a kamma-caste system in the way most Buddhists practice the religion.

It's not that people "deserved" their place in life because of "bad kamma." That suggests a metaphysical points system that some omnipotent force is keeping tally of. There is no such deity-like being in Buddhism. Anyways, kamma simply means "action." The point is that our kamma - our actions - determine what happen to us in our life. Someone seriously harms another unjustifiably, there will be consequences that are as serious. We see this happen in our everyday lives. It also means that one can balance out harmful actions by enacting positive ones. So it gives a gradient of possibilities, not just the dualistic "punishment" and "reward" like we are used to in Abrahamic religions.

I do concede though that Buddhism does have a cop-out mechanism: no one can fully understand how kamma works, and sometimes kammic consequences can take several rebirths to kick in.






Buddha was basically a morbid guy. He thought that everything is suffering, even if you don't suffer much now, you surelly will in some next life,

The basics of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths, with the first being "Life is full of dukkha." Dukkha is often translated to "suffering," but also means "unsatisfactoriness." Much less morbid.

And the Buddha was saying that no one can avoid this unsatisfactoriness in any life, unless you pursue the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. It isn't that one can "not suffer much now."

"Suffering" or "unsatisfactoriness" can come in any shape or form - sadness, lust, jealousy, physical pain, emotional trauma, etc.

I think that this is indeed quite true - life is full of these things. Notice that that doesn't deny that life is also full of happiness and joy - it's just that they are not permanent things due to our unsatisfactoriness.



and taught that you need to reject anything pleasurable in this world, or any world, including the heavens, so you can escape samsara

Not entirely accurate, and very sensational.

"Rejection" isn't this dramatic thing. It just means to cease the yearning for xyz so as to be less unsatisfied. You don't miss what you don't want. It's a process that can take lifetimes, according to Buddhism (although different schools have different interpretations of this, but i won't go into it).


To help you do this, to realise "the drawbacks of sensuality" there are a bunch of his sermons that are basically torture porn. Take for example Maha-dukkhakkhandha Sutta, which has three parts- in the first part Buddha enumerates various types of physical pain in this world, from being bitten by mosquitos to being tortured in various ways. You are to go through it nice and slow and visualize. In the second part he talks about the allure of sensuality, the biggest one having to do with sex, so he asks you to imagine a young, pretty, handsome chick. Then he asks you to imagine that her old, sick, pissing and shiting herself, disfigured, dying, and being a corpse in various stages of decay including being eaten by vultures, hyenas and other animals.

This meditation isn't used by all schools of Buddhism, and generally is only recommended by a teacher if the student monastic has a problem with being horny.


According to Buddha, any pleasure of the five senses binds you to samsara and therefore leads to suffering and you should literally make yourself revulsed by any pleasure.

Again, "revulsed" is quite the sensationalist term. I have talked to and met quite a few monastics while on meditation retreats, and none express the need to be revulsed by pleasure. Various pleasures just become things they don't seek anymore.



The doctrine of rebirth, which includes various ghastly hells with ever so more imaginative tortures in them, and various indulgent heavens

Apart from some Pure Land Buddhists, these are considered purely metaphorical.

[Rafiq]

Buddhism's popularity exists in coincidence with the global religious reaction dating back some few decades ago.

To suggest that Buddhism's, or eastern spiritualism in general's emergence stems specifically, and coincidentally now, because people find it "appealing" and so on means absolutely nothing: Why do they find it appealing? Because it is full of "wisdom" we have long been deprived of because of capitalist consumerism? Yeah, no.

Eastern spiritualism in the west today is not only not better than "traditional religions", its implications are far worse.


when China invaded Tibet (and I'm not saying Tibet was a good place under the Lamas), destroying most of its culture, and murdering and raping countless people, what do they call it? "Liberation".

I have yet to find any legitimate sources which indicate the Chinese systemically raped people, or murdered random people. Of course "murder" had occurred. Had I been there, I would have bathed myself in the blood of those aristocratic scum myself. Why should the Chinese give a fuck about reactionary Tibetan culture? Fuck Tibetan culture. The Chinese, if I recall correctly, "destroyed" their own culture, too. "Oh, culture, what treasures to be found! Thousands of years of wisdom, and traditions, so pure!". Tibetan culture is nothing more than the reproduction of conditions by which only the Tibetan ruling class benefited. I'm sure western romantics might be horrified by the destruction of their exotic, mystifying "culture", but for the average Tibetan peasant, I'd wager Mao's red army was a godsend. Even anti-Maoist historians recognize what a horrible shit hole Tibet was before the Chinese came in, and trust me, coming from someone who detests Maoism and Mao, I mean it.

What people don't fucking understand is that ideas, traditions and religious doctrine do not form as a result of "pure thought" or wisdom. They existed, insofar as they were useful in reproducing the (in this case, Tibetan) social foundations of life and the existing order. Buddhism did not "degenerate". Ideas do not form out of our ass, and besides, such ideas can only have use if they have modern implications. I'm sure spartacus didn't actually care about the abolishment of slavery as an institution, but we perceive him differently because of the implications he has today, for us.

Likewise, the implications for Eastern Spirituality today are the harmonious, continual reproduction of the existing order. It is the complete de-politicization of sentiment and vigor. We ought to be much more sympathetic to Christian mythology: Communism will bring hell to the enemy, our struggle is like a biblical divine wrath, there is no neutrality or middle ground. For Communists, (ideologically speaking), yes the struggle is black and white, yes we will be a force of black hatred against the enemy.

Oh, and by the way, we don't see "socialist dictators" (What a stupid and vomit-inducing take on Communism's failure. As if the problem with Communist states were that they had "dictators") as "corrupting" doctrine. The official doctrine of those countries was not "corrupted", it resulted from the degeneration of a real proletarian revolution, not simply the degeneration of "ideas" or "wisdom" that was intentionally in the service of good. To compare this to the "corruption" of Buddhism by 'evil, wicked humanity' is laughable. Buddhism had never corrupted, just as Islam and Christianity never corrupted. Their ideological existence, is not based on some muddied interpretation of the "founders" but on the historical expression, and place these religions had.

Our conceptualization of injustice is not based on "how much blood was spilled". It is the nature of this injustice to begin with, not the magnitude of its violence alone, but the nature of this violence. It is all the more sickening that Buddhism did not "lead to more bloodshed'. What does this signify? That Buddhism represented internalized, pacified oppression without resistance. Chinese Maoism, a romantic ideology which sought to the destruction of the vestiges of feudalism in China, was a fighting spirit, of course there was more bloodshed, just as there was more Bloodshed in the reign of terror than there was during the years leading up to it. The wrath of the damned is not pretty. To shake the foundations of oppression, of exploitation and slavery, is not peaceful. It is violent. It entails merciless destruction and death. If not for the continual, internalized and legitimized violence of the ruling order, there would not be violence. Had the gates of hell been weaker, we would not have to shake them so fiercely.

We do not seek to "return to the founders" as far as Communism. We seek a new Communism. Our new Communism will not allow the reactionary spiritualists to "meditate" their way out of their death. It is not that Buddhism is "pure" and it is simply misused by the "corrupt". It is that Buddhism is a deplorable religion whose only implications in today's world, are reactionary. The Buddha doesn't mean shit by himself. Only when we fit him within the paradigm of modern ideology does he "make sense". We can never truly know what the fuck he was talking about, unless we know the Eastern condition from which he was derived. In the absence of that context, it is all rather meaningless.

Communists do not try to "make their lives better in the face of suffering" (WHEREBY, ACCEPTING AND LEGITIMIZING SUFFERING!). A Communist must live and breath the suffering of the damned, of the exploited every day, a Communist must not sympathize with the exploited, with the damned, a Communist must identify with them, every instance of injustice and oppression, all the horrors and darkness of the Earth, must be felt, it must set ablaze the flame in our hearts, it must be our rallying cry, our sword and our shield, it must be something we are willing to die to extinguish. Eastern Spiritualism, and Western Paganism are distinguished by religions afterward in that they legitimize suffering (therefore slavery, exploitation) as inevitable, that all attempts at changing the world are in vain and that all we can do is come into terms with them, so that we ourselves can attain happiness. This is sickening, and most of all it is wrong. Leftists who are adherents to any form of spiritualism, but most especially Eastern spiritualism (because they are under the illusion that it is "rebellious" or "different" from other religions) are a disgrace to the legacy of Communism, the Communism that sought international conquest, the Communism that sought universal war of the exploited, the Communists who would bring to the Earth a massive jolt, whereby all notions "cycles", all "inevitability" is crushed in the face of the merciless onslaught of history.

[Invincible Summer]

Communists do not try to "make their lives better in the face of suffering" (WHEREBY, ACCEPTING AND LEGITIMIZING SUFFERING!). A Communist must live and breath the suffering of the damned, of the exploited every day, a Communist must not sympathize with the exploited, with the damned, a Communist must identify with them, every instance of injustice and oppression, all the horrors and darkness of the Earth, must be felt, it must set ablaze the flame in our hearts, it must be our rallying cry, our sword and our shield, it must be something we are willing to die to extinguish.



All this rhetoric and your bias against religion seems to neglect that Buddhism basically posits that we all suffer - it's not about sympathizing, but about all being in samsara together. Buddhist doctrine essentially states that the "self" is illusory. We can take this to even mean that it's not about me feeling sympathetic for you. That would suggest a separate 'you' and a separate 'me.' So, we are connected by our suffering.




Eastern Spiritualism, and Western Paganism are distinguished by religions afterward in that they legitimize suffering (therefore slavery, exploitation) as inevitable, that all attempts at changing the world are in vain and that all we can do is come into terms with them, so that we ourselves can attain happiness. This is sickening, and most of all it is wrong.You, like many others unfamiliar with Buddhism, also misunderstand how "suffering" is used in the religion. As I mentioned in my post above, the word dukkha is often translated to "suffering," but also means "unsatisfactoriness" or "anxiety." So it's not necessarily talking about material suffering, but also uncontrolled desire, sadness, etc.

So yes, while material suffering is a very real thing, Buddhist teachings don't tell its adherents to just passively accept it. Basic Buddhist teachings (Four Noble Truths) are just stating an observation that life is full of suffering. That's that. But it also states that there's a way to eliminate suffering and it starts with yourself. It's a revolution from the inside-out, so to speak. When you take various other teachings and have a holistic picture of Buddhist philosophy, you see that it is very much proactive in terms of seeking out and eliminating what causes suffering.

The example of the Corpse Meditation is a good one - to eliminate lust, one meditates on the image of a decaying body. It's gruesome, but the point is to seek out what causes suffering and apply methods to quell it.

The same attitude can be taken to material suffering as well, though it's not explicitly discussed in the traditional suttas.

It's untrue that changing the world is seen as being in vain. In fact, the doctrine of anicca or impermanence basically negates this. It states that everything is in a state of flux, of change. That means that conditions can be changed, according to our actions and effort.

And although nothing is permanent and ultimately unsatisfactory, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to change things. It's just an observation on reality. Communism is supposed to bring about significant positive material change, but people will still be people and have unhappiness, lust, etc. Immaterial suffering. This is where the internal practice of Buddhist philosophy and meditation come in. The teaching of impermanence also reminds us that nothing lasts forever, whether it is sickness, capitalism, or life itself. So communism is not incompatible with Buddhist philosophy, as materially they can both be seen as aiming for the same target - eliminating suffering. The spiritual and immaterial is not the venue for politics and economic systems, however. But that doesn't mean it's anti-Communist - just because Buddhism ultimately states that political systems are impermanent doesn't mean it's against the system. It's just stating a fact - one day, the world will implode or be burned up by the sun or something, and no political system will be safe.



Leftists who are adherents to any form of spiritualism, but most especially Eastern spiritualism (because they are under the illusion that it is "rebellious" or "different" from other religions) are a disgrace to the legacy of CommunismI don't see why someone's personal spiritual life that is not imposed upon others and is based on eliminating suffering from one's own life and others' lives would be a "disgrace to... Communism." Communism is material, spirituality is not.

I don't get why many in the left seem to want to prohibit any sort of personal spirituality. So long as it's not counter-revolutionary, what's the problem?



the Communism that sought international conquest, the Communism that sought universal war of the exploited, the Communists who would bring to the Earth a massive jolt, whereby all notions "cycles", all "inevitability" is crushed in the face of the merciless onslaught of history.Did you get that from Red Alert or something?

[L.A.P.]

I wish it was more convenient for me to quote material right now, but Zizek actually wrote some good stuff about how Eastern religions are more compatible with the consumerist ideology of late capitalism, contrary to some posters believing Buddhism alleviates the shallow logic of consumerism. If the Abrahamic religions could be described as asceticism being the central tenet, then hedonism would play the same role for Dharmic religions. Foucault briefly pointed out this distinction in The History of Sexuality. Again, wish I could quote material right now.

[bropasaran]

Buddhism is about the Middle Path - finding the centre between extremes.
"Middle Path" for Buddha primarily means avoiding pleasure (any physical or mental pleasure) on side and avoiding self-mortification on the other (fasting for days, not using clothes, removing one's hair and beard by pulling it out, etc., practices that are still upheld by some Hindu and Jain monks).


Such gross injustices excused with the notion of kamma would be quite "un-Buddhist."
Well, it seems that Buddha was un-buddhist. Either that, or your arbitrary conception of what's buddhist is "un-buddhist". Tough choice.


I wouldn't be surprised if some Buddhists did hold these notions (there are extremists in all religions)
It turns out that founders of religions tend to be extreme followers of those religions.


but there isn't a kamma-caste system in the way most Buddhists practice the religion.
No one said there is. But that doesn't change the fact that Buddha taught that people are born rich/ poor, ugly/ pretty, sick/ healthy, stupid/ smart, etc, because of their karma.


The basics of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths
Buddha evidently liked systematizations, so he also systematized what is his teaching by enumerating lessons which should be taught to someone when teaching him about the Buddha's religion. First is the lesson of giving, how giving stuff to others is good and will have various good consequences (like being liked, having a good rebirth, overcoming miserliness). Second is the lesson on virtue, on five and eight precepts. Third is the lesson on rebirth and how heavens are cool. Fouth is the lesson on "drawbacks, degradation, and corruption of sensuality", and how samsara sucks. Fifth is the lesson on renunciation and how you should not have a desire for any pleasure, existence or non-existence. Once one has accepted this, then comes the sixth lesson where the four noble truths (fourth of which is the noble eightfold path) are explained.


The basics of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths, with the first being "Life is full of dukkha." Dukkha is often translated to "suffering," but also means "unsatisfactoriness." Much less morbid.
It includes it all, as I said (mentioning what Budda said), from being bitten by a mosquito to being tortured in various ways. And the point is consider all of it, including various tortures, because, even though you might not get tortured in this life, you will in some next life.


Not entirely accurate, and very sensational.

"Rejection" isn't this dramatic thing.
Nothing sensational or dramatic about it, but it is factual. According to Buddha, if you want escape samsara (which is the only way to really escape suffering), you have to renounce desire for any pleasure.


This meditation isn't used by all schools of Buddhism, This meditation isn't used by all schools of Buddhism, and generally is only recommended by a teacher if the student monastic has a problem with being horny.
Neither of which has anything to do with what Buddha taught. Buddha taught many objects of meditation, a large part of which are morbid (ten are different stages of corpse decay, one is imagining your food as dog-vomit, two are enumerating internal organs and fluids and other body parts, etc), and for none of those objects of meditation did he say that lay-people shouldn't use when they meditate on Uposatha days, all are taught to be used by his disciples. And, as a matter of fact, the only objects of meditation where he explicitly mentioned lay-people, is when he strongly recommends, to everyone, for ofter use, five meditations- on the inevitability of aging, illness, death, loss and karma.


I have talked to and met quite a few monastics while on meditation retreats, and none express the need to be revulsed by pleasure.
Which just affirms what I wrote- Buddha's teachings aren't really popular anywhere.


Apart from some Pure Land Buddhists, these are considered purely metaphorical.
Again, there are two options- either Buddha was un-buddhist, or people who pick-and-choose out of his teachings what they like and reject anything they don't like (which as a rule turns out to be the core of his teaching) are un-buddhist. And again, a really tough choice, you really have to think real heard about which one of those is true.

[Invincible Summer]

"Middle Path" for Buddha primarily means avoiding pleasure (any physical or mental pleasure) on side and avoiding self-mortification on the other (fasting for days, not using clothes, removing one's hair and beard by pulling it out, etc., practices that are still upheld by some Hindu and Jain monks).

There is a classic paradox in Buddhism - the fact that the Buddha taught that desire is the root of suffering, and that Buddhist adherents desire to be free from samsara. Some forms of pleasure/desire are "helpful" and cause relatively little harm overall, whereas others obviously cause greater harm.

The Middle Path is just this - finding the middle ground between extremes of any type. Many Buddhist authors write about this. So for pleasure, its' better to choose the pleasure that causes the least harm if you must choose pleasure.

The teachings grew from Gautama's polarising experiences as a prince and with the Hindu ascetics, yes. But to say that there is no nuance in the Middle Way teaching is silly.



Well, it seems that Buddha was un-buddhist. Either that, or your arbitrary conception of what's buddhist is "un-buddhist". Tough choice.

[...]

But that doesn't change the fact that Buddha taught that people are born rich/ poor, ugly/ pretty, sick/ healthy, stupid/ smart, etc, because of their karma.

"I am the owner of my karma. I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit." -- Anguttara Nikaya V.57 - Upajjhatthana Sutta

"Karma" just means "action." We are who we are based on the fruits of our actions. But we can also change our past karma with new karmic actions.

So yeah, people can be born rich/poor because of their karma, but can do things now to change that. You're not stuck in "stations" or a caste or anything like that. It's basically like existentialism... I don't get why this is such a difficult idea to comprehend.


Buddha evidently liked systematizations, so he also systematized what is his teaching by enumerating lessons which should be taught to someone when teaching him about the Buddha's religion. First is the lesson of giving, how giving stuff to others is good and will have various good consequences (like being liked, having a good rebirth, overcoming miserliness). Second is the lesson on virtue, on five and eight precepts. Third is the lesson on rebirth and how heavens are cool. Fouth is the lesson on "drawbacks, degradation, and corruption of sensuality", and how samsara sucks. Fifth is the lesson on renunciation and how you should not have a desire for any pleasure, existence or non-existence. Once one has accepted this, then comes the sixth lesson where the four noble truths (fourth of which is the noble eightfold path) are explained.

Okay... what are you trying to say?



It includes it all, as I said (mentioning what Budda said), from being bitten by a mosquito to being tortured in various ways. And the point is consider all of it, including various tortures, because, even though you might not get tortured in this life, you will in some next life.

Yes, but my point is that it's not just focusing on material suffering, which is what you suggest.



Nothing sensational or dramatic about it, but it is factual. According to Buddha, if you want escape samsara (which is the only way to really escape suffering), you have to renounce desire for any pleasure.
Like I mentioned, it's not about turning into a person who goes "pleasure is bad! everyone stahhhp" as much as developing insight and dropping attachments to things that cause pleasure, as well as dropping aversion to pain.

Losing attachments/renunciation doesn't mean become an automaton. It just means understanding their impermanent nature and not holding things up on a pedestal or getting too worked up when things go away.



Neither of which has anything to do with what Buddha taught.

Neither? We're just talking about Corpse meditation... what is the other thing?



Buddha taught many objects of meditation, a large part of which are morbid (ten are different stages of corpse decay, one is imagining your food as dog-vomit, two are enumerating internal organs and fluids and other body parts, etc), and for none of those objects of meditation did he say that lay-people shouldn't use when they meditate on Uposatha days, all are taught to be used by his disciples. And, as a matter of fact, the only objects of meditation where he explicitly mentioned lay-people, is when he strongly recommends, to everyone, for ofter use, five meditations- on the inevitability of aging, illness, death, loss and karma.
Are you/have you been a practicing Buddhist? No one really does those meditations, except for maybe certain Theravadan schools.


Which just affirms what I wrote- Buddha's teachings aren't really popular anywhere.
No, it just means that not every single word he said/that is associated with him is taken literally, or is used as The One True Holy Word that must be adhered to to a T.





Again, there are two options- either Buddha was un-buddhist, or people who pick-and-choose out of his teachings what they like and reject anything they don't like (which as a rule turns out to be the core of his teaching) are un-buddhist. And again, a really tough choice, you really have to think real heard about which one of those is true.

Beliefs/ideas/traditions change due to social-historical-political reasons. We all know that. So what if the Buddha talked about devas and heaven/hell realms? The point is not how to abide by the words he "said" 100%, but how to apply them to our lives. I think that's a fair point to make for any belief system (religious or not) - how does it apply to us? What can we do to keep in the spirit of the teaching but make it applicable to our lives right now?

It's called 'change.' But maybe a board like Revleft isn't too familiar with the concept, seeing as how some of you argue about shit that happened last century as if it matters to the working class today.

[bropasaran]

There is a classic paradox in Buddhism - the fact that the Buddha taught that desire is the root of suffering, and that Buddhist adherents desire to be free from samsara.
No paradox exists there whatsoever, because virtually everything is defined and repetead and phrased into mnemonic devices and repeated again ad nauseam. Desire that binds one to the circle of rebirth is threefold- desire for pleasure, desire to exist, desire to not exist. (Even different terms are used- tanha/ chanda)

Some forms of pleasure/desire are "helpful" and cause relatively little harm overall, whereas others obviously cause greater harm.


The Middle Path is just this - finding the middle ground between extremes of any type. Many Buddhist authors write about this. So for pleasure, its' better to choose the pleasure that causes the least harm if you must choose pleasure.
In Cafeteria "Buddhism" maybe. According to Buddha it has a clear meaning, and there is nowhere where Buddha suggests that one "must" choose a pleasure.


So yeah, people can be born rich/poor because of their karma, but can do things now to change that. You're not stuck in "stations" or a caste or anything like that.
Stop straw-manning, you are exaggering what I'm saying and by rejecting that caricatured, exaggerated version you think you disproved what I actually say. No one said that there are castes or that one cannot do anything about the position he is born into. But that doesn't change the fact that Buddha taught that people get bad births because of their past life bad karma, he even lists what specific deeds lead to wealthy/ poor, low-class/ high-class, sick/ healthy birth. There are multiple places where he talkes about it, e.g. he says that if one is a killer of beings and/ or violent, if he is reborn as a human (although he will most probably be reborn in the lower realms), he will have a short life and be frequently sick; if one practices sexual misconduct, if reborn as human, one will have many enemies, an unsuitable spouse, or will be born as a woman, or as a transsexual, and there are various such statements. You can accept those Buddha's teaching or reject them, but you can't deny that they are his teachings.


Okay... what are you trying to say?
That unwholesomeness of pleasure and the wholesomeness of renunciation of pleasure are core teachings of Buddha.


Yes, but my point is that it's not just focusing on material suffering, which is what you suggest.
You are again no so subtly straw-manning me. I didn't say that Buddha's teaching is just focusing on suffering, but that it is the core of his teaching, which it is, and no one who glances at the suttas can miss it.


Like I mentioned, it's not about turning into a person who goes "pleasure is bad! everyone stahhhp" as much as developing insight and dropping attachments to things that cause pleasure, as well as dropping aversion to pain.

Losing attachments/renunciation doesn't mean become an automaton. It just means understanding their impermanent nature and not holding things up on a pedestal or getting too worked up when things go away.
You can sugarcoat it all you want and try make Buddha sound like Oprah, but that doesn't change what he taught.

And he taught this: Life is suffering. Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress & despair are suffering; not getting what is wanted is suffering, getting what is not wanted is suffering, not being able to hold onto what is wanted is suffering. Attachment to the body is suffering, attachment to feelings, perceptions, thought and to consciousness is suffering.

The only way to stop the cycle of suffering is to renounce desire, namely- the desire for any pleasure, the desire for existing, the desire for not-existing. To do that you are to ofter reming yourself of the inevitability of aging, illness, death, loss and karma. You are to remind yourself of all kinds of suffering that exist in samsara, minor and major ones, short-lasting and long-lasting ones. You are to remind yourself of death by looking at and remining of yourself of various stages of corpse decay. You are to imagine your food as dog-vomit. Buddha repeats these formulae over and over, it's simply impossible to miss them. Yes, Buddha teaches other thigs as well, but this is the core. He repeats over and over that his teaching is about suffering and the cessation of suffering.

If you don't accept the above, then you are not to be taught the four noble truths and the noble eight-fold path, for you is only the "religion of gods and men"- to respect Buddha, his teaching and his monks, to believe in rebirth, not commit evil deads, to donate to the monks and collect merit to be reborn and stay long in heaven. Only when you approach Buddhism with a feeling of dismay (samvega- a feeling of alienation, of being shocked by the suffering of samsara and feeling the futility of being reborn endlessly in it), and readiness to renounce any pleasurable experience, only then are you to step on the eight-fold path with it's intricate doctrines and higher meditation practices.


Neither? We're just talking about Corpse meditation... what is the other thing?
You said:
"This meditation isn't used by all schools of Buddhism," - which is irrelevant to what Buddha taught. Buddha nowhere said- when you devide into various schools and invent stuff I never said, make sure to ignore a bunch of stuff I taught.
"and generally is only recommended by a teacher if the student monastic has a problem with being horny" - same.


Are you/have you been a practicing Buddhist?
I've experimented with it.


No one really does those meditations, except for maybe certain Theravadan schools.
As I said, Buddha's teaching isn't really popular anywhere. Someone calling oneself a "buddhist" doesn't make him one.


No, it just means that not every single word he said/that is associated with him is taken literally, or is used as The One True Holy Word that must be adhered to to a T.
That kind of exactly is the point, being he talked multiple times about his infinite knowledge, how he remembered his own innumerable past lives and saw all the planes of existence in samsara, how he knows the way out of samsara, which no other teacher knows, etc.


So what if the Buddha talked about devas and heaven/hell realms? The point is not how to abide by the words he "said" 100%, but how to apply them to our lives.
Also known as cafeteria religion, also known as picking-and-choosing, also known as being a hypocrite, lying to oneself and others one is something he is not.

[Invincible Summer]

I'm gonna just address a couple of points because I think I see what bropasaran is getting at.




As I said, Buddha's teaching isn't really popular anywhere. Someone calling oneself a "buddhist" doesn't make him one.

But someone who went through monastic training in a lineage isn't "someone calling oneself a buddhist." Not saying that the lineage system is great, but I'm just making the point that there are people who take the Buddha's teachings very seriously and believe it is their duty to uphold them, and these people have taught other people the same. And then they teach laypeople.

Of course, there are certain interpretations and cultural add-ons depending on where you are, but the core is the same.



That kind of exactly is the point, being he talked multiple times about his infinite knowledge, how he remembered his own innumerable past lives and saw all the planes of existence in samsara, how he knows the way out of samsara, which no other teacher knows, etc.


Also known as cafeteria religion, also known as picking-and-choosing, also known as being a hypocrite, lying to oneself and others one is something he is not.

So basically your point is that if you don't follow something 100% then you're a poseur, a hypocrite, etc?

If you're "experimented" with Buddhism, then you should know that the Buddha changed his message and teaching style for various audiences. Mahayana Buddhists refer to this as upaya or "skillful means." Action that is full of wisdom, compassion, and is used in an appropriately timed manner.

The Buddha taught change (impermanence; anicca) as part and parcel of his philosophy. Well, upaya is using change and action together to produce results.

Therefore, what is "Buddhist" isn't necessarily pinning it down to what the Buddha said. It's also applying his teachings in a manner appropriate for the context, with the addition of wisdom and compassionate intent.

I'm not trying to make Buddhism "sound like Oprah." I'm just relaying my experience with the religion from retreats, books, and talks all hosted/written/given by trained monastics or former monastics. Just read any book by Jack Kornfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ajahn Brahm, or even Thanissaro Bhikkhu. All of these people are/have been celibate monks and spend their lives teaching the dhamma. I don't think you can accuse them of "cafeteria religion."

I also would like to remind you of the co-opting of Buddhist/Vedic principles and language by the self-help movement, which may explain why things sound "new agey." Similar language is used by people who have dedicated their lives to the teachings of the Buddha. Perhaps this is upaya for the 21st century?


And bropasaran, I guess you should also know that I'm coming from mainly a Zen background, so my interpretations of things can seem quite different or loose compared to the more traditional Theravadan one. There's even a famous Zen saying about killing the Buddha if you meet him on a road. Zen is iconoclastic - it tries to cut straight to the heart of the teachings. More emphasis on experiencing the teachings and how they work in our lives vs. following doctrine by the letter. The language is different, but the goal is the same.

[bropasaran]

But someone who went through monastic training in a lineage isn't "someone calling oneself a buddhist." Okay, he's elaboratelly calling oneself a buddhist.



Not saying that the lineage system is great, but I'm just making the point that there are people who take the Buddha's teachings very seriously and believe it is their duty to uphold them
Most likely those people take what they falsly believe to be Buddha's teaching seriously and uphold those.



So basically your point is that if you don't follow something 100% then you're a poseur, a hypocrite, etc?
Something like that. There are definitions which make things those things. Every concept has it's limits and scope, otherwise it's not that specfic concept, it's nothing, a vague and poitless word that means everything and nothing. Everything you talk about has it's genus proximum and it's differentia specifica that makes it that thing you talk about. E.e. if I'm a helenistic pagan and I tell people I believe in Hesiod's Theogony, but I don't really belive in what it says, I'm lying to people. If I'm also lying to myself, then I'm a hypocrite. Because Hesiod's Theogony is defined by what is written in it.



If you're "experimented" with Buddhism, then you should know that the Buddha changed his message and teaching style for various audiences.
And he explicitly systematized which teaching is for whom, in which order, I have cited it two messages ago.



The Buddha taught change (impermanence; anicca) as part and parcel of his philosophy.
Anicca is an essential part of Buddha's teaching because it is a part of his core teaching- suffering and the cessation of suffering. Body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness are anicca, dukkha and anatta, and that is why one must renounce all desire for those five burdens.



I'm not trying to make Buddhism "sound like Oprah." I'm just relaying my experience with the religion from retreats, books, and talks all hosted/written/given by trained monastics or former monastics.
Then they are trying to make Buddha sound like Oprah and you're accepting it from them. This is a fact: renouncing all sensual (and later even purely mental) pleasures in order to escape the profuse suffering of samsara is the core teaching of the Buddha, as I already said, he was explicit that only when one accepts that, only then is he to be taught the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path. The majority of people who call themselves buddhist, who teach something else and call it 'buddhism' - that doesn't undo the mentioned fact, it just makes those people unbuddhist. And there are people who actually are buddhists, e.g. to quote Thanissaro Bhikkhu who you mentioned:


"Once, just out of curiosity, I went through a pile of Western dharma books and magazines, looking up the topic of renunciation. Most of them didn’t even mention it. From the few that did, I learned that renunciation means, one, giving up unhealthy relationships; two, abandoning your controlling mindset; and three, dropping your fear of the unknown. [None of these is true.] Now, we don’t need the Buddha to tell us those things. We can learn the first lesson from our parents, and the other two from a good therapist. But the Buddha recommended giving up a lot of things that most well-meaning parents and therapists would tell their children and patients to hold onto tightly. And yet you don’t see any mention of this in American dharma."


As a person who actually read what Buddha taught and is genuinly interested in following Buddha's teaching, Thanissaro, of course, cannot fail but to recognise the un-buddhist-ness of this trend, and as he says in his essay Romancing the Buddha, modern western buddhism has more to with German Romantics (and with "liberal christianity" I might add) then the Buddha.



The language is different, but the goal is the same.
To claim that, you first have to acknowledge the goal as taught by the Buddha, which is preserved both in the Nikayas (as preserved by the Theravada Tipitaka) and the Agamas (as preserved by Mahayana Tripitaka), which are basically identical.

[Thirsty Crow]

I'd speculate that this has something to do with the underlying idea of mentally escaping the cycle of suffering - which is of course an illusory escape.

[qhekfirw11]

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[Invincible Summer]

Something like that. There are definitions which make things those things. Every concept has it's limits and scope, otherwise it's not that specfic concept, it's nothing, a vague and poitless word that means everything and nothing.

In your opinion then, ideas/definitions can't change based on social/historical/political context?

The core of the Buddha's teachings are the same in pretty much all schools of Buddhism. I believe the language has just changed to suit the times, and a growing Western audience. I don't think that necessarily means that Buddhism has become corrupted or that monks and nuns are "fake Buddhists" (although there probably are many). I think it just means that the radical nature of Buddhism is more obscured, probably to serve the interests of capital. Instead of directly challenging the concepts of nation-states, capital, and class by understanding them as illusory and seeking to be rid of them as a cause of suffering, there is a trend to use language that makes it a mental game (that being said, the whole monastic-layperson relationship can be problematic depending on how it is played out, but that's another discussion).

I would agree with you that many who are attracted to Buddhism are really just attracted to cafeteria Buddhism (e.g. the Vipassana Movement) and whatever makes Buddhism more palatable. However, I think this is just due to the misunderstanding of the new language that is being used (intentional or not). So basically, I think Buddhism is just taking a new avenue into the West, but this avenue is being co-opted by people with other agendas.

Finally, regarding renunciation, I don't disagree that that's what the Buddha taught. What I'm getting at is that renunciation is a process that is supposed to take lifetimes, hence the concept of rebirth. People might be Buddhists and honestly want to follow the Buddha's teachings as laid out in the Tipitaka, but people can only really renounce what they're ready for. So if it just means more menial forms of suffering, or renouncing things that still serve the status quo, it's something for them to work out (over lifetimes, or by someone with more wisdom giving them a strong nudge). So while I do agree that Buddhism is in the midst of being co-opted, I think it's perhaps unfair to judge those who are trying to practice the Dhamma but aren't following the "best" path from the get go.

I'm not even sure if I'm basically contradicting some of the things I've said before, if I agree with you, or if I disagree with you. But I think we've gotten a bit off track from the OP. The above is what I think about the current state of Buddhism, so there.



I'd speculate that this has something to do with the underlying idea of mentally escaping the cycle of suffering - which is of course an illusory escape.

Well, it's an immaterial escape, which isn't necessarily illusory. Just perhaps unhelpful to those who aren't practicing the same religion and are suffering materially. This is one problem I have with the way Buddhism is taught - trying to crush the immaterial causes of suffering while often playing down (or sometimes ignoring) material suffering.

[bropasaran]

In your opinion then, ideas/definitions can't change based on social/historical/political context?
It's past events that can't change. Ideas don't have metaphysical existence, there are no platonic forms floating around which would exist even though no man would to even think them. Ideas get established by people, sometimes a group or groups, or sometimes, just one person. If some other people misrepresent what those people said, then that's falshood, it's lies, it's revisionism.

In the case of Buddhism the case is that the label, by it's nature, refers to the teaching of Buddha, and we have that teaching preserved. Those saying that something is Buddha's teaching, and it's not Buddha's teachings, they are wrong and are not telling the truth, plain and simple. Almost certainly they are not saying falsehoods willfully and malevolently, but it is a willful ignorance, because Buddha's teaching is available to anyone interested to find out what it is, and they are obviously not interested enough, they would rather continue to live in illusions they feel comfortable in, as most people generally would, no matter which view is in question, it seems to be a general tendency of human behavior.


What I'm getting at is that renunciation is a process that is supposed to take lifetimes
There is no such notion in Buddhism. Buddha said that one can learn and accomplish his entire teaching in just seven day if one would put it enough effort. He also said that a human rebirth is very, very, very, very rare, and that inside the scope of human worlds it is very rare to be born into a place and time where the Buddha's teaching is known, like a one in a billion chance, so it a most urgent duty to practice the Budda's teaching.