As far as what Western Buddhism seems to be about, it’s teaching various forms of meditation, practicing awareness, and extending loving kindness. It is still undecided about the transcendent vs the secular (I guess you could also say ‘mundane’). This last part is sometimes found in the debate between self and no-self.
Many Western Buddhists are of the opinion that the Buddha taught a doctrine contrary to Brahmanism’s Ātman which is not true. If anything Buddhism is more of a reformation of Brahmanism according to the Buddhist scholar Christian Lindtner.
Western Buddhism faces some major challenges. Especially, its adoption of meditation seems almost gimmicky for the reason that if anyone sits down on a cushion like a zafu or a chair with good posture, in a quiet place, for twenty to forty minutes each day, this exercise will act to calm them down. They don't have to join a Buddhist community. But there is much more to meditation than just sitting and calming down.
And it is here that we come to what is missing in Western Buddhism. Is it awareness? No, not really. How about loving kindness? Again, no, not really. Truth be told it is meditation, but meditation that is about discovering in us what perfectly transcends the finitude of our psychophysical body including its eventual death. This can be illustrated using Zen master Tosotsu's Three Barriers:
1. You leave no stone unturned to explore profundity, simply to see into your true nature. Now, I want to ask you, just at this moment, where is your true nature?
2. If you realize your true nature, you are free from life and death. Tell me, when your eyesight leaves you at the last moment, how can you be free from life and death?
3. When you set yourself free from life and death, you should know your ultimate destination. So when the four elements separate, where will you go?
What Zen master Tosotsu is pointing out is the only thing worth realizing. This is what meditation is supposed to help us to realize. It’s not just about calming down. So this means that meditation is closer to being about intuition, that is, gaining direct insight into what our very being is made of. As strange as this might sound to the Western Buddhist this is what Siddhartha realized sitting under the Bodhi tree. But more importantly, if Western Buddhists don’t wish to go here are they really practicing Buddhism?
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