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#Post#: 32644--------------------------------------------------
Re: Westernized Hedonist "Buddhism" vs Real Buddhism
DIR By: 90sRetroFan
Date: May 22, 2026, 8:36 am
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"isn't Buddhism about reducing suffering (dukkha)?"
I would say that Buddhism is not necessarily about
quantitatively reducing suffering per unit time, which is how
you seem to be visualizing it here:
"Sympathetic grief is a problem, because in feeling it, you're
essentially adding your own suffering on top of the suffering of
the person that you feel compassion towards."
Instead I think you got it correct in this part:
"The entire purpose of the Noble Eightfold Path is the cessation
of suffering."
Buddhism aims to eventually reach an endpoint characterized by
absence of suffering. But this endpoint is not necessarily
reached via a trajectory where suffering is only ever on the
decrease. It may indeed even be that such trajectories cannot
lead to such an endpoint. To use a graphic analogy, we solve a
maze by finding a path from the entrance to the exit. Such a
path does not necessarily involve only steps that move us closer
to the exit; on the contrary, we may often have to take many
intermediate steps that move us further from the exit in order
to ultimately reach the exit.
HTML https://smartkidworld.com/worksheets/mazes/picture/mazes-picture-leaf-caterpillar-01.png
"Wouldn't going out of your way to feel emotional distress
contradict the intended purpose of the religion?"
No, given the above.
"The aim is to feel compassion unhindered by grief."
I would argue that compassion without grief is mere academic
awareness that a victim is undeservedly suffering as a matter of
fact. I feel suspicious towards this, because it is a condition
that can result merely from becoming accustomed to each
particular form of victim. For example, the first time I
witnessed fishing as a young child, I definitely felt a strong
emotion of what you call sympathetic grief. I am also ashamed to
admit that, having witnessed many more instances of fishing over
subsequent decades, while I still feel some sympathetic grief,
it is considerably weaker in intensity. This is how I know that
much of my Original Nobility has been lost. Of course no number
of instances of witnessing fishing will ever persuade me that
fishing is unproblematic behaviour, so by your standards I am
doing well spiritually. But subjectively it is obvious to myself
that where I am now is worse than where I used to be.
"I don't think that establishing inner peace is necessarily
contradictory to the goal of removing suffering from the world."
It would be uncontradictory only if the maze happens to have a
path from the entrance to the exit that involves only steps that
move you closer to the exit:
HTML https://mazymaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/simple-maze-design.jpg
I hardly need to add that this subset of mazes within the set of
all possible mazes is an extremely small subset.
#Post#: 33146--------------------------------------------------
Re: Westernized Hedonist "Buddhism" vs Real Buddhism
DIR By: 90sRetroFan
Date: August 23, 2026, 2:42 am
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AlpEa5QeaJQ
Notice what Harari did there? He was asked to give advice to
Buddhists and he instead gave advice to practitioners of
meditation, despite:
1) Buddhists not necessarily being practitioners of meditation;
2) practitioners of meditation not necessarily being Buddhist.
And the interviewers did not critically point this out. The
effect on uninformed listeners is surely to reduce awareness of
1) and/or 2), and instead reinforce the casual mental
association between Buddhism and meditation, in line with:
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_the_West#Contemporary_Western_Buddhism
--- Quote ---
> The regular practice of meditation as a central focus is also
a common feature of most modern Western Buddhist groups.[112]
The exception are those groups like Soka Gakkai which are
chanting focused. Much of contemporary Buddhism in the West is
influenced by the spread of lay practice centers, where
laypersons meet for meditation practice and also may stay for
meditation retreats.[113] While rituals are not absent in
contemporary traditions, they are less likely to be seen as
providing supernatural benefits.[114] The Vipassana or insight
movement is one example that is particularly innovative and
non-traditional. It is led by lay teachers, with democratic
forms of organization and promoting mainly meditation with
minimal doctrinal content and ritual.
--- End Quote ---
Previous Harari coverage:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/progressive-yahwism/msg9632/#msg9632
Of course:
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari
--- Quote ---
> Yuval Noah Harari[a] (born 1976)[1] is an Israeli medievalist,
military historian, public intellectual,[2][3][4] and popular
science writer. He is a professor of history at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.[1]
--- End Quote ---
And by no coincidence:
--- Quote ---
> He has practised Vipassana meditation since 2000[64] and said
that it "transformed" his life.[58] As of 2017, he practised for
two hours every day (one hour each at the start and end of his
work day[65]); every year undertook a meditation retreat of 30
days or longer, in silence and with no books or social
media;[66][67][26] and is an assistant meditation teacher.[68]
--- End Quote ---
::)
Moreover:
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassana_movement#United_States_and_Western_world
--- Quote ---
> Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein taught a series of classes
at Naropa University in 1974, and began teaching a series of
retreats together for the next two years.
> ...
> In 1976 Kornfield and Goldstein, along with Sharon Salzberg
and Jacqueline Schwartz founded the Insight Meditation Society
in Barre, Massachusetts.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kornfield
--- Quote ---
> Kornfield is of Jewish descent
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Salzberg
--- Quote ---
> Born in New York City to a Jewish family
--- End Quote ---
Anyone want to take bets on Goldstein's and Schwartz's
Jewishness?
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/jews-have-nothing-in-common-with-us!/
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