The author is drawing comparisons (playfully, I admit) with Buddhism, but the Puritans were following a tradition that goes back to late antiquity in the west.

The author is drawing comparisons (playfully, I admit) with Buddhism, but the Puritans were following a tradition that goes back to late antiquity in the west. Books like the ones being described, in which the "psychology of sin" (so to speak) is dissected and various remedies put forth goes back at least to Evagrius (4th century), and likely far further than that. The Reformers sought to change many aspects of the "old religion," but a basic asceticism was not among them.