[HN Gopher] Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the W...
___________________________________________________________________
Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the
corporation
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 154 points
Date : 2022-07-12 07:33 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.guernicamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.guernicamag.com)
| whatever1 wrote:
| Nothing new. Religion was always used to keep the oppressed in
| check.
|
| Because you know what happens here is not a big deal. You will
| get somehow rewarded for your hardships after you kick the
| bucket.
|
| Also it's a great tool to rally people to a cause. And can
| generate cash!
|
| Best idea ever.
| labrador wrote:
| > Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western
| appropriation of Buddhism
|
| Well it works both ways with many Asians appropriating
| Christianity
|
| /sarcasm
| pessimizer wrote:
| The reason you appropriate Christianity is to get some of that
| colonizer cash or, farther back, under pain of torture and
| death.
| labrador wrote:
| Corporations are pushing Buddhist mindfulness to calm
| employees down, get them to pay attention to their job and
| thus increase productivity and their bottom line. It's a win
| win!
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I get a little tired of Western adoption of values or ideas from
| non-Western cultures being called "appropriation".
| affgrff2 wrote:
| I agree, that is rather stupid. There is a point in the concept
| of appropriation if a group actually is negatively affected,
| but there should be no IP on ideas on how to live a good life.
| blippage wrote:
| I agree. The word "appropriation" heavily connotes an
| interpretation as theft, and therefore bad. But cultures never
| exist in a vacuum, there's always cross-pollination,
| inspiration and adaption of ideas. I see this as a good, rather
| than bad, thing. Some people make out that their cultural
| artefacts are theirs, and theirs alone.
|
| But I still see that there is a problem with Buddhism being
| used in corporate America. It smacks too much of a kind of
| "spiritual materialism" for want of better words, which is
| precisely the kind of thing that won't work.
|
| Rather than say "appropriation", I'd say that Buddhism has been
| "misappropriated" would be an apt description in this instance.
| I reiterate that words like "appropriation" and
| "misappropriation" must be used only in rare cases.
|
| Buddhism does have a place in the West, but I'd prefer people
| to seek guidance from genuine monks rather than laymen who
| style themselves as "trainers".
| pessimizer wrote:
| Far more people are tired of Westerners blacking up, dressing
| up in a parody of the people that they colonized and doing a
| little dance that seems like something a native would do, which
| is why it's a discussion now.
| lmm wrote:
| Citation needed. Is it really far more people, or just a few
| more influential (mostly western or westernised and upper-
| class) people?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Right. But how does that apply to Buddhism? Haven't noticed
| much blackface at the local Buddhist Association.
| solardev wrote:
| Oops, looks like your mindfulness has expired! Would you like to
| renew it for $4.99?
| hkt wrote:
| Being bullied into long hours by your boss? Why not try a
| breathing exercise!
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Non-reincarnationists hate this trick to get more work
| done....
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| This Silicon Valley startup only hires unicorns --
| literally
| Existenceblinks wrote:
| Ironically, it's expired and renew in every point in time. Even
| Arahants couldn't stand still in provocative environments.
| "Mindfulness" is weird english word that doesn't translate well
| into what it actually is. I would describe the state of mind
| like "nothingness of soul". At the end of the day, as I
| understand, Buddhism is about observing things from distance
| (even mind detached from everything, eventually until there is
| no mind/soul at all), like "it is what it is". Anger, love,
| stress whatever comes and go. Urhggg oh my .. buddhist, the
| more I describe the more it becomes inaccurate.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| lmao, reminds me of when in response to a lot of people being
| overworked and unable to work, they decided to offer a free
| subscription to a mindfulness app.
|
| I mean, have you tried reducing workload first?
| elcapitan wrote:
| Ah, the Gavin Belson school of enlightenment.
| pc2g4d wrote:
| "Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or
| tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify
| with."
|
| She writes from a race-essentialist framing to a degree and that
| drives me crazy.
|
| "white Americans" "white Westerners" x6
|
| There's a sort of cultural appropriation shame being layered here
| ---as if it's bad to have light skin and be interested in
| Buddhism, or adapt Buddhism to your existing worldview.
|
| If it were non-white people who predominantly led this movement
| in the US, she would be praising their adaptability as they
| syncretized a religion to meet their needs.
|
| And are there really no black or latino or asian practitioners of
| this kind of Buddhism? Of course there are.
|
| There's a "cool" factor of foregrounding race these days and I
| don't think it's healthy. Westernized Buddhism isn't exclusive to
| any race, nor is being "Western". Why reinforce the lines between
| racial categories like this, further reifying them?
|
| That said, I appreciate the critique of corporation-as-organized-
| religion. The decline in institutional religion in America has
| left exactly the void that is being filled here, but with
| probably more fucked up motives than your typical church. At
| least when you would leave your employment, you wouldn't get
| kicked out of your congregation. But if your employment _is_ your
| "congregation"...
|
| Separation of church and work might not be a bad principle.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| Somehow these arguments about cultural appropriation only ever
| go one way. I've never heard anyone claim that it's cultural
| appropriation when non-Westerners adopt -- and benefit from --
| various Western schools of thought. I've never felt the urge to
| gate-keep, say, the germ theory of disease from non-Westerners.
| What right do I have to do that? What write does the author
| have to gate-keep Buddhism? Why do people do this?
| [deleted]
| esics6A wrote:
| Jokes on the writer because Buddhism originated in India and
| evolved from Hinduism and spread as far as Southern Russia and
| Central Asia in addition to East Asia and Southeast Asia where
| it become popular. Ignorant people everywhere these days get to
| write articles who don't have basic history lessons. We learned
| this in high school also about Ashoka and how the Indian
| emperor spread Buddhism literally everywhere in the world. But
| whatever racists aren't known for their learning, understanding
| or intelligence.
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| There is a zen buddhist saying "Be careful not to stink of zen".
| And it can apply both to Buddhism as practised in the west and
| the east. Its a slightly... provoking saying though, as it may
| offend other Buddhist practitioners.
|
| Zen Buddhism (from Japan/China) can of course vary greatly from
| Theravada Buddhism (found in South and South-East Asia). However
| I would say, that there seems to me much more variety of Buddhist
| schools in zen Buddhism (Japan) and what they believe and
| practice than in Buddhism as practised in Thailand, Cambodia etc.
|
| Buddhism is quite fluid even in Asia - but I do think that its
| right that the Buddhism that is in the west (mostly influenced
| from Japan zen schools - e.g. soto) came from a more idealised
| version than is practiced often in the east.
|
| There was an article in the BBC a while back (can try and find if
| people want) that noted that Buddhism as practised in the west
| had issues as it promoted a 'cold selfish' side of Buddhism (it
| pointed to some studies of people that meditate feeling less
| guilty if they commited a crime). This differed from how its
| mostly used in Asia where compassion/karmic practice/social works
| and community are more encouraged.
|
| Personally I wouldn't trust any Buddhist practice organized by a
| company - the stink of zen would likely be pretty unbearable
| realreality wrote:
| Part of the problem is that Buddhist institutions in the west
| are organized like non-profits or social clubs. They have
| hierarchies of lay people and boards of directors. They have to
| appeal to rich people for fundraising, and they become embedded
| in a sort of upperclass culture.
|
| They don't "stink of zen"; they stink of capitalism.
| TedShiller wrote:
| > LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner calls his leadership style
| "compassionate management," which he describes as "putting
| yourself in another person's shoes and seeing the world through
| their lens or perspective," and claims it is inspired by
| teachings of the Dalai Lama.
|
| It's good corporate marketing but only skin thin: He'd still fire
| your ass in a millisecond if he needs to or wants to, regardless
| of your personal predicament.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| For sure, that's what managers do; sometimes for good reason,
| but often it's just a numbers game.
|
| I've seen this a few times; companies live by their values,
| until it comes down to money, then it's "just business". It's
| the public marketing face, and plenty of people are happy to
| live under its delusion, only to be confronted with the hard
| truth when it's time for reorganizations.
| coldtea wrote:
| Unless you're also willing to forego maximizing profits for
| this, it's just a BS for-show "putting yourself in another
| person's shoes".
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Amazing. Weiner discovered the Golden Rule thought it was his
| own creation, repackaged it in corporatespeak.
|
| "Compassionate management" should be the norm, and I'm
| suspicious of anyone who considers their own brand of
| management to be special for adhering to such a principle
|
| I understand that Weiner has probably dealt with a lot of
| uncompassionate managers, but that should be treated as the
| exception to the definition of management and not the rule.
| prox wrote:
| There is a practice called "warm capitalism" or some term
| like that and the essence is that you not go for the lowest
| bidder, but for the one having the best values (say most
| environmentally friendly) which in turn creates interest in
| being more environmentally friendly. But it could also be
| other values like social equality and so on.
| rg111 wrote:
| > _Chen: For the overwhelming majority of Asian Buddhists,
| Buddhism is a devotional practice. Bowing to images of deities,
| burning incense, worshiping at an altar -- those are all
| fundamental elements of Buddhist practice. There is this
| acknowledgement of worshiping higher beings. Meditation was not
| at all a mainstream lay practice in Buddhism. It only became
| popular in the early twentieth century, when Buddhist reformers
| such as the Burmese monk Mahasi Sayadaw, founder of modern
| Vipassana meditation, promoted it as a lay Buddhist practice.
| Mindfulness, as it was practiced for most of its history in Asia,
| was a very elite practice reserved only for advanced monastics.
| But Jack Kornfield, who is one of a number of influential
| teachers responsible for making Buddhist meditation go
| mainstream, understood that devotional Buddhism would be an
| obstacle for white Americans. He emphasized meditation because he
| understood that devotional Buddhism would be too associated with
| "religious" practice._
|
| This paragraph is so so wrong. Where do I even start?
|
| She says that others are appropriating Buddhism, and she goes on
| to do just that.
|
| Yuck.
|
| And no, meditation wasn't reserved for the monastic elites. Did
| she even study Buddhism at all?
|
| Buddha said in his address to Ananda, that thousands of his
| disciples who are in households, and not monks, have attained
| Nirvana. Not only did they meditate, they attained Nirvana- the
| highest goal.
|
| This person is saying all sorts of wrong things.
|
| If you go by Gautama Buddha's teachings only, you will know that
| none of the common practices nowadays are kind of forbidden by
| Buddha. The bowing down, the incense sticks- these are later
| additions, and never encouraged by the Buddha.
| pessimizer wrote:
| That paragraph has specific names and references so I can
| verify what is being said. You're just offering bare contrary
| claims and drama.
|
| > Where do I even start?
|
| Start with a claim you think is wrong, and explain how it is
| wrong with enough information that I don't have to trust you.
| rg111 wrote:
| Read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught". You will know
| how far deviated incense burning and bowing to pictures are
| from Buddha's teaching.
|
| Buddhism is a very rational philosophy. If you study Buddhism
| in the light of it being a protest against established
| thiestic, ritualistic religion in India, these will start
| making much more sense.
|
| As far as McMeditation is from Buddhism, the same is true for
| regular people worshipping Buddha like a god.
|
| Religion might have democratic elements, but truth isn't
| democratic.
| realreality wrote:
| If you read the "Inquiry of Ugra", you'll see that the ideal
| layperson is nothing like the average American Buddhist. The
| layperson is supposed to live like a monk and hope to be reborn
| as a proper monastic.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugrapariprccha_Sutra
| rg111 wrote:
| This is just an answer to one person's enquiry.
|
| I have read another which I cannot remember the name for.
|
| Buddha, with the help of ten directions, tells a layman to do
| his ten-fold duties.
|
| One of them is keeping his wife happy, another one is about
| having friends, another one is about earning money and
| growing wealth.
|
| Please read Walpola Rahula's "What the Buddha Taught".
| realreality wrote:
| I think it's folly to try to essentialize "the Buddha",
| when it's likely that Siddhartha Gautama never even
| existed.
|
| My point in bringing up Ugra was to show that many/most
| sects of Buddhism have been predominantly focused on
| monasticism. In the sutras, advanced lay people are the
| exception, not the rule. And the surrounding societies
| understand that there's a difference. But in the west, lay
| people have higher expectations for spiritual attainment...
| akprasad wrote:
| You seem to take the author's language here as describing early
| Buddhism, but I think she is describing the observed history of
| _Asian_ Buddhism, presumably East and Southeast Asian Buddhism.
| I think this is a clearer reading given that she starts with
| "Asian Buddhists," focuses on the Burmese tradition, mentions
| again "for most of its history _in Asia_ ," mentions Jack
| Kornfield who studied in the Thai tradition, etc.
|
| For the language at the end of your comment, this kind of _sola
| scriptura_ [1] approach is valuable and worthwhile, and it is
| part of how lay meditation traditions were revived in Asian
| Buddhism [2] -- but when you describe Asian Buddhist traditions
| as "later additions ... never encouraged by the Buddha," isn't
| this what the author has in mind with her next paragraph?
| Copied for your convenience:
|
| > I want to clarify, by the way, that I'm not necessarily
| critical of American Buddhist entrepreneurs. The problem is if
| you mistake this white American Buddhism for all Buddhism, or
| claim that this is the "right" or "only" way to practice
| Buddhism.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura [2]:
| https://vividness.live/protestant-buddhism
| rg111 wrote:
| It's fair is she mentions that she is describing Buddhism as
| per _current SE-Asian practices_.
|
| Then it is fair.
|
| > The problem is if you mistake this white American Buddhism
| for all Buddhism, or claim that this is the "right" or "only"
| way to practice Buddhism.
|
| But she wants to make the readers believe that _her_ version
| of Buddhism is the "right" way to do it? And she is rebuking
| the white Buddhists for deviating from it?
| gnramires wrote:
| I haven't had the time to read this article carefully (I will do
| so later), but it's very problematic to "gatekeep" religion or
| knowledge. If you're learning from eastern masters, if the
| original intent of the religion was to spread widely to any
| interested party, if you're being curious and respectful (you can
| even respectfully criticize, reject, or condemn _any_ culture --
| this is what enables rejecting and criticizing fascism even if
| not in your own nation; and this is what enables us to improve
| our society with cultural exchange). So on the surface the
| criticism here isn 't valid at all.
|
| Second, no person is obliged to adhere to a standard defined
| hundreds of years ago (or otherwise). Buddhism, and all cultures,
| are allowed to evolve according to our better understanding of
| science, the universe, ourselves, even philosophy, etc.. And also
| to fit well into people's lives and local culture. Most of the
| spirit of the Buddha is that of finding the truth and achieving
| enlightenment -- being too stuck to his every word is contrary to
| the spirit of his teachings. Secularity (I am a secular Buddhist)
| wasn't even too well defined in the time of Buddha I think.
|
| If you don't want to learn anything about Buddhism, only the
| basics of meditation, no one should stop you. I think most
| teachings are very beautiful and well worthy of study, but that's
| ultimately up to yourself.
|
| If you want to learn more, I thoroughly recommend masters like
| Thich Nhat Hanh and reading (perhaps commentated) Buddha's
| original thoughts (I believe Dhammapada summarizes many of them).
| pawsforthought wrote:
| Quite right, and you'll find that Chen (the author and
| interviewee) is not really pointing to the aspect of adaptation
| as being problematic, more so the ends to which Buddhist
| practice is being repurposed.
|
| A few relevant excerpts:
|
| > The Dalai Lama was instrumental in advancing the
| secularization of meditation. For him it was in part a
| political calculation. He wanted to make Buddhism relevant and
| useful to the West.
|
| > I think all the teachers had some qualms about being forced
| to leave the ethical aspects of Buddhism out of the workplace.
| They were not being hired to make the employees more ethical;
| they were being hired to make them more productive.
|
| > Interestingly enough, I think that companies have been able
| to command great self-sacrifice from Americans in a way that no
| other institution can today. I would argue that companies or
| workplaces have become the new faith communities that are
| replacing organized religion.
|
| > But there are downsides to this. We start to organize our
| selves, communities, and spiritualities around capitalism's
| goals of efficiency and productivity, ignoring other possible
| ethics of justice, kinship, and beauty. Ultimately, companies,
| which are driven by the bottom line, cannot offer us a
| "solution" for a flourishing life.
|
| When I think of the startup I left, and which took so much of
| my life, it's easy to characterize it as a quasi cult.
| mola wrote:
| Read the article. You are fighting a strawman. And it's
| detrimental for a discussion about this article.
|
| There's no gate keeping there, but an analysis of how Buddhism
| as a concept evolved in the US and "the west".
| omarfarooq wrote:
| How would these people react if they learned that the Buddha said
| his teachings were to last only 1000 years* if women were not
| included in the Sangha? And will only last 500 years after women
| were included?:
|
| > "But, Ananda, if women had not obtained the Going-forth from
| the home life into homelessness in the Dhamma & Vinaya made known
| by the Tathagata, the holy life would have lasted long, the true
| Dhamma would have lasted 1,000 years. But now that they have
| obtained the Going-forth from the home life into homelessness in
| the Dhamma & Vinaya made known by the Tathagata, the holy life
| will not last long, the true Dhamma will last only 500 years.
|
| Source: AN 8:51 Gotami Sutta, Pali Canon:
| https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN8_51.html
|
| Curiously, this sutta is left out of accesstoinsight.org, which
| is the leading source on the Internet for deriving the Buddha's
| authentic words (translated to English). What's your agenda,
| Bhikku Thanissaro _? Certainly not truth if your way is the way
| of omission.
|
| *Then, what is it that is being practiced today that is called
| Buddhism? Or are Buddhists unaware of the mentioned sutta of the
| Buddha... or do they reject it?_
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| For what its worth Buddhism did die out entirely in India.
| [deleted]
| cyberpunk wrote:
| It was 2500 years ago.
|
| We do not care at all.
|
| Buddhism is not a philosophy based on a magic book or some
| unprovable god; it's just people. The Buddha was a normal
| person, and absolutely could and did make the kinds of mistakes
| common in his time.
|
| I don't think that stops it being useful, personally.
| solardev wrote:
| I think it depends on your particular fork of Buddhism. It's
| a pretty open source religion, and some sects and scriptures
| are more devout to tradition and mysticism than others.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Then, what is it that is being practiced today that is
| called Buddhism? Or are Buddhists unaware of the mentioned
| sutta of the Buddha... or do they reject it?_
|
| Well, there are many things the Buddha said that they could not
| care less about. That would just be one more.
|
| A religion is not about precisely what some founder said, but
| how it was adopted, intepreted, and developed (including what
| parts were given precedence and which were ignored).
| meotimdihia wrote:
| I don't know how to explain it in English. But he didn't say
| his teachings were to last only 1000 years.
|
| Buddha said it is super hard or impossible to achieve Nirvana
| or became Arahant after 1500-2000 years.
|
| But if you never practice, you'll never achieve anything.
|
| Even Buddha needs 4 Asamkhyeya to become a Buddha.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa%E1%B9%83khyeya
| omarfarooq wrote:
| > Buddha said it is super hard or impossible to achieve
| Nirvana after 1500-2000 years.
|
| Well, that I can agree with. Also according to the Buddha,
| there are signs that an enlightened being can display to
| prove their enlightenment. A simple one is that fire does not
| affect them. To prove his enlightenment, "Ananda performed a
| supernatural accomplishment by diving into the earth and
| appearing on his seat at the council (or, according to some
| sources, by flying through the air.)"
|
| This is the only modern evidence of anyone meeting the
| criteria: https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-
| content/uploads...
| nicky0 wrote:
| You seem to be rather a literalist.
| omarfarooq wrote:
| And how should I take those signs of enlightenment then?
| If not literally then Buddhist scripture is no better
| than fiction.
| carapace wrote:
| Ramana Maharshi got cancer. When the doctor operated to
| remove the tumor anesthetic was refused. Ramana watched
| the operation without evident discomfort. He said after
| that he experienced the sensations of the operation but
| did not suffer.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| All religions are fiction.
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Think you are mixing things. I don't think people are actually
| "budhists", but instead have found something useful from
| meditating.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Sutta central is the main Pali canon English translation source
| nowadays, also access to insight is mainly home of Thannisaro,
| not Bodhi
|
| Sutta central has it
| https://suttacentral.net/an8.51/en/sujato?layout=plain&refer...
|
| As for that sutta, the Pali canon is absolutely huge, the
| Mahayana sutras even more so, the majority of the latter
| haven't been translated into English even. Most Buddhists, even
| historically, do not follow the sutras to the word, they use
| them as teaching guidance. There is nothing wrong with not
| accepting a sutra because you don't think it is a good teaching
| or one that is helpful to you
|
| EDIT also Buddhists I've spoken to generally reject that sutta,
| Mahayana Buddhists see all Pali suttas as lesser and
| provisional. The founder of my sect, Dogen, rejected the idea
| of mappo (age of dharma decline) entirely.
|
| It is not historically accurate to think that all Buddhists
| generally accept all Buddhist texts and concepts, unless you
| specifically only mean some of the more hardcore Theravada who
| accept all of the Pali canon. Unfortunately in the west
| Buddhism is often conflated with just the Theravada, since the
| Mahayana seems scarier and more difficult to get into, however
| the latter is more popular and has developed more historically
| guai888 wrote:
| Buddism has always adopt in order to stay relevant. There are
| many ways to achieve enlightenment. Maybe US Buddhists will
| find their own unique path forward.
| blippage wrote:
| There was a great saying by Ajahn Chah, who always seems to
| be quotable. He said "How come everyone says Buddhism is
| old-fashioned and needs to be adapted? No-one ever accuses
| the defilements as being old-fashioned and outdated; no,
| they're always up-to-date."
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yes I expect so, but usually it takes a couple centuries to
| happen in a reliable and organic way
| InCityDreams wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. We're
| trying to avoid that here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: can you please not post unsubstantive and/or
| flamebait comments in general? It looks like you've been
| doing that repeatedly, unfortunately. If you wouldn't mind
| reviewing the guidelines and taking the intended spirit of
| the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
| metta2uall wrote:
| Well, I don't think there's a conspiracy - accesstoinsight.org
| is actually an old site that is missing many suttas. It even
| links to a new updated website (e.g. from https://www.accesstoi
| nsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.053.th...) and if you change
| the URL the sutta you mentioned is actually there:
| https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN8_51.html.
|
| But regarding this, and other, anti-women references in the
| Pali canon, the passages could be corruptions that don't
| reflect what the Buddha actually said. Or they could be
| authentic statements the Buddha made due to genuine beliefs
| and/or wanting better cultural acceptance to help the survival
| of early Buddhism. In either case it's not a disaster for
| Buddhism, which emphasizes the need for individual wisdom &
| compassion, rather than blindly following some real or imagined
| leaders.
|
| Personally I think these are most likely to be corruptions
| because the suttas contain many more passages that are
| respectful of women & nuns. For example
| https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.044.than.html
| omarfarooq wrote:
| This issue at hand here is not limited to the question of
| women in the sangha, but of the Teacher's claims as to the
| potency and longevity of his Teachings.
|
| I'm not sure if pointing out there are contradictions in the
| suttas helps the case.
|
| In any case, whether through having contradictions or through
| rejection via cherry picking, modern Buddhists are eating the
| fruits of a poisoned tree.
| lewispollard wrote:
| The suttas were already cherry picked when they were
| written down. In fact, they were cherry picked when the
| oral tradition first developed.
|
| See also, Digha Nikaya 16, the Maha Parinibbana Sutta, one
| of the foremost suttas detailing the Buddha's awakening, in
| which he refuses to achieve full enlightenment in the
| presence of Mara unless his _monks and nuns, male and
| female lay followers_ were fully established in the dhamma.
|
| https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/DN/DN16.html
| metta2uall wrote:
| If modern "Buddhists" are skillful their practice won't be
| poisoned by a couple of problematic/corrupt passages within
| the huge Pali cannon..
|
| There's the now-famous Kalama Sutta where the Buddha
| specifically encourages people to not rely too much on
| canonical texts: https://suttacentral.net/an3.65/en/sujato
| prox wrote:
| Reminds me of chapter one of the Dao te Ching :
|
| >The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name
| that can be named is not the eternal Name.
|
| The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin
| of all particular things.
|
| Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in
| desire, you see only the manifestations.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| Why use the correct word in the title but the western
| mispronunciation in the quote.
|
| Dao
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| The Dao De Jing was not written in the last century, and
| the ancient pronunciation is only approximately known.
| Yes it's written in Modern Standard Chinese/pinyin as
| "Dao De Jing" but the text has existence in the western
| world older than the Modern Standard Chinese language,
| certainly longer than modern Chinese orthography.
|
| Looking at Zhengzhang reconstruction of the title, for
| instance, we get the pronuciation /l'u:? tW:g ke:NG/ (I
| don't know old Chinese phonology at all, I'm just working
| from wiktionary - please forgive any errors/take with a
| grain of salt). I don't see any particular reason for
| English-speakers to use the Modern Standard Chinese
| pinyin orthography/pronunciation to write terms that come
| from a considerably older way of speaking. (I say this as
| someone learning Classical + Middle Chinese using Middle-
| Chinese pronunciation).
|
| Okay one possible reason is that it might be seen as good
| if the main inheritors of the tradition (the modern
| Chinese state+people) get given 'ownership' of it, and
| that outsiders speak using their preferred
| terminology/pronunciation. But I'm not personally on
| board with that, any more than I'd insist that people
| pronounce Shakespeare in American English.
|
| [ I apologise for any snark that might be residual in
| this reply (and acknowledge that the remark is slightly
| tangential to the topic of this page) - I've tried to
| keep it constructive. ]
| prox wrote:
| My Daoist teacher doesn't really mind either way,
| although his english usage is the "Dao" form. I am
| assuming that is the more modern/current form.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The way I was taught, suttas/sutras were treated as interesting
| historical documents, and sometimes as useful aids to
| understanding. They were _not_ considered to be "gospel"
| truth, because they are not associated with a practice lineage.
| That is, there is only a text; there is no handing-down of a
| lived experience from teacher to practitioner.
|
| My teachers favoured more "modern" texts, such as Asanga's
| works, and the Prajnaparamita literature. They have practice
| lineages that can be traced back to their authors. Statements
| from the sutras/suttas were met with remarks of the form "Very
| interesting; it may be true, or it may be not true".
| yunohn wrote:
| Disclaimer: I'm an atheist.
|
| I don't believe this is the gotcha that you think it is.
|
| Every single school of thought, religion or otherwise, has good
| and bad parts. Taking the overwhelmingly good aspects of
| Buddhism to understand how to lead a better life, is not
| invalidated because the Buddha said one thing you dislike. It's
| naivety to desire 100% perfection from everyone/thing.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| One of the agreed-upon principles common to the largest
| Buddhist denominations is that our world was not created and
| is not ruled by an omnipresent, omniscient God.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| I don't know why this good advice is downvoted, and looks
| like mine will too.
|
| I don't understand why people still consider literature
| written by human with nowadays language to must be either
| perfect or it's worthless.
|
| Also how they see a form of government that declared they're
| adopting one religion teaching and using it as argument proof
| / point.
|
| We will spiralling down to whataboutism soon like this.
| Cherry picks the good ones are fine, and people do that
| everyday. Just don't cherry pick a bad one to justify your
| agenda and your bad action.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's like people want these things written down in no-holes
| legalese. While at the same time people will misinterpret
| what others are saying (see "straw man argument"; people
| are quick to jump to conclusions about people about what
| they say and don't say).
|
| Here's a religious code people can live by: "Don't be a
| dick". I'm sure that summarizes all the good parts of
| organized religions and philosophies. It's also the most
| difficult one to adhere to for a lot of people.
| omarfarooq wrote:
| nabla9 wrote:
| As someone who has spend long time meditating in Buddhist
| monasteries, I would say they don't care.
|
| Sutras are just teachings. You may learn from them and value
| them, but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic
| religions are. You don't have to parse everything Buddha and
| ponder it endlessly. Sometimes he just wondered about the
| future of the discipline. He also changed his mind when others
| presented arguments, just like in this case.
|
| Buddhism as a religion is considered just a vehicle for some
| truth that people can discover, not the goal itself. Requiring
| perfect gym to practice is not for people who really want to
| train.
| omarfarooq wrote:
| > but Buddhists are not "people of the book" like Abrahamic
| religions are.
|
| You mean modern Buddhists aren't. Early Muslims considered
| the Buddhists they encountered as "people of the book."
|
| Source: https://www.shs-
| conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2018/14...
| coldtea wrote:
| I don't think parent meant that Buddhist's aren't "people
| of the book" with the muslim meaning of the term.
|
| Given the context, he probably meant they aren't "by the
| book", not strict about their scripture.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Buddhists are not "people of the book" because the Buddha
| was not a God, and didn't have prophetic access to the
| teachings of a God. His views on karma and rebirth, for
| example, were those of the society he sprang from; they
| were not the result of transcendent insight. He was not
| some kind of perfect being.
|
| Buddha became more God-like as the centuries passed; some
| Prajnaparamita and later texts describe him as being the
| height of seven palm trees, for example. But he's never
| been considered infallible, like a prophet.
| nprateem wrote:
| > they were not the result of transcendent insight
|
| That's exactly his selling point, that through deep
| meditation he had profound insights, regarding
| impermanance and no-self. But yeah, that was his own
| realisation, not just some words some god said to him
| that are supposed to be infallible.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Shahrastani, whose book Kitab al milal wan nihal is sitting
| in front of me right now, had a lot of things to report
| about Buddhists, and not only that verdict. Have you read
| him? Furthermore, Biruni on this subject alone is
| notoriously unreliable, relying on secondhand sources.
| riskneutral wrote:
| > had a lot of things to report about Buddhists
|
| Would love to know more ...
| dym_sh wrote:
| was it b/c muslims also lived by the book and buddhists
| just retaliated in kind?
| nabla9 wrote:
| The earliest Buddhist texts were written down centuries
| after the death of the Buddha. Buddhism started as an oral
| tradition.
| thx2099100 wrote:
| so did islam.
| omarfarooq wrote:
| Correct, Quran means lit. recitation.
| JetAlone wrote:
| For that matter, the New Testament wasn't written until
| long after the life of Jesus, the canon wasn't
| established until long after many oral traditions were,
| and some of Old Testament canon the status of
| "deuterocanon/apocrypha" has been controversial.
|
| Religions start with key important figures, events and
| practices long before they get encoded as text. The only
| one I can think of off the top of my head that might have
| gone somewhat in the reverse direction was L. Ron Hubbard
| writing Dianetics and other books to develop a schema and
| theory for psychological healing before he officially
| started Scientology. But I don't know all the details
| about early Scientology so it's hard to say precisely how
| much was pre-encoded there. I've heard rumours that
| Hubbard was involved in Freemasonry before starting
| Scientology so if it's true, it's likely that some of his
| experiences in it shaped his writings. I also heard that
| Paul Twitchell, founder of a lesser-known group called
| "Eckankar" spent some of his earlier days in Scientology.
| But I digress.
|
| When you strip practices away from dogma in an attempt to
| further enrich corporations, it's almost like trying to
| start over with the practices borrowed from some past
| heritage, the corporation's leadership as the key figures
| who give advice or select practice consultants to confer
| with, and with some milestone of success as the promised
| "awakening event". It definitely runs the risk of turning
| the corporation into a personality cult where your boss
| directly or indirectly tells you how to reach a spiritual
| objective... Of making them money.
| mudita wrote:
| My own personal experience differed from yours. In a retreat
| in Burma I observed a lot of traditions, which made it very
| clear that men had a higher standing than women. When forming
| a line for going to lunch, the monks were first, then the
| laymen, then the nuns and then the laywomen; only the monks
| ate on a raised platform, but not the nuns or laypeople etc.
|
| This was not just old books, which nobody cared about, but
| pervasive everyday practice.
|
| I very much believe that you had different experience and am
| happy for it. There's a lot of Buddhists and different
| traditions and it's very difficult to generalise. I myself
| also practiced in - more western - communities, where there
| was no noticeable gender imbalance. But I am also sure, that
| there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are
| sexist.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The reason why you saw what you saw is twofold.
|
| 1) You did not see nuns. Formal lineage of nuns died in
| Theravada lineage hundreds of years ago. Women were wearing
| white robes right? Those are the robes of novices. You need
| 5? female nuns to ordain a new nun. Sri Lankan monk, Bhante
| Henepola Gunaratana (aka Bhante G) asked Tibetan nuns so
| bootstrap the tradition in Theravada, but it's just
| starting and there is resistance.
|
| 2) Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures
| (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are
| not separate from the culture around them.
|
| >But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and
| communities, which are sexist.
|
| Yes there are and that is to be expected. (Unless you
| believe that Buddhism makes people somehow perfect. _"
| After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on
| the Spiritual Path"_ by Jack Kornfield is a good book that
| explains how full of shit Buddhists are no matter how much
| they train.
|
| Buddhism is not about creating perfect world in this world
| or in afterlife.
| mudita wrote:
| Yes, thank you for this explanation. I didn't know that
| they were not fully ordained, I learned something from
| you today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilashin
| (although one could argue whether to call them nuns or
| not in English. The wikipedia article still calls them
| "Burmese Theravada Buddhist nun" and they were called
| nuns in English where I practiced - I'd say their
| culture's concept of "nun" does not map perfect to the
| Western concept, so details get lost in translation, but
| your explanation is fundamentally correct and very
| helpful. )
|
| This definitely makes clear again my lack of deeper
| understanding of their culture and the hubris of me
| judging their culture after having been in Burma for only
| a month.
|
| That being said, there definitely were signs of sexism,
| women did not have the same standing and we should not
| close our eyes to this part of Buddhism. I don't mean
| "and therefore Buddhism is bad", but "as a Buddhist I
| think we can and should strive to do better".
|
| When Buddhism supports and reinforces misogyny, racism or
| jingoism from the surrounding culture, this is also a
| failing of Buddhism.
|
| There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack
| Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and
| emphatic living as a core teaching and result of Buddhist
| practice. As a simple example, metta meditation is often
| advertised as actually helping you be more compassionate
| in "real life".
| nabla9 wrote:
| > When Buddhism supports and reinforces misogyny, racism
| or jingoism from the surrounding culture, this is also a
| failing of Buddhism.
|
| Buddhism as a religion has constantly and reliably failed
| throughout history. "This is not true Buddhism" is
| putting head into the sand. Buddhism that is deeply
| embedded into culture and tradition carries the baggage
| of the culture. Often when it transfers to a new culture
| there is a nice break from the tradition.
|
| >There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack
| Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and
| emphatic
|
| Yes. The wisdom of Jack Kornfield is taking western
| secular values adopting them into Buddhism and getting
| rid of the bad. Buddhism like any religion can be changed
| to anything you like, good or bad.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures
| (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are
| not separate from the culture around them._
|
| Sure - but aren't monks and priests also supposed to be a
| model, demonstrating what a _really dedicated, pious_
| follower of the religion should look like?
| nabla9 wrote:
| Buddhism is not some progressive movement to change the
| world.
|
| Ethnic Buddhist traditions are usually among the most
| conservative forces in the society. They try to be
| conservative models. In Burma and Sri Lanka many of the
| politically most active monks favor ethnic cleansing and
| preach religious intolerance.
| CiPHPerCoder wrote:
| You're begging the question. Why should monks and priests
| be a model, rather than a reminder of human nature?
| michaelt wrote:
| For the same reason I'd expect the pope to be catholic :)
|
| Wouldn't you expect a full-time professional
| footballer/dancer/poet to be better at
| football/dance/poetry than the average person on the
| street?
| CiPHPerCoder wrote:
| How does one measure "better" when it comes to philosophy
| or spirituality?
|
| The notion that priests and monks should be _holier_ than
| the common folk strikes me as very Abrahamic. This forms
| a hierarchy in the mind.
|
| I'm not a Buddhist, but if I were, I would interrogate
| (and probably reject) such hierarchies.
| brodo wrote:
| There is sexism in Buddhism. I stayed at a Buddhist temple
| in Germany and there where way more rules for the nuns than
| the monks.
|
| > "It is extremely important to note that world religions
| [...] are, naturally and inevitably, in large part
| compendia of rules for managing daily life." - John A.
| Hall, Ideas and the Social Sciences, 1993
|
| This is why I think it's a good thing that western Buddhism
| exits. It gets rid of all the bad stuff. And there are
| really interesting insights in Buddhism, like the concept
| of non-self or the four noble truths.
| realreality wrote:
| > It gets rid of all the bad stuff.
|
| That's laughable. Who decided what "the bad stuff" was?
| The early adopters were people who rejected western
| religions but projected western, individualistic culture
| onto eastern traditions.
| oneepic wrote:
| >imbue work with a spiritual aura
|
| What?
|
| >"turn workplaces into productivity-centered 'faith
| communities.'"
|
| Huh?
|
| >"Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western
| appropriation of Buddhism"
|
| Appropriation feels like a strong word. Are we not supposed to
| try new ideas from outside the tech industry? Ever? Chen's thesis
| in this article feels like a dramatic take.
| mkmk3 wrote:
| You can try whatever you like, I think the angle is more about
| how meditation of various kinds are being adopted while other
| pieces of their source may be neglected, and this is in service
| to corporations and capitalism. I don't think it's inherently
| bad, but the insinuation is it's putting more of the
| spiritual/community stuff that we got from religion into our
| work, by moving stuff like mindfulness and conscious 'loving-
| kindness' into the corporate setting. Centralizing your needs
| into the hands of big corp :)
|
| I don't feel like I can speak to the usage of appropriation or
| other wokespeak though.
| pawsforthought wrote:
| I think one extremely problematic part of this trend is that
| civic participation necessarily suffers when one's life is in
| such close orbit around the workplace.
|
| If one scarcely has the time to be _informed_ about the state
| of the world, then forget being _engaged_ or even
| _organizing_ others.
| odiroot wrote:
| I always find it weird how western "promoters" of Buddhism are so
| gung-ho on the meditation part, pretty much disregarding
| everything else.
|
| Having met quite a few Buddhists (also my partner) who were
| raised by Buddhist parents, I'm yet to find a single one who
| meditates at all. That's not even that big of a part of
| "mindfulness".
|
| After reading a monk's book (Essential Chan Buddhism by Guo Jun),
| I have a feeling it's all cargo-cultish in the west.
| lewispollard wrote:
| Historically, it's because of imperialism. Buddhism, for a long
| time, had turned into a faith religion, suffered many close
| encounters with dying out completely in several regions,
| resulting in the 3 major traditions of Buddhism we see today,
| the earliest version of Buddhism died out long ago.
|
| When Western imperial forces began to systematically take over
| regions of Asia for trade, the Buddhist monks in areas such as
| Burma/Myanmar felt that this was the second time their
| tradition would die out, and sought to preserve the parts that
| they felt were essential. In their case, it was the path of
| vipassana meditation, and though Buddhism didn't die out there,
| from then on it was strongly influenced by this more refined,
| less faith-driven teaching.
|
| So when Westerners started to go over to these regions of Asia,
| this is what they were taught, not the religious faith of the
| local lay practitioners, which existed mainly to support the
| monks in their vipassana.
|
| Vipassana meditation _is_ mindfulness practice.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| There are many varieties of Buddhism. It is a mixture of
| eastern culture and knowledge in general, including many
| generations of empirical psychotherapy, religion, philosophy,
| etc. Some varieties of Buddhism, like some schools of Zen, do
| focus heavily (or entirely) on meditation practice. Scientific
| research suggests that meditation has a real effect on the
| brain.
|
| To me it seems completely rational and expected that the west
| would be drawn to the varieties that don't carry as much
| religious dogma because that is more incompatible with western
| thought. Of course we can take some aspects from it which we
| find useful. So I don't find it weird at all.
|
| Despite this, I still absolutely think that 'mindfulness' is
| often becoming bastardised and a lot of the value is being lost
| in the process of translation. People will of course try to
| take advantage of it and try to profit from it.
|
| Your comment also makes me imagine picking a random barely
| religious American that never goes to church and using them as
| a model for 'real Christianity'
| bowsamic wrote:
| > There are many varieties of Buddhism. It is a mixture of
| eastern culture and knowledge in general, including many
| generations of empirical psychotherapy, religion, philosophy,
| etc. Some varieties of Buddhism, like some schools of Zen, do
| focus heavily (or entirely) on meditation practice.
|
| Zen does not traditionally focus heavily nor entirely on
| meditation practise, for example it has a heavy amount of
| ritual and chanting. The idea of a return to Zen being just
| meditation is a modern resistance in the early 20th century
| by certain Japanese teachers (many of whom brought Zen to the
| west) who thought that the spiritual aspects of the tradition
| had been lost entirely to public service rituals (basically
| becoming "the people who do funerals" in Japanese society). I
| agree with those modern teachers, but it isn't representative
| of Japanese Zen in general, and certainly not of Chan, Seon,
| or Thien.
|
| Overall there is no Buddhist lineage over a century old that
| I'm aware of that has its primary focus on meditation.
|
| > Scientific research suggests that meditation has a real
| effect on the brain.
|
| I don't see how that's relevant to the rest of your comment.
| It seems kind of like a subtle materialism insert.
|
| > To me it seems completely rational and expected that the
| west would be drawn to the varieties that don't carry as much
| religious dogma because that is more incompatible with
| western thought. Of course we can take some aspects from it
| which we find useful. So I don't find it weird at all.
|
| That's not really true, since all forms of Buddhism require
| some kind of "blind faith". For example, in Zen we have the
| three pillars of Zen practise: great faith, great doubt, and
| great endurance. Great faith means that we should have faith
| in our practise and Buddha-nature, even if we have not yet
| realised it directly. Letting go is an act of faith after
| all. There are purely faith-based sects of Buddhism, like
| Pure Land, or like Tibetan Buddhism (not well in my realm of
| knowledge) which generally has more faith required than Zen,
| and I think you'll be surprised how popular those traditions
| are in the west. I don't personally see western thought as
| being incompatible with dogma or faith at all
|
| > Despite this, I still absolutely think that 'mindfulness'
| is often becoming bastardised and a lot of the value is being
| lost in the process of translation. People will of course try
| to take advantage of it and try to profit from it.
|
| I agree, there is a lack of good teachers and instructions,
| but I want to point the finger more at the students than at
| the teachers. They don't want to learn, they don't want to
| practise. They want a quick release or an easy way out. If a
| doctor prescribes a mindfulness program to a patient
| struggling with anxiety, it's an absolute miracle if they
| stick at it for even 10 minutes a day for more than a year.
| Doubly so for the ethical principles, which are even harder
| to stick to (as I know from personal experience). The problem
| isn't so much that Buddhist principles are bastardised, it's
| more that very few people have a strong intent to follow
| them. That's why the faith based practises above are
| generally so useful for the laity: Pure Land Buddhism can be
| done by anyone at any time, you simply recite the nembutsu
| (namo amida butsu) whenever you remember. It isn't clear to
| me what an equivalently easy and straightforward practise
| would look like for someone who can't handle the faithful
| aspects
|
| > Your comment also makes me imagine picking a random barely
| religious American that never goes to church and using them
| as a model for 'real Christianity'
|
| I think the idea of equating a Buddhist who doesn't meditate
| to a Christian who doesn't go to church is a bit strange,
| since likely you think that it is somewhat essential for the
| latter to go to church, and therefore do you think that
| meditation is essential for Buddhism? I don't quite get this
| point
| mtalantikite wrote:
| > Overall there is no Buddhist lineage over a century old
| that I'm aware of that has its primary focus on meditation.
|
| Do you mean specifically in Japan? Because many of the
| Tibetan lineages have Dzogchen [1] or Mahamudra [2]
| meditation as their primary focus and go back a thousand
| plus years. There are even lineages of householder or
| itinerant yogis called Ngagpa [3] that have long traditions
| of meditation training, going back to Tilopa, Saraha, and
| the other Mahasiddhas of Bengal. I practice with a Tibetan
| Ngagpa from time to time (Dr Nida) [4] and have also gotten
| a chance to practice with a Baul teacher from modern Bengal
| [5], and it's interesting to note how even though the
| lineages have split in their outward appearances, there are
| quite a lot of similarities in their teaching of
| meditation.
|
| Anyway, that's all to say that in many Tibetan Buddhist
| lineages the meditation practice has been an unbroken,
| primary focus of the teachings. It wouldn't be surprising
| if that wasn't the case in other traditions.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamudra
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngagpa
|
| [4] https://perfumedskull.com/2017/05/30/the-white-robed-
| dreadlo...
|
| [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JZ4__GTbjA -- here
| Parvathy Ma is performing a doha attributed to Bhusuku aka
| Shantideva and is referencing the burning Nalanda.
| notahacker wrote:
| It's not just a Western thing. The likes of Goenka have made
| the case for Vipassana meditation as a universally beneficial
| secular practice compatible with a variety of religious beliefs
| and amenable to scientific study in India too. This approach
| inevitably attracts more attention and new adherents than more
| longstanding cultural traditions, rules and suttas.
|
| I asked a friendly volunteer outside the Global Vipassana
| Centre (which emphasises the secular universal nature of its
| meditation practices, but also contains holy relics of the
| Buddha) how often he personally meditated. He paused for a
| moment, looked a bit sheepish and then said "not very often".
| corrral wrote:
| Is there any kind of documentation of how modern religions are
| experienced by normal practitioners? A book [edit: or, more
| realistically, a book series] would be great, but some kind of
| film documentary series seems to me like an even better fit.
| I've gone looking for that sort of thing in the past and come
| up empty-handed. I'm thinking interviews and a combo of
| descriptions or footage of any religious practices or services
| that aren't considered too secret or sacred or whatever to
| allow outsiders to see it.
|
| It's easy to find teachings and scattered accounts of some
| elements, but I'd be very interested in this kind of thing even
| for relatively familiar-to-me things like various Christian
| sects (to be any good, this would surely need a _bunch_ of
| entries for every major religion, including Buddhism, because
| there are so many difference in how they 're experienced by
| different traditions or in different cultures)
|
| Material about priestly or monastics experience of religions is
| easy to find, but the experience of lay practitioners and their
| views on the religion (which may differ _a lot_ from what the
| priests or monastics say) seems harder to come by, especially
| any kind of systematic or cohesive treatment rather than just
| scattered pieces here and there.
| haswell wrote:
| Sam Harris explores a bit of this.
|
| The thing that fascinated me was his exploration of the
| realness of experience among practitioners and where that
| experience seems to comes from.
|
| As a child of Christian fundamentalism who ran away as fast
| as I could, it was eye opening to start to see the basis on
| which many of these religions were founded, which religion
| manifesting as a symptom of something deeper within
| ourselves. Not a mystical or metaphysical deeper, but
| remnants of tens of thousands of years of evolution and
| humanity's wrestling with consciousness and meaning.
|
| As an atheist, I find it fascinating.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Mindfulness, as it was practiced for most of its history in
| Asia, was a very elite practice reserved only for advanced
| monastics.
|
| I don't think that's true; or at least, it depends on what you
| mean by "mindfulness". That claim is made in the context of
| vipassana, which _can be_ an advanced practice. But mindfulness
| as such is one of the spokes of the Wheel of Dharma; it 's simply
| paying attention, and it's a necessary pre-requisite to doing
| anything right. You can't maintain any kind of morality, for
| example, if you don't really know what's going on around you.
|
| McMindfulness is not a trend that I admire.
| teddyh wrote:
| Ye cannot serve Buddha and mammon.
| throwaway71271 wrote:
| aren't they the same thing?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac
| CPLX wrote:
| Sure and the corporation has so mangled Christianity that it is
| now most associated with massive mandatory shopping sprees every
| December.
|
| So what? Corporatism fucks up and subverts everything it can get
| its hands on. Buddhism remains a powerful and compelling
| religious practice.
|
| Like most religious practices most people dip their toes in or
| only take the parts they like the best. It's not like most
| Catholics are running around washing the feet of the poor.
|
| Not sure exactly what insight this story thinks it's conveying.
|
| This article basically says Buddhism has two key elements, the
| more important devotional worship that westerners are ignoring,
| and meditation, which is sort of a fringe practice.
|
| That's pretty confusing as I think most people would say the main
| concept of Buddhism is the teachings of the Buddha. This article
| appears silent on the concept of dukkha, enlightenment, the
| eightfold path, the four noble truths, and so on and so forth.
|
| As such it is utterly and completely missing the point.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's missing _your_ point, but it seems to communicate its own
| point well.
|
| > This article basically says Buddhism has two key elements,
| the more important devotional worship that westerners are
| ignoring, and meditation, which is sort of a fringe practice.
| amriksohata wrote:
| For Hindus, Buddha was just one of the 10 avatars of Vishnu and
| he came for a time and purpose. It was never meant to be a
| separate religion but just took Hindu teachings on meditation and
| enlightenment and got adapted into another "ism". All the core
| teachings lie in Hindu scriptures, including Yoga, Meditation
| etc.
| robinsoh wrote:
| > All the core teachings lie in Hindu scriptures
|
| What does "scripture" mean in this context? Scripture normally
| means messages 'directly' from the 'Abrahamic God' received by
| certain 'special individuals' (prophets, etc), such as the
| Bible, Quran, Torah. I thought Hinduism did not have any belief
| in any messages being sent from "God" to humans. So could you
| give some examples on what would be Hindu scripture and other
| examples of what would NOT be Hindu scripture?
| unmole wrote:
| > What does "scripture" mean in this context? Scripture
| normally means messages 'directly' from the 'Abrahamic God'
|
| Oxford disagrees: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
| definition/englis...
|
| And _Hindu scriptures_ is the example the lexicographers
| chose. Besides, the Old and New Testaments are traditionally
| attributed to specific authors. Only the Quran qualifies as
| scripture by your definition, not even the Hadith.
|
| > I thought Hinduism did not have any belief in any messages
| being sent from "God" to humans.
|
| The Vedas are considered revelation from the ultimate
| reality. There are other scriptures considered _apauruseya_
| i.e. of non-human origin.
| robinsoh wrote:
| > The Vedas are considered revelation from the ultimate
| reality.
|
| As far as I can tell from googling, they are just
| considered to be stories from Aryans that entered India.
| "The Vedas are considered the earliest literary record of
| Indo-Aryan civilization"
| unmole wrote:
| > As far as I can tell from googling, they are just
| considered to be stories from Aryans that entered India.
| "The Vedas are considered the earliest literary record of
| Indo-Aryan civilization"
|
| I'm guessing you got that quote from:
| https://www.learnreligions.com/what-are-vedas-1769572
| Just a few paragraphs down, it says:
|
| "Tradition has it that humans did not compose the revered
| compositions of the Vedas, but that God taught the Vedic
| hymns to the sages, who then handed them down through
| generations by word of mouth. Another tradition suggests
| that the hymns were "revealed," to the sages, who were
| known as the seers or "mantradrasta" of the hymns."
| harpic wrote:
| selimthegrim wrote:
| According to Shahrastani some Muslims had pretty positive
| views of Vedas. Moreover Dara Shikoh famously considered
| Upanishads the "guarded tablet" mentioned in Quran 85:22
| bowsamic wrote:
| That was something that came after the Buddha though. No
| Buddhist teaching or text would suggest this
| unmole wrote:
| > For Hindus, Buddha was just one of the 10 avatars of Vishnu
|
| The Bhagavatam mentions 22 avatars of Vishnu. The arbitrary
| selection of 10 which sometimes include Buddha is a later day
| invention.
|
| > never meant to be a separate religion but just took Hindu
| teachings on meditation and enlightenment and got adapted into
| another "ism".
|
| This is revisionist nonsense.
| amriksohata wrote:
| There are many more avatars but the dashavatars are
| considered most well known.
|
| Ah the revionist calling out revisionism , the irony of the
| comment on isms
| democra wrote:
| For Hindus, claiming everything in the subcontinent as their
| own seems like a favorite passtime. Jainism, Buddhism are not
| part of Hinduism and never were.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I think most people would agree that Buddhist doctrines first
| originated within a Hinduism-informed general milieu, and
| they can only be understood comprehensively in this light.
| Whereas Jainism seems to have developed in parallel with
| Vedic religion, and to have shared some of the same
| underlying concepts. Whether this means either are "part" of
| Hinduism probably depends on whom you ask.
| amriksohata wrote:
| There are thousands of sects of Hinduism and most still list
| themselves as such until the British came in
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| I stopped reading upon seeing at the very stop this " Silicon
| Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation
| of Buddhism"
|
| I was very curious about the article. I am wondering if it treats
| ideas such as "hire fast fire fast" - In a way a concept related
| to the Buddhist ideas of detachment, or the opposite, "bing your
| whole self to work" which in a way seems contradictory - you have
| attachments, continue to have them even at work.
|
| But it is a genuinely off putting sensation to see someone
| referring to cultural exchanges and transformations as
| "appropriation". Adopting and transforming ideas is the bedrock
| of humanity. Opposing or denigrating this seems like a
| fundamentally evil thing to do. It feels anti human.
| gumby wrote:
| > I stopped reading upon seeing at the very stop this " Silicon
| Valley is the latest player in a history of Western
| appropriation of Buddhism"
|
| I think you jumped the gun. The extended interview with the
| book author showed that her position is aligned, or even the
| same as yours (your comment is naturally too brief to tell
| whether I should have used only "aligned" or "same").
|
| And indeed it's Buddhism we're talking about: a belief system
| appropriated by other cultures to the point where its origin in
| India was forgotten for centuries.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| He did jumped the gun. The author Carolyn Chen made some very
| compelling arguments saying corporatized Buddhism is
| unrecognizable. Carolyn Chen is arguing corporatized Buddhism
| is a new religion that celebrates 70+hour work weeks and the
| celebrity CEO.
|
| "What we see in American religion, even if it is practiced in
| a corporate setting, is often the question, "How can the
| group help the individual realize themselves?" Whereas in
| other cultures this question tends to be reversed: "How can
| the individual help realize the goals of the group?"
| Interestingly enough, I think that companies have been able
| to command great self-sacrifice from Americans in a way that
| no other institution can today. I would argue that companies
| or workplaces have become the new faith communities that are
| replacing organized religion."
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I had a coworker recently tell me I was culturally
| appropriating the Buddha (I'm a Buddhist) presumably because I
| am "from the West". Apart from being one of the most offensive
| things I've ever been told (before anyone jumps on me for this:
| I can still observe it as offensive regardless of my attachment
| to the offense) it confirmed for me that whatever is going on
| in the US with identity politics has jumped the shark.
|
| You do not need to be of a skin color, creed, gender or class
| to take refuge in the Buddha's teachings. The dharma is for
| all.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I also find it funny. I wonder if that's why bodhidharma
| spent so long in the cave, to stop all those Han Chinese
| appropriating his mind bending techniques of not being a
| dickhead and sitting quietly observing life ;)
|
| If someone said that to me (also a Buddhist) I would probably
| burst out laughing :)
| spicymaki wrote:
| > You do not need to be of a skin color, creed, gender or
| class to take refuge in the Buddha's teachings. The dharma is
| for all.
|
| Agreed on all points! The Buddha's teachings are foundational
| to my world view, and I too am "from the West."
|
| I do want to push back a little bit though (gently). Your
| coworker's critique is not necessarily wrong (even if they
| were making it from a place of ignorance). When I was a
| practicing Zen Buddhist, I saw a lot of teachers
| appropriating the dharma to sell their own teachings.
| Buddhist teachers consulting on the side to corporations
| (selling the teachings is inappropriate in Buddhism),
| starting companies to sell services, etc. The teachings were
| so far removed from the original ideas that they are
| incomprehensible. Vague spiritual statements, go with your
| gut morality, confusing dialog, going through the motions
| (rituals) was all that mattered. How could it be any other
| way? The West's values are counter to the teachings in just
| about everyway possible. It could not possibly be transmitted
| to the West without this kind of modification.
|
| Cultural appropriation has happened with every culture
| Buddhism has encountered from it's origins in North India,
| through China and Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan, and now
| the West. We all have changed it somewhat and now claim what
| we have is more original than the original.
|
| However, none of these adaptations can compare with the basic
| insight of the original teachings in my opinion.
| prox wrote:
| Indeed. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding on the
| word "appropriate" , "to make it your own." Basically the
| more academic wording of "you made this? I made this." meme.
|
| As long as you don't pretend you created Buddhism or are an
| infallible authority of Buddhism it's not appropriation.
|
| Personally I find the word not really appropriate with what
| we are trying to convey which I assume would be something
| along the lines of "disrespectful usage of other peoples
| cultures or practices."
| markdown wrote:
| I think "appropriation" is when you take cultural ideas
| from colonised places of the world and use them in
| inappropriate ways.
|
| Cultural appreciation = wearing a chinese cheongsam in a
| culturally appropriate situation because you think it's
| beautiful and you love the dress.
|
| Cultural appropriation = wearing grass skirts and coconut
| shell brassiers and getting wasted at a "tiki" frat party.
| squabbles wrote:
| There is no inappropriate way to use clothes you own,
| unless you're using it to strangle someone. The people
| who get upset about people wearing things from "their"
| culture are always deracinated diaspora with no real
| connection to the culture. People who are healthily
| embedded in a culture don't get upset about foreigners
| "misusing" their cultural bric-a-brac, they have real
| lives to attend to. And if you're getting upset at a
| party goer wearing a grass skirt then you're in need of
| psychiatric help.
| nprateem wrote:
| I wouldn't get offended. They just don't understand what
| cultural appropriation is by the sound of things. Their
| problem, not yours.
| mihaic wrote:
| Unfortunately this sort of thinking spreads and it will
| eventually become everyone's problem unless we address it
| head on.
| [deleted]
| max51 wrote:
| >Their problem, not yours.
|
| Until your get a call from HR, the twitter mobs decides to
| target you, or when that "woke" person gets promoted and
| starts dictating policies in the office.
| supertofu wrote:
| Your coworker needs to read the Suttas. Shakyamuni explains
| again and again and again that the teachings are for
| _everyone_.
| rg111 wrote:
| Yes, this Chen person is so so wrong.
|
| She says that meditation is for some monastic elites, but
| that is far from the truth. Who even chose to publish her
| book?
|
| Buddha himself said to Ananda that several thousand of his
| household desciples attained Nirvana. Not only did these
| "laymen" did meditation, they even attained Nirvana.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > She says that meditation is for some monastic elites
|
| She did not quite say that. She said that it was only
| practiced by monastic elites up until the early 20th
| century:
|
| "Meditation was not at all a mainstream lay practice in
| Buddhism. It only became popular in the early twentieth
| century, when Buddhist reformers such as the Burmese monk
| Mahasi Sayadaw, founder of modern Vipassana meditation,
| promoted it as a lay Buddhist practice. Mindfulness, as
| it was practiced for most of its history in Asia, was a
| very elite practice reserved only for advanced
| monastics."
| rg111 wrote:
| > She said that it was only practiced by monastic elites
| up until the early 20th century:
|
| Very wrong, too.
|
| In Buddha's time itself, there were laypeople doing
| meditation.
|
| I am wondering who even published her book?
| fredgrott wrote:
| The appropriation tone becomes apparent in the middle of the
| article where the author explains that its not all of Buddhism
| and is neither wrong or right.
|
| But then again I would not know how those of the religious
| tones of Buddhism might look upon my non-religious practice of
| the Buddhism teachings except that they might see it as neither
| wrong or right but hope for my future progress towards Nirvana
| javajosh wrote:
| _> It feels anti human._
|
| Because it is. The zeitgeist on the left (so, academia) is
| consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing, and a
| great deal of intellectual work has been done to _post hoc_
| rationalize these feelings and package them in catchy phrases.
| Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or
| "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some
| technically useful meanings to anthropologists, but within the
| public sphere they function only as a combined virtue signal
| and rhetorical weapon. What makes these weapons difficult is
| that they are so tightly wrapped in an image of compassion such
| that even those that wield them may not understand their true
| nature. A clever design.
|
| This is a good example of how anything can be used as a weapon,
| even compassion. I really wish all these academics pushing the
| narrative of privilege etc would chill out for a second and
| just enjoy the world as it is, in all it's messiness. To stop
| seeing the world as purely an evil constructed on the mass
| graves of the innocent. Even if it were true (and in some sense
| it is) _this is still the world we have_. This is where kids
| are growing up, people are falling in love, where discoveries
| are being made. Sometimes you gotta just say 'fuck it' and
| enjoy the world you have without constantly speculating about
| how it should be, how it should have been, about whether the
| fruits you are enjoying were earned with blood. We cannot, in
| each successive generation, reform ourselves to undo the
| injustices of the past, not only because it's practically
| impossible but because the meaning of injustice changes. And
| society is finite in its malleability. To be sure, some things
| can be done, within a generation or two. Maybe three. But after
| a while, what's done is done and you have to move on.
|
| EDIT: It's curious how sometimes a post gets upvoted, then
| downvoted, then several more cycles. Now its at 1. I'd be
| curious to know the "velocity" on this one, dang.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing
|
| Do you think the Christian concept of "original sin" planted
| (at least some of) the seeds for this mental model?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| self-loathing is technically a type of sin... but that
| doesn't mean peoples conceptions match the teachings (they
| often don't).
|
| CCC 405
|
| " Although it is proper to each individual, original sin
| does not have the character of a personal fault in any of
| Adam's descendants.
|
| It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but
| human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded
| in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance,
| suffering, and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin
| -- an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence."
|
| Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases
| original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the
| consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil,
| persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle."
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > To stop seeing the world as purely an evil constructed on
| the mass graves of the innocent. Even if it were true (and in
| some sense it is) this is still the world we have. [...] To
| be sure, some things can be done, within a generation or two.
| Maybe three. But after a while, what's done is done and you
| have to move on.
|
| Putting aside the rhetorical tools you're discussing, what
| would you say to people who currently feel the effects of
| these historical, and contemporary oppressions? People with
| unwanted pregnancies who find themselves unable to access
| abortions, African-Americans who are descended from families
| that were unable to purchase property they would have been
| able to afford due to redlining and are thus at a
| disadvantage, Gen X Jews whose parents were denied entry to
| elite schools and whose families thus suffered economically,
| gay and trans people who are currently, in the US, facing a
| government that has all but stated it wants to eliminate even
| the tenuous hold on legal existence they have?
|
| I am all for telling people to find the good in the world.
| There is a lot of it! But some of these negative phenomena
| that sociologists describe have real consequences for real
| people in the present day, and I don't really see how "just
| stop thinking about it" is a solution for them.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> what would you say to people who currently feel the
| effects of these historical, and contemporary oppressions?_
|
| I would have quoted me a bit more generously. This is what
| I would tell them (and myself, since we are all oppressed,
| and all of our ancestors were oppressed, at some point, by
| someone):
|
| _> We cannot, in each successive generation, reform
| ourselves to undo the injustices of the past, not only
| because it's practically impossible but because the meaning
| of injustice changes. And society is finite in its
| malleability. To be sure, some things can be done, within a
| generation or two. Maybe three. But after a while, what's
| done is done and you have to move on._
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Fair enough - I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't said
| that, the quote was merely to delimit the area I was
| addressing.
|
| Am I correct, then, in thinking your response to people
| currently harmed by social structures they have no choice
| in interacting with is, basically, "I agree that this
| sucks, but I don't support changing anything to fix it."?
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or
| "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some
| technically useful meanings to anthropologists, but within
| the public sphere they function only as a combined virtue
| signal and rhetorical weapon.
|
| This is so true. It's a very beautifully expressed feeling I
| had trouble articulating before. Thank you for putting it
| into words like this.
|
| It's also ridiculous to me there is a push to "teach" these
| concepts to kids when it's fairly obvious they'll just
| abstract them away to something stupid like "man bad" or
| "white people bad". I feel like it's sort of like trying to
| explain to kids with no CS experience some nuanced tradeoff
| like, I don't know, the CAP theorem for example. They'll
| probably understand that if you go with AP instead of CP you
| risk losing data and that's bad so now we always use CP. All
| they'll be left of with is "AP bad, CP good".
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| Thanks. George Orwell made this point well in "Animal
| Farm". The nuance of the initial revolution was gradually
| lost, and became "four legs good, two legs bad".
| mekoka wrote:
| _The goodie-goodies are the thieves of virtue_ - Alan Watts,
| attributing the original thought to Confucius.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cegl1BZ-0tI
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to "enjoy
| the world as it is, in all its messiness."
|
| Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of
| inequality and systemic threats to the continued survival of
| the species.
|
| The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about
| _what is still happening now_ - and how the narratives from
| the past continue to be used to justify it.
|
| Ignoring this is neither compassionate nor realistic -
| although it is toxic, pretty much by definition.
| cm42 wrote:
| I'd say "only people who live in their parents basements
| and haven't put in The Work are able to make comments like
| this", but then I'd look like the big dumb-dumb.
|
| Complaining without action is equivalent to ignoring it.
| Sharing the same news headline everyone's already read with
| your "This is bad!" caption isn't helping. We all know, we
| can read the words and see it's bad.
|
| Enjoying the world in all its messiness means engaging with
| it - not this woke schtick of avoiding touching the entire
| subject because of some trigger word, then spewing generic,
| inactionable drivel like "did you know the world is bad?"
|
| Yes, we know. We all know. Every single one of us. Welcome
| to the conversation. Work on yourself so you're not
| bringing more misery and uselessness into an already-
| miserable world that needs help.
|
| (Have you tried meditation? /s)
| [deleted]
| namlem wrote:
| Obsessing over injustices you have no control over is
| neither normal nor healthy.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Except we do have control over it, if we didn't people
| wouldn't be complaining so loudly about being shunned for
| the biggotted and ignorant crap that comes out of their
| mouths.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Right, but we've built a world where people are loudly
| obsessed with issues they have (infinitesimal) control
| over because if they paid attention to issues closer to
| home they might look up from their phones, and the
| advertisers can't have that.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| If it requires being "not very aware" to enjoy life without
| frothing at the mouth in anger at all the messiness of the
| world, I consider myself a proud narcissist / "not very
| aware" person.
|
| I think you've missed the commenters main point which is
| that all this hand-wringing about how terrible things are--
| isn't actively solving any problems we have today, or any
| problems we had yesterday. I would even dare to guess it
| won't solve the problems we'll have tomorrow.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to
| "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness."
|
| I don't know if you meant to come off as harshly as you
| did, but this is needlessly reductive, which is especially
| ironic in a discussion about Buddhism.
|
| What you propose is that there are two extremes: enjoyment
| of the world while ignoring suffering and self
| mortification while trying to solve it. These are, in
| essence, the two extremes which the Buddha argued against
| in favor of the Middle Path[0]:
|
| > There is an addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures,
| which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy,
| and unprofitable; and there is an addiction to self-
| mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and
| unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Perfect One
| has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives
| knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment
| and to Nibbana.
|
| I don't think that OP is saying we should ignore suffering
| and not try to address it, but they are saying that self-
| flagellation is unhelpful and toxic, and we should approach
| suffering with a forward eye not a backward one.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to
| "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness."
|
| I do not believe myself to be a narcissist and I think I am
| at least somewhat aware of the world and it's problems.
|
| Yet, despite this, I do " enjoy the world as it is, in all
| its messiness".
|
| I think what is preventing you from doing the same is
| ideology and close mindedness. From the comment, you come
| across like a fundamentalist christian refusing to enjoy
| life because "the world is sinful".
|
| Enjoy life man. Since we're on the article, take a page
| from the Buddhist philosophy and let go, for a moment at
| least :)
| blitz_skull wrote:
| It's funny you say this, because it's precisely because
| of my fundamentalist Christian worldview that allows me
| to love and accept the world as it is.
|
| Sounds like you've had some bad run-ins with Christian
| fundamentalists. Sure the world is broken, but most
| Christians realize the world is inherently beautiful (not
| to be confused with 'good').
|
| If the God of the universe died to save it, there's got
| to be fundamental value there. Therefore if someone
| thinks the world is ugly and can't enjoy it, that's an
| internal thing they gotta fix, not an immutable, self-
| evident truth about the world... again it's precisely
| because of the Bible that I believe these things.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| What you describing doesn't sound fundamentalist to me.
|
| I was referring more to the sort of people who, for
| example, see homosexuals having gay pride and start
| worrying it's the end times and they must cleanse the
| world through adherence to their religion or something
| like that.
|
| Let me re-write the comment I was responding as a
| fundamentalist would write it.
|
| ---
|
| Only sinners and heathens are able to "enjoy the world as
| it is, in all its messiness."
|
| Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of
| homosexuality and systemic threats to the continued
| survival of the church.
|
| The point is not about what happened in the past, it's
| about what is still happening now - and how the
| narratives from the past continue to be used to justify
| it.
|
| Ignoring this is neither compassionate nor realistic -
| although it is heretical, pretty much by definition.
|
| ---
|
| I am 100% percent convinced that there are fundamentalist
| christians or islamists or whatever who would read that
| re-written comment as go "oh yeah, that makes complete
| sense".
| wrycoder wrote:
| > _consumed by personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing_
|
| I'd suggest that it's not about those things for the accusers
| themselves. It's simply about gaining power. And they do it
| by preying upon "personal shame, guilt, and self-loathing" in
| other well-meaning people. They've discovered that yelling
| "cultural appropriation" works quite well with people who are
| constantly looking for other people to feel sorry for - which
| of a kind of projection.
| namlem wrote:
| I don't think so. I think it really is about guilt and
| shame, because these people just rebranded Catholicism
| without realizing it. Most of them probably grew up
| Catholic I bet, and internalized Catholic ideology to such
| a degree that they can't help but view everything through
| that lens.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Europe was Catholic long before the US, so it's something
| else unique to the US...
| prewett wrote:
| If so, they missed the key part of
| Catholicsm/Christianity: the death of Jesus atones for
| our sin, guilt, and shame.
|
| I've slowly come to the opinion that it is about a power
| play / emotional manipulation, because there is no way to
| atone. If you're white (for example), you're just an
| oppressor by the structure of society you were born into,
| so the sin is membership in a structurally advantaged
| group defined by race. You can't change your race nor
| change the past, so the best you can do is hope that
| supporting the political agenda of your accusers is good
| enough.
| prox wrote:
| While I find some parts of your sympathetic, conflating the
| left with academia is not really a valid approach. That some
| (on the left) have picked up on academic usage of some words
| or models is perhaps more accurate, and the misuse of words
| and terms. Which is far more prevalent in my experience.
|
| There was an interesting article about some social
| inequalities where when we talk about something more -is
| actually making it worse-. Apparently doing sensitivity and
| diversity trainings have the effect of making outcomes worse
| or ineffective , counterintuitively (its this part of your
| comment I find most sympathetic)
| https://hbr.org/2019/07/does-diversity-training-work-the-
| way...
| HKH2 wrote:
| > While I find some parts of your sympathetic, conflating
| the left with academia is not really a valid approach.
|
| The parts of academia that are relevant to this discussion
| (humanities and social sciences) are certainly dominated by
| the left.
| rayiner wrote:
| Your criticism is fair, but I'm not sure there is a better
| framing. Between corporations, political elites, and the
| media, the most influential and highly visible folks that
| identify as being "on the left" are much more influenced by
| Judith Butler than by any socialist thinker.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> That some (on the left) have picked up on academic usage
| of some words or models is perhaps more accurate, and the
| misuse of words and terms._
|
| That is absolutely true. And there has even been some
| pushback from the academics who coined these terms. But, in
| the end, words are tools, and tools meet a need, and there
| was apparently a great need for a new narrative that
| explained personal feelings of failure and self loathing.
| So it was inevitable that these terms would be used in this
| way. These words, as tools, are also potent for those who
| desire power, and look for any means to win, including
| invocation of race and gender stereotypes. It is galling
| for anyone who values liberty to see this, when the goal
| has always been to deprecate the prejudice function, and
| not merely to call the same function with different
| arguments.
|
| It is fascinating, though, how the desire to improve, to be
| more virtuous than before, can turn out so badly! It's a
| real slippery slope situation - we made progress, civil
| rights, women's rights, interracial marriage, gay marriage,
| sexual identities, gender identities acknowledging the
| momentum of racist policies in our demographics...but then
| it turns into: gender is purely a construct, lets modify
| children's bodies if they think they're trans, lets force
| people to use certain pronouns, lets have teachers share
| their sex lives with kindergarteners, lets give women and
| students of color the power of professional life and death
| over white teachers, lets teach reverse CBT. And if you try
| to make this point, you're called a racist and a bigot!
| Social justice warriors push an insidious form of injustice
| that harms everyone. Because, as the GGP put it, it's anti-
| human.
| haswell wrote:
| I recently discovered Sam Harris, and started going down
| a bit of a rabbit hole that is his body of work. He has
| his critics, and I haven't spent enough time in his
| materials to have a fully formed opinion of my own, but I
| found that following his work unearths some interesting
| insights about these culture wars.
|
| His arguments about religion and society's collective
| unwillingness to have an honest conversation about it are
| compelling. But what's fascinating to me is that he
| manages to piss off both the religious right and the SJW
| left, and I think he's onto something important.
|
| The _reason_ he pisses them off is that his fundamental
| position boils down to: dogmatism is the problem. And no
| one wants to admit they are dogmatic.
|
| The same instinct in a right-wing pro-life person to shut
| down any consideration whatsoever that their position is
| suspect is the same instinct in the SJW who can only see
| the world as an unjust manifestation of the patriarchy,
| or systemic racism, etc. This is not to say that those
| things don't exist or have no impact, but it seems those
| things have been used to harness the same base behavior
| we're all capable of, to effectively form what resembles
| an entirely new religious dogma.
|
| This dogmatism shuts down substantive dialog, and
| perpetuates the same kinds of problems one finds with
| folks who insist Jesus is coming back to earth in the
| next 50 years.
|
| A mindset that removes willingness to engage in
| conversation - even if the person holding the mindset
| happens to be right (or at least closer to right than
| some others) - is a mindset every bit as dangerous and
| problematic as the mindset held by right-wing extremists.
|
| I'm not trying to just parrot Sam's message here, but
| he's saying things that I've long believed, and didn't
| know how to articulate, and the basic takeaway is this:
| dialogue is the only thing that can change the collective
| consciousness.
|
| The current trends around identity politics, cancelling
| people for the things they say, creating taboos so strong
| that people don't feel comfortable even touching on some
| topics is the antithesis of liberalism, and I'll repeat
| what you and GGP said - anti-human. If dialogue is the
| only path forward, and our current path involves the
| complete demonization of certain dialogue to the point
| that you are no longer allowed to participate in the
| conversation, we are at what can only be called an
| impasse as a culture.
|
| We should properly put bad ideas to bed, absolutely. We
| should address systemic issues where they exist,
| absolutely. We should learn from our major mistakes,
| absolutely.
|
| But the current climate is somewhat terrifying. One need
| only try to make the argument I just made on Twitter,
| Facebook or Reddit to see what I'm talking about. You'll
| quickly be branded a right-wing or alt-right sympathizer
| (despite the fact that in terms of policy, I'm about as
| liberal as they come, identity politics notwithstanding).
| People will manufacture a version of you that they
| believe to be true, and then abuse you for it, _while
| feeling righteous and justified in the process_.
|
| It's a sad state of affairs.
| writeinpencil wrote:
| "Above all, no zealotry." --Talleyrand
| prox wrote:
| You state more eloquently what I wanted to respond as a
| comment. I am not interested in left/right, I am
| interested in outcomes that make people feel more valued,
| more part of a community, more prosperous. If there is
| one thing I know for sure is that entrenching yourself in
| your _insert favourite beliefs here_ and shutting others
| out is not helping or helpful.
|
| Certain outcomes seem to be more favorable using typical
| left wing policies and others using what's thought of as
| right wing. Finding out which is which is far more
| interesting.
| fundad wrote:
| Remember that academic findings compete with divine truths.
| Reality has a known liberal bias.
| haswell wrote:
| Reality has a known liberal bias, yes, only in that
| liberals tend to believe in science - the one discipline
| that helps us understand what is objectively real.
|
| I would be careful not to confer this to issues of
| culture, where dogma currently reigns supreme, and
| liberals are no less susceptible than conservatives to
| the kind of thinking that leads absolutely nowhere
| productive.
| stared wrote:
| Ad cultural appropriation - in the US, it seems that no matter
| what you do (in some eyes), at the same time, you ignore
| another culture and appropriate its traditions.
|
| For me, there is a distinction:
|
| - Adapting, mixing, etc. is (as you said) the bedrock of
| humanity. It is learning from other cultures.
|
| - Claiming that one is doing "real Buddhism" (when it is a
| version far from any tradition) or serving pepperoni pizza as
| "genuinely Italian", or being a "true Christian" for having
| Xmas with a Coca-Cola Santa Claus.
|
| The latter is essentially a Cargo Cult of some other traditions
| and cultures.
|
| I asked a few Italians about "pizza as an international dish".
| One opinion was that there is nothing wrong with baking "bread
| with other ingredients". What pissed her off was when people
| said such a dish was similar to one food prepared by her mother
| or in her town.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > What pissed her off was when people said such a dish was
| similar to one food prepared by her mother or in her town.
|
| Most people overestimate how old traditional recipes are,
| anyway. Italians didn't have tomatoes or potatoes before
| Columbus; nor did Indians, Thais or Chinese people have chile
| peppers... is all global cuisine just a huge cultural
| appropriation from the Mexicans and Peruvians?
| abeppu wrote:
| I think this calls for a more nuanced distinction than I think
| your comment draws. Yes, cultural exchange and transformation
| is fundamentally how culture happens. Buddhism started from one
| guy in what we'd now call India, built on some ideas that were
| already in the area, and has shifted and changed as it moved
| across time and space. Buddhism isn't owned by any one people
| or place.
|
| But that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as
| appropriation, or that it doesn't occur in Silicon Valley.
|
| I've participated in multiple work-place meditation trainings.
| In each case, the teacher was American, spoke English as a
| first language, and had done teacher-trainings at American
| institutions, and I think they were always white. Would my
| company have been equally willing to hire a Thai immigrant who
| spoke English but not with an American accent, whose
| credentials were years of monastic training? Or, is there an
| institutional preference for hearing Buddhist practices from
| someone who, as Chen says, looks just like the people they are
| teaching?
|
| If one population is able to profit off of communicating the
| cultural practices of others who are not able to access the
| same opportunities, would you agree that could be called
| "appropriation"? If not, what should it be called?
| [deleted]
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Cultural exchange of food and clothes and such is great. I'm a
| lot more sympathetic to the complaint here, though, which seems
| to be that people have taken the surface level of Buddhist
| religious practice while tossing out all the parts that make it
| meaningful to the interviewee. I'm imagining how I would feel
| if my company hosted prayer sessions where you speak to your
| unconscious mind rather than God and the sign of the cross
| represents the intersection of personal and professional
| responsibilities, and... yeah, that'd be pretty weird. (Or
| maybe a better analogy would be some kind of monastic liturgy,
| since she mentions meditation is uncommon in traditional
| practice.)
| md_ wrote:
| I think the key point is that it becomes "appropriation"--vs
| cultural mixing or exchange--when the ideas are removed of
| their source context and used in a way that is contrary or even
| disrespectful of their original intent.
|
| I'm far from an expert, but it seems like a reasonable argument
| to advance that the linkage of Buddhist practices with
| corporate and material advancement--and the removal of
| spiritual or ethical content--is "appropriation", and not
| merely respectful mixing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Spot on. This is a perfect example of appropriation.
|
| ---
|
| Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged
| adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity
| by members of another culture or identity. This can be
| controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate
| from minority cultures.
|
| According to critics of the practice, cultural appropriation
| differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural
| exchange in that this appropriation is a form of colonialism.
| When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by
| members of a dominant culture, and these elements are used
| outside of their original cultural context - sometimes even
| against the expressly stated wishes of members of the
| originating culture - the practice is often received
| negatively.
|
| ---
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation
|
| EDIT: instead of more stupid downvotes people could bother
| reading the wikipedia page.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| The whole concept is absurd, reading Wikipedia won't fix
| that.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why are Americans the "majority" and Asian Buddhists the
| "minority" in this exchange? And what makes this
| "colonialism" ?
| goodpoint wrote:
| "majority" and "minority" are not about raw numbers but
| power dynamics in this context.
|
| "colonialism" refers to extracting whatever idea or
| artifact is seen as valuable from a culture or a land
| without consent and/or without respecting the moral
| rights of who invented or made it.
|
| Additionally, you can read the wikipedia page.
|
| (edited for clarity: different people use
| majority/minority differently depending on the context.
| In this context it's not about raw numbers.)
|
| (edit: an example of power dynamic could be a large
| multinational food chain that takes a lesser-known dish
| from some culture and sells a butchered version worldwide
| without clearly indicating the origin and/or that it's
| not the real thing. By doing this it can easily distorts
| the idea of the dish in the minds of millions of people.)
| umanwizard wrote:
| > "majority" and "minority" are never about raw numbers
| but power dynamics.
|
| Sure, I'm aware of this distinction. I'm asking what are
| the power dynamics between Asian Buddhists and random
| American businessmen hypocritically adopting Buddhism?
| They don't even live in the same countries, and there is
| not any colonial relationship or other power relationship
| between them as far as I can tell, so what makes one
| "majority"?
|
| Sure, in general, the West has exploited Asia many times
| throughout history; is this the only reason? If so, then
| wouldn't any cultural exchange whatsoever between Asia
| and the West count as appropriation?
|
| > "colonialism" refers to extracting
|
| This is a really vague and ahistorical definition of
| colonialism that seems made up to justify your point, but
| anyway, nothing has been "extracted" -- people in
| traditionally Buddhist cultures have the same access to
| the same Buddhism that they did before. Unlike actual
| historical colonialism in which physical resources are
| stolen, people are forced to work, traditional culture is
| banned or heavily distorted in the places where it's
| practiced, and so on.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > "majority" and "minority" are never about raw numbers
| but power dynamics.
|
| So the concept "minority rule" is a contradiction in
| terms, since if a group rules it's per definition the
| majority?
| goodpoint wrote:
| If you are talking about power, it is an oxymoron.
|
| If you are talking about numbers, it is not.
|
| In this context it's the first.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| I've heard the power dynamics argument before and
| admittedly it's never held much weight for me. There are
| just too many edge cases for a heuristic like that to
| make any sense, in my mind.
|
| So culturally powerless people may extract from
| culturally powerful people until what point? If a
| Ukrainian appropriates a part of Russian culture to be
| their own, who is the victim here? Recently, being
| Ukrainian has become a much more respected cultural
| identity than being a Russian, does that mean the power
| dynamic has shifted?
|
| The more you pick away at the idea of cultural
| appropriation, you realize that the rules people set out
| for it make very little sense outside of the egregious
| examples of something like headdresses at Coachella, etc.
| My personal rule is just not to disrespect people and
| parts of their culture they find important. The color of
| my skin or the actions of either of our ancestors
| shouldn't play into it, IMO.
| burrows wrote:
| > My personal rule is just not to disrespect people and
| parts of their culture they find important.
|
| What even is named by the word "disrespect"?
|
| Is disrespecting me just any behavior that I call
| "disrespectful"?
|
| Seems like bullshit to me.
| ffwszgf wrote:
| This definition is so broad you can basically classify
| anything you don't like as "cultural appropriation"
| depending on how loosely you define "minority", "majority"
| and "context". And in fact that's what usually ends up
| happening. Certain forms of blatant "cultural
| appropriation" are not criticized or even considered as
| such as long as they conform to the cultural zeitgeist of
| Western academia.
|
| For example, famous BLM activist Blair Imani is convert to
| Islam. After her religious conversion she soon after came
| out as a proud queer woman and upon being questioned she
| claimed there is no conflict between homosexuality and
| Islam. She subsequently gave media tours proudly
| proclaiming to the world her marginal view of Islam. This
| idea obviously only exists in some marginal Muslim
| communities in the west and goes against the beliefs of 99%
| of Muslims in the global south. Is this not blatant
| cultural appropriation? She took Islam and warped it to fit
| her western morality much to the anger of its emotional
| adherents.
|
| Obviously we will never see an article calling her or the
| Nation of Islam cultural appropriators.
| umanwizard wrote:
| That's indeed contrary and disrespectful of their original
| intent, but why does it matter what culture does it?
|
| If people from a traditionally Buddhist country like Nepal
| disrespected Buddhist ideas, it would presumably be just as
| disrespectful as if people from America did, so I don't think
| "cultural appropriation" is the right way to analyze this.
|
| By the way, practically every religion has been transformed
| and warped so much over time as to be almost unrecognizable.
| This again is normal human behavior.
| md_ wrote:
| I'm not sure which is more disrespectful, but I do think
| the two situations are _different_. If I 'm immersed in a
| culture or practice and I reject some aspects of it, from a
| place of familiarity, that means something different--maybe
| something more disrespectful!--that if I display the
| trappings of a culture without understanding what they
| mean.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| > removed of their source context and used in a way that
| is contrary or even disrespectful of their original
| intent.
|
| Ironically all this talk of cultural appropriation is
| "contrary or even disrespectful of the original intent"
| of Buddhism. Buddhism never belonged to Magadha, India or
| Asia, so it is not possible for anybody to appropriate
| it. It is not anyone's property to begin with
| md_ wrote:
| Who said anything about geographic locality?
| lolinder wrote:
| Each of those places has a very different culture.
|
| Buddhism is not a monolithic entity. It took on vastly
| different forms in each of the places it landed. Chinese
| Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism have different scriptures,
| different approaches to bodhisattvas, different paths to
| awakening.
|
| Was it disrespectful of the Chinese to take Buddhist
| teachings when they arrived and transform them to fit
| their cultural context? Should we go eliminate Buddhism
| from China because it's not native there and they twisted
| it to fit their culture?
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| The exact same thing can be said about anything. Judaism
| appropriated pre existing ideas and disrespected them by
| insisting on a single god. Christianity appropriated judaism
| and disrespected it by removing covenant practices such as
| circumcision and adding new ideas such as the kingdom of
| heaven being available to anyone not just "the chosen
| people". Islam appropriated christianity and disrespected it
| by demoting Jesus from the son of god to a mere prophet.
|
| This is how ideas work. And it's not just religion. Think of
| left wing thought. The original communist ideology was
| revolutionary. Social democrats appropriated ideas from them
| but believe working within the system. Many hard left people
| despise social democrats and believe they do more harm than
| good.
| [deleted]
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The original communist ideology wasn't original at all. The
| roots go back at least to the time of the Gracchi in Rome.
|
| It's clear hardly anyone commenting here has any idea what
| appropriation really is. It's not just disrespecting
| existing cultures.
|
| It's _destroying_ them by removing the meaning from them.
| And then repackaging the symbols - usually with a vague
| implication of profundity and exoticism - as a marketable
| commodity.
|
| The purpose isn't to spread the original culture but to use
| the trappings to promote the usual Western corporate
| neoliberal value system.
|
| Corporate Buddhism is a perfect example. It's clearly a lot
| more corporate than Buddhist. The goal isn't enlightenment,
| detachment, or compassion, it's cultural conformity with
| the aim of increased productivity and a higher share price.
|
| This shouldn't be controversial. All you need to do is look
| at how people behave to see what motivates them.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > It's destroying them by removing the meaning from them.
| And then repackaging the symbols - usually with a vague
| implication of profundity and exoticism - as a marketable
| commodity.
|
| Sort of like the monarchies of Europe have been turned
| into republics in all but name, the culture of "divine
| right of kings" destroyed but the trappings of monarchy
| are still used but devoid of meaning. And often used as
| marketing material.
|
| But, surely you don't yearn for the return of absolute
| monarchies ruled by gods appointed ruler, do you?
|
| This is the path of humanity. Some things die off, some
| things survive and some are transformed beyond all
| recognition. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad
| in this. It simply is a phenomenon that happens.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| A better analogy would be what Disney did to the Brothers
| Grimm. In fact, Disney is probably the poster child for
| this shit, given how much they lobbied to extend
| copyright law so that nobody could do to them what they
| did to Europe's fairy tales.
| umanwizard wrote:
| How have original Buddhist cultures in Asia been
| destroyed by "corporate Buddhism" catching on in the
| West? They haven't. They are still around.
| md_ wrote:
| In this post alone you've written, what, four times as many
| words as the length you read into the article?
|
| This is peak HN.
|
| Edit: I take it back. What's peak HN is that this is the
| top voted comment on the entire post.
| goodpoint wrote:
| The downvotes are only proving you right. This is what HN
| has become, pretty much 4chan.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| "Jazz drew from ragtime, also "coded" Black, but ragtime drew
| from marches, drawn in great measure from white men John
| Philip Sousa and (eep) Wagner."[1]
|
| In your view, is this appropriation or cultural mixing or
| exchange?
|
| [1]: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/theres-no-
| alternative-t...
| md_ wrote:
| I wasn't claiming to be the authority on what's
| "appropriation." I was pointing out that the poster--who
| admitted he didn't read the article past the
| subheadline[1]--doesn't seem to understand how people use
| the term "appropriation."
|
| That said, since you asked, no, it's never occurred to me
| that jazz is appropriation.
|
| [1] Amusingly, the folks who admit to not actually, you
| know, reading the thing they are debating, are the ones who
| claim to be defending the free exchange of ideas. I think.
| Or maybe they're just angry online.
| bsedlm wrote:
| absolutely agree, but I take it further
|
| The language of appropiation implies a sort of 'property'-like
| dynamic for ideas.
|
| If I learn, get to know, understand an idea from somebody else,
| I have not appropiated them in any way. I merely have adopted
| their idea.
|
| This way of copying/adopting of other's ideas is what makes a
| cultural society thrive. On the other hand, a society where all
| idea transfers are in fact an exchange of something, is exactly
| what I consider the essence of a market.
|
| The critical difference is that in a market, widgets are
| exchanged. And whenever somebody takes a widget from somebody
| else, only one widget remains.
|
| However when somebody adopts another's idea, the idea is now it
| two places (and quite possibly, with a slight difference); that
| it, until "the idea" becomes a digital artifact, then it's the
| exact same "digital" copy which exists in more than the one
| original instance.
|
| It's the dumbest action to try and enforce that digital
| artifacts (and later on, ideas themselves) behave like widgets
| in a market.
| ImageXav wrote:
| I suspect you might enjoy reading the rest of the article. It
| goes into some depth on what Buddhism was, is and how it has
| been adapted in the West to mostly focus on meditation and why.
| Rather than a critique of "Western Buddhism" it is an
| exploration of it in a wider context. The term appropriation
| might have been off-putting due to its current cultural load,
| but in this context it is not wrong.
|
| For others that are curious about meditation and Buddhism, I
| would suggest reading the article and making up your own mind,
| rather than the comments here.
| [deleted]
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| lappet wrote:
| I am not an expert on Buddhism, but I grew up in India and
| noticed similarities with Hinduism in two countries: Bhutan and
| Thailand. The Buddhist temples were very ornate and seemed to be
| focused on the devotional aspects. If you apply what Chen is
| saying to Hinduism, it strikes true to me: meditation and yoga
| are very recent trends in India, and most people focus on the
| ritualistic and devotional aspects.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| I'm a Catholic (so I have ... my own view on Buddhism) but I
| lived in SEA for a long time.
|
| I want to say, this article is very good.
|
| The buddhism as practiced in the west has very little to do with
| actual practices in the east. But, Buddhism is also very
| confusing, and it's hard to say "what is the true buddhism"
| (mahayana, therevada, vajrayana and zen buddhism in Japan
| (formally mahayana) are all very different)
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| ". But, Buddhism is also very confusing, and it's hard to say
| "what is the true buddhism" (mahayana, therevada, vajrayana and
| zen buddhism in Japan (formally mahayana) are all very
| different)"
|
| That seems to to be the case with most major religions. It
| always boggles my mind how different the conclusions of
| different Christian groups from the reading the same Bible are.
| Same for Islam.
| rg111 wrote:
| What makes you think what goes on in SEA today is the _actual_
| Buddhism?
|
| This is so wrong.
|
| The current practices in SEA is so far from what the Buddha
| actually taught.
| neonate wrote:
| That's the opposite of what the comment said.
| bowsamic wrote:
| > The buddhism as practiced in the west has very little to do
| with actual practices in the east
|
| Really it depends on your specific sect. If you join a Pure
| Land sect in the west I think that it is generally quite
| similar to the east
| shp0ngle wrote:
| True. Pure Land is very close to Chinese mahayana
| prox wrote:
| Focussing on all these different ways also occludes the general
| idea that there is a thing such as enlightment and a way to see
| all beings interconnected. You can have the same experience as
| a Catholic if you move beyond words (remember Jesus primary
| teaching (love God completely and love your neighbor like
| yourself)
|
| Many things we notice in our minds are just labels and people
| are crazy easy to get hung up on them as being the thing in
| themselves.
| nprateem wrote:
| > The buddhism as practiced in the west has very little to do
| with actual practices in the east
|
| Is it possible to make a more sweeping statement?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| To be fair, Catholicism has seen many branches over the year
| and only skirts by this "it's confusing" stuff by claiming it's
| the OG Christian sect, despite having massive shifts in policy
| over the years.
| [deleted]
| collyw wrote:
| McBuddhism
| blippage wrote:
| > In an industry where 70+ hour workweeks are normal,
|
| Well, there's part of your problem right there. I have great
| scepticism about businesses getting involved with things like
| Buddhism. From what few anecdotes I've heard, it ends up being
| some kind of twisted take on the source religion.
|
| Buddhism is not some kind of pill that you swallow to move from
| working 70+ hours per week to 80+ hours a week.
|
| Ultimately, Buddhism is a withdrawal. You become nobody in
| particular. This is the opposite of the Cult of Personality, and
| Manifest Destiny, that seems to permeate the tech industries (I'm
| looking at you, Google, Microsoft, etc.).
| fendy3002 wrote:
| Religion has some passages that can be cherry picked to mislead
| the masses and especially useful for the ruler class to direct
| them. Buddha is not an exception to it.
|
| As I've always feel, most traditional religion teachings
| doesn't fit with modern way (globalization, capitalism) of
| living.
| fundad wrote:
| I had to stop reading when it claimed this was ubiquitous in
| Silicon Valley because that isn't true by any measure or crosstab
| nathias wrote:
| if you see Buddha in a suit, kill him
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Sold to the highest Buddha, eh? I can't see this working.
| Business already has a God - The Market.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| Haha - come for the salary, stay for the religious
| indoctrination! :)
| brigandish wrote:
| If it implements the 8 fold path, an abstract framework, then it
| is Buddhism. If not, it's not.
| toyg wrote:
| In Italy, in the '90s, we had a popular tv program with comedians
| doing sketches. One of those sketches was written and interpreted
| a guy who used to work in important advertising agencies. The
| sketch had a corporate manager who always started as a calm and
| devout supporter of buddhist-like tranquility in the workplace,
| all meditation and zen and care for personal wellbeing; by the
| end of the sketch his schizophrenic double (or rather true
| persona) would violently emerge, utterly angry and materialistic.
|
| This sort of attitude, at the time, was lampooned because it was
| limited to the upper echelons of society (sure enough, the only
| buddhist in my extensive family was a corporate manager). I bet
| such a sketch would cause outrage these days.
| foobarian wrote:
| That reminds me of Monty Python's cheese shop sketch. [1]
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A
| mjfl wrote:
| Is Steve Jobs a great example of this?
| tim333 wrote:
| Jobs wasn't really like that as in "zen and care for personal
| wellbeing" at the start and then switching to "angry and
| materialistic". He seemed to combine a fairly consistent zen
| like focus, more on great objects like the iPhone rather than
| care for people, and a fairly consistent edge of angry
| materialism. It didn't really flip from one thing to the
| other.
|
| A well known video of him for example on changing the world
| https://youtu.be/kYfNvmF0Bqw?t=7 He was a complex character
| fendy3002 wrote:
| I don't think it's worth to be outraged, logically. After all,
| if the manager can stay calm and all, that means he's close to
| attain (or one step closer to attain) buddhahood, which is a
| very difficult thing to attain.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| > I bet such a sketch would cause outrage these days.
|
| I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get
| offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society.
|
| For all our social progress in this millennium, we regressed in
| many ways people don't readily notice. This was mostly an
| American thing in the past; but it spilled into Europe over
| time.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Political_correctness
| vkou wrote:
| > I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get
| offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society.
|
| Which specific time period are you speaking about? The time
| period when the existence of gay people (not even speaking
| about married gay people) was offensive to the point of
| intolerance? Or perhaps the time period when interracial
| marriages offended the majority of the United States? Or
| maybe the time period when half the country was offended by a
| black person sitting in the front of a bus? Or by a flag
| hanging upside down?
|
| People taking offense at stuff that does/doesn't affect them
| isn't some woke 21st century invention.
| [deleted]
| lmm wrote:
| > Which specific time period are you speaking about? The
| time period when the existence of gay people (not even
| speaking about married gay people) was offensive to the
| point of intolerance? Or perhaps the time period when
| interracial marriages offended the majority of the United
| States? Or maybe the time period when half the country was
| offended by a black person sitting in the front of a bus?
| Or by a flag hanging upside down?
|
| I came of age in the late '90s. I don't think most people
| were offended by any of your list. A few churches would
| complain about gay people, but they were ridiculed for it.
|
| > People taking offense at stuff that does/doesn't affect
| them isn't some woke 21st century invention.
|
| It isn't, but it's something that we had seemed to be
| finally moving past. It's frustrating that only a few years
| after casting off the oppression of religious attitudes we
| now seem to be diving back into much the same thing.
| sg47 wrote:
| We have regressed by overturning abortion, enacting
| subversive election laws and in general destroying the fabric
| of democracy.
| rayiner wrote:
| > overturning abortion
|
| More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the
| situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced
| countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not
| a "right." It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has
| repeatedly done in declining to recognize a "right" to
| elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A
| putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen
| alongside eugenics (alongside which it originated) as a
| mistaken wrong turn in the arc of progress.
|
| [1] In a series of cases, most recently _RR v. Poland_ ,
| the EHCR has declined calls to overturn Poland's near ban
| on abortions, deciding them on narrow grounds that the
| government had prevented abortions that were legal under
| exceptions to Polish law. It has gone only so far as to
| suggest there is a right in case of risk to maternal life.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Abortion has existed since before recorded history.
| Eugenics is 150 years old at most. I certainly wouldn't
| advance such a dishonest and immoral argument and it
| certainly illustrates why people like you should have
| little input into the definition of civil rights or
| society in general.
| sg47 wrote:
| Should US also offer free healthcare like most advanced
| countries? Why compare where it's convenient? I'm talking
| about progress.
| rayiner wrote:
| Yes we should. We already took major steps in that
| direction with Obamacare. I hear it's popular.
| vkou wrote:
| I doubt that a century from now, eugenics and
| _fundamental body autonomy_ will be spoken of in the same
| breath, despite the intervening efforts to conflate the
| two.
| markdown wrote:
| Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?
| helloworld11 wrote:
| There's certainly a certain relation between them. What's
| more, as genetic screening of early-term pregnancies
| becomes more common, the inevitable abortions that result
| due to real or perceived defects or other random personal
| reasons are things that many eugenicists of the past
| would have probably been keenly interested in, and even
| applauded in certain ways.
| [deleted]
| Jerrrry wrote:
| Are you implying they aren't related at all?
| stn8188 wrote:
| I'm no expert on the topic but there are articles that
| contain both words...
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/43
| 208...
| mise_en_place wrote:
| Well, what's the data on the types of pregnancies that
| get aborted? You could then use such data to make the
| argument that abortion achieves some of the same goals of
| eugenics, even if only loosely related in the currents
| that made these ideas mainstream. I predict this will
| become even more interesting when embryo modification
| becomes more popular and mainstream.
| merlincorey wrote:
| The history is that it did start that way and one of the
| current discussion points is whether or not to allow
| people to abort children that are found to have genetic
| abnormalities such as pre-natal screening for Down
| Syndrome.
|
| Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to
| arrange reproduction within a human population to
| increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics
| regarded as desirable."
|
| Of course the unspoken corollary here is that to increase
| the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics one
| must prevent the reproduction of undesirable heritable
| characteristics.
|
| It's plainly obvious to many of us today that such a
| policy is dangerous if we decide to select on
| characteristics such as color of skin, but as the GP
| says, maybe in 50 years we will find that people with
| Down Syndrome will consider today's approved abortions
| for their condition to be just as barbaric.
| terr-dav wrote:
| >Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how
| to arrange reproduction within a human population to
| increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics
| regarded as desirable."
|
| So, for abortion to be a eugenics project, they should be
| arranged by some central governing body - a "board of
| eugenics" or "baby optimization committee" if you will -
| and not simply done by the choice of each pregnant
| person. Maybe you could argue that a high-level
| propaganda campaign could have the same effect, but
| that's beyond the realm of the legislative or judicial
| branches of government, and possibly beyond government
| entirely.
|
| I think the biggest implication of any type of abortion
| being outlawed is that it subjects all pregnant people to
| the potential violence of the state on behalf of anyone
| close enough to know about their pregnancy. Add to this
| the massive grey areas introduced by the base rate of
| miscarriage, drugs that can be used for multiple things
| including abortion, what defines a threat to the life of
| the mother, and you've got a recipe for endless
| justifications for violations of privacy, bodily
| autonomy, and completely arbitrary prosecutions of
| uterus-havers.
| vkou wrote:
| Abortion has a millennium-long history that precedes
| eugenics.
| merlincorey wrote:
| "Recent history" if you would prefer.
|
| They say Sparta practiced eugenics with late-term
| abortions according to legend though we don't have any
| physical evidence of this to my quick search. Wikipedia
| offers this quotation as a source[0]
|
| Haeckel, Ernst (1876). "The History of Creation, vol. I".
| New York: D. Appleton. p. 170. "Among the Spartans all
| newly born children were subject to a careful examination
| or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or
| affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the
| perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to
| live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race."
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics
| vkou wrote:
| Sparta was a small, barbaric slave city state that after
| a flash in the sun, quickly faded into obscurity due to
| its ossified economic and political structures.
|
| There's six orders of magnitude more people who have
| lived in political, and ethical systems over those
| thousands of years that had nothing to do with Sparta.
| I'm not sure why you are cherrypicking needles out of
| haystacks, but it's as much a fallacy as pointing out
| that since Ghenghis Khan wore pants, ergo, pants are
| evil.
| merlincorey wrote:
| I'm not sure what you think my position is as you seem to
| be arguing past me about something else completely.
|
| My position is that I agree with a specific claim of the
| GP whose exact words were "A putative right that, 100
| years from now, may well be seen alongside eugenics
| (alongside which it originated) as a mistaken wrong turn
| in the arc of progress."
|
| The specific parts that I agree with are that:
|
| 1) Abortion and Eugenics are related and originated
| somewhat together, and
|
| 2) 100 years from now Abortion as a Right instead of as
| Legislation may be seen as a wrong turn much like
| Eugenics is now
|
| In your first response to me you only addressed point #1
| by stating erroneously that "Abortion has a millennium-
| long history that precedes eugenics". I clarified in my
| response that I meant "recent history" in which Abortion
| and Eugenics were very intertwined; however, I also
| provided a link to a Wikipedia page that starts out
| telling us that Plato in Ancient Greece was a proponent
| of Eugenics which shows that concept also has a millenium
| long history. I didn't quote that section, but instead, I
| quoted a section referring to the legendary tales of
| Sparta engaging in eugenics and late term abortion.
|
| In your second response you failed to read the source
| link I provided detailing the history of Eugenics and
| pick up on your mistake; instead, you have gone down some
| strange argument disparaging Sparta and claiming I am
| cherry picking needles out of haystacks.
|
| It doesn't matter that you view Sparta as a "barbaric
| slave city state" which "faded into obscurity" -- that
| doesn't change the fact that they are a millenia old
| example of eugenics and potentially very late term
| abortions.
|
| Even if it did, none of this works to refute my position
| that possibly 100 years from now Abortion as a Right
| instead of as Legislation may be seen as a wrong turn
| much like Eugenics is now. The specific example I gave of
| Down Syndrome stands as a current issue that may turn
| into a future view of our current peoples as barbaric for
| aborting babies with Down Syndrome.
|
| Do you have any arguments against that, or do you think
| I'm just anti-abortion in general and you're having a
| general argument with me about abortion? Because I am
| neither anti-abortion nor am I arguing against abortion.
| rayiner wrote:
| Abortion legalization is an offshoot of the same early
| 20th century progressive anti-natalism as eugenics.
| Planned Parenthood was, of course, founded by a
| eugenicist. In most of the developing world, like my home
| country of Bangladesh, abortion is still justified
| primarily to avoid poor women having too many children.
|
| There's other justifications for it now, of course, but
| I'm not drawing a novel comparison here. In those
| hypotheticals of "what do we do that future generations
| will view as evil" eating meat and elective abortions are
| probably near the top of the list. (In both cases, I
| suspect technological and economic change will make us
| forget why we did it in the first place.)
| open-source-ux wrote:
| The TV show _Silicon Valley_ also satirises the aggressive,
| egotistical CEO (a character called Gavin Belson).
|
| Belson spends some time at a Buddhist retreat which seems to
| impart nothing from his experience. The attraction to Buddhist
| ideas are only at shallow, surface level.
|
| He also employs a full-time spiritual adviser. Even the adviser
| looks out for opportunities advantageous to him and manipulate
| situations.
|
| It's a cynical (but honest?) look at personality traits in
| tech.
| soco wrote:
| Oh well this reminds me of a certain prime minister of a
| certain two letter country starting with U and ending in, K
| having a full time ethics adviser, which he subsequently
| fired...
| WJW wrote:
| My favorite moment in perhaps the entire show is where Gavin
| Belson has a (mild) flash of self insight and asks:
|
| > GB: Have I just surrounded myself with sycophants, who tell
| me whatever I want to hear, regardless of the truth?
|
| > Spiritual advisor: <swallows awkwardly> ... no?
|
| > GB: Thank you Denpok, I really needed to hear that.
| nicbou wrote:
| It also shows an opportunistic, career-driven teacher.
| There's a whole bit about the teacher losing his parking pass
| and finessing his way back into the CEOs council.
|
| And doesn't Gavin kill someone at his Buddhist retreat?
| [deleted]
| victornomad wrote:
| I'd love to watch it. Do you mind sharing a link?
| toyg wrote:
| Sadly it doesn't seem to have made it to YouTube. The
| character was called _Dottor Frattale_ , by comedian Walter
| Fontana https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Fontana
|
| If you read Italian, I'd recommend tracking down his short
| comedy novel _L 'Uomo di Marketing e la Variante al Limone_,
| which satirizes the _milanese_ advertising industry of the
| '90s (but I bet it's still mostly like that, lol).
| kinow wrote:
| Found one on FaceBook, I think:
| https://www.facebook.com/Mai-Dire-
| GialappaS-109451077867913/...
| matfior wrote:
| There's a couple facebook videos:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/MaiDireGol/videos/tutti-vorremmo-
| pe...
|
| https://it-it.facebook.com/MaiDireGol/videos/la-filosofia-
| de...
|
| It was one of my favorite as well!
| anoy8888 wrote:
| It is a stretch to say that Practicing meditation and Buddhist
| philosophy ( just like any other company culture) is bringing
| religion to the corporation.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| True - frankly, I can find my God or my gods elsewhere (unless
| it is a religious organization!). It's the same as treating
| your job like a job and not a social club.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Buddhism explicitly denies the existence of gods.
| odiroot wrote:
| I don't think Chinese Buddhists seem to care.
| Lutzb wrote:
| False. Even with a cursory understanding of buddhist
| tradition you should know that the many schools accept the
| existence of god-like beings, but differ on their influence
| of the buddhist practitioner.
|
| You could start to increase your understanding by reading
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_deities or
| https://www.learnreligions.com/atheism-and-devotion-in-
| buddh...
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Let's not start an ecumenical debate that has been
| settled for decades.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_points_unifying_Thera
| vad...
|
| Some traditions do not agree, of course.
| Lutzb wrote:
| You are using broad unsubstantiated statements to make
| your points:
|
| > Buddhism explicitly denies the existence of gods.
|
| Where does it state that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B
| asic_points_unifying_Therav%C... says nothing about the
| denial of the existence of gods.
| lsrinivas wrote:
| It's sad that in the US Buddhism stands for some kind of a woolly
| notion of peace and peacefulness. In the countries where it is in
| majority, it is as bad as any other institutionalized religion.
| Sri Lanka and Burma (now Myanmar), known for the worst kind of
| pogroms against minorities, have the dubious distinction of a lot
| of riots against minorities and many, if not most, of these are
| led by Buddhist monks in their holy saffron garb.
|
| Re corporate America, meditation and mindfulness were waiting to
| be incorporated into the corporate 'feel good' mantra.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| Anyone who has read the Dhammapada can tell you exactly why the
| rise of Buddhism is a good thing. America's tendency to wrap
| everything up in a fancy package and slap a dollar sign on it
| might be annoying, but meditation is free - Ignore the noise.
|
| Transcendental Meditation (TM) has been doing this for a while
| now[1]. But it's not a big deal because outrage bait articles
| didn't make it a big deal. Please argue about gun control or roe,
| or some other hot button issue. Leave the Buddha's teachings out
| of it.
|
| 1: https://www.tm.org/course-fee
| scrollbar wrote:
| I recall a former cult member turned therapist and cult expert
| Steve Hassan mentioning TM as problematic, he is the first
| reviewer quoted by this book about the topic
|
| https://www.tmdeception.com/
| routerl wrote:
| In the 21st century, in the West, "Buddhism" is treated as a set
| of stress-relief techniques and slogans.
|
| This isn't strictly limited to the West: at least two of Taiwan's
| Four Great Mountains (i.e. schools of Buddhism) are similarly
| inclined, with additional cultish elements thrown in for good
| measure.
|
| The cultish elements had already developed independently within
| corporate cultures, but adding Buddhist slogans and techniques
| (rather than the philosophical and devotional elements), has
| given it a new edge.
|
| Buddhist cults focus on fate, inevitability, acceptance,
| detachment. You are helpless against the world, which by the way,
| works the way we say, because we are the enlightened bearers of
| the great tradition. And because of this helplessness, here's a
| set of doctrines you should follow. Corporate Buddhism
| additionally tries to appropriate mindfulness as "focusing on
| work".
|
| And, yes, that stuff is historically there, in Buddhism. It's
| present in many many of the fractally complex historical branches
| of the Buddhist taxonomic tree. But too many people only ever see
| one leaf on that tree, and think "oh so this is Buddhism".
|
| Except Buddhism is also a philosophy of action, and a set of
| guides for _correct_ action. Acting rightly entails _seeing_
| rightly, and so Buddhism includes an appreciation for and guide
| towards empirical inquiry. This was always terrifying to
| authority figures, and Asia only didn 't develop modern science
| first because Buddhist logic and experimentation were among the
| casualties of The Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars.
|
| And here, in the 21st century culture of global megacorporations,
| we see this pattern again; the pleasant, passive parts of
| Buddhism are allowed in, while pretending the other parts don't
| exist.
|
| But Buddhism _did have_ rebellious warrior monks. Ashoka, the
| greatest Buddhist King, made it clear that the law would be
| enforced, and his borders protected. Acting correctly _always_
| requires brutality towards oppressors, but this part of Buddhism
| is unpalatable within corporate culture.
| djokkataja wrote:
| > Buddhist cults focus on fate, inevitability, acceptance,
| detachment. You are helpless against the world, which by the
| way, works the way we say, because we are the enlightened
| bearers of the great tradition. And because of this
| helplessness, here's a set of doctrines you should follow.
|
| Reading this, it struck me how closely this fits with the
| popularity of Lovecraftian fiction in our current era. If we
| see corporations as monolithic, inhuman, malignant entities
| that trample humans simply for being in the way, with little
| concern for consequences for themselves (because "they" are too
| far beyond "us", too big to fail), and if we see the universe
| as ultimately not even apathetic towards humans, because there
| is no mind there at all, just incomprehensible vastness that
| swallows us all in eventual oblivion -- then this superficial
| Buddhist take makes a great deal of sense. An inevitable fate,
| nothing to do but accept it and detach ourselves to try to
| minimize the unpleasantness.
|
| But then, accepting this perspective personally makes it a
| self-fulfilling prophecy for oneself.
| mekoka wrote:
| A way in is better than no way at all.
|
| A friend of mine was concerned about a similar (mis)use of
| psychedelics in the service of productivity. Except that
| neither Buddhism, nor psychedelics discriminate in the kind of
| insights you end up with. So as workers are encouraged to boost
| creativity through microdosing, employers might be surprised to
| see some employees quit after they got curious, took a bit too
| much Ayahuasca one weekend, like it's described in some part of
| the microdosing forum, and started reevaluating their life as a
| result.
|
| Similarly with mindfulness, first you dip your toes with some
| guided stuff, organized twice a week by HR. Next thing you know
| YouTube is suggesting you check out this Osho guy and Thich
| Nhat Hanh, where you find out you've only been scratching the
| surface. Then one day you quit your job because it disagree
| with your conception of _right action_.
|
| A way in.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Acting correctly always requires brutality towards
| oppressors"_
|
| This directly contradicts a central tenet of Buddhism: ahimsa
| (or non-violence).
| corrral wrote:
| > Except Buddhism is also a philosophy of action, and a set of
| guides for correct action. Acting rightly entails seeing
| rightly, and so Buddhism includes an appreciation for and guide
| towards empirical inquiry. This was always terrifying to
| authority figures, and Asia only didn't develop modern science
| first because Buddhist logic and experimentation were among the
| casualties of The Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars.
|
| Marcus Aurelius' _Meditations_ includes a sentence that, in a
| translation I read long ago and no longer have, read something
| like:
|
| "You can pass your life in calm flow of happiness--if you learn
| to think the right way, and to act the right way."
|
| It took me way too long to realize that the "think the right
| way" is, by far, the easier part, and how dangerous it can be
| without the "act the right way". It also feels better. Fresher.
| Trendier. The "act the right way" looks and feels an awful lot
| like following all the advice your grandpa gave you. Very "gods
| of the copy-book headers" stuff. And isn't as immediately
| gratifying as the "think the right way" bit.
| Konohamaru wrote:
| Of course it would. Buddhism teaches karma, the law of strict
| retribution from which there is no escape. And because there is
| no loving creator God in Buddhism, there's no one you can appeal
| to for mercy, grace, or forgiveness. A perfect fit.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > [Zen at War] meticulously documents Zen Buddhism's support of
| Japanese militarism from the time of the Meiji Restoration
| through the World War II and the post-War period. It describes
| the influence of state policy on Buddhism in Japan, and
| particularly the influence of Zen on the military of the Empire
| of Japan. A famous quote is from Harada Daiun Sogaku: "[If
| ordered to] march: tramp, tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is
| the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of Enlightenment]. The
| unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest
| reaches of the holy war [now under way]."
|
| > The book also explores the actions of Japanese Buddhists who
| opposed the growth of militarism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War
| visiblink wrote:
| An entire piece on Buddhism and corporations doesn't use the word
| "suffering" once.
| harveywi wrote:
| The mass exodus from MS Outlook and desktop email clients to
| webmail with cloud-based virus scanning has removed the
| greatest source of suffering in the corporate world:
| Attachments.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Because clearly working for our corporation is not suffering!
| Show gratitude to trading your limited time on earth to be with
| us. /s
| javajosh wrote:
| Fun fact: Buddhist monks, after having given up everything, still
| fought over "right view". Even during the lifetime of the Buddha.
| Even though there were many arahants around. The urge to be
| right, and the antagonism toward those that we perceive as wrong,
| runs very very deep.
| spicymaki wrote:
| I appreciate that in the Pali Cannon recorded all of these
| internal disagreements and mistakes as the Buddhist communities
| grew, as well as challenges and debates with other communities.
| devdiary wrote:
| > you have only one game in town -- the workplace -- and
| essentially everything else orbits around it
|
| That hits hard
| fithisux wrote:
| It is like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's list, "I pardon you"
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