Yea you’re right. I just don’t personally have that experience with Christianity to have a view. Interestingly I was reading a teaching on the difference betwe

Yea you’re right. I just don’t personally have that experience with Christianity to have a view. Interestingly I was reading a teaching on the difference between transcendence and Buddhism. Transcendence was in fact what was being sought after in south Asian cultures at the time of Buddha. But Buddha didn’t teach transcendence and he made a clear distinction. It’s not about escape from your situation by leaving it in some way, it’s about living your situation without attachment to the past or future, about if you want things to be better, then do what you believe makes things better and others like you will be a part of your change you make. There’s several layers in Buddhism, with basic ones being relief from suffering, but deeper ones involve loving kindness and compassion, drawing on the idea that we are communal organisms that thrive on constructive generosity and kindness. A lot is made of “enlightenment” and reincarnation, and at least in Theravada Buddhism, are mostly metaphorical. Which brings me to your first point - Buddhism in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand is Theravada Buddhism which is essentially unchanged from the original compilation in pali. In other parts of Asia you see a lot of innovation and mysticism (and to be fair in Southeast Asia the lay person Buddhism is a mixture of traditional animism and spirit worship mixed in with Buddhism). Finally you make a male / female distinction. I don’t think this is fair. Women are allowed as much freedom and respect in Buddhism as any organized “religion” (I don’t consider Theravada Buddhism to be a religion, or even a philosophy - it’s more a guide to being a human). In fact in the Pali texts there are quite a large number of females who achieve enlightenment or bodhisattva (people who could become enlightened but opt instead to spend their lives ending suffering for all creatures, often even more respected in life and death than those who become enlightened). Women are not allowed to become ordained monks though. But they can become nuns, which in theory are equal to monks. In practice sadly many mainstream monks exploit their position, which is not supposed to come with power and influence. In many ways the monk hoods rules about women are much more about the weakness of men than anything about women. Women are generally viewed as more likely to not need such draconian rules as men. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in Theravada Buddhism that elevates men above women in any way whatsoever. Sadly though the societies themselves are historically patriarchal, and this colors things and male monks are often venerated more than nuns for that reason.