[HN Gopher] Creating West Coast Buddhism (2024)
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Creating West Coast Buddhism (2024)
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 38 points
Date : 2026-03-26 14:08 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (letter.palladiummag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (letter.palladiummag.com)
| mvkel wrote:
| This was an enjoyable read.
|
| It seems Buddhism has followed the same path as any other
| religion/practice of the same age.
|
| I imagine that today's Christianity doesn't look much like it did
| in 500AD, just as I imagine Scientology in 1,000 years will have
| evolved.
|
| Is this a bad thing? Does religion not represent our perception
| of the meaning of life, evolving with us as knowledge, wisdom and
| tolerance (or lack thereof) is passed through the generations?
| _fw wrote:
| The teachings of the Buddha explicitly encouraged it. Buddhism
| is the only religion I know of that instructs you to fully
| abandon it, as once you've fully grokked what it has to
| teach... you won't need it any more.
|
| IIRC the Buddha said it was like carrying the oar of a boat:
| once you have used it to get you to your destination
| (nibbhana), carrying it is needless.
| gavmor wrote:
| > Seyyathapi, bhikkhave, puriso mahato udakassa ... 'yan-
| nunaham tinakatthapannam sankhaniyam sankhaneyyam, tenan-ca
| mahaudakam abhinaveyyam hatthipadena va angapadena va ...
| Atha kho so puriso tam kulhiram aropetva pare gaccheyya. Tam-
| enam loko 'kimsu, bho, karissati kulhirena param gato'ti?
| Evam, bhikkhave, dhammam desitam ajanasi: 'parangamanam
| dhammam, anupagamma dhamma'ti.
|
| > seyythaapi bhikkhve puriso mhto udkss orimttte tthito
| etsmiN ctte orimaa tttaa kllNnnN bhyNvrN, prmaa tttaa nibbyN
| bhyNvirN, n c naavaay sNytaay n c pullen gntbbN / tN
| kimntren / ynnunaahN tinnktttthpnnnnN sNkliy c mjjhe udkN
| abhinventN htthipden v anggpden v tiirnnN kromi / ath kho so
| puriso tinnktttthpnnnnN sNkliy c mjjhe udkN abhinvento
| htthipden v anggpden v tiirnnN kroti / tN pcchaa smntto
| gntvaa paare gcchti / tN eN loko kiN nu kho krissti
| kuulhiren paaraa gto tii? evmev kho bhikkhve dhmmo deshito
| ajaanaasi / paarN gmnen dhmmN nupgmm dhmmN /
|
| Alagaddupama Sutta (MN 22) of the Majjhima Nikaya, part of
| the Pali Canon.
|
| (MN 22, seyythaapi... se aNtmade)
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| i really like that shunryu suzuki quoting dogen talking about
| "one continuous mistake" is a complete and utter misquote.
|
| internalised understanding, attitudes, views etc. are more
| important that being able to recite things from a book.
| _fw wrote:
| I was surprised to see Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg and Joseph
| Goldstein not mentioned here.
|
| They're the founding forces behind the Insight Meditation Society
| in MA, which although isn't the West Coast, is perhaps the most
| influential force in popular Buddhism in the West.
|
| Kornfield also set up Spirit Rock Meditation Centre in California
| though, which gets tens of thousands of visitors a year.
|
| Having dived really quite far into Buddhism over the past five
| years, I've found their flavour of Insight Meditation (as per the
| New Burmese Method based on Mahasi Sayadaw's teachings)
| absolutely life changing.
|
| A great read, thank you for sharing.
|
| If anybody is interested in reading further - Goldstein's
| podcasts, Mahasi Sayadaw's writing, Kornfield's introductory
| texts and ANYTHING by Bhikku Bodhi are a phenomenal place to
| start.
| Wonnk13 wrote:
| yea I'd +1 this. It's a real blindspot in the author's writing.
| I don't think you can write about meditation in the US without
| mentioning IMS. Headspace and all the other mcmindfulness apps
| that start with "focus on your breath" are all derived from
| Insight meditation. I've sat IMS, it's an incredible facility.
| bitslayer wrote:
| It does mention the Insight Meditation Society.
| helterskelter wrote:
| Interesting article, I've been thinking about this lately myself.
| Buddhism influenced German philosophy in the 1800's through
| Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, which basically influenced everything
| that came afterwards, and it also influenced art through Dada
| which you could argue was really a crypto-Buddhist/Taoism fusion
| expressed through a somewhat distorted Western lens, and that
| really goes on to influence postmodernism to a huge degree. This
| embedded it in Western thought in a much deeper way than 1960's
| fascination with Zen and Tibetan Buddhism IMHO.
|
| I think Buddhist philosophy still has a way to go making its way
| through the West -- liberal democracy's crisis of vacuuity is
| something we're really struggling to come to terms with, and it
| feels like Western society is slipping into a full-blown
| existential crisis. Seems like fertile ground for a religion and
| philosophy that a large part of is predicated on nothingness and
| how to live and be content in the void. I have to admit though
| that it's unbelievable watching the market's seemingly unlimited
| ability to coopt, repackage and in turn sell literally anything,
| even a religion and philosophical system which would be
| completely opposite to a consumer society.
| sigbottle wrote:
| > it's unbelievable watching the market's seemingly unlimited
| ability to coopt, repackage and in turn sell literally
| anything, even a religion and philosophical system which would
| be completely opposite to a consumer society.
|
| In some sense, this is one manifestation of what Nietzche said
| was a good state. A scrappy, anti-metaphysical system that
| doesn't need to rest on grand notions of reason or morality
| (not that there is _no_ reason or morality, but in the
| traditional Western metaphysics sense; I find that people often
| conflate the two, I certainly did at one point), that simply
| outcompetes, adapts, and comes out on top.
|
| On the other hand, I think Nietzche would have hated the
| outcome and would have worked to further refine his philosophy.
| I wonder what his thoughts would be in the 21st century.
|
| Also through your comment, I realize I don't actually
| understand subtle differences in Eastern philosophy.
| Confucianism would have been up Nietzche's alley (no
| metaphysics), but Buddhism is a weird mix of "metaphysics" in
| the sense of spirits and gods, but not "metaphysics" in the
| Western Platonic tradition, and is in fact in many ways
| opposite to many of the dualities and boundaries that Western
| metaphysics creates.
| prieveschl wrote:
| This was a great article, thanks so much for sharing. As a
| buddhist who started in Tibetan Vajrayana as a teenager and has
| ended up chanting NMRK in the SGI, I can appreciate that faith,
| like human beings, adapts to its time and surroundings. While
| personal gain and financial enrichment and the like have infected
| almost every faith there is on earth (we are all fallible to some
| extent) the through line of an ever-narrowing compression of
| practice makes sense on the pursuit of enlightenment. And, while
| study is essential in any pursuit of the mind, the mind is
| sometimes our biggest adversary.
|
| Here is what I wrestled with for years, and I think it's worth
| sharing because I suspect some of you have wrestled with it too.
|
| Every Buddhist tradition agrees that all living beings possess
| Buddha nature. The Lotus Sutra's parable of the Jewel in the Robe
| says it plainly: you already have a priceless jewel sewn into
| your clothing. You always have. You just don't know it's there.
| Enlightenment isn't something you earn or achieve. It's something
| you already are.
|
| So if that's true -- if the jewel is already there -- why is it
| so hard to find? And this is where I kept getting stuck. Because
| the tool we use to look for the jewel is the same tool that hides
| it from us. Our consciousness. Our thinking, analyzing,
| questioning mind. The very thing that makes us human is also the
| thing that stands between us and what every tradition says is our
| birthright. Each school of Buddhism is, in its own way, a set of
| gymnastics designed to get the mind out of its own way. Zen tries
| to crash it with paradox. Tibetan practice tries to transmute its
| energy. Pure Land tries to exhaust it into surrender. And each
| one works, for some people, some of the time. But the fundamental
| problem remains: you cannot use the mind to escape the mind.
|
| This is the contradiction I brought with me to Nichiren Buddhism.
| And to be honest, I found the same contradiction here, stated
| more plainly. We say that a single sincere recitation of Nam-
| myoho-renge-kyo contains the entirety of Buddhahood within it.
| And I believe that. But we also say: don't stop chanting. Keep
| going. Practice daily. Because your delusions will reassert
| themselves by tomorrow morning.
|
| So which is it? Is one moment enough, or isn't it?
|
| The contradiction dissolves when you stop thinking of practice as
| a means to an end and start seeing it as living itself. Each
| breath you take is a complete act. No single breath is
| insufficient. But you keep breathing -- not because the last
| breath failed, but because you're alive and that's what living
| things do. Each moment of chanting or meditating, each act of
| compassion, each time you turn toward someone else's suffering
| instead of away from it -- that's not a step on the path to
| enlightenment. It is enlightenment, expressed through action.
|
| Kierkegaard wrote that life can only be understood backwards, but
| it must be lived forwards. Perhaps that's why Pure Land buddhists
| seek this fundamental meaning at the time of death, that that is
| when enlightenment will reveal itself. But remember the jewel?
| It's right there, any moment you honestly reach for it.
|
| Thank you again for this fantastic perspective on the trajectory
| of this universal search for truth!
| sls wrote:
| For readers from outside the Buddhist context, it's worth
| noting that the above comment is written from an entirely
| Mahayana perspective. For example, it isn't true that "every
| Buddhist tradition agrees that all living beings possess Buddha
| nature," that's a very specifically Mahayana idea that arose
| centuries after the death of the mendicant Gotama who is known
| as the Buddha.
|
| The concept of "religion" as it is meant in the modern context
| is only a few centuries old, as is the idea of "Buddhism", but
| to the extent that we can think of the teachings of the Buddha
| as a religion, it's probably most helpful to think of Mahayana
| and Theravada as different "religions." I frankly think that
| the Vajrayana subset of Mahayana probably is best thought of as
| a different "religion" as well, but it's not my area and I
| wouldn't suggest anyone take my thoughts on that topic with any
| great heft.
| prieveschl wrote:
| Correct, my bad, I should have said "many", not "every".
| Thanks for the correction!
| MassPikeMike wrote:
| The article "FTFY Buddhist Ethics" [1] comes to a similar
| conclusion about the development of West Coast Buddhism but isn't
| on board with it. IMHO an interesting contrarian take.
|
| [1] https://vividness.live/ftfy-buddhist-ethics
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Honest question: Is buddihsm real? Does it have any basis in
| scientific and objective reality? Or is it fiction? I don't mean
| side stuff like meditation improves your IQ I mean does the
| fundamental point of buddihism have any basis in reality.
|
| If it is fiction, why is it so popular among technical people
| like people who come to HN? Are the people on HN who are
| interested in Buddhism aware it is fiction/real?
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