I think there are certainly some schools within Buddhism that fit the sutric description, but Chapman’s description of schools of Buddhism outside his own tends to feel a little strawmannish and tribalish to me.
I do agree that some, perhaps very significant, degree of renunciation is involved in advanced practice, but at least none of the teachers I follow have a “you should renounce the world because the world is bad and sensual pleasures are horrible” undertone to it. (For what it’s worth, Claude also flags those bits of Chapman’s “sutra vs. tantra” comparison table as ideologically motivated.)
My own interpretation is that many things are worth renouncing simply because they do not actually make you better off in the long term, and because there are states of mind that you can try to cultivate that feel better both for you and others. E.g. being filled with an experience of love toward all existence and that feeling drawing you to help others out of a genuine delight for their well-being feels ultimately more satisfying than spending the evening browsing Facebook.
Yeah, I wouldn’t expect his position to be popular, because he’s basically saying that in order to improve its marketability western Buddhism has discarded the “vibe” of total renunciation, while essentially maintaining the system of practices that had been developed with renunciative ends in mind. I don’t suppose that there’s an objective way to resolve this until substantial studies of the effects of these practices are conducted.
I think there are certainly some schools within Buddhism that fit the sutric description, but Chapman’s description of schools of Buddhism outside his own tends to feel a little strawmannish and tribalish to me.
I do agree that some, perhaps very significant, degree of renunciation is involved in advanced practice, but at least none of the teachers I follow have a “you should renounce the world because the world is bad and sensual pleasures are horrible” undertone to it. (For what it’s worth, Claude also flags those bits of Chapman’s “sutra vs. tantra” comparison table as ideologically motivated.)
My own interpretation is that many things are worth renouncing simply because they do not actually make you better off in the long term, and because there are states of mind that you can try to cultivate that feel better both for you and others. E.g. being filled with an experience of love toward all existence and that feeling drawing you to help others out of a genuine delight for their well-being feels ultimately more satisfying than spending the evening browsing Facebook.
Yeah, I wouldn’t expect his position to be popular, because he’s basically saying that in order to improve its marketability western Buddhism has discarded the “vibe” of total renunciation, while essentially maintaining the system of practices that had been developed with renunciative ends in mind. I don’t suppose that there’s an objective way to resolve this until substantial studies of the effects of these practices are conducted.