WWW: Western Buddhism and Evolution of buddhism
From David Evans at the Monkey See, Monkey Do-blog:
“The essential points of Buddhism are beyond culture and beyond traditions.”
but the unspoken side to this statement is that the non-essential points of buddhism are specific to tradition and culture. as buddhism comes to the west, what is the tradition and cultural aspects that are included here? or do we cut to the essence and attempt to omit the rest? is that even possible?
i wonder, and this could be a large topic, is this view of buddhism as a philosophy and psychology just our cultural trappings that we’re incorporating? or are those really closer to the essence of buddhism? is the compatibility with science (or lack thereof) something that we inject into the conversation or is that really close to the essence of buddhism?
Blogpost: essential buddhism vs cultural buddhism
and from Joe at the And Now For Something Completely Different blog
Paraphrasing Slavoj Zizek: “Western Buddhism” as it is used today represents a set of techniques and methods that are designed basically to make your crappy office job more meaningful and less stressful. This is why he calls it the ideal supplement to or “hegemonic ideology par excellance of global capitalism” (that’s in On Belief).
I think Zizek’s onto something here.
If your motivation for practice is “stress relief,” I humbly suggest a reconsideration of your motivation for practice is in order.
This doesn’t address the broader speculative question, however, of what an authentic Buddhism that is integrated in an intelligent way with Euro-American culture might look like. Really, it’ll have to take some generations of rigorous practice for that to come around.
It is clearly something more people are wrestling with. Is our Western version of Buddhism just an adapted, skinned version (because of practicalities AND the distinction between philosophy of life and religion) of what it should be or are we moving towards the essence of Buddhism ? Only time will tell.
