7 ms·

IMHO only, not an expert/informed analysis: Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony if left to a separate authority (the real Dalai Lama). The Chinese grand s

IMHO only, not an expert/informed analysis: Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony if left to a separate authority (the real Dalai Lama). The Chinese grand social experiment of a strong state can only really work if they are relatively culturally homogenous, whether in Tibet or Hong Kong or Xinjiang or Taiwan. Dissent plants the seeds of change, and the CCP's system doesn't work when there is too much diversity of values. It's uber-collectivism in the name of the nation. China very rarely does anything in the name of short-term profit. Their government doesn't work on 4-year competitive cycles like ours does, they plan and orchestrate in decades, and to them it's safer to conquer and assimilate other territories while they are still underdeveloped than when they become too powerful, either economically (like Taiwan) or culturally (like Tibet) or both (like Hong Kong). Having a puppet religious master under their control, along with all of Tibet's future economic output, is reason enough to seize it, even the real gains won't be realized for another few decades. The artificial legitimacy of Chinese-controlled Buddhism would greatly expand their cultural sphere of influence both inside and outside their immediate borders.

cyberpunk 5y ago
I would hope that China would understand Buddhism enough to know that there is no possible separate authority... I mean, the Heart sutra almost definitely came from China.. Although, I admit that I do have a hard time knitting together Tibetan and Burmese etc forms of Buddhism with what my understanding is (zen). They seem to genuinely worship Gautama Buddha as if he was some kinda god or something. That's not what we're into at all. He was just a normal dude, in zen... And I mean... Dogen too. Both kinda interesting and insightful ones, ones we probably can learn something from (also learn some negative things from, e.g, O.G buddha walked out on his family (what a cunt!)) but yeah, there's no space laser eyes or anything in my book. Just some dudes that looked at a wall for some years, and realised they're essentially the same as the local lemon tree. Kinda makes sense to me. Takes a while though. Even though I'm a buddhist, I seem to really offend non-zen buddhists in this fashion, which I find kinda hilarious.
- technobabbler 5y ago
  > I would hope that China would understand Buddhism enough to know that there is no possible separate authority... I mean, the Heart sutra almost definitely came from China.. Speaking as an agnostic, outside observer looking in on the various forms of Buddhism: Buddhism has mutated a lot in its history, and every country it touches has been changed by it and in turn changes it. I don't think any two countries practice the same form of Buddhism. Some sects of it are strongly mystical and others are more rational, and deification is an important part of some practices (and practitioners) and not others. In the US, I've been to supposedly Zen practices that had an emphasis on "acknowledging/honoring" the bodhisattvas prior to meditation; to me, as an agnostic, it felt very similar to worship. "Buddhism with Chinese characteristics" (to steal a phrase) mixes their particular cultural norms with the Indian version, adds on Confucianism and Taoism to some degree, and then seeks to put it all under CCP control. Much like the Romans absorbed Christianity and added their own flavor, China does the same with its assimilees... again, for cultural and political hegemony. They are trying to weave the young puppet Dalai Lama into their own narrative, slowly and subtly. You are a Buddhist in the same sense that Protestants and Catholics are both Christian, but that never stopped them from disagreeing :) Weird, the arbitrary lines in the sand we like to draw, no?
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    > In the US, I've been to supposedly Zen practices that had an emphasis on "acknowledging/honoring" the bodhisattvas prior to meditation; to me, as an agnostic, it felt very similar to worship. Oh yeah, this goes on. It's very common during zazenkai or sesshin to honour the ancestors and so some full on chants and even prostrations; I felt the same way as you did for at the beginning -- it really fucked with my atheist elitism, but really those problems were mine not theirs :} Wear the silly hat, do a few bows, it helps more than it hurts. And, sorry, there is no god outside of yourself :}
- clevergadget 5y ago
  since you cant see me nod at you i am typing it nods in agreement i am pretty sure all these people had some terrible opinions and bad habits no doubt
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony" It boggles my mind that anyone would consider to be harmonious a society that kills, imprisons, tortures, censors, and brainwashes so many of its own people.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  "Harmony" is an important value in Confucianism, which means it's a value with a lot of importance in Chinese culture. Governments increase their legitimacy by being perceived to offer harmony. The Chinese government therefore couches its propaganda in terms of it offering harmony, and other things threatening harmony. I'm not saying that cyberpunk is a Chinese propagandist - just that he/she has adopted their term (perhaps from hearing them use it so much).
- presentation 5y ago
  It certainly is harmonious if you are a mainstream Han Chinese person (or an expat) who lives in a major city with some level of affluence - you are insulated from the repression, your life will be comfortable and things appear to work quite well. From the outside people talk about these big social problems, which are bad, but from the perspective of day to day life for the vast majority of people, those issues don’t affect you and you just see a very productive and good standard of living society. (I lived there for some time)
- technobabbler 5y ago
  They use "harmony" the same way we use "freedom": as propaganda for control and imperialism. How do you sell violence to the populace? For collectivist countries, it's "they are unlike us, we will show them our ways." For individualist countries, it's "we are unlike them, we will show them our ways." It doesn't really matter what noble buzzword you attach to your violent ideology, in the end you have a hierarchical society predicated upon the exploitation of the less powerful. In describing what I perceive their objectives to be, it does not in any way mean I condone their actions. Only that I desire to understand a great power that is more than likely going to become a great enemy someday soon, unless we can somehow find common ground with their common people and rebel against the violent, coercive elitism in both cultures. The average person anywhere isn't really all that different, in my personal experience. But their supposed values, most of which go unexamined their whole lives, are largely shaped by the cultural environment they grew up in. More often than not they just toe the line of whatever hero their parents or friends happened to worship, typically some asshole elite. That's as true in China as it is in the USA. That's not a defense of Chinese oppression, it's a recognition of human folly in the aggregate. For what it's worth, we incarcerate more people than the Chinese, even though they have 4x the population. For every Xinjiang they have we have a Gitmo, for every Tibet we have Afghanistan and Iraq. There are no innocent superpowers; all are evil and got there by doing great evil in the not-so-distant past.
clove 5y ago
"Their government doesn't work on 4-year competitive cycles like ours does..." Not that I don't agree with your idea that the CCP work on a longer time horizon than the US govt, but China does run on short-term cycles, namely its 5-year plans: https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Five_Year_Plan_EN.pdf https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Fi...
- michaelscott 5y ago
  Goal of the short term cycles is different. In the US the goal is to remain in power through votes. In China, where remaining in power is a given, the goal is to use the time to make impact on the country's progress, for better or worse
- technobabbler 5y ago
  It's not so much that they have to plan for 100 years at once, but that they can execute strategies lasting more than one power cycle. Their pendulum (and with it, bills and executive orders and social effects) doesn't reset every 4-8 years. Edit: basically what michaelscott said already
roeles 5y ago
If diversity is a threat, then I wonder why Taoism is not treated like buddhism.
- technobabbler 5y ago
  I don't know enough about Taoism to even speculate. What are your thoughts?
  - roeles 5y ago
    I see similarities between Buddhism and Taoism. As far as I understand both, their attitude towards life is similar. Both acknowledge dualism and the need for balance in your life. I think both acknowledge the interconnected-ness of life. Taoism inside China doesn't appear to be involved in worldly matters such as politics. Then again, I don't really know what Tibet has concretely done to upset China. Is it just the desire for independence?

cyberpunk 5y ago

I would hope that China would understand Buddhism enough to know that there is no possible separate authority... I mean, the Heart sutra almost definitely came from China.. Although, I admit that I do have a hard time knitting together Tibetan and Burmese etc forms of Buddhism with what my understanding is (zen). They seem to genuinely worship Gautama Buddha as if he was some kinda god or something. That's not what we're into at all. He was just a normal dude, in zen... And I mean... Dogen too. Both kinda interesting and insightful ones, ones we probably can learn something from (also learn some negative things from, e.g, O.G buddha walked out on his family (what a cunt!)) but yeah, there's no space laser eyes or anything in my book. Just some dudes that looked at a wall for some years, and realised they're essentially the same as the local lemon tree. Kinda makes sense to me. Takes a while though. Even though I'm a buddhist, I seem to really offend non-zen buddhists in this fashion, which I find kinda hilarious.

technobabbler 5y ago
> I would hope that China would understand Buddhism enough to know that there is no possible separate authority... I mean, the Heart sutra almost definitely came from China.. Speaking as an agnostic, outside observer looking in on the various forms of Buddhism: Buddhism has mutated a lot in its history, and every country it touches has been changed by it and in turn changes it. I don't think any two countries practice the same form of Buddhism. Some sects of it are strongly mystical and others are more rational, and deification is an important part of some practices (and practitioners) and not others. In the US, I've been to supposedly Zen practices that had an emphasis on "acknowledging/honoring" the bodhisattvas prior to meditation; to me, as an agnostic, it felt very similar to worship. "Buddhism with Chinese characteristics" (to steal a phrase) mixes their particular cultural norms with the Indian version, adds on Confucianism and Taoism to some degree, and then seeks to put it all under CCP control. Much like the Romans absorbed Christianity and added their own flavor, China does the same with its assimilees... again, for cultural and political hegemony. They are trying to weave the young puppet Dalai Lama into their own narrative, slowly and subtly. You are a Buddhist in the same sense that Protestants and Catholics are both Christian, but that never stopped them from disagreeing :) Weird, the arbitrary lines in the sand we like to draw, no?
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  > In the US, I've been to supposedly Zen practices that had an emphasis on "acknowledging/honoring" the bodhisattvas prior to meditation; to me, as an agnostic, it felt very similar to worship. Oh yeah, this goes on. It's very common during zazenkai or sesshin to honour the ancestors and so some full on chants and even prostrations; I felt the same way as you did for at the beginning -- it really fucked with my atheist elitism, but really those problems were mine not theirs :} Wear the silly hat, do a few bows, it helps more than it hurts. And, sorry, there is no god outside of yourself :}
clevergadget 5y ago
since you cant see me nod at you i am typing it nods in agreement i am pretty sure all these people had some terrible opinions and bad habits no doubt

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Buddhism can be a risk to Chinese harmony" It boggles my mind that anyone would consider to be harmonious a society that kills, imprisons, tortures, censors, and brainwashes so many of its own people.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
"Harmony" is an important value in Confucianism, which means it's a value with a lot of importance in Chinese culture. Governments increase their legitimacy by being perceived to offer harmony. The Chinese government therefore couches its propaganda in terms of it offering harmony, and other things threatening harmony. I'm not saying that cyberpunk is a Chinese propagandist - just that he/she has adopted their term (perhaps from hearing them use it so much).
presentation 5y ago
It certainly is harmonious if you are a mainstream Han Chinese person (or an expat) who lives in a major city with some level of affluence - you are insulated from the repression, your life will be comfortable and things appear to work quite well. From the outside people talk about these big social problems, which are bad, but from the perspective of day to day life for the vast majority of people, those issues don’t affect you and you just see a very productive and good standard of living society. (I lived there for some time)
technobabbler 5y ago
They use "harmony" the same way we use "freedom": as propaganda for control and imperialism. How do you sell violence to the populace? For collectivist countries, it's "they are unlike us, we will show them our ways." For individualist countries, it's "we are unlike them, we will show them our ways." It doesn't really matter what noble buzzword you attach to your violent ideology, in the end you have a hierarchical society predicated upon the exploitation of the less powerful. In describing what I perceive their objectives to be, it does not in any way mean I condone their actions. Only that I desire to understand a great power that is more than likely going to become a great enemy someday soon, unless we can somehow find common ground with their common people and rebel against the violent, coercive elitism in both cultures. The average person anywhere isn't really all that different, in my personal experience. But their supposed values, most of which go unexamined their whole lives, are largely shaped by the cultural environment they grew up in. More often than not they just toe the line of whatever hero their parents or friends happened to worship, typically some asshole elite. That's as true in China as it is in the USA. That's not a defense of Chinese oppression, it's a recognition of human folly in the aggregate. For what it's worth, we incarcerate more people than the Chinese, even though they have 4x the population. For every Xinjiang they have we have a Gitmo, for every Tibet we have Afghanistan and Iraq. There are no innocent superpowers; all are evil and got there by doing great evil in the not-so-distant past.

clove 5y ago

"Their government doesn't work on 4-year competitive cycles like ours does..." Not that I don't agree with your idea that the CCP work on a longer time horizon than the US govt, but China does run on short-term cycles, namely its 5-year plans: https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Five_Year_Plan_EN.pdf https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Fi...

michaelscott 5y ago
Goal of the short term cycles is different. In the US the goal is to remain in power through votes. In China, where remaining in power is a given, the goal is to use the time to make impact on the country's progress, for better or worse
technobabbler 5y ago
It's not so much that they have to plan for 100 years at once, but that they can execute strategies lasting more than one power cycle. Their pendulum (and with it, bills and executive orders and social effects) doesn't reset every 4-8 years. Edit: basically what michaelscott said already

roeles 5y ago

If diversity is a threat, then I wonder why Taoism is not treated like buddhism.

technobabbler 5y ago
I don't know enough about Taoism to even speculate. What are your thoughts?
- roeles 5y ago
  I see similarities between Buddhism and Taoism. As far as I understand both, their attitude towards life is similar. Both acknowledge dualism and the need for balance in your life. I think both acknowledge the interconnected-ness of life. Taoism inside China doesn't appear to be involved in worldly matters such as politics. Then again, I don't really know what Tibet has concretely done to upset China. Is it just the desire for independence?