underzen

@tinker@infosec.exchange I like to read, and at first I approached Buddhism as a “whole,” so I read books from various “denominations.” On the one hand, this allowed me to grasp the fundamentals of Buddhism, so I'm not in danger of falling into the trap of “McMindfulness” I hope... at the same time, it also gave me the chance to see how the “denominations" greatly differ from each other in some aspects.

@tinker@infosec.exchange Perhaps this is happening now within Western civilization as well, and something like “Western Buddhism” is emerging. It’s probably too early to say, but maybe in time it will become a new, fourth fundamental “vehicle” of Buddhism. Or maybe not...

@tinker@infosec.exchange I think the problem with religion and philosophy is that the “blues” will always claim that the only correct way is the “blue” way, and that the “reds” are doing everything completely wrong. When a religion is transplanted to another region, its authenticity always suffers, and a new culture (and with it, new biases) become intertwined with it. This happened to Buddhism many times as well.

@tinker@infosec.exchange I'm generally secular myself but still feel like missing something spiritual. That's probably why I like secular Buddhism. I haven’t noticed supremacy there, and I try to avoid McMindfulness. But maybe I'm just a few steps behind you and will end up at some traditional Eastern school too 😀

@tinker@infosec.exchange One note on secular Buddhism: yes, with the McMindfulness pop culture, one has to be careful. Similar to stoicism, you quickly run into the manosphere and fitness bro culture through algorithms*... *Somehwre I've heard quite fitting and funny term "karma of algorithms"

@tinker@infosec.exchange Wow! So much great info, thanks. I actually have nothing else to add, just gratitude. I'll try some podcasts and see for myself if it's what I'm looking for. I knew about Tricycle and Lion's roar, but I've never tried to plug in keywords and search for articles that way for some reason...

@tinker@infosec.exchange Even a significant portion of today’s “talking heads” on Buddhism in the West whom I "subscribe" either have no children at all, or they don't talk about them or their families in podcasts or videos, nor do they write about them in books or on social media. Thanks for recommending the book on this topic, I will read it if I can find it somewhere.

@tinker@infosec.exchange I have a theory that as a significant portion of American Buddhists were formerly beatniks and hippies (wanderers through life, often childless), a counterculture of like-minded people formed around them, and perhaps this persists to some extent even today, so the Dharma tends to attract like-minded types of people.

@theyycmonk@mstdn.ca I'm not Canadian and I'm not into Tibetan Buddhism, but thanks a lot for this post!

@IanThistlethwaite I'll give it a listen! So far, I've listened to all your albums on Spotify, from the oldest ones all the way up to "Rot".

@IanThistlethwaite I like most of it! I listen to it as background music while working. The only thing I didn't like that much was the bagpipes (were those bagpipes?) that you used in a few albums. But maybe it was just because it was too distracting for work.