The Distortions We Bring...

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Namgyal
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The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Namgyal »

It's an old article, but I've only just read it. Most of the article is rambling and conversational, but there are a few points that he makes which immediately grab one's attention.
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?o ... Itemid=243" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'...For this reason, most Oriental teachers are very skeptical about exporting dharma to the Western world, feeling that Westerners lack the refinement and courage to understand and practice properly the buddhadharma...'
'...Ideas such as democracy and capitalism, as well as equality and human rights, can be seen to have failed miserably in the West, and to be nothing but new dogmas...'


The Orient never had a French Revolution, or an English Civil War, and Socialism has never made an impression on their societies (except perhaps Kerala :smile: ). So their 'refinement' is limited to small elites that are deeply entrenched in their societies. Admittedly, we did not entirely successfully throw off the yoke of the aristocracy in the West, but at least we tried. Even when the ideas of Socialism reached the East they were simply subverted into another kind of Asian despotism. Liberty, Egality, Fraternity and the rights of man are not simply dogmas, they are precious ideals that our ancestors in the West fought and died to preserve, with a kind of courage that is notably absent in the 'refined' Orient.

'...Western conceptual frameworks stem from a basic attitude of arrogance in the way that they construct themselves and others. In almost all departments in Western universities that allegedly teach Buddhism, the teachers usually have to hide the fact if they happen to be Buddhists themselves. Do the mathematics teachers hide the fact that they believe in the logic of mathematics? Western scholars need to be more questioning about their own rigid biases that prevent them from being able to appreciate other perspectives. I find heartbreaking the imperialist attitude that arrogantly isolates one aspect of Eastern culture, analyzing it at a careful distance, manipulating and sterilizing it to fit Western agendas, and then perhaps concluding that it is now suitable for consumption. Sometimes it might help Westerners to develop more respect and appreciation for the East if they remember that 3,000 years ago, when the East was flourishing with philosophy, arts, languages and medicine, the Western natives still didn't have the idea to brush their own teeth!..'

I can't think of one Asian country where the school textbooks aren't distorted with some kind of nationalistic claptrap. If a country tries this in the West (like Belgium tidying up it's history of the Congo) then everyone knows about it and pours derision on them, whereas in the East it is almost a national prerogative to rewrite your own history. If we maintain objectivity in the West it is because we value truth undistorted by various agendas. This has enabled us to develop methods such that no country elsewhere in the world can hope to compete against us in innovation, or even in conflict. I hesitate to play the barbarian card, but if the Orient is so refined and great how come every privateer and bandit exported from our lands has effortlessly wiped them out. As for three thousand years ago, Socrates and Pythagoras come to mind. I must admit that we have long departed from their mysticism into more worldly pursuits, whereas in the East they focused on the spiritual up to quite recently, and with hindsight this was undoubtedly the right choice. However, the idea that Europeans were all unhygienic cavemen is jingoistic nonsense. We had Occidental sages just as refined as their Oriental counterparts.

'...The notion of sexual equality is quite new in the West, and because of this there is a certain rigid and fanatic adherence to the specific way it should be practiced. In vajrayana Buddhism, on the other hand, there is a tremendous appreciation of the female, as well as a strong emphasis on the equality of all beings. This might not, however, be apparent to someone who cannot see beyond a contemporary Western framework. As a result, when Western women have sexual relationships with Tibetan lamas, some might be frustrated when their culturally conditioned expectations are not met...'


The idea that Ancient Europe was entirely matriarchal is now discredited, but it is clear that at least some of the societies were matriarchal and that women often had very high if not equal status. It is very hard to find equivalent ideas in the East. Likewise animal rights, and environmental concerns were completely absent in Buddhist countries until very recently, when one would have assumed that such things would be widespread. In part this is due to social rigidity. An example would be the tragedy of the crashed Chinese airliner whose black boxes revealed that the crew spent their last few minutes disputing who had the seniority to decide what action to take. Another effect of this is that education and 'refinement' were the preserve of only a tiny minority, and this group are indeed sometimes capable of an enlightened attitude towards women, equivalent to our own in the West. However huge numbers of Asians remain whose attitudes are those of misogynistic, medieval peasants. Lastly, the author is a monk whose charitable efforts, monasteries, film-making equipment and indeed everything depend on the charity of donors, most of whom are 'Western savages'. So it is inappropriate for him to make ill-considered remarks such as those in this article.
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futerko
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by futerko »

Your points, although they may be valid in response to specific claims, seem to miss the wider context of the article. He is clearly responding to criticisms of Vajrayana from a rather sanctimonious western perspective.
He also says, "I could claim..." in response to the idea of one-sided criticism, making it clear that what he writes is not the only view, and not necessarily even his own ultimate stance on the matter.
I think he does make a good point - that westerners looking for a certain stereotype of compassionate Buddhism may well be better suited to the Theravada approach rather than prematurely attempt Vajrayana only to then become disillusioned and react badly as if the fault lies with the practice rather than with their own values and expectations.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Can't expect even a monk to able to see out of his cultural cage enough to not annoy you, he is a human being after all.

The part about "the Orient was doing this while you were living in caves" is indeed nonsense of the highest caliber though, untrue on so many levels, and frankly he reads to do a bit of reading if he really believes that.

The cultural stuff is hairy...but on the Dharma he makes some very good points, There is a current of though out there that seems to have a hard time conceptualizing that to really "get" this stuff you first have to accept it on it's own merits at a deep level. If you hold it at arms length and just try to dryly form your own version out of the all the separate parts, you end up with a kind of Frankenstein. If you want "the real thing" in a version that works for you as a westerner, then you actually just have to immerse yourself in it, and whatever grows from that is "authentic". I swear sometimes I talk to people who I think have this idea that anything they encounter from another culture needs to be vetted somehow through their own....it is tiresome. It also seems like it causes real problems in genuine communication with people from other cultures, there is always a layer there that prevents real exchange. It's like asking your culture permission to connect with someone.

Also I think you might be bending the stick too far in the opposite direction regarding "Western" egalitarianism...most popular movements that put things like women's rights etc. on the map weren't a result of the same forces that created liberal democracy at all IMO, in fact most things that we cherish today in terms of "freedom" (however hypocritical our blind spots - and they are hypocritical!) came from forces marginalized by the mainstream political forces, not because of them.

So trying to make a comparison between the relative love of freedom (or whatever you want to call it) between two cultures is a losing battle, there are so many different, often oppositional forces at work in a single culture. Treating them as if they were individuals whose actions simply spring from clear, identifiable viewpoints is to simplistic to draw conclusions from.
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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

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Namgyal
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Namgyal »

futerko wrote:Your points, although they may be valid in response to specific claims, seem to miss the wider context of the article. He is clearly responding to criticisms of Vajrayana from a rather sanctimonious western perspective.
He also says, "I could claim..." in response to the idea of one-sided criticism, making it clear that what he writes is not the only view, and not necessarily even his own ultimate stance on the matter.
I think he does make a good point - that westerners looking for a certain stereotype of compassionate Buddhism may well be better suited to the Theravada approach rather than prematurely attempt Vajrayana only to then become disillusioned and react badly as if the fault lies with the practice rather than with their own values and expectations.
I haven't addressed the main purpose of the article because I'm only setting out to counter the 'gwailo/gaijin/farang/inji (what can you know?)' thing which has always antagonised me (as a Westerner who was adopted and raised in Asia). There are countless multi-cultural people in the world so this argument is basically nonsense, and in any case even the most die-hard Western imperialist can eventually assimilate another culture if they really put their mind to it. As for the 'I could claim...' preamble which I removed, along with 'lots of other lamas have told me' device it is completely spurious when you go on to make such assertive and inflammatory remarks. I am also dubious about his suggestion that Westerners might be better off with the Theravada, not least because this school is often identified with the sravakayana/hinayana in the Tibetan monastic education system and it is therefore viewed as an inferior vehicle suitable for those incapable of reaching the heights of the Vajrayana. In fact, Lord Buddha '...did not teach an inferior vehicle'.
I completely accept the comments that Johnny Dangerous has made; my response is simplistic and one-sided and I have deliberately stretched the points that I made because I was playing devil's advocate. I also accept that the author has a number of valid points to make, although he ruins these for me by interspersing them with tedious stereotypes. The truth is that East and West both have good and bad points, and we have to try to combine all the good points and work together for the future of the Dharma, which belongs to all mankind.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by justsit »

Heh Heh...Yeah, Dzongsar Khyentse is a great vajra master. He knows exactly which buttons to push and exactly how to push them. :bow:
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by uan »

The author built a finely crafted mirror. He should look in it a spell...
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by songhill »

The Lama has a point. I would have to say Westerners, for the most part, have no nose for the scent of the transcendent. Stephen Batchelor is a good example. The koan he was given by his Zen teacher Sunim, “What is this,” so that he might crack through his intellectual prejudices and hopefully gain an insight into pure Mind, was something Batchelor couldn’t buy from the start. He fundamentally rejected the idea of a transcendent Mind even though he acknowledged that the “purpose of Zen meditation is to awaken to the Mind.” Here Batchlor reveals his contempt for the Buddhist notion of Mind, this is from Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.
“Once again, I found myself confronted by the specter of a disembodied spirit. The logic of Kusan Sunim’s argument failed to convince me. It rested on the assumption that there was “something” (i.e., Mind) that rules the body, which was beyond the reach of concepts and language. At the same time, this “something” was also my true original nature, my face before I was born, which somehow animated me. This sounded suspiciously like the Atman (Self/God) of Indian tradition that the Buddha had rejected."
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by uan »

songhill wrote:The Lama has a point. I would have to say Westerners, for the most part, have no nose for the scent of the transcendent. Stephen Batchelor is a good example. The koan he was given by his Zen teacher Sunim, “What is this,” so that he might crack through his intellectual prejudices and hopefully gain an insight into pure Mind, was something Batchelor couldn’t buy from the start. He fundamentally rejected the idea of a transcendent Mind even though he acknowledged that the “purpose of Zen meditation is to awaken to the Mind.” Here Batchlor reveals his contempt for the Buddhist notion of Mind, this is from Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.
“Once again, I found myself confronted by the specter of a disembodied spirit. The logic of Kusan Sunim’s argument failed to convince me. It rested on the assumption that there was “something” (i.e., Mind) that rules the body, which was beyond the reach of concepts and language. At the same time, this “something” was also my true original nature, my face before I was born, which somehow animated me. This sounded suspiciously like the Atman (Self/God) of Indian tradition that the Buddha had rejected."
So Stephen Batchelor is a stand-in for most Westerners? The truth of it is, most people (from the west and from the east), have no nose for the scent of the transcendent. It's a universal thing. Any time we use big categories (Westerners. Orientals. Etc.) to say how things are we are just putting forth our own ignorance and prejudice. The same is true when we go from the very general, to the singular, i.e., we pick one person (or even a few people), to represents entire groups of people.

As for Batchelor, I'm not sure whether his statement is or isn't proof that he himself has no nose of the transcendent. Nor would all Buddhist, in the East, be in lock step with the Zen understanding of Mind. Without knowing him, and without being a realized (or even knowledgeable Zen master), the most I'd say is that Batchelor may not have an affinity with Zen, and even that may or may not be the case.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by muni »

Concern.

What we percieve is through karmic habits. Therefore Buddhism high-low, so and so always depends on own being, which is not seen when only the object and our opinions are seen.

Whether we see a talker, a teacher or wisdom/compassion speech, depends totally on our own being. Own mind can see an ordinary teacher out there like existing without air at all, simple a hard thing out of its own hard thing-being, both existing on their own.

What teachings we 'recieve' depends on own beings' perception. I think when Guru Rinpoche should be here now right now, I should not see, because my seeing is coarse and my ears should not hear since I should only hear my ideas, those I trust.

Concern, since the Buddha's teachings will be easier when our own karmic ideas, traditional thinking are seen, then limitations can fade. In that way I see the pointing to "westerns-easterns"
A bad example: When one flies from Kathmandu to Lhasa, there can be some difficulties/limitations, but after a while the "body" is adapted and can move flexible through the low oxigen air.

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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by muni »

Arrogance is protecting that what we aren't.

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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by muni »

Lol! I was reading only the red letters, article,in which that concern for practicioners appeared.

Guru Rinpoche as well gave teachings in such style to put a light on. :namaste:
Namgyal
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Namgyal »

justsit wrote:Heh Heh...Yeah, Dzongsar Khyentse is a great vajra master. He knows exactly which buttons to push and exactly how to push them. :bow:
Possibly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My post was really just a protest against Asian prejudices against Westerners, with the result that I ended up sounding like I am prejudiced against Asians. Anyway, my other half, who is Asian, and the granddaughter of a famous lama, has just given me my marching orders in respect of this website. 'The world is full of talk, don't you have better things to do!...like improving your translation skills or practising meditation!'. Ouch! The Dakinis have spoken, so...adios amigos.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by futerko »

Raksha wrote:
justsit wrote:Heh Heh...Yeah, Dzongsar Khyentse is a great vajra master. He knows exactly which buttons to push and exactly how to push them. :bow:
Possibly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My post was really just a protest against Asian prejudices against Westerners, with the result that I ended up sounding like I am prejudiced against Asians. Anyway, my other half, who is Asian, and the granddaughter of a famous lama, has just given me my marching orders in respect of this website. 'The world is full of talk, don't you have better things to do!...like improving your translation skills or practising meditation!'. Ouch! The Dakinis have spoken, so...adios amigos.
:namaste: R.
ouch! that is a truly gruesome image, best of luck Raksha :namaste:
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by lama tsewang »

there are though, some Tibetan cultural norms thatcan be very distasteful to people from our culture. Having a layer of persons who are monks, yet who are different from the other monks. Who have better clothing, accomodations , and dont even eat with the other monks . This kind of stuff is very funny . This and some other emphases on hierarchy are very bizarre for people here.
The notions of equality and democracy are also an INTEGRAL part of the Buddhas teaching .Integral.
In the Vinaya pitaka , Sangha decision making is to be d0ne by consensus.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Raksha wrote:
justsit wrote:Heh Heh...Yeah, Dzongsar Khyentse is a great vajra master. He knows exactly which buttons to push and exactly how to push them. :bow:
Possibly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My post was really just a protest against Asian prejudices against Westerners, with the result that I ended up sounding like I am prejudiced against Asians. Anyway, my other half, who is Asian, and the granddaughter of a famous lama, has just given me my marching orders in respect of this website. 'The world is full of talk, don't you have better things to do!...like improving your translation skills or practising meditation!'. Ouch! The Dakinis have spoken, so...adios amigos.
:namaste: R.
Just explain to her, NOTHING is more important than being right and winning the internet, nothing.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by futerko »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:
Raksha wrote:
justsit wrote:Heh Heh...Yeah, Dzongsar Khyentse is a great vajra master. He knows exactly which buttons to push and exactly how to push them. :bow:
Possibly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. My post was really just a protest against Asian prejudices against Westerners, with the result that I ended up sounding like I am prejudiced against Asians. Anyway, my other half, who is Asian, and the granddaughter of a famous lama, has just given me my marching orders in respect of this website. 'The world is full of talk, don't you have better things to do!...like improving your translation skills or practising meditation!'. Ouch! The Dakinis have spoken, so...adios amigos.
:namaste: R.
Just explain to her, NOTHING is more important than being right and winning the internet, nothing.
:rolling:
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Grigoris »

Raksha wrote:'The world is full of talk, don't you have better things to do!...like improving your translation skills or practising meditation!'. Ouch! The Dakinis have spoken, so...adios amigos.
My lama says the same thing to me all the time, yet here I am, a moderator and all... sigh... :(
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Huseng »

Quoting the article...
If people could put some effort into being respectful and open-minded, there is so much knowledge available that could liberate them from all kinds of suffering and confusion. It is only now that I have come to realize the significance of the great respect that the Tibetan translators and scholars of the past had toward India, their source of dharma and wisdom. Instead of being critical or even resentful of their source, they called it "The Sublime Land of India." This kind of attitude is very different from the Western shopping mentality that regards the dharma as merchandise and our own involvement as an investment—only wanting to accept what sits well with our habitual expectations and rejecting what we don't find immediately gratifying.
There is a similar parallel with China. China already had aged and well-established intellectual and spiritual schools, so when Buddhism was being introduced it was often at odds with native traditions with differing values and metaphysics. Tibet, however, was not so full of intellectual and spiritual traditions when Buddhism was being introduced there, hence it was readily digested with minimal friction.

Trying to get contemporary westerners to think like a Tibetan in the 8th century is problematic for any number of reasons. To make them feel guilty for not receiving the Dharma so readily is also inconsiderate of their ethnic backgrounds, which are well-grounded in long-standing philosophies and religions which are often at odds with Buddhadharma.

Instead of making them feel guilty for not having the same piety as an ancient Tibetan would have had, it might be best to ask them to explore their own unquestioned assumptions and so on (I think Rinpoche is getting to this, but I sense an expectation that ideally we should be as pious as ancient Tibetans). Most westerners are educated in a system which is contrary to the core ideas of the Buddha, so you can't expect them to organically accept everything. We might pretend we're pious, but it would just be fake and psychologically damaging in the end.

Being born and raised in a democratic heavily industrialized complex society complete with a state-sanctioned materialist ideology and vast perpetual advertising turning people into consumers is a far cry from being born in Buddhist Bhutan. Such differences must be understood.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by Huseng »

Raksha wrote: Likewise animal rights, and environmental concerns were completely absent in Buddhist countries until very recently, when one would have assumed that such things would be widespread.
Such concerns are largely restricted to highly industrialized wealthy countries where people have the luxury to worry about stray dogs and pollution. Environmental concerns only become serious when a country has a sizeable middle-class to demand clear air and water. Until such time most people just scramble to get by and would sacrifice their health and the environment to earn a comfortable living.

Animal rights is likewise limited to prosperous and wealthy societies. Buddhist countries nowadays tend to be poor and hence have little time and will to really worry about animals or abusers of animals. Here in Taiwan dogs are treated horribly everywhere (guard dogs tied to a two foot leash, or pet dogs stuck in outdoor kennels for most of the day howling out of loneliness), and yet a lot of people are Buddhist.


However huge numbers of Asians remain whose attitudes are those of misogynistic, medieval peasants.
This assumes a narrative of progress where those huge numbers of Asians should eventually naturally progress and adopt liberal western ideas, but for whatever reason are "stuck in medieval times" in their thinking.

You should consider that gender roles often fulfil practical and necessary functions. If they did not, then natural selection would quickly see to their elimination, but the traditional roles assigned to women throughout history east and west (childcare, housekeeping, etc...) have existed for a lot longer than our present system in the west. We'd like to think we're more enlightened and better off than medieval peasants as you would pejoratively call them, but for all the faults of the latter they didn't have the same problems we do (for instance people killing themselves at Christmas just because their family life sucks).

Traditional family models and gender divisions might actually contribute to social stability and in the end make people more content rather than these new liberal ideas we got running which have clearly failed to produce anything more stable and fulfilling.

Those Asian cultures which are adopting western liberal ideas maybe only do so because of the west's economic hegemony, not because they are inherently better or more moral. If it were the other way around, we'd be adopting their social ideas and models. Throughout all of history it tends to work like this. If you are an economic and military juggernaut, satellite cultures adopt much of your practices and ways in an attempt to emulate the same road to prosperity in their own cultures.
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Re: The Distortions We Bring...

Post by uan »

Huseng wrote:Quoting the article...

Trying to get contemporary westerners to think like a Tibetan in the 8th century is problematic for any number of reasons. To make them feel guilty for not receiving the Dharma so readily is also inconsiderate of their ethnic backgrounds, which are well-grounded in long-standing philosophies and religions which are often at odds with Buddhadharma.
This is true, but can be broadly applied to people around the world, including, and perhaps most especially, the East. Nor would I necessarily hold up 8th century Tibetan thought (or "openness") as the benchmark for piety. None of us knows how they thought, we can only project our illusions on how we think they thought.
Huseng wrote:Quoting the article...

Instead of making them feel guilty for not having the same piety as an ancient Tibetan would have had, it might be best to ask them to explore their own unquestioned assumptions and so on (I think Rinpoche is getting to this, but I sense an expectation that ideally we should be as pious as ancient Tibetans). Most westerners are educated in a system which is contrary to the core ideas of the Buddha, so you can't expect them to organically accept everything. We might pretend we're pious, but it would just be fake and psychologically damaging in the end.

Being born and raised in a democratic heavily industrialized complex society complete with a state-sanctioned materialist ideology and vast perpetual advertising turning people into consumers is a far cry from being born in Buddhist Bhutan. Such differences must be understood.
Of course Westerners have unquestioned assumptions and those assumptions would come out of its own culture and history. Some of these assumptions are that ancient Tibetans (as a whole) were pious; that somehow ancient Westerners/Europeans weren't pious; that people in the West today aren't pious; Or that people in the East are.

The term pious means religious devotion, and there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who have that in the West. Today is Christmas and is celebrated by over 2 billion Christians. While there are many who only give lip service to their beliefs, and businesses try to exploit the day for economic gains, Christmas (and Easter) is still a powerful day for Christians to renew their faith and devotion. There are another 1.5 billion muslims in the world. Many of them live in the west and many of those are highly pious.

The term pious also means religious/virtuous hypocrisy. There are traditions of Buddhism where the core ideas have nothing to do with religious devotion. So from what Buddhist tradition should any need for piety be expected?

Other assumptions are that we can use an umbrella term like Westerners to mean something. What or who is a Westerner?

Or looked at another way, why the need for Buddhism in Tibet or in the East? You'd think that everyone there would have been enlightened long ago. The simple life of the farmer in the field, free of the complexities and advertisements of the modern, western world. Except when he ponders emptiness, it's usually the emptiness of his belly, either in the moment or one drought away from happening. Or he's thinking of supporting his family, perhaps he's angry that his neighbor has more buffalo than he does, or that his neighbor's wife is more loving, or that he owes money to some powerful landholder, or that he carries the debt of his father, or any number of the thousands of things that makes up living in Samsara.

I have heard some lamas express appreciation for the Western approach to Dharma, one that is based on questioning the teaching, as Buddha himself advised, not just accepting everything and anything that is said. Devotion won't free someone from the bonds of Samsara. Often, devotion only reinforces assumptions.

So to borrow a saying from the Christian Bible "And why behold you the mote that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?" We all need to challenge and explore our own unquestioned assumptions and not worry about pointing fingers at others who we think have a greater need to challenge their unquestioned assumptions. And it is in exploring our unquestioned assumptions that we can progress on the path.
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