A growing internecine conflict in modern Buddhism

It is becoming more recognized that an internecine conflict has developed in Buddhism between interpretations of Buddhism that rely on the Buddhist canon and  secular Buddhist interpretations which ignore much of the Buddhist canon.

Key to understanding secular Buddhism, judging from its various sources, is secular Buddhism develops out of a reaction to the Buddhist canon, itself, insofar as various ideas within the canon do not chime with secularism.  It is important to note that secularism does not accept religious gnosis as a valid form of knowledge whereby the adept is directly in communion with ultimate reality which happens to be immaterial.  

If the differences between traditional Buddhism and secular Buddhism were only a matter of interpreting what the Buddha meant by nirvana, for example, there would not have arisen such an internecine conflict.  The gravamen of the conflict is that secular Buddhism rejects, a priori, much of the Buddhist canon only allowing certain discoures of the Buddha to pass muster.

What secular Buddhism should be understood as really being is secularism that embraces some of what the Buddha taught and, for that matter, also embraces some things Jesus taught, and so on.

Where the internecine conflict gets nasty, for want of a better term, is when secular Buddhists believe they have the right to reform Buddhism by expunging certain key notions such as rebirth and karma and radically modifying others such as nirvana; not safeguarding these notions as the Buddha cautions us to do.  (As I have mentioned before in an earlier blog, without rebirth nirvana is impossible to achieve simply because, using the Buddha’s own example, it requires several lifetimes.) 

Comments

[The Zennist]

Mikearmour63: If owing such people the right to be on the path means for The Zennist blog to not criticize secular Buddhism, which is its Constitutional right, the answer is no! They are not owed the right.

[Mikearmour63]

My mind is sometimes annoyed by some who claim to be Buddhists yet deny some of the teaching. However do I not owe them the right to be wherever they are on the path?
Love alwaz. Mike @mikearmour63