As far as I know, he makes quite a few unfounded claims here. Note that I am not trying to defend the authors who try to line up Buddhism with modern, Western,

As far as I know, he makes quite a few unfounded claims here. Note that I am not trying to defend the authors who try to line up Buddhism with modern, Western, secular values, however I do not necessarily subscribe to these values, though I may appreciate them. I subscribe to the Buddhist morality as far as I understand it, and I am not rigid in this. >Details depend on the tradition, but commonly verboten are solo and partner masturbation, oral and anal sex, sex between men, sex during daytime, and sex with a woman who is pregnant or nursing. I know of no prohibitions for laypeople of this kind in Theravada, which is the second-largest "denomination" of Buddhism. However, I am willing to say that what defines sexual misconduct (one of the five precepts observed by lay Theravada Buddhists) isn't clear, and may just be left to interpretation. >Abortion is murder, and sends you straight to hell. I don't know where this is mentioned, again at least within Theravada. >Slavery In his 9th footnote, he writes: >In Buddhist literature of all varieties, stock descriptions of wealth, even that gifted to the Buddha, regularly include both male and female slaves along with silver, gold, fields, livestock, and so on. In the Digha Nikaya, in the section "The analysis of virtue", and the subsection "The short section on virtue", we find this in the tenth point[0]: >'The recluse Gotama [...] abstains from accepting uncooked grain, raw meat, women and girls, male and female slaves, goats and sheep, fowl and swine, elephants, cattle, horses and mares.' This is where one would speak in praise of the Buddha, so I think the message would be that he sets an example. It's clearly presented as a bad quality, something that a recluse or brahmin shouldn't do. Furthermore, there is the Sigalovada Sutta, which declares that a layperson, taking someone into employment ("servants and employees", the author of the article touches on the fact that it's hard to distinguish), should master them as such: (i) by assigning them work according to their ability, (ii) by supplying them with food and with wages, (iii) by tending them in sickness, (iv) by sharing with them any delicacies, (v) by granting them leave at times. >According to scripture, the Buddha himself (after enlightenment) accepted slaves as gifts to the sangha, and he did not free them. I haven't found any trace of this, but I can only really Google for it. The author hasn't provided a citation for this point, but it seems to be in contradiction to the Digha Nikaya I mentioned earlier. Edit: I read through the comments on the article and I found that the author mentions some work by Schopen and he says: >One of the scriptures he quotes is Bhesajja-khandhaka in the Pali Vinaya, which I’ve linked at Sutta Central. Schopen discusses the Bhesajja-khandhaka and makes points that could show it is not authentic, such as the environment in which the text is set[2]. The author has tried to use a text that is disputed in Schopen's work as evidence that the Buddha accepted slaves. >Large monasteries maintained standing armies, and sometimes went to war with each other, secular powers, or foreigners. Monks have routinely exerted political pressure on secular authorities to go to war. I think it's important that he must distinguish Buddhism from Buddhists, when talking about actual events in history. On his fifth point about women in Buddhism, he writes: >It’s partly the fault of other, patriarchal religions being mixed in [irrelevant because the “original, pure” Buddhism did not teach equality] I don't think this is irrelevant at all. As far as I know, the authenticity of the Eight Garudhammas is questionable. Sujato Bhikkhu has made a nice FAQ about the nuns[1] which counters some of the points the author makes about women in Buddhism. Funnily enough, at the end he writes: >As Medieval morality goes, traditional Buddhism is surprisingly good. Many of its moral positions are correct. "Correct"? How has he discovered this correctness? It seems that this whole essay has been judging Buddhist morality not as simply something medieval, but as something non-Western and containing things that are "morally incorrect". There are some Buddhists who say that the Buddha's words, after enlightenment, are wholly true, and that whatever the Buddha said, even though it may not seem fair or just or moral to us, there is a reason for this or that rule, or a statement. Basically, "he knew something we don't know, and he didn't explain it". [0] http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html [1] http://santifm.org/santipada/2010/bhikkhuni-faq/ http://santifm.org/santipada/2010/bhikkhuni-faq/ [2] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qW9Sn-cJd-0C&pg=PA196&lp.. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qW9Sn-cJd-0C&pg=PA196&lp.... (pp. 195-206)