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Western Buddhism primarily a middle class religion
Class is more than about income. Hence "socio-economic" class. I've met many poor people with advanced degrees who are near the poverty level, yet they read the New Yorker, buy organic and practice yoga.
Lonely_Traveler, Cinorjer: sorry, i should have been more specific...Marxist class theory is defunct, & post-Marxist class theories are in decline parallel to the "failure of symbolic thought" (Zerzan)/monetary systems...economic disparity exists but i test the "injustices" of it against the sociological notion of "relative deprivation"
Perhaps we need, as so many of my non-Brit friends maintain, to allow that the British or French or German or Japanese class systems are radically different from those of North America. What is in no doubt, however, is that each culture contains a class of the disinherited, an "underclass", those who live at the margins. Is Buddhist teaching and practice are making inroads among these anawim ? I know that, in the US at least, there are Buddhist 'missions' to prisoners.
Is Buddhist teaching and practice are making inroads among these anawim ? I know that, in the US at least, there are Buddhist 'missions' to prisoners.
I think the very basic notion of Buddhism is that you can't teach somebody who doesn't want it. That's why we don't see Buddhist missioners anywhere. In various traditions they believe that your karma has to be ripe for you to come to and understand Buddhism. I don't necessarily agree with that but there's some truth to it. Unless you're born in a Buddhist country or family you have make inroads yourself. The question is then becomes whether the Buddhism is accessible to uneducated and lower class people. My answer is yes. @Vajraheart concurs too History of Zen, for example, is full of cases when simple people have become accomplished Zen masters.
Class is very much alive and kicking in the UK. And social mobility is still very limited. As far as the OP question, yes, it's been my experience that most western Buddhists are middle class.
Our local buddhist centre in Warwickshire run Angulimala the buddhist prison chaplaincy in the UK. The Abbot there set the chaplaincy up several years ago. He and buddhist chaplains trained by him visit prisoners in the UK.
At my sangha most people tend to be from an educated class.....there aren't many locals from the inner city....but lots of health professionals, graduates and students.
I'm was brought up on a council estate by two working class parents. My main advantage in life was that I was taught to speak "correctly" which gave the perception that I was middle class. It's helped me so much.
I like to think of and practice Buddhism in a very simple form, in a way that I think Buddha probably intended. However, I do think it attracts a quite intellectual set and it can be incredibly intimidating.... with so much to learn. Such an environment indirectly disadvantages the already disadvantaged.
I'm unsure if It's possible to be a Buddhist in the west unless you have an open mind with the ability to think critically....unfortunately these attributes rarely are free.
Well Spock, the intellectual side of it doesn't itimidate me, despite being uneducated I have an IQ in the 130s and I'm also very socially skilled, working in maintenance in corporate offices I had to be able to communicate effectively with everyone from the facilities manager to the cleaners, so a lot of variation in the social spectrum and ways of speaking there.
I'm beginning to think if some of the hesitancy was due to my ingrained working class predjudice against the middle class rather than the other way round.
Class is very much alive and kicking in the UK. And social mobility is still very limited. As far as the OP question, yes, it's been my experience that most western Buddhists are middle class.
Spiny
I agree with Spiny. It's alive and kicking all over the world, including the US and Canada. It's mostly middle class people that might say it doesn't exist who grow up in a kind of mixed suburb and haven't left. It's very existent in most parts of the US, especially in more Urban areas.
Vajira is completely right, that classes do exist, and they are very relevant in many cultural aspects of our life. I once had a well off Jewish girl friend come with me to the "Westside hood of Los Angeles" which I knew well. She was shocked to see the neighborhood, and to see how people were living. At her young age of about 19 or 20 (I forgot how old she was back then) she never knew the type of poverty that existed just a few miles from where she lived in the very safe and glamorous van nuys.
She grew up all her life thinking that if you tried hard enough you could make anything you want of yourself. But often for people who were raised in poverty it's not that simple to break the chain. They're missing some much needed resources or there are just many other factors that make it not as easy for them to be financially successful compared to someone who was born to a well off middle class family.
For much of America right now, the reality is, middle class almost doesn't exist. It used to, but it's becoming more and more rare. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. It's becoming mostly the poor class and the rich class. That is what I see in L.A. rather than "a middle class" anymore. The U.S. is very much turning into like a 3rd world country. That is how it is where I am from.
And people don't really care about each other here. That's why we we're the gang capital and the homeless capital of the U.S.A. because of the whole class thing going on. City hall, and all those rich corporate cats of downtown L.A. are right next to skid row, the largest homeless community in the U.S.A.. If I had the money, I'd do something about it.
found more than one meaning...which one did you intend?
I meant the poor and disinherited, those whose patrimony has been stolen by the powerful and who wait, whether they vocalise it or not, for liberation.
"Also an enemy wishes thus for his enemy: "Let him have no prosperity." Why is that? No enemy relishes an enemy's prosperity. Now when this person is angry, prey to anger, ruled by anger, he mistakes bad for good and he mistakes good for bad, and each being taken wrongly in the other's sense, these things for long conduce to his harm and suffering, through his being a prey to anger. This is the third thing gratifying and helpful to an enemy that befalls one who is angry, whether a woman or a man" (AN 7:60; http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel007.html).
I'm a black Buddhist, but I was raised in the suburbs and educated. But my cousin, also black and living in the hood, definitely agrees with Buddhism more than Christianity. But she is afraid to come out and say that she disagrees with it. You see, the black community is very strict about certain things (at least in America). We have to talk a certain way (ghetto) and act a certain way or else we are not "black" enough. This also includes being Christian or Muslim (mostly Christian). If you say you don't believe in God, that's one thing, but saying that you aren't either of those religions outright (like claiming that you're Buddhist or Hindu or Jewish or whatever) is seen as a bad thing. I think it is because the religion is so engrained in the culture (most shows, songs, and plays aimed at black people mention church or God at least once). But because (according to the U.S. Census) more than 80% of the black population is in poverty (yes, I'm nerdy, I looked it up), and we are so against our people being other religions, that is probably why you don't see a lot of black buddhists. Or, they might be Buddhist, but they are not open about it.
I mean, don't get me wrong, the educated well-off people in the suburbs give me shit about it, too (they never believe that I'm Buddhist because I'm black, and then they laugh at me about it and tell me I'm weird because I "worship Buddha"), but it's worse when your own people diss you. They are supposed to be the ones to stand up for you.
But, then again, it's also up to the individual. A person might be Buddhist, but they are probably not very open about it, or say that they are Christian just to get people off their backs.
I'm a black Buddhist, but I was raised in the suburbs and educated. But my cousin, also black and living in the hood, definitely agrees with Buddhism more than Christianity. But she is afraid to come out and say that she disagrees with it. You see, the black community is very strict about certain things (at least in America). We have to talk a certain way (ghetto) and act a certain way or else we are not "black" enough.
Having been "White" and growing up in "Black" and "Mexican" neighborhoods in the "hood", I also had to hide my sensitive spiritual contemplations in order to seem "hard" enough. I had a hard enough time in elementary school trying to tell the bully that they were one with the bullied. I got beat up a lot in elementary school. Skinny little white boy and all with a Mom that meditated every day and taught me religion from an Eastern perspective. It is tough to be that soft spiritual side and be from and in the hood. I agree, ya gotta talk a certain way, walk a certain way, act a certain way, especially me, cuz I didn't fit in from the outright just based upon the color of my skin, so I had to really act "hard." I got pretty good at it, even ended up fooling myself for a number of years, LOL!! But yes, in the USA, the hood is mostly Christian, and then you've got your Black Muslims, plenty think that White Man is the devil due to old Farrakhan speeches. Because Theism can have a tendency to justify self righteousness, it's easier to stay hard and be a theist, than it is to stay hard and be a Buddhist as Buddhism is a heart softening spiritual tradition. It's not about fighting against injustice for what you think is "God's will" as described in whatever holy book. It's about finding peace inside, no matter what's going on outside. This passivity generally does not fare well in the "hood".
But, this is where I think that Vajrayana would work, because you can utilize energy, you do the yantra yoga, strengthen your prana (winds, energy channels), strengthen your perception of energy, and then you can protect yourself in the hood while being Buddhist. Which is what I had to do. Bring that light down to a level that the hood can get with, because the hood leaves you alone as long as you're on your p's and q's and don't get caught slippin'. Now I'm considered "O.G." because of my past, but I just use it to protect me, while bringing light into every situation on the sly. So, this protects me from violence, it seems that those that would be violent away from me, are not violent while they are next to me. It's like coffee beans in hot water, instead of like carrots in hot water. You know? Coffee beans turn the hot water into coffee, while carrots turn soft in hot water. So, I try to be more like coffee. Coffee of peace and love that is. LOL!
@ittybittybat What you say is interesting. It explains why the only black Buddhists I've ever encountered were university professors. I mean, openly Buddhist.
Class is more than about income. Hence "socio-economic" class. I've met many poor people with advanced degrees who are near the poverty level, yet they read the New Yorker, buy organic and practice yoga.
"Some sociologists make a distinction between ABSOLUTE POVERTY and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is characterized by the lack of basic necessities of life such as food, clean water, and housing. RELATIVE POVERTY refers to having a deficiency in material an economic resources COMPARED WITH some other population. However, even absolute poverty is, to some degree, relative, because standards for adequacy vary among an within societies and change across time. Thus, there is no universally accepted objective definition of poverty" (Mooney, Linda A.; Knox, David; Schacht, Caroline. "Understanding Social Problems" (2nd Ed.). Wadsworth; p. 249).
@compassionate_warrior: Yeah, if you weren't raised in that environment, it's difficult to understand. I probably wouldn't even understand it if I didn't have relatives who lived like that.
So I find myself looking at Buddhism in the UK and it seems to primarily prevalent in the middle classes. .... I wonder if this is because the middle classes have the time and resources to go looking for something while the poor are to caught up in the struggle of living to wonder about lifes deeper questions? I find myself intimidated by this, but this probably due to my conditioning by the English class system where I have by the dint of selling my labour for most of the time in my working life been conditioned to feel uncomfortable in the presence of my "betters". As a former addict, ex-crook, homeless guy and psych patient I really wonder if I could relate to such people."
.......
I'm middle class, I confess. But time and resources? I wish I had time and resources. I really do. Last time I checked, most of my middle class friends were also caught up in the struggle of living, with little time to wonder. 37 hour week is about average in the UK, regardless of class? Some get the minimum wage and others "just" live in bigger houses and eat organic. Some dull their minds drinking champagne and others drink cheap wine. Some watch the telly and others go to the theatre. Stereotypes. What does this have to do with anything? I know working class people who are articulate and creative and compassionate, and middle class people who are ignorant, inarticulate and selfish. And vica versa. I've met all kinds of people at Buddhist centres. All kinds. Former criminals, former drug addicts, those struggling with addictions, and those who just seem to have it all worked out and a clear state of mind. I even went to one class and met someone who sounded like he'd just got out of his tractor! (I'll leave it for you to decide whether he was a rich landowner or peasant farm labourer) What are you worrying about? Oh, yes, relating to such people. When you start talking about your life and experiences through the lens of Buddhism, or in the context of Buddhist discussions, you'll probably find you have a lot in common with them!
I am from a middle class family, but live in a working class situation. (my parents are well-off, but we are dirt poor, and wouldn't have a roof over our heads if not for their help). The class system is very much alive in the UK much to my disgust. I know that if I apply for a job, with my qualifications, having been taught interview skills&how to write an essay (I went to moderately bad schools but my mum is a teacher and forced me to do my homework and learn the important tings, thank goodness) I would have a much better chance of obtaining the job than another young parent with no college qualifications (they wouldn't be able to afford it after they had a baby at 17) and therefore no part time university degree (which I will follow with a teaching certificate). It is just unfair. I count myself to be very lucky, I might be living in high debts right now, but I know in 3 years time I will be a fully qualified teacher and I can pay them all off and still spend the holidays and weekends playing with my son. Where I live there are professional jobs for graduates and minimum wage jobs for everyone else. There is very little chance of a living unless you have an apprenticeship or a degree
I don't know any other Buddhists here, but I know that my friends who probably fit in to 'working class' are either vaguely christian or have rejected religion. My friends who are better off tend to be either christian, agnostic or pagan.
Yes, any talk here of working class versus upper class, etc, to be a sweeping generalization because we're talking trends on average. There's always going to be exceptions, folks being who they are. I came from a middle class, very conservative, very religious Christian family, for instance. Yet in the end I felt unsatisfied and looked outside the community and family. However, I was the exception in that community and family. There were people who had no room for religion at all in their lives in my family and community, of course. But, the ones who wanted a religious practice were satisfied with the one they had been taught they were supposed to follow, until me.
@Cinorjer pretty much my description as well although my parents were moderate democrats, parents are still very catholic to this day.
as for what I see at Bhavana Society in West Virginia USA, is a pretty even split between young hippie type college kids and older people, not very many in-betweeners like myself.
I'm beginning to think if some of the hesitancy was due to my ingrained working class predjudice against the middle class rather than the other way round.
Bingo. It was the Bodhisattva Carpenter who said, 'the meek shall inherit the earth'. We are born impoverished to die impoverished. Our riches are in enriching the lives of the Upper Class Buddhas, the middle class that we belong to and the lower classes, however we deem them to be, for they are the inheritance . . .
Until we can talk to the slightest person as if a manifest Buddha, we are all working class. In essence there are no class barriers, it is the very hardships of an unprivileged life that may bring us great potential.
Hey! Lol, i am so happy for all your great participation give yourself a good pat or clap. Buddha has answered all the above on class, caste, intellectual etc. Contemplate folks and read attentively. Buddha was a prince and king to be who is very high caste but slightly lower caste than the brahman ascetic practitioner then. The educated lots was lower than the royal family and brahman so fortg. Prince Sidhartta left home to search for the balance. He went around to learn from those highly intellectual lot, no answer. He pursued to learn from the ascetic lot by super intensive meditation than them amd observing a meal with only a grain sort of. You may see the sculture of buddha in skeleton self. Upon enlightened, he did not live like a noble caste but going around for alms for food one meal a day before noon. So, he has been all caste and class citizenship across the globe that you can possibly know of. What an awesomic grace of yourself.
Hmmm...interesting OP. I'd have to see the data from other areas of the US, I guess...my center is quite a mix, ethnically and economically (judging from our cars and clothing, lol - I've pulled up in some serious rattletraps over the years). Black, Hispanic, Taiwanese, Chinese, Malaysian, of course Tibetan, as well as us Northern European types. The older core students (as in 20 years+) are mostly Caucasian, though I think that may just reflect that naturally-changing demographics of any small American city.
Interesting thread. There is something going on there but I think it is more about "education" rather than "middle class". I have seen few folks in my sangha who neither have gone to college nor come from college educated families. I think that is because people typically come to Buddhism through reading and, to a degree, by finding logical issues with traditional religions. Folks without exposure to college generally do not read and do not intellectualize life as much. When they are in need of spiritual answers, they are probably likelier to find them in traditional Western religion whose preachers are physically available in the communities they live in and speak directly to the concerns of poverty and violence.
But there are always exceptions so I would not get too deeply into this, less we contribute more division to the already divided minds.
Due to social anxiety, I've never actually been to a Buddhist meet-up of any sort, so I can't shed any light in that sense, but I can add my own experience of finding Buddhism and maybe it'll be helpful or interesting to someone here.
My family and I are white, working class, but live in the UK countryside, a primarily upper-middle class area. Growing up, my friendship group was nearly all middle class too, including a few whose parents were land owners. Most were fierce atheists, not even interested in religion intellectually. Our schools were Church of England. Within my family I was seen as 'the smart one' and the only one expected to go to university and get a degree, so much so that it became my goal in life. Everything revolved around being educated and getting away from being working class.
Unfortunately, while it's fair to say that I am intelligent, my closest friends got better marks than me at school (even though they slacked off, at their own admission), so the extreme pressure of both my family's (plus my own) expectations on me and never measuring up to my middle class 'betters' actually led to me never even finishing my A Levels, let alone getting to university. I failed at the one goal I had.
I got so depressed I was in hospital for 3 months and received outpatient treatment for 3-4 years. I'm still not really better. But it was during my hospital stay that one of the staff found out I had an interest in Buddhism and subsequently did all she could to teach me about it (when I approached her that is. She wasn't pushy about it at all). She's a great role model and I'm very thankful she showed me the path.
But how did I even know about Buddhism in the first place? Well, I recall being taught about it briefly in school. In fact, I have a clear image of me drawing the dharma wheel and labelling the 8FP on its spokes (in blue fountain pen on lined, white paper in an orange exercise book even). We probably only did one or two classes on it, but it stuck with me.
Also, my dad and step dad are and were very judgemental, the latter in particular. He's anti just about everything and everyone who's not a right wing, middle class, white man. As such, I grew up hearing a lot of a hateful speech, but (thankfully!) I didn't allow myself to get brain washed by it and actually used it as fuel to be more open minded and compassionate to others. So being in such a hateful place pushed me to look outside and find something that fit with my childhood question of "Why can't everyone just get along?"
TL;DR - Non-religious, white, working class family surrounded by the middle classes, pursued education like it was all that mattered in the world, had a mental breakdown and found Buddhism through a professional. First learned about Buddhism briefly at school. Lived in a household where I held very different views of everyone else and subsequently searched for a belief system/others who shared my perspective on life. It matched well with Buddhism.
So, I guess one could argue that my being working class led me to Buddhism in a round about way. If I hadn't wanted to escape it so much, if going to uni wasn't such a unique thing in my family, I wouldn't have stressed myself out so much to get hospitalised. While there all I needed to think about was getting better, so without the many distractions normal daily life gives us, I was open to exploring Buddhism when I met the Buddhist staff member.
However, there are many variables here. For example, what if I lived in a working class area? What if I hadn't cared so much about education? What if I hadn't felt the need to find external justification for my open minded views or even, what if I hadn't clung to my own beliefs as a child and just allowed myself to be moulded by those around me into a closed minded adult? Perhaps in any of those cases I wouldn't have been pushed to find Buddhism.
. . . and maybe it'll be helpful or interesting to someone here.
very interesting :clap:
My sister suffers with social anxiety and depression. Not easy. You will find that a great deal of information is on the web, youtube and in interaction with seasoned Practitioners. You are as close to Buddhahood as the loon writing this reply :wave:
To be a Buddhist is to lose the class distinctions, the enlightened/unenlightened and sane/loon distinctions and find our way through the muddle of our middle . . .
Every person on this discussion will change, through age and circumstance. Some will change at will. Some will remain ignorant of the joys of volitional change. We are Buddhists, we go to the top of the class . . . or are we in a special needs class? Our choice? :scratch:
So I find myself looking at Buddhism in the UK and it seems to primarily prevalent in the middle classes.
That's generally what I've observed, and class is still very much an issue in the UK. I suppose it's about trying to see past peoples' background and conditioning.
I don't know exactly how we're defining class, but if it's in economic terms, I see in my community that a lot of lower income families seem either very religious already (mainly Christian or Hmong traditional), or quite non-religious. Neither category seems inclined to change their current status anytime soon
I see a sort of two-way divide (I think) in our middle class here - college educated and non-college educated. It's the college educated who, imo, are more likely to branch away from any religious/non-religious upbringing they may have had, and try a new religion--to include, but not limited to, Buddhism. I know a lot of college educated people my age, for example, who are trying out new branches of Christianity.
It might be interesting to ask the question from the other direction, i.e. as well as asking what's drawing certain people to Buddhism, what is it that's causing those people to seek a different path from that of their upbringing?
My .02 (from observation/experience) is that sects of Buddhism where meditation is emphasized seems to be more popular with more middle-to-upper SES folk.
Devotional sects of Buddhism seem to be much more popular with lower-SES people, and especially people of Asian ethnicity.
@Lonely_Traveller: When you're talking about "Western" Buddhism, do you mean Buddhism in the West or a specific sect of Buddhism known as "Western" Buddhism?
I don't know exactly how we're defining class, but if it's in economic terms, I see in my community that a lot of lower income families seem either very religious already (mainly Christian or Hmong traditional), or quite non-religious. Neither category seems inclined to change their current status anytime soon
I see a sort of two-way divide (I think) in our middle class here - college educated and non-college educated. It's the college educated who, imo, are more likely to branch away from any religious/non-religious upbringing they may have had, and try a new religion--to include, but not limited to, Buddhism. I know a lot of college educated people my age, for example, who are trying out new branches of Christianity.
It might be interesting to ask the question from the other direction, i.e. as well as asking what's drawing certain people to Buddhism, what is it that's causing those people to seek a different path from that of their upbringing?
For what it's worth, I usually define class in terms of economic and social relations. But in this instance, I think class refers more to income levels; and in this, I'd be considered 'working-poor' with no college education.
In answer to the OP, I've found the sanghas I've been a part of over the years to composed of a wide range of individuals, young and old, employed and unemployed, college educated and not, etc. It does seem as if the older members are usually college educated and more or less middle class, though. Why this is, I can't say. I don't think it's necessarily due to more time, however, since most seem very busy with work and family and can't always make it to meditation sessions, talks, retreats, etc.
Whatever the case, even though I don't have very much in common with the people in my present sangha, we all get along well. One reason is that we all have the same basic problems, and most of us have come to Buddhism to help us deal with them in a more skillful manner. I myself went from treating my unhappiness with drugs and alcohol to treating it with meditation and Dhamma talks (and an occasion drink with friends if I feel so inclined).
As for feeling uncomfortable around our 'betters,' Buddhism is about letting go of our attachments to what the Buddha called the eight worldly conditions, seeing them as inconstant, stressful, and subject to change. From the ultimate standpoint, there's no 'betters.'
"As a former addict, ex-crook, homeless guy and psych patient I really wonder if I could relate to such people."
There was an enlightened monk mentioned in his dharma advice that in the sangha, all are equally treated. Believe in yourself, let go your past for your wisdom to emerge, more precious than class....
When Buddha became enlightened, he was reluctant to teach. Why?
probably didn't tought many will understand him... there must be a sutra somewhere about this (but it is off-topic). Nothing to do with not reluctant to teach. It places emphasis on teacher and student relationship. And Buddha could not claim himself to be teacher unless there is beings who recognizes him and earnestly plead for him to impart. And when he was enlightened, there is completely tranquil bliss nature of both buddha and beings, entering the ultimate supremeness and prior to this awesomic episode, so grateful to the heavenly beings in the fifth heaven decended to plead buddha for his advice on enlightenmenr nature. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to be read as busibody. In current time, most monks also did not claim able to teach by themselves, normally is being requested for dharma talks. Patriarch Yin Kuang was also another great master who was discovered, otherwise, he continued with his routine bliss. I believe there are many not being discovered, most likely many of them in this community of newbuddhist...so please may i beg you to come forward to the sangha community to teach.
Comments
Class is more than about income. Hence "socio-economic" class. I've met many poor people with advanced degrees who are near the poverty level, yet they read the New Yorker, buy organic and practice yoga.
Spiny
My son had a talk with a Buddhist 'chaplain' during his six weeks on remand. I think we both found it comforting in a hard time.
We sound the same age
At my sangha most people tend to be from an educated class.....there aren't many locals from the inner city....but lots of health professionals, graduates and students.
I'm was brought up on a council estate by two working class parents. My main advantage in life was that I was taught to speak "correctly" which gave the perception that I was middle class. It's helped me so much.
I like to think of and practice Buddhism in a very simple form, in a way that I think Buddha probably intended. However, I do think it attracts a quite intellectual set and it can be incredibly intimidating.... with so much to learn. Such an environment indirectly disadvantages the already disadvantaged.
I'm unsure if It's possible to be a Buddhist in the west unless you have an open mind with the ability to think critically....unfortunately these attributes rarely are free.
I'm beginning to think if some of the hesitancy was due to my ingrained working class predjudice against the middle class rather than the other way round.
She grew up all her life thinking that if you tried hard enough you could make anything you want of yourself. But often for people who were raised in poverty it's not that simple to break the chain. They're missing some much needed resources or there are just many other factors that make it not as easy for them to be financially successful compared to someone who was born to a well off middle class family.
For much of America right now, the reality is, middle class almost doesn't exist. It used to, but it's becoming more and more rare. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. It's becoming mostly the poor class and the rich class. That is what I see in L.A. rather than "a middle class" anymore. The U.S. is very much turning into like a 3rd world country. That is how it is where I am from.
And people don't really care about each other here. That's why we we're the gang capital and the homeless capital of the U.S.A. because of the whole class thing going on. City hall, and all those rich corporate cats of downtown L.A. are right next to skid row, the largest homeless community in the U.S.A.. If I had the money, I'd do something about it.
Spiny
I mean, don't get me wrong, the educated well-off people in the suburbs give me shit about it, too (they never believe that I'm Buddhist because I'm black, and then they laugh at me about it and tell me I'm weird because I "worship Buddha"), but it's worse when your own people diss you. They are supposed to be the ones to stand up for you.
But, then again, it's also up to the individual. A person might be Buddhist, but they are probably not very open about it, or say that they are Christian just to get people off their backs.
But, this is where I think that Vajrayana would work, because you can utilize energy, you do the yantra yoga, strengthen your prana (winds, energy channels), strengthen your perception of energy, and then you can protect yourself in the hood while being Buddhist. Which is what I had to do. Bring that light down to a level that the hood can get with, because the hood leaves you alone as long as you're on your p's and q's and don't get caught slippin'. Now I'm considered "O.G." because of my past, but I just use it to protect me, while bringing light into every situation on the sly. So, this protects me from violence, it seems that those that would be violent away from me, are not violent while they are next to me. It's like coffee beans in hot water, instead of like carrots in hot water. You know? Coffee beans turn the hot water into coffee, while carrots turn soft in hot water. So, I try to be more like coffee. Coffee of peace and love that is. LOL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_deprivation#cite_note-Google_Print-0
@Vajraheart: Interesting story.
I don't know any other Buddhists here, but I know that my friends who probably fit in to 'working class' are either vaguely christian or have rejected religion. My friends who are better off tend to be either christian, agnostic or pagan.
as for what I see at Bhavana Society in West Virginia USA, is a pretty even split between young hippie type college kids and older people, not very many in-betweeners like myself.
It was the Bodhisattva Carpenter who said, 'the meek shall inherit the earth'. We are born impoverished to die impoverished. Our riches are in enriching the lives of the Upper Class Buddhas, the middle class that we belong to and the lower classes, however we deem them to be, for they are the inheritance . . .
Until we can talk to the slightest person as if a manifest Buddha, we are all working class. In essence there are no class barriers, it is the very hardships of an unprivileged life that may bring us great potential.
But there are always exceptions so I would not get too deeply into this, less we contribute more division to the already divided minds.
My family and I are white, working class, but live in the UK countryside, a primarily upper-middle class area. Growing up, my friendship group was nearly all middle class too, including a few whose parents were land owners. Most were fierce atheists, not even interested in religion intellectually. Our schools were Church of England. Within my family I was seen as 'the smart one' and the only one expected to go to university and get a degree, so much so that it became my goal in life. Everything revolved around being educated and getting away from being working class.
Unfortunately, while it's fair to say that I am intelligent, my closest friends got better marks than me at school (even though they slacked off, at their own admission), so the extreme pressure of both my family's (plus my own) expectations on me and never measuring up to my middle class 'betters' actually led to me never even finishing my A Levels, let alone getting to university. I failed at the one goal I had.
I got so depressed I was in hospital for 3 months and received outpatient treatment for 3-4 years. I'm still not really better. But it was during my hospital stay that one of the staff found out I had an interest in Buddhism and subsequently did all she could to teach me about it (when I approached her that is. She wasn't pushy about it at all). She's a great role model and I'm very thankful she showed me the path.
But how did I even know about Buddhism in the first place? Well, I recall being taught about it briefly in school. In fact, I have a clear image of me drawing the dharma wheel and labelling the 8FP on its spokes (in blue fountain pen on lined, white paper in an orange exercise book even). We probably only did one or two classes on it, but it stuck with me.
Also, my dad and step dad are and were very judgemental, the latter in particular. He's anti just about everything and everyone who's not a right wing, middle class, white man. As such, I grew up hearing a lot of a hateful speech, but (thankfully!) I didn't allow myself to get brain washed by it and actually used it as fuel to be more open minded and compassionate to others. So being in such a hateful place pushed me to look outside and find something that fit with my childhood question of "Why can't everyone just get along?"
TL;DR - Non-religious, white, working class family surrounded by the middle classes, pursued education like it was all that mattered in the world, had a mental breakdown and found Buddhism through a professional. First learned about Buddhism briefly at school. Lived in a household where I held very different views of everyone else and subsequently searched for a belief system/others who shared my perspective on life. It matched well with Buddhism.
So, I guess one could argue that my being working class led me to Buddhism in a round about way. If I hadn't wanted to escape it so much, if going to uni wasn't such a unique thing in my family, I wouldn't have stressed myself out so much to get hospitalised. While there all I needed to think about was getting better, so without the many distractions normal daily life gives us, I was open to exploring Buddhism when I met the Buddhist staff member.
However, there are many variables here. For example, what if I lived in a working class area? What if I hadn't cared so much about education? What if I hadn't felt the need to find external justification for my open minded views or even, what if I hadn't clung to my own beliefs as a child and just allowed myself to be moulded by those around me into a closed minded adult? Perhaps in any of those cases I wouldn't have been pushed to find Buddhism.
Sorry for the long post
My sister suffers with social anxiety and depression. Not easy.
You will find that a great deal of information is on the web, youtube and in interaction with seasoned Practitioners. You are as close to Buddhahood as the loon writing this reply :wave:
To be a Buddhist is to lose the class distinctions, the enlightened/unenlightened and sane/loon distinctions and find our way through the muddle of our middle . . .
Every person on this discussion will change, through age and circumstance. Some will change at will. Some will remain ignorant of the joys of volitional change. We are Buddhists, we go to the top of the class . . . or are we in a special needs class? Our choice? :scratch:
I see a sort of two-way divide (I think) in our middle class here - college educated and non-college educated. It's the college educated who, imo, are more likely to branch away from any religious/non-religious upbringing they may have had, and try a new religion--to include, but not limited to, Buddhism. I know a lot of college educated people my age, for example, who are trying out new branches of Christianity.
It might be interesting to ask the question from the other direction, i.e. as well as asking what's drawing certain people to Buddhism, what is it that's causing those people to seek a different path from that of their upbringing?
Devotional sects of Buddhism seem to be much more popular with lower-SES people, and especially people of Asian ethnicity.
@Lonely_Traveller: When you're talking about "Western" Buddhism, do you mean Buddhism in the West or a specific sect of Buddhism known as "Western" Buddhism?
In answer to the OP, I've found the sanghas I've been a part of over the years to composed of a wide range of individuals, young and old, employed and unemployed, college educated and not, etc. It does seem as if the older members are usually college educated and more or less middle class, though. Why this is, I can't say. I don't think it's necessarily due to more time, however, since most seem very busy with work and family and can't always make it to meditation sessions, talks, retreats, etc.
Whatever the case, even though I don't have very much in common with the people in my present sangha, we all get along well. One reason is that we all have the same basic problems, and most of us have come to Buddhism to help us deal with them in a more skillful manner. I myself went from treating my unhappiness with drugs and alcohol to treating it with meditation and Dhamma talks (and an occasion drink with friends if I feel so inclined).
As for feeling uncomfortable around our 'betters,' Buddhism is about letting go of our attachments to what the Buddha called the eight worldly conditions, seeing them as inconstant, stressful, and subject to change. From the ultimate standpoint, there's no 'betters.'
Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding
Freedom, Justice, Equality
Food, Clothing, Shelter
Love, Peace and Happiness
Notice that the initial 9 jewels must be obtained before Love, Peace and Happiness.
There was an enlightened monk mentioned in his dharma advice that in the sangha, all are equally treated. Believe in yourself, let go your past for your wisdom to emerge, more precious than class....
Nothing to do with not reluctant to teach. It places emphasis on teacher and student relationship. And Buddha could not claim himself to be teacher unless there is beings who recognizes him and earnestly plead for him to impart. And when he was enlightened, there is completely tranquil bliss nature of both buddha and beings, entering the ultimate supremeness and prior to this awesomic episode, so grateful to the heavenly beings in the fifth heaven decended to plead buddha for his advice on enlightenmenr nature. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to be read as busibody. In current time, most monks also did not claim able to teach by themselves, normally is being requested for dharma talks. Patriarch Yin Kuang was also another great master who was discovered, otherwise, he continued with his routine bliss. I believe there are many not being discovered, most likely many of them in this community of newbuddhist...so please may i beg you to come forward to the sangha community to teach.
The sutta you are looking for is the Ayacana Sutta. A wonderful read.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn06/sn06.001.than.html