Some Western Buddhists want a more Westernized stripped down model of Buddhism, Buddhism without all the Asian additions—one they can easily grasp. But now we need to pause for a minute and think about this. How far are we warranted to go with our project of making Buddhism more Western?
For the sake of this discussion, let's say we want to get rid of the Chinese rococo. Okay, an American Buddhist temple won’t look like Hsi Lai Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, California. Is that going to undermine Buddhism? Hardly. But how much further shall we go?
Buddhism does have an unchangeable essence, the mysterious Dharma the Buddha discovered or much the same, the pure Mind. Shall we dump that, too, along with the Chinese and Tibetan rococo replacing it, as much as possible, with modernist Bauhaus designs and agnosticism?
If we plan on getting rid of what the Buddha realized under the Bodhi-tree, in my opinion, we've gone too far. This is when Western Buddhism turns into nonsense. It has lost all legitimacy; its teachers being little more than pious frauds.
With too much change in which the core principle of Buddhism is no longer venerated nor sought after, what then replaces Buddhism, strictly speaking, is not Buddhism. It is a counterfeit Buddhism. If Western Buddhists want to reform Buddhism certain reforms are permitted, ones that are clearly external such as architectural or dress, etc. I rest my case.
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