Mr Green wrote:That cartoon was quite derisive, I actually was serious ... ah, well.
Well, be serious. You also have some insights now from with a Buddhist society, don't you?
filthy Shudra wrote:You say you lived within Buddhist communities and came away not much the wiser ...
I said I lived and spent time in Buddhist societies which is different (to which I might add the very edges of Western Buddhist order too). Accuracy again please.
I came away realising that religion is mostly a family business, that for most Buddhism occupies the same place as Hinduism or Roman Catholicism socially and spiritually, that Westerners see and practise it very differently ... that it occupies a different social and psychological space ... tinged perhaps with a touch of exotic Orientalism and originally used as an escape from Victorian/Protestant moralism.
I shall now try with your guidance, to penetrate into the Indian jungle from which until now an uncertain blending of Hellenic love of proportion, Jewish sobriety, and philistine timidity have kept me away. I really ought to have tackled it earlier, for the plants of this soil shouldn't be alien to me; I have dug to certain depths for their roots. But it is not easy to pass beyond the limits of one's nature.
- Sigmund Freud, 1930
I think Westerners intellectualise it far more that most "Buddhists" just do and that confirmational bias plays a large part (we see what we want to and don't see the rest). Most Buddhists just do what they are told at the temple and pray to carved logs of wood, or ceramic pots, for money, a son, good health etc and then do what they want elsewhere. I saw that whilst they were the caretakers of heritage, the priest and abbots equally avoided rocking the boat and milked their followers' superstitions and, if they are honest, know little more than them except a catalogue of histories, magic spells and superstition ... it is just another part of the factory line of life specialising most in death ... funerals.
I think that Westerners, in general, are split between inventing their own thing out of various bits of aesthetically attractive Buddhism or acting out as their favorite Asian fantasy be it Tibetan, Japanese or Thai. I think many of the Western commentators have the strange idea think that they can understand the totality of Buddhism from outside of it, from a position of superiority naturally, pulling apart the all components and reducing them to most basic parts. I also saw many Westerners "being Buddhists" who were really just "being Christians" but it was not so cool to call oneself a Christian and take onboard the luggage that came with that.
I'd say the cultural difference are far more to do with; a) climate, and b) a history of having recently been arable farmers in small villages for centuries and surviving on a rice based diet rather than any cosmic component. But I am no expert. My expertise goes as far as to say that all of life is different to how one would expect it and a lot more the same too. Life, spiritual or otherwise, certainly throws up anomalies, like the meat eating, meat offering yet Hindu culture in Bali or the degree of hypocrisy, amorality, materialism and lack of charity in Buddhist societies.
Can one blame that on "the Buddhism"? I don't know but it would make an interesting comparison. Perhaps it also makes me appreciate the history of the Western tradition too from Greece through Christianity to the scientific Enlightenment. It is not all bad. I think there are wonderful comparison to be made, e.g. Christian ideals of caritas versus Buddhist ideals of compassion.
I might even go as far to suggest it only "works" in such societies.
Button Slammer was asking a question about Buddhist cosmology in comparison to a Brahma Kumarist point of view, i.e. one world, one 5,000 declining cycle of time ... a strangely Christian straight line form heaven to hell and the End Times really. Sometimes I really wonder if and how much Lekhraj Kirpalani was influenced by a Christian points of view at some point. Sure as heck I see no influence of Buddhism in his teachings.
As I understand it, the PBK point of view would be that the Buddha was one of the 8 seed souls and existed from the start of the BK 5,000 Year Cycle, is that correct? Or is he one of the leading BKs who exists now and split the BK knowledge off in his or her direction. Are "BK Buddhists", BKs who don't believe in God Shiva?
A very short answer would be to throw out the "Thirty-one Planes of Existence" in which you have beings who live for 400,000, 1,600,000, even 6,400,000 human years and beyond those life spans beyond our comprehension ... 25,600,000 human years and beyond that, realm of formlessness where beings can live for 80,000 kalpas. How do they know all this stuff ...? Who makes it up? No idea at all. More religious love of big numbers.
Funny, I just read a paper that said, "when Christians translated their Gospel into Chinese contexts, the Greek 'Logos' became the Chinese 'Tao'". I also know that when Francis Xavier went to Japan, he tried the same trick translating "God" to "Dainichi" (Vairocana) and conning the Buddhist monks until they that he was preaching a rival religion too and kicked him out.
The Brahma Kumaris try the same trick too.