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Even on this site, there are times I feel like pointing out, you also can't just sit with *everything* and focus on your breathing...
But, don't assume that all the struggling people are going nowhere. Failure at meditation can be part of meditation.
I agree that Buddhists often appear to give scripted and unfeeling answers to serious problems. Such as
'I've been bereaved'
'Consider that everything is impermanent'.
but even these people are usually doing their very best - they've just decided to rewrite their entire value system, and it stands to reason that they will stumble at first when trying to apply what they've learned. I think it's better to be in a bad way and making progress than in a mediocre way and stagnant.
Blame the Buddha, or whichever committee of monks wrote certain passages, for some of it e.g. the loathsomeness of food, contemplation of corpses etc. Just as Christianity has a lot to latch onto if you feel like becoming a holy warrior, Buddhism has a lot of memes which facilitate a career as an unfeeling killjoy robot.
Also, and sorry for the consecutive posts, we have to remember that war, pestilence, famine and so on are just around the corner, potentially. It's not like treading water is a good option or that ending suffering isn't worth the effort.
I was unhappy and now I'm happy. That's all I really know.
This does sound pretty extreme. I wonder which dharma centers this guy has visited?
I'm sure there are plenty of them. It's the same with universal churches and yoga centers. Whenever you gather "spiritual" people together, chances are its just going to be one huge egocentric circle jerk. Obviously, not all places are like this, but as little as I know about Buddhist Sanghas, I'd bet money on it being the same kind of thing in a lot of places, particularly in the west.
I honestly haven't found this to be the case in the various Buddhist groups I've been involved in - so I wonder what experience he's actually basing his comments on.
Well that's good! I'm just not sure how common an experience a positive one like yours is. I went to my first Buddhist group last week and there were people there who seemed a little... Odd.
It probably has a lot to do with factors like region and country. I live in Toronto and we have a lot of those hippy types, Arizona in the States is overflowing with them... There's probably fewer of them in the bible belt states. There are a bajillion of them on Etsy
Comments
I agree that Buddhists often appear to give scripted and unfeeling answers to serious problems. Such as
'I've been bereaved'
'Consider that everything is impermanent'.
but even these people are usually doing their very best - they've just decided to rewrite their entire value system, and it stands to reason that they will stumble at first when trying to apply what they've learned. I think it's better to be in a bad way and making progress than in a mediocre way and stagnant.
Blame the Buddha, or whichever committee of monks wrote certain passages, for some of it e.g. the loathsomeness of food, contemplation of corpses etc. Just as Christianity has a lot to latch onto if you feel like becoming a holy warrior, Buddhism has a lot of memes which facilitate a career as an unfeeling killjoy robot.
I was unhappy and now I'm happy. That's all I really know.
Well that's good! I'm just not sure how common an experience a positive one like yours is. I went to my first Buddhist group last week and there were people there who seemed a little... Odd.
It probably has a lot to do with factors like region and country. I live in Toronto and we have a lot of those hippy types, Arizona in the States is overflowing with them... There's probably fewer of them in the bible belt states. There are a bajillion of them on Etsy