I wonder if this is generally true or just the way Buddhism ends up manifesting in the west, where it’s mostly for the sake of educated people pursuing meditation and alternative spirituality.
Historically, Buddhism could well be very playing a similar role for social cohesion and political legitimacy as Christianity or Islam. Mahayana Buddhism has plenty of “saints” and their cults in the Bodhisattvas, Tibet was a theocratic monarchy, etc.
Very true. We’re in the process of creating Western Buddhism, and probably have another couple hundred years (if we didn’t have to think about AI) before it’s fully formed. You’re right that Eastern Buddhisms contain a lot more traditional religious expression that’s missing form the West, although I think part of why Zen in particular became popular is because it’s a strain of Buddhism that is especially amenable to post-Enlightenment European values (I occasionally make the analogy that Zen is roughly the Reformed sect of Buddhism (it feels in particular very Presbyterian to me), and it was arguably the Reform movement that laid last pieces of the necessary memetic groundwork for the European Enlightenment to happen).
I wonder if this is generally true or just the way Buddhism ends up manifesting in the west, where it’s mostly for the sake of educated people pursuing meditation and alternative spirituality.
Historically, Buddhism could well be very playing a similar role for social cohesion and political legitimacy as Christianity or Islam. Mahayana Buddhism has plenty of “saints” and their cults in the Bodhisattvas, Tibet was a theocratic monarchy, etc.
Very true. We’re in the process of creating Western Buddhism, and probably have another couple hundred years (if we didn’t have to think about AI) before it’s fully formed. You’re right that Eastern Buddhisms contain a lot more traditional religious expression that’s missing form the West, although I think part of why Zen in particular became popular is because it’s a strain of Buddhism that is especially amenable to post-Enlightenment European values (I occasionally make the analogy that Zen is roughly the Reformed sect of Buddhism (it feels in particular very Presbyterian to me), and it was arguably the Reform movement that laid last pieces of the necessary memetic groundwork for the European Enlightenment to happen).