I practiced Zen Buddhism for many years and left my sangha due to many of the points that Sasha brought up:
Many of the teachers and students I knew were not rising above their neuroses. Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them. We would cycle through the same concerns repeatedly without any progress. I started to figure out that the process was to drop the issue and disengage with it. The problem is that does not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you need to face your problems constantly in the real world.
I agree that many modern Buddhist schools stray away from the Buddha’s original teachings (as we know it from the Pali Cannon). Many branches won’t even really teach what Buddha said; only interpretations from later traditions. We did not talk about Buddha much in Zen practice at all. Much more time was given to Dōgen, and the Chinese masters than to Buddha. In Zen everyone is a Buddha so Siddhartha Gautama (O.G. Buddha) gets marginalized. There is also a pantheon of Buddhas which dilutes things even more. Buddhism has a pretty straight forward thesis (Four Noble Truths), but it has become esoteric after centuries of appropriation and reinterpretation.
Modern Western Buddhism pushes meditation above all of the other practices. We spent more time meditating than anything else, which was different than how the early Buddhists and even how most Buddhists in Asia practice. This leads to people thinking that all they need to do is sit and not change anything about their lives and it will magically work out. In fact in Japanese Zen Dōgen essentially states that sitting with the correct posture (zazen) is enlightened practice itself. This enlightenment is transitory, so one could imagine that the longer you sit zazen the more time you get to stay in this enlightened state. You can see how this could become an obsession. This in practice leads to a lack of engagement which would have you thinking you are actually putting in the work, but you are just eschewing reality.
Buddhism has a rich tradition of debating and challenging teachers. In fact the Pali Cannon is full of these debates. However, these days if you bring up a question or objection to some teachers they don’t really engage with you. In Zen you can cover up inconsistencies with esoteric vocabulary and wave it away. Just sit and it will be okay.
Buddha in the Pali Cannon was actually more human than we give him credit for. He made mistakes and learned from them (even after nirvana). He got old and died. He scolded his monks for breaking monastic rules. The Buddha represented in the Pali Cannon can be raw at times which goes against the ideal Buddha archetype.
> Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them
The phrase "spiritual bypass", which I'm sure you know (it is a cliché by now) is often used to describe this phenomenon. I recently learned that it has a specific origin: it was coined in the early 80s by the psychotherapist (and Buddhist) John Welwood, who had a lot of experience with it in spiritual communities. There's a great interview with Welwood from 2011 about this. I have a pdf somewhere, but all I can find online at the moment is this excerpt: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-by....
The relationship between spirituality and therapy is endlessly fascinating to me. (Edit: it's no coincidence that the OP eventually ends up talking about IFS.)
I can recommend Jack Kornfield's modern classic, A Path With Heart.
Just as you say, he spent years practicing with the much-loved Ajahn Chah and the formidable Mahasi Sayadaw - and then came back home to find his old patterns still there. Of course, the insights and experiences he'd had helped him, but the patterns still had to be worked through.
There is a lot to be said for lay practice. Instead of running off to a monastery, do a couple retreats a year and maintain a daily practice. There is plenty of dukkha to encounter in a normal life.
This is really hard to remember if you've had some dramatic meditation experiences or you're really eager to make progress, which is one reason the Soto folks are always emphasizing patience.
I've never been a practicing Buddhist but did see a therapist that incorporated Zen into his overall framework. I stopped seeing him after some time, because I realized while he was effective in helping me understand things from my past/childhood and how they were manifesting now, those didn't lead to actual answers, and when I'd press on this point, it'd end in some sort of parable that I realized was similar to the thought ending cliches I grew up around in an evangelical family.
> This leads to people thinking that all they need to do is sit and not change anything about their lives and it will magically work out.
Do I understand it correctly that you’re saying that such people only try to practice samādhi instead of sīla, samādhi, and paññā? So that they neglect most of the noble eightfold path?
The Thai forest tradition has been very meditation-focused (as was, in my reading, the Pali canon) but they emphasize the importance of the rest of the eightfold path too. The Pacific Hermitage had good discussions uploaded to YouTube for example.[1] And the UK and Australia branches seem to have had a similar sutta-centric and practical focus.
I practiced zen for a while and had the exact same experience. I had real-life problems that were causing me psychological distress and was using buddhism to avoid having to address those issues. I figured none of it mattered anyway since life is dukkha and trying to improve my life wouldn't remove the craving that is the fundamental cause of dukkha. So I might as well just meditate as much as I could and hope for enlightenment. I wouldn't blame buddhism entirely for my personal failings, but buddhism certainly didn't help.
I've come to the conclusion after a lot of reading, practice, and contemplation that there is NO form of buddhism that makes any sense to engage with unless you believe in rebirth. The point of buddhism is to escape rebirth, not achieve some psychological state like happiness or well-being. If you're expecting the later out of buddhism, you're probably better off putting your energy into more "worldly" endeavors. I've been much happier since I stopped meditating and started using that time to focus on friends, hobbies, career and dating.
Traditional buddhists would probably facepalm at this and say something like "no duh, rebirth is buddhism 101". But a lot of American buddhist traditions present rebirth as an optional belief which is nonessential to buddhist practice. I even watched an American zen teacher call rebirth "bullshit" publicly in a talk once.
What's sad to me is that therapists have started recommending meditation as some universal good, despite the research on it still being pretty young. It seems they've been influenced by the American buddhist/mindfulness movement and are being rather uncritical. I'm sure small amounts of meditation can help some people with stress and anxiety, but it shouldn't be viewed as something to automatically recommend to every patient like sleep and exercise.
I imagine you may already be familiar with his work, but "Buddha in the Pali Canon was actually more human than we give him credit for" is a huge theme of Stephen Batchelor's recent books such as Confession of a Buddhist Atheist and After Buddhism. His focus on lived experience, pragmatism, and the four great tasks (instead of four noble truths) has really resonated with me.
Having seen all the "new-age" bullshittery, I'm convinced that Westerners never really can understand Dharmic/Indian traditions.
To wit, even the whole notion of "prophet" and the "original teachings of Buddha" and how Zen and more broadly Mahayana are "not the original teachings" as compared to that in the Pali canon etc. that are brought up again and again by Western practitioners are hallmarks of Christian, and more fundamentally Abrahamic, thought process.
No one in Asia cares that this is so. Period.
Alas, Indians, and most Asians too are increasingly turning into half baked Christians today (see 'Navayana'), so the above is a bit of lie. The traditions too are all dying much like their country and culture of their birth... Way to go occidental monoculture!
To your point specifically, the Pali Canon is really not philosophically sophisticated. The Nalanda school which is now preserved in Tibet after the Islamic destruction of India has very deep philosophical roots as compared to those traditions in the periphery like Zen and do make very compelling arguments against the old schools of Buddhism.
The development of Mahayana has a parallel on the Hindu side of the tradition, but of course, since us brown-skinned heathens are infinitely uglier, the Europeans have made it their goal to demonize us vis-a-vis the white-skinned E-Asian Buddhists (lol). I'm not surprised to see books claiming that Siddhartha was a Scytian, and hence Buddhism is Greek (also, lol). I wonder what they'll next claim about Nagarjuna. At some point, you just laugh and move on (instead of debating endlessly with idiots on listservs).
Sadly, Mahayana and Advaita never had much debate within themselves, so the typical view on the Hindu side (prototyped by Madhava) of Buddhism is also quite outdated.
> He made mistakes and learned from them (even after nirvana)
His very first attempt to transmit the Dhamma ended up in failure (the guy before the first five) - and that made him to question, worked on and fixed the way it was delivered.
My experience with modern western Buddhism is that insight and self improvement are explicitly treated as two separate things, especially in non-dual traditions. You can achieve insight without bettering yourself, though it is certainly recommended to better yourself. Often therapy in parallel is recommended to students.
In a study where no-self is an objective, it is no mystery why problems with a particular ego are not always addressed.
That reminds me (granted fuzzy memory) of a history class in college, where the professor pointed out that Buddhism is not immune to human, i.e. political concerns, and that the OG Buddhism morphed as it traveled east to fit the political entities/dynasties of the time, i.e. Indus Valley Buddhism to Chinese Imperial/Confucian-compatible Buddhism to Japanese/Zen Buddhism...
I am not sure whether I'd agree with everything you said, but simply because I only tangentially got exposed to "western" zen and buddhism, through some zen monasteries in California. But you put certain things/concepts in words that I didn't manage to express clearly by myself, so thanks for that.
This post got me wondering, and I hope somebody in here can inform me. Wasn't Zen one of the only schools that wasn't wiped out in Japan because they didn't place so much emphasis on the warrior priest? I seem to recall some shogun or another felt threatened and purged almost all of the Buddhist monasteries at the time.
Seems like the Zen school wouldn't be such a threat if they just sat inside all day working on their posture.
_"The problem is that [disengaging] does not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you need to face your problems constantly in the real world"_
Not so! The problem is that disengaging is much more difficult outside of a sheltered monastic community, not that it is impossible. It becomes a balance engaging and disengaging; you spend as much time as necessary engaging so you can set up your environment to allow as much time for disengaging as possible, and find relationships which will be able to support you in this. Stopping the process of disengaging to deal with something like dealing with a difficult social interaction or rearranging your finances can be very painful and frustrating. But in the end, dealing with these interruptions is a part of the process of awakening.
> Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them.
Insight meditation is not supposed to solve your petty life problems, heck it might even exacerbate them if you do it badly. Stick to practicing sila if you feel like you aren't ready for the more challenging practices.
While Stoicism comes from a different tradition it's actually a great introduction to a good frame of mind for sila and even for the more rational-adjacent kinds of meditation practice like Zen, and one that will be especially familiar to a Western audience. Of course it's also true that many people resort to therapy in order to address these same challenges, and there's nothing wrong with that if it's your preference.
> The problem is that does not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you need to face your problems constantly in the real world.
Yes - that's why I'd value a _true_ master (Zen terminology) regarding maturity higher as a monk. In terms of ML monks risk overfitting their trained mental strategies to a monastic context which then turn out to be unsuited for chaotic urban environments. OTOH of course it shows maturity IMHO to turn your back on modern urban environments and withdraw into a monastery. Then there is no need to steelman yourself for the next dozen disappointing Tinder dates and how they'll affect you.
If you like this, Evan Thompson's book "Why I am not a Buddhist" (a riff on Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian") is an interesting critique of Buddhist modernism.
His father started the Lindisfarne Association, which was a sort of highbrow hippie ecumenical colony, well known in the post-60s counterculture (somebody here will know a lot more about this than I do!), where the likes of Stewart Brand and the Dalai Lama would rub shoulders on panels. So he grew up around spiritual luminaries and consciousness-raisers. The American adaptation of Buddhism matured in circles like this, so he had a front-row seat, but from a child's perspective.
There's an interesting discussion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSq98tNTlM&t=9s between Thompson and Robert Wright, who wrote "Why Buddhism is True" and who, although he oddly insists he isn't, seems exactly the sort of well-intentioned Buddhist modernist the OP (and Thompson) are writing about.
This is really interesting. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Right now I am reading quite a lot of stuff by Christopher Hitchens, which as you might know was very vocal about religious topics (and very much against most of it).
I haven't found much that he has said about Buddhism [0], but I'll check Thompson's book very soon.
It makes me sad that many people will use this as an opportunity to write off Buddhist practices. Please don't! It has personally helped me greatly. Just remember:
1. The goal is to end suffering, so if a practice is making you suffer stop doing it.
2. Do what works for you. The only truth is what you can directly experience in the laboratory of your life. All the other teachings are just suggestions.
And if you'd like a concise overview of Theravada Buddhism (which is somewhat easier to grok without the added teachings of Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen, etc.) I highly recommend [1] and [2], the second of which can be read in a day or two.
> It makes me sad that many people will use this as an opportunity to write off Buddhist practices.
This would be a huge misunderstanding of the article. I read the whole article, and I found it to be positively re-affirming of Buddhism. Unfortunately the submission title is potentially misleading and possibly even clickbaity.
It's a very good article. I've read many critiques of Western Buddhism and they can mostly get a bit samey after a while. However -- after the first few paragraphs, which are admittedly pretty run-of-the-mill -- this article elevates itself to a much more interesting level. It also raises solutions, anecdotes, and references that go way beyond what you normally hear.
> 1. The goal is to end suffering, so if a practice is making you suffer stop doing it.
That's correct: the goal is to end suffering - by means of understanding it.
Thus the understanding is important to distinguish there's indeed suffering that leads to the end of suffering -- like Ajahn Chah using analogy of going to the dentist (in itself is a suffering) to end the suffering of dental pain.
> Do what works for you. The only truth is what you can directly experience in the laboratory of your life. All the other teachings are just suggestions.
We should all follow this, and also use it as a basis for being more kind to others - what worked for us might not necessarily work for others, let’s be less judgemental and more understanding.
That's not what I got from the article at all. I got that Bhuddism is vastly more complex than I've realized, and that there's good and bad parts about it, and the author himself gives pointers on teachings/directions that he likes.
Criticising Buddhism has it's place but the average westerner is not at a level where it's appropriate to do it. 99% of people need more buddhism, not less.
the goal is to end suffering if you believe that suicide won't work because you'll just get reincarnated. their real goal is to end reincarnation. if you don't believe in reincarnation, buddhism is useless.
> The goal is to end suffering, so if a practice is making you suffer stop doing it.
That would run counter to what Zen practice is about. Suffering can be, among other things, an unconscious experience of pain. If the practice brings pain, whether physical or psychological, the way to deal with that is to continue with the practice and be unshaken by whatever comes, just staying with the practice (i.e. counting, or staying watchful) - while avoiding a desire to be in a better state or questioning the current state, just keeping on doing it under a firm belief that it will lead to an improvement in the long term (and not necessarily right now). Doing so leads to a development of an internal balance, sort of a way to operate beyond thoughts and emotions, which allows to blow away unnecessary mental clutter that contributes to suffering here and there on an ongoing basis, as well as having more mental strength to deal with unpleasant things in life with less suffering.
Anyone who benefits positively from Buddhist practices will be unperturbed by this article (as you seem to be). That's fine; but suggesting that _everyone_ give it a chance; even in the face of (frankly valid) criticism, is toxic in my opinion.
> Do what works for you. The only truth is what you can directly experience in the laboratory of your life. All the other teachings are just suggestions.
This is just your own opinion at this point. It's not buddhism. Buddhism has specific teachings that it posits as being true, regardless of whether you've personally experienced them.
> Does that not sound Buddhist to you? Did you think Buddhism was the religion of flourishing and positivity? Well, here is the Buddha, excoriating a monk who broke his vow of celibacy: “Worthless man, it would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a poisonous snake than into a woman’s vagina.”
I'm not sure what the problem is here? Someone took a vow of celibacy and broke it. Should he be praised? Are we looking for something more middle class and passive aggressive from the Buddha? He makes his point.
> And here is the Buddha on whether you should be resentful if you’re being dismembered: “Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching.”
Rhetoric is not helpful now?
It's certainly possible to criticise Buddha, Buddhism, any of the Buddhist religions etc but I would start with my most important or best criticisms, and I don't see these hitting the mark at all.
I know nothing about this topic and am likely making a complete fool of myself, but I think the point they were making is that the first statement seems to be ill will for a far less egregious offense than you are told to ignore in the second.
I was recently reading Richard Hamming's The Art of Doing Science and Engineering which has a quotation (page 25) allegedly from the Buddha which I think gets at the heart of many of the issues described in the article: The Buddha told his disciples, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own common sense." I say the same to you--<i>you must assume responsibility for what you believe.</i>
Long lasting (religious) traditions inevitably will weave universalities of the human condition into the fabric of cultural practices.
If one traces back Christianity historically, it grows more like a sponge taking in concepts and practices from its cultural rich surroundings.
Before becoming the official "religion" of the Roman Empire it was wildly heterodox. Early Christianity is a wild ride. Even after being domesticated, latinized, canonized, homogenised and ultimately politicized looking back on the time line it unfolds like a fractal of cultural manifolds (e.g. "negative theology" [0] or more recent "existentialism" [1]).
"Buddhism" was spread - locally more limited - similarly through conquest and enforcing social order but never gained the momentum of "Christianity" or "Islam" and thus in its smaller and more fractions contains more "diversity" and is harder to point to as a monolithic block.
The exercise of bringing something to the table by being even mildly anti-Buddhist, anti-Christian, anti-#insert_religion_here# strikes me as fruitless in these globalised times and kind of weirdly pre-anthropological echoing theological reasoning.
The observations obviously stem from personal experience with different facets of modern/westernized Buddhism and is more descriptive of the author's resistances than the subject which is put sneakingly forward.
My background is as a follower of Osho (the guru from Wild Wild Country). I have read some of the Buddhist texts (Dhammapada, Diamond Sutra), and I've spent some but not a ton of time with "Buddhist" teachers.
My view of this article: while I appreciate anyone writing about religion today, I don't really love what the article says and it sounds a bit like a general criticism of organized religion from someone hoping it's something it of course isn't.
What does it matter that your friends aren't serious or religious enough for your liking? This is ultimately a solo pursuit. What does it matter that you can find a sutra from Gautama that sounds sexist? This isn't about Gautama. What does it matter that an interpretation of what Gautama said is 'modern' or 'original'? This isn't about that.
This (religion) is about your personal religiousness. Your spirituality. There's a lot of beauty in the world of Buddhism to experience. It isn't for me, either, but I'm not angry or resentful about that.
Having grown up in Boulder, Colorado, one of the epicenters of self-regarding, American Buddhism, the author's skepticism is relatable.
I imagine that almost every kid from Boulder goes through a Buddhist phase. Some come out the other end with useful introspective skills. Hopefully, they also managed not to acquire the odor of self-righteousness in the process. But the chances of avoiding this actually seem pretty slim. I knew a lot of folks in the scene who came off like caricatures. And of course their practice didn't seem to bring them any recognizable successes in life.
That being said, it still feels like Buddhism has more of an empirical quality than any other major belief system I've encountered. But, practically speaking, the difference ends up seeming marginal. At the end of the day, it's still a religion. It takes an unusual kind of personal to distill something useful from becoming involved with it.
> There is a dirty secret that basically everyone who spends time with meditation communities finds out. Which is this: people who let go of grasping as completely as you can—like, famous meditation teachers, or practitioners who have been at it for decades—still have problems. They are still neurotic and prideful. They still stress out about their social media accounts. They still engage in immoral behavior. While they might not report as much subjective suffering, they still act out in ways that objectively belie insecurity and dissatisfaction.
There was this documentary I saw (forgot the name) that had a zen master who was making fried dough and he was extremely neurotic. Made me wonder if the neurotic types are the ones who seek out Buddhism. The real laid-back types are already ‘Buddhas’, which ironically is why they don’t seek it out.
My Buddhist family relatives are constantly going to church to pray so they will go to some Buddhist heaven when they die. But the cool thing they have the Christian’s don’t have is the door stickers. They always put these really intricate stickers over all their doors. The Christian cross is really quite boring in comparison. But I would say for the family lifestyle Confucianism is much better and if you are Confucian you can go to both Buddhist and Christian church based on your mood. Of course Confucius is mysognist so the western post modernist system is superior, but if you had to pick from a religion I would pick Confucian. Though the family rituals can get boring if you do for all ancestors instead of just parents.
Schopenhauer thought his pessimistic philosophy was similar to Buddhism. Negation of desire or denial of self is a tricky thing. You can see the issue here with this table (from the article): https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_...
It's not clear that someone who doesn't "grasp" would want to have sex...or to eat. That's the conclusion that Schopenhauer comes to: someone who is enlightened would just chill without being attached to anything (think Meursault not crying at his mother's funeral). Though it may avoid suffering, that state doesn't seem worth pursuing. Maybe temporarily.
Buddhists respond to that critique by making some distinction between "bad desire" and "good desire" (implicit in the table). But the line is unclear and the insightful kernel of Buddhist teaching is that desire, full stop, is what leads to suffering. Besides, Buddhist monks are ascetics, not programmers who dabble in meditation.
Buddhism makes a lot more sense as a cultural practice where you have the monks who are practicitions and the lay-people who give them alms. The idea, then, isn't that everyone pursue enlightenment. It's enough that some people are pursuing it and the general population supports them.
> Also, the modern focus on meditation is, well, modern—a result of Buddhism finding purchase in the psychology-loving West as a sort of innovative lifestyle choice. Most lay Buddhists of history did not engage in meditation.
This is the part that resonated the most with me. Never understood this (western) obsession with meditation. I have a few friends, born and raised in Buddhist homes; not a single one of them was taught to meditate.
In any case, I still have a lot of respect for Buddhism. Remember your good friend, breath.
You’ve climbed ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma.
So many long days in the archives, copying, copying.
The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Song make heavy baggage.
Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wildflowers.
Their meaning is the same but they’re much easier to carry.
I think it’s great to have critical thinking as well as criticism around spirituality in general.
Unfortunately this article is hard to really agree or disagree with because many of the foundational claims just don’t make sense.
Just one example, it mentions indifference as a problem with Buddhism. Yet indifference is often called out by Buddhist’s explicitly as what not to do.
I’d definitely recommend searching up Buddhism indifference and reading (any of?) the results.
It’s not too hard to find a good amount of misinterpretations like this in the piece.
The biggest anti-Buddhist scripture has to be most Hindu scriptures and leaders around the same time or after Buddha who warns against impersonal worship of meditating on "nothingness" but instead to build a relationship with God. We are outward looking creatures given 5 senses, we aren't supposed to "blunt" them instead engage them but for a higher purpose.
This essay lacks any attempt at historical development, i.e. examining how different varieties of Buddhism originated beginning with its birthplace in India, onto Tibet and China, Vietnam and Japan, before jumping the Pacific Ocean in the 20th century. Instead of that rather interesting discussion, this simple straw man is set up:
> "Buddhism is often treated with special regard, as if it is a superior philosophy that correctly identifies the source of all human misery, and correctly lays out the path to its elimination."
Isn't that basically the premise of any religious tradition one could care to name, from the Abrahamic offshoots (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) to every other system of belief one can think of (Hinduism, European paganism, animism, etc.)?
If people find comfort or psychological support by adopting this or that philosophical-religous tradition, (aka the utilitarian argument), there's not really any point in trying to poke holes in their beliefs. The only thing that's unacceptable is when members of one tradition use their belief system as an excuse for persecuting or waging wars on other groups.
As someone who was born a a buddhist and comes from a family of buddhists, I have to say that the western view of buddhism is very wrong. It is marketed as a way to relive your stress, calm your mind and a lot of emphasis is spent on meditation and 'feel good' teachings. Buddhism is a lot more than that.
If you are not getting the answers that you are seeking with meditation, then go deeper. Street relief, take deep breath meditation is not what true meditation is supposed to achieve. Deep layers of meditation, which can achieve ego-death are not calming but rather unsettling.
You should also try to read up some texts like Mulamadhyamakakarika(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%ABlamadhyamakak%C4%81rik%...) by Nagarjuna(who lived around the time of the buddha). There are many english translations of this book ( the path of the middle way) and it takes a logical approach to subjects like time, space, entities etc.
The key tenants of Buddhist are on point. That is:
- Life is filled with suffering
- The root cause of mental suffering is attachment or aversion
However, the Buddhist solutions to these tenants is completely misguided.
Buddhists suggest that the solution to mental suffering is to get rid of all attachments and aversions. If you actually practice this, life is extremely boring and lacking of motivation.
The true middle path is to focus your attachments on things that are both authentic and within your control. I call these attachments 'intrinsic values'. Examples include: integrity, hard work, perseverance, pursuit of excellence. Intrinsic values are the opposite of extrinsic values such as wealth, power, fame. If you chase after extrinsic values, you are setting yourself up for failure because they're, by definition, outside your control. However, focusing on intrinsic values is resilient to external circumstances and results in higher levels of satisfaction.
[+] [-] spicymaki|3 years ago|reply
Many of the teachers and students I knew were not rising above their neuroses. Many of them were masking their life problems with the Buddhist aesthetic as opposed to really working with them. We would cycle through the same concerns repeatedly without any progress. I started to figure out that the process was to drop the issue and disengage with it. The problem is that does not work outside of a sheltered monastic community because you need to face your problems constantly in the real world.
I agree that many modern Buddhist schools stray away from the Buddha’s original teachings (as we know it from the Pali Cannon). Many branches won’t even really teach what Buddha said; only interpretations from later traditions. We did not talk about Buddha much in Zen practice at all. Much more time was given to Dōgen, and the Chinese masters than to Buddha. In Zen everyone is a Buddha so Siddhartha Gautama (O.G. Buddha) gets marginalized. There is also a pantheon of Buddhas which dilutes things even more. Buddhism has a pretty straight forward thesis (Four Noble Truths), but it has become esoteric after centuries of appropriation and reinterpretation.
Modern Western Buddhism pushes meditation above all of the other practices. We spent more time meditating than anything else, which was different than how the early Buddhists and even how most Buddhists in Asia practice. This leads to people thinking that all they need to do is sit and not change anything about their lives and it will magically work out. In fact in Japanese Zen Dōgen essentially states that sitting with the correct posture (zazen) is enlightened practice itself. This enlightenment is transitory, so one could imagine that the longer you sit zazen the more time you get to stay in this enlightened state. You can see how this could become an obsession. This in practice leads to a lack of engagement which would have you thinking you are actually putting in the work, but you are just eschewing reality.
Buddhism has a rich tradition of debating and challenging teachers. In fact the Pali Cannon is full of these debates. However, these days if you bring up a question or objection to some teachers they don’t really engage with you. In Zen you can cover up inconsistencies with esoteric vocabulary and wave it away. Just sit and it will be okay.
Buddha in the Pali Cannon was actually more human than we give him credit for. He made mistakes and learned from them (even after nirvana). He got old and died. He scolded his monks for breaking monastic rules. The Buddha represented in the Pali Cannon can be raw at times which goes against the ideal Buddha archetype.
+1 from a long time fan of the Buddha
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
The phrase "spiritual bypass", which I'm sure you know (it is a cliché by now) is often used to describe this phenomenon. I recently learned that it has a specific origin: it was coined in the early 80s by the psychotherapist (and Buddhist) John Welwood, who had a lot of experience with it in spiritual communities. There's a great interview with Welwood from 2011 about this. I have a pdf somewhere, but all I can find online at the moment is this excerpt: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/on-spiritual-by....
The relationship between spirituality and therapy is endlessly fascinating to me. (Edit: it's no coincidence that the OP eventually ends up talking about IFS.)
[+] [-] coyotespike|3 years ago|reply
I can recommend Jack Kornfield's modern classic, A Path With Heart.
Just as you say, he spent years practicing with the much-loved Ajahn Chah and the formidable Mahasi Sayadaw - and then came back home to find his old patterns still there. Of course, the insights and experiences he'd had helped him, but the patterns still had to be worked through.
There is a lot to be said for lay practice. Instead of running off to a monastery, do a couple retreats a year and maintain a daily practice. There is plenty of dukkha to encounter in a normal life.
This is really hard to remember if you've had some dramatic meditation experiences or you're really eager to make progress, which is one reason the Soto folks are always emphasizing patience.
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nequo|3 years ago|reply
Do I understand it correctly that you’re saying that such people only try to practice samādhi instead of sīla, samādhi, and paññā? So that they neglect most of the noble eightfold path?
The Thai forest tradition has been very meditation-focused (as was, in my reading, the Pali canon) but they emphasize the importance of the rest of the eightfold path too. The Pacific Hermitage had good discussions uploaded to YouTube for example.[1] And the UK and Australia branches seem to have had a similar sutta-centric and practical focus.
[1] https://youtube.com/@PacificHermitage
[+] [-] kar5pt|3 years ago|reply
I've come to the conclusion after a lot of reading, practice, and contemplation that there is NO form of buddhism that makes any sense to engage with unless you believe in rebirth. The point of buddhism is to escape rebirth, not achieve some psychological state like happiness or well-being. If you're expecting the later out of buddhism, you're probably better off putting your energy into more "worldly" endeavors. I've been much happier since I stopped meditating and started using that time to focus on friends, hobbies, career and dating.
Traditional buddhists would probably facepalm at this and say something like "no duh, rebirth is buddhism 101". But a lot of American buddhist traditions present rebirth as an optional belief which is nonessential to buddhist practice. I even watched an American zen teacher call rebirth "bullshit" publicly in a talk once.
What's sad to me is that therapists have started recommending meditation as some universal good, despite the research on it still being pretty young. It seems they've been influenced by the American buddhist/mindfulness movement and are being rather uncritical. I'm sure small amounts of meditation can help some people with stress and anxiety, but it shouldn't be viewed as something to automatically recommend to every patient like sleep and exercise.
[+] [-] sandinmyjoints|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thio23u432434|3 years ago|reply
To wit, even the whole notion of "prophet" and the "original teachings of Buddha" and how Zen and more broadly Mahayana are "not the original teachings" as compared to that in the Pali canon etc. that are brought up again and again by Western practitioners are hallmarks of Christian, and more fundamentally Abrahamic, thought process.
No one in Asia cares that this is so. Period.
Alas, Indians, and most Asians too are increasingly turning into half baked Christians today (see 'Navayana'), so the above is a bit of lie. The traditions too are all dying much like their country and culture of their birth... Way to go occidental monoculture!
To your point specifically, the Pali Canon is really not philosophically sophisticated. The Nalanda school which is now preserved in Tibet after the Islamic destruction of India has very deep philosophical roots as compared to those traditions in the periphery like Zen and do make very compelling arguments against the old schools of Buddhism.
The development of Mahayana has a parallel on the Hindu side of the tradition, but of course, since us brown-skinned heathens are infinitely uglier, the Europeans have made it their goal to demonize us vis-a-vis the white-skinned E-Asian Buddhists (lol). I'm not surprised to see books claiming that Siddhartha was a Scytian, and hence Buddhism is Greek (also, lol). I wonder what they'll next claim about Nagarjuna. At some point, you just laugh and move on (instead of debating endlessly with idiots on listservs).
Sadly, Mahayana and Advaita never had much debate within themselves, so the typical view on the Hindu side (prototyped by Madhava) of Buddhism is also quite outdated.
[+] [-] prisonality|3 years ago|reply
His very first attempt to transmit the Dhamma ended up in failure (the guy before the first five) - and that made him to question, worked on and fixed the way it was delivered.
[+] [-] colordrops|3 years ago|reply
In a study where no-self is an objective, it is no mystery why problems with a particular ego are not always addressed.
[+] [-] caycep|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|3 years ago|reply
I am not sure whether I'd agree with everything you said, but simply because I only tangentially got exposed to "western" zen and buddhism, through some zen monasteries in California. But you put certain things/concepts in words that I didn't manage to express clearly by myself, so thanks for that.
[+] [-] giardia|3 years ago|reply
Seems like the Zen school wouldn't be such a threat if they just sat inside all day working on their posture.
[+] [-] joe__f|3 years ago|reply
Not so! The problem is that disengaging is much more difficult outside of a sheltered monastic community, not that it is impossible. It becomes a balance engaging and disengaging; you spend as much time as necessary engaging so you can set up your environment to allow as much time for disengaging as possible, and find relationships which will be able to support you in this. Stopping the process of disengaging to deal with something like dealing with a difficult social interaction or rearranging your finances can be very painful and frustrating. But in the end, dealing with these interruptions is a part of the process of awakening.
[+] [-] zozbot234|3 years ago|reply
Insight meditation is not supposed to solve your petty life problems, heck it might even exacerbate them if you do it badly. Stick to practicing sila if you feel like you aren't ready for the more challenging practices.
While Stoicism comes from a different tradition it's actually a great introduction to a good frame of mind for sila and even for the more rational-adjacent kinds of meditation practice like Zen, and one that will be especially familiar to a Western audience. Of course it's also true that many people resort to therapy in order to address these same challenges, and there's nothing wrong with that if it's your preference.
[+] [-] 2-718-281-828|3 years ago|reply
Yes - that's why I'd value a _true_ master (Zen terminology) regarding maturity higher as a monk. In terms of ML monks risk overfitting their trained mental strategies to a monastic context which then turn out to be unsuited for chaotic urban environments. OTOH of course it shows maturity IMHO to turn your back on modern urban environments and withdraw into a monastery. Then there is no need to steelman yourself for the next dozen disappointing Tinder dates and how they'll affect you.
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
His father started the Lindisfarne Association, which was a sort of highbrow hippie ecumenical colony, well known in the post-60s counterculture (somebody here will know a lot more about this than I do!), where the likes of Stewart Brand and the Dalai Lama would rub shoulders on panels. So he grew up around spiritual luminaries and consciousness-raisers. The American adaptation of Buddhism matured in circles like this, so he had a front-row seat, but from a child's perspective.
There's an interesting discussion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSq98tNTlM&t=9s between Thompson and Robert Wright, who wrote "Why Buddhism is True" and who, although he oddly insists he isn't, seems exactly the sort of well-intentioned Buddhist modernist the OP (and Thompson) are writing about.
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|3 years ago|reply
Right now I am reading quite a lot of stuff by Christopher Hitchens, which as you might know was very vocal about religious topics (and very much against most of it).
I haven't found much that he has said about Buddhism [0], but I'll check Thompson's book very soon.
[0]: https://trueancestor.typepad.com/true_ancestor/2007/05/chris...
[+] [-] bitforger|3 years ago|reply
1. The goal is to end suffering, so if a practice is making you suffer stop doing it.
2. Do what works for you. The only truth is what you can directly experience in the laboratory of your life. All the other teachings are just suggestions.
And if you'd like a concise overview of Theravada Buddhism (which is somewhat easier to grok without the added teachings of Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen, etc.) I highly recommend [1] and [2], the second of which can be read in a day or two.
[1]: https://a.co/d/iiAtDs5 [2]: https://a.co/d/asUIQUR
[+] [-] peatfreak|3 years ago|reply
This would be a huge misunderstanding of the article. I read the whole article, and I found it to be positively re-affirming of Buddhism. Unfortunately the submission title is potentially misleading and possibly even clickbaity.
It's a very good article. I've read many critiques of Western Buddhism and they can mostly get a bit samey after a while. However -- after the first few paragraphs, which are admittedly pretty run-of-the-mill -- this article elevates itself to a much more interesting level. It also raises solutions, anecdotes, and references that go way beyond what you normally hear.
[+] [-] prisonality|3 years ago|reply
That's correct: the goal is to end suffering - by means of understanding it.
Thus the understanding is important to distinguish there's indeed suffering that leads to the end of suffering -- like Ajahn Chah using analogy of going to the dentist (in itself is a suffering) to end the suffering of dental pain.
[+] [-] aidenn0|3 years ago|reply
That's a non-sequitor. Following this advice will lead you into a local-minimum of suffering at best.
[+] [-] nico|3 years ago|reply
We should all follow this, and also use it as a basis for being more kind to others - what worked for us might not necessarily work for others, let’s be less judgemental and more understanding.
[+] [-] Narretz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GaryPalmer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fancybouncy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mckravchyk|3 years ago|reply
That would run counter to what Zen practice is about. Suffering can be, among other things, an unconscious experience of pain. If the practice brings pain, whether physical or psychological, the way to deal with that is to continue with the practice and be unshaken by whatever comes, just staying with the practice (i.e. counting, or staying watchful) - while avoiding a desire to be in a better state or questioning the current state, just keeping on doing it under a firm belief that it will lead to an improvement in the long term (and not necessarily right now). Doing so leads to a development of an internal balance, sort of a way to operate beyond thoughts and emotions, which allows to blow away unnecessary mental clutter that contributes to suffering here and there on an ongoing basis, as well as having more mental strength to deal with unpleasant things in life with less suffering.
[+] [-] ShamelessC|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kar5pt|3 years ago|reply
This is just your own opinion at this point. It's not buddhism. Buddhism has specific teachings that it posits as being true, regardless of whether you've personally experienced them.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wnolens|3 years ago|reply
Cool, so I just walk away from anything causing me stress? *leaves wife and kids*.
Thanks, Buddhism!
[+] [-] brigandish|3 years ago|reply
I'm not sure what the problem is here? Someone took a vow of celibacy and broke it. Should he be praised? Are we looking for something more middle class and passive aggressive from the Buddha? He makes his point.
> And here is the Buddha on whether you should be resentful if you’re being dismembered: “Monks, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever of you harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching.”
Rhetoric is not helpful now?
It's certainly possible to criticise Buddha, Buddhism, any of the Buddhist religions etc but I would start with my most important or best criticisms, and I don't see these hitting the mark at all.
[+] [-] traes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thefaux|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musicale|3 years ago|reply
RIP quantum mechanics, economics, public policy, law school, etc..
I do think this is good advice regarding many things however. Cryptocurrency and NFTs, for example.
[+] [-] dav_Oz|3 years ago|reply
If one traces back Christianity historically, it grows more like a sponge taking in concepts and practices from its cultural rich surroundings. Before becoming the official "religion" of the Roman Empire it was wildly heterodox. Early Christianity is a wild ride. Even after being domesticated, latinized, canonized, homogenised and ultimately politicized looking back on the time line it unfolds like a fractal of cultural manifolds (e.g. "negative theology" [0] or more recent "existentialism" [1]).
"Buddhism" was spread - locally more limited - similarly through conquest and enforcing social order but never gained the momentum of "Christianity" or "Islam" and thus in its smaller and more fractions contains more "diversity" and is harder to point to as a monolithic block.
The exercise of bringing something to the table by being even mildly anti-Buddhist, anti-Christian, anti-#insert_religion_here# strikes me as fruitless in these globalised times and kind of weirdly pre-anthropological echoing theological reasoning.
The observations obviously stem from personal experience with different facets of modern/westernized Buddhism and is more descriptive of the author's resistances than the subject which is put sneakingly forward.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_existentialism
[+] [-] johndhi|3 years ago|reply
My view of this article: while I appreciate anyone writing about religion today, I don't really love what the article says and it sounds a bit like a general criticism of organized religion from someone hoping it's something it of course isn't.
What does it matter that your friends aren't serious or religious enough for your liking? This is ultimately a solo pursuit. What does it matter that you can find a sutra from Gautama that sounds sexist? This isn't about Gautama. What does it matter that an interpretation of what Gautama said is 'modern' or 'original'? This isn't about that.
This (religion) is about your personal religiousness. Your spirituality. There's a lot of beauty in the world of Buddhism to experience. It isn't for me, either, but I'm not angry or resentful about that.
[+] [-] davesque|3 years ago|reply
I imagine that almost every kid from Boulder goes through a Buddhist phase. Some come out the other end with useful introspective skills. Hopefully, they also managed not to acquire the odor of self-righteousness in the process. But the chances of avoiding this actually seem pretty slim. I knew a lot of folks in the scene who came off like caricatures. And of course their practice didn't seem to bring them any recognizable successes in life.
That being said, it still feels like Buddhism has more of an empirical quality than any other major belief system I've encountered. But, practically speaking, the difference ends up seeming marginal. At the end of the day, it's still a religion. It takes an unusual kind of personal to distill something useful from becoming involved with it.
[+] [-] KwisatzHaderack|3 years ago|reply
There was this documentary I saw (forgot the name) that had a zen master who was making fried dough and he was extremely neurotic. Made me wonder if the neurotic types are the ones who seek out Buddhism. The real laid-back types are already ‘Buddhas’, which ironically is why they don’t seek it out.
[+] [-] simple-thoughts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slibhb|3 years ago|reply
Schopenhauer thought his pessimistic philosophy was similar to Buddhism. Negation of desire or denial of self is a tricky thing. You can see the issue here with this table (from the article): https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_...
It's not clear that someone who doesn't "grasp" would want to have sex...or to eat. That's the conclusion that Schopenhauer comes to: someone who is enlightened would just chill without being attached to anything (think Meursault not crying at his mother's funeral). Though it may avoid suffering, that state doesn't seem worth pursuing. Maybe temporarily.
Buddhists respond to that critique by making some distinction between "bad desire" and "good desire" (implicit in the table). But the line is unclear and the insightful kernel of Buddhist teaching is that desire, full stop, is what leads to suffering. Besides, Buddhist monks are ascetics, not programmers who dabble in meditation.
Buddhism makes a lot more sense as a cultural practice where you have the monks who are practicitions and the lay-people who give them alms. The idea, then, isn't that everyone pursue enlightenment. It's enough that some people are pursuing it and the general population supports them.
[+] [-] odiroot|3 years ago|reply
This is the part that resonated the most with me. Never understood this (western) obsession with meditation. I have a few friends, born and raised in Buddhist homes; not a single one of them was taught to meditate.
In any case, I still have a lot of respect for Buddhism. Remember your good friend, breath.
[+] [-] mirchiseth|3 years ago|reply
"The point is that we should experiment with everything and pick what best fits our situation, reverence be damned"
It is the same conclusion that Hermann Hesse makes thru Siddhartha talking to his friend Govinda in one of my favorite books https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_(novel)
[+] [-] 5cott0|3 years ago|reply
-xu yun
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|3 years ago|reply
Unfortunately this article is hard to really agree or disagree with because many of the foundational claims just don’t make sense.
Just one example, it mentions indifference as a problem with Buddhism. Yet indifference is often called out by Buddhist’s explicitly as what not to do.
I’d definitely recommend searching up Buddhism indifference and reading (any of?) the results.
It’s not too hard to find a good amount of misinterpretations like this in the piece.
[+] [-] amriksohata|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
> "Buddhism is often treated with special regard, as if it is a superior philosophy that correctly identifies the source of all human misery, and correctly lays out the path to its elimination."
Isn't that basically the premise of any religious tradition one could care to name, from the Abrahamic offshoots (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) to every other system of belief one can think of (Hinduism, European paganism, animism, etc.)?
If people find comfort or psychological support by adopting this or that philosophical-religous tradition, (aka the utilitarian argument), there's not really any point in trying to poke holes in their beliefs. The only thing that's unacceptable is when members of one tradition use their belief system as an excuse for persecuting or waging wars on other groups.
[+] [-] me551ah|3 years ago|reply
If you are not getting the answers that you are seeking with meditation, then go deeper. Street relief, take deep breath meditation is not what true meditation is supposed to achieve. Deep layers of meditation, which can achieve ego-death are not calming but rather unsettling.
You should also try to read up some texts like Mulamadhyamakakarika(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C5%ABlamadhyamakak%C4%81rik%...) by Nagarjuna(who lived around the time of the buddha). There are many english translations of this book ( the path of the middle way) and it takes a logical approach to subjects like time, space, entities etc.
[+] [-] fairity|3 years ago|reply
- Life is filled with suffering
- The root cause of mental suffering is attachment or aversion
However, the Buddhist solutions to these tenants is completely misguided.
Buddhists suggest that the solution to mental suffering is to get rid of all attachments and aversions. If you actually practice this, life is extremely boring and lacking of motivation.
The true middle path is to focus your attachments on things that are both authentic and within your control. I call these attachments 'intrinsic values'. Examples include: integrity, hard work, perseverance, pursuit of excellence. Intrinsic values are the opposite of extrinsic values such as wealth, power, fame. If you chase after extrinsic values, you are setting yourself up for failure because they're, by definition, outside your control. However, focusing on intrinsic values is resilient to external circumstances and results in higher levels of satisfaction.
[+] [-] mxmilkiib|3 years ago|reply
Their YT is great https://youtube.com/@BuddhistSocietyWA
Related is https://suttacentral.net