New Book is Out: American Dharma by Ann Gleig

I think we need to consider numbers. Buddhists make up…what, 1% percent of the population of the USA? And it’s not a particularly politically influential 1% (unlike, say, Christians in Japan, who make up ~1% of the population of that country but well above 1% of the country’s past prime ministers). Plus, American Buddhists are more geographically scattered than Mormons in the USA, or Sikhs in India, which makes it hard to speak of an American Buddhist “community.”

In other words, we need to consider what Americans Buddhists can really do with such small numbers and communities. Something like the Dharma Prison Project is probably effective because only requires a small number of motivated teachers.

I guess I’m inclined to agree with this sentiment. But I also question to what extent entangling the two is even necessary. IMHO there is nothing wrong with being a “progressive/conservative/engaged person” who just so happens to be a Buddhist, with the latter being independent of the former. I personally never felt an urge to slap the label “Buddhist” onto my political or social beliefs…I dunno if that’s a good or a bad thing.

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You know, I remember reading a quotation (I dunno who said it) that was something like, “The Church chose the poor, but the poor chose the Pentecostals.” It was addressing the irony that, despite the Catholic church advertising a “preferential option for the poor,” poor ppl in Latin America are leaving the Catholic Church in droves to join Pentecostal churches (many of which emphasize the “prosperity Gospel”).

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“We make the road by walking” :kissing_heart:

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@Mat I respect your input. Your comments here read to me as highly general.
What is just too early to pin down? The general direction & evolution of American Buddhism?


In a more actionable direction I think it’s relevant to practice to attend to the mental frameworks through which I interpret the EBT’s. I come with the general assumption that my scientific and social knowledge expands the value and wisdom of the EBT’s. But does it always? What are the blind spots created by this knowledge? Indeed in modern or post-modern perspectives and values?

As for examples of mental frameworks (privileged perspectives, lens) I interpret concepts of the Second Noble Truth from a more recent perspective of cognitive biases. Mentions of using medicine in the EBTs causes reflections on modern medical practice and research, public health and even social science work on the impacts of general societal stability and harmony on general heath.

In my opinion it is also important to distinguish between Buddhists in the United States who are of European descent and who have adopted Buddhism as adults, and Buddhists in the United States who are either recent immigrants from Asia or the descendants of immigrants from Asia.

I attend a Wat in the U.S. at which most of the laypeople are Thai, Lao, or from elsewhere in Southeast Asia. There is a small group of attendees who are of European descent. At a recent meditation session that was intended for and attended by native-born English-speaking Euro-Americans, the monk who was leading the lesson said, and I quote, “Americans who come to the Wat come here to meditate. Thai people who come here come to practice the Buddhist religion.”

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Apropos of some variations of post-modernism and the EBTs, I came across a couple of instructive quotes:

What did de Man believe? That’s the mystery. Deconstruction is a via negativa . It’s good for getting down to what de Man called the mechanical level of language. But it can’t bring anything substantive back, because anything substantive is subject to the rigors of deconstruction all over again. Deconstruction started to run into the sands when it got used to interpret texts in conformance with the political views of the interpreter (a type of self-fulfilling prophecy that afflicts many schools of criticism). Deconstruction is not a train you can get off of at the most convenient station.
The De Man Case | The New Yorker

A problem with deconstructionism is that, contrary to the advise of the quote, many seem to use it as a train to get off at the most ideologically convenient station. It seems to me that one take away from the 2nd Noble Truth is a warning that getting off at the familiar station can lead to dukkha.

"In short, (Postmodern/Pluralism IE-Green Meme) believes that it is universally true that there are no universal truths; it believes that its view is superior, but it also believes that there are no superior views anywhere.

This is called a “performative contradiction”, because you yourself are doing what you claim you cannot or should not do.

This view ranks ranking as being bad; judges judging as being oppressive; gives a very Big Picture about why Big Pictures are not possible; claims it is universally true that there are no universal truths; places hierarchies on the lowest level of its particular hierarchy; and claims its view is superior in a world where nothing is supposed to be superior."
– Ken Wilber : The Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision for the Future of the Great Traditions

I think Wilber gets that part mostly right.

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Good interview with the author about the book.

It was funny to hear them talk about online “sanghas”. The interview took place about 6 months before anyone heard the word “covid”.

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