I have over a dozen books on my bookshelf whose authors I don’t agree with when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of Buddhism and for that matter, Zen. This is not to say that if I had my way these books would be banned. These books are part of skillful means. (The authors have no idea but they are being used by the Buddhas to catch materialist fishes who might eventually, over time, see the light of Mahayana so as to give up their fishy materialist ways of perceiving the world.)
Over the years I have come to see that the Buddha’s true teaching (saddharma) is always being given which I hasten to add, is not easy to comprehend. The problem is that the majority of people are sound asleep while the teaching is being given! In order to wake them up and keep their attention before they doze off again, a skillful teacher, or just an average teacher, may even need to hire some clowns with their props to keep the faithful awake and interested! (Just kidding of course—but it is not a bad idea.)
What this really says is that most people are only interested in adolescent kitsch; who also lack any kind of ability to see the forest for the trees or understand that the finger pointing to the moon is not actually the moon. While their hormones are enjoying their ascendancy, and their spiritual intelligence is pretty much undeveloped, the only form of Buddhism that can be taught to them is one that seems to give its blessing to being in the here and the now, doing a lot of sitting meditation, atheism, agnosticism, and environmental activism, just to name a few.
It is not surprising to read that the Buddha was aware of all this. He knew right after his enlightenment that the Dharma he discovered was almost impossible for the average, run-of-the-mill person (prithagjana) to grasp who was caught up in materialism; who believed, in addition, that their real self was their physical body. Teaching moral behavior involving karma was about all such people could be taught—certainly nothing esoteric which actually had to do with the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Getting back to the books on my shelf that I don’t agree with, my disagreement only extends this far: the authors of these books sometimes say things that are contradicted by the Buddha's words. So my question is, ought we go adding our two cents to Buddhism when much of what we have to add is not in the canon or even implied? I would also agree that the final word is not in print nor is it even thinkable and even the best of Sutras can only hint at the absolute the Buddha uncovered. But some of the authors of the books on my shelf have clearly gone too far.
Let me finish by saying that Buddhism is open to a lot of modification being extremely flexible. Just look at its history how it has adapted to different cultures. Buddhism can be taught in a variety of ways provided one has sufficiently studied the Sutras;who has also had experiences those Sutras predict. Too far from this, I can only see trouble on the horizon for Buddhism.
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