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>but towards the end it slides into the more religious aspects of Buddhism Well, its a religious practice. This is like joining a Catholic choir and being surp

>but towards the end it slides into the more religious aspects of Buddhism Well, its a religious practice. This is like joining a Catholic choir and being surprised all the songs are about Jesus, and all the talk of melodies and harmony take a backseat to devotion. As a meditator, I think this push to strip it down and reduce it to just a "stress remover" is counter-productive and will end in situations like yours where you feel the "anti-scientific" (whatever that means) aspects attacked you. The reality here is that meditators, especially teachers, can't divorce the emotional, spiritual, ethical, and even supernatural parts of their practice for Western consumers who just want a "fix me" weekend to go back to their busy, complex, and stressful lives. The larger point is to fix/change yourself so you don't constantly need "recharge" retreats. I think there's been this failed experiment in the last 100 years to strip people of spirituality either by force (Communism) or by shame (Western Determinism/Materialism). As an lower-case atheist and non-religious person, I find it all incredible bleak and have been, over the years, working my way closer to the "softer" parts of Buddhism. I'm pretty much an agnostic with maybe some weak spiritual views now and its a good place to be. I don't think you can really expect Buddhists to strip Buddhism from meditation. They find too much value in it the same way I do. Secular/scientific "stress busting" techniques don't work compared to holistic life changes that yes include weird spiritual stuff and counter-modern ideas like living for the moment/experience and not giving into attachment, materialism, emotions, etc. We tried just deep breathing, we tried every psychological fad, we tried drugs, etc. They just don't seem to work very well compared to a serious change in lifestyle as described by Buddhism or some school of mediation/Eastern thought. I see people stuck on endless skinner boxes on ipads and consoles. I see people fighting and killing themselves at shitty, stressful jobs (yours truly included), etc. I see conflict all the time and the inevitable race to a Nash equilibria that makes everyone unhappy. Samasara looks real to me, even if you interpret it as a metaphor. I don't think its cultish to point out alternatives to the Western idea of "being productive," or to add some "woo." Frankly, I'm not convinced some "woo" isn't real. No, I'm not sending money to Sylvia Brown, but I won't be a dismissive asshole when people talk about reincarnation, or how they think Vipassana or Kundalini brought them close to some important spiritual experience, etc. Funny how we dismiss these experiences, but ask any geek about LSD and he'll ramble one for hours how its pretty much spiritualism in a can and everyone nods in lockstep. Perhaps we're a little too dismissive of the soft parts of Buddhism in the West.

mbrock 11y ago
We in the west are very diverse. There are lots of people in America and Europe who are very attracted to the "soft parts" of Buddhism. Especially secular people who started meditating out of desperation and found that the most attractive instructions were Buddhist. Quite a few of them end up doing a Goenka retreat, because they're free and they're advertised as secular and nonsectarian—although they also claim an unbroken teaching lineage descending from Gautama Buddha. I think the momentum of soft Buddhism is strong enough to warrant some healthy critique. What does it actually mean to align oneself with an ancient and foreign religious tradition? What's the relation between meditation and Buddhism, and what are the good reasons to not be a Buddhist? What is Buddhism, even? How well does it actually work? And so on. Nobody expects Buddhists to strip Buddhism from their meditation. But the phenomenon here is the scores of Western people who become Buddhists, or quasi-Buddhists, mostly because they like to meditate and are seeking some source of meaning, truth, and devotion. It's an extremely interesting phenomenon, and I'm a quasi-Buddhist myself in just this way (took precept vows at a Zen center, have gone to multiple meditation retreats, have read plenty of Buddhist literature, visited some rural Thai temples, etc).

mbrock 11y ago

We in the west are very diverse. There are lots of people in America and Europe who are very attracted to the "soft parts" of Buddhism. Especially secular people who started meditating out of desperation and found that the most attractive instructions were Buddhist. Quite a few of them end up doing a Goenka retreat, because they're free and they're advertised as secular and nonsectarian—although they also claim an unbroken teaching lineage descending from Gautama Buddha. I think the momentum of soft Buddhism is strong enough to warrant some healthy critique. What does it actually mean to align oneself with an ancient and foreign religious tradition? What's the relation between meditation and Buddhism, and what are the good reasons to not be a Buddhist? What is Buddhism, even? How well does it actually work? And so on. Nobody expects Buddhists to strip Buddhism from their meditation. But the phenomenon here is the scores of Western people who become Buddhists, or quasi-Buddhists, mostly because they like to meditate and are seeking some source of meaning, truth, and devotion. It's an extremely interesting phenomenon, and I'm a quasi-Buddhist myself in just this way (took precept vows at a Zen center, have gone to multiple meditation retreats, have read plenty of Buddhist literature, visited some rural Thai temples, etc).