Bound to happen. Why do you think Buddha has to leave all his wealth and kingdom before even starting the journey of mindfulness, leaving everything behind?
The western adaptation is reducing meditation and mindfulness to a "tool" of relieving stress and better ones mental well-being. As easy as downloading an app and stay calm for few minutes.
Unfortunately, this is not ideal. The traditional way is to seek a guru who asks the disciple to cleanse their heart first. Put them on the spiritual path of purifying the soul. Meditation is a part of ones spiritual journey. Some even leave everything and go to forest or mountains to practice for years.
Fortunately, for those who want to live in a society closely, they should practice "Raja Yoga" which is also a spiritual path where one raises their spiritual plane by helping others and following ones duty with high-integrity.
However simple breathing exercises still work for the body and can be easily incorporated into every day lives. There are so many apps helping with the patterns of different breathing techniques.
But don't expect you or anyone to become a better person just by doing some mindfulness exercises. When one goes to discover/amplify their inner core, you will just highlight whats inside you more. I.e. if you are bad, you will get worse. Mindfulness has nothing to do with it but just amplifying what is already there as you discover yourself more through mindfulness.
It's not like the West doesn't have its own meditative and contemplative traditions. The Cynics and Stoics of the Classical world could have very diverse attitudes to wealth and material comforts, with the former being quite more disdainful of them and quite literally "living like dogs". We see the same thing in Western ascetic monasticism later on - some Western monks and nuns focus on helping others and doing their assigned duty in society, while others pursue a more focused spiritual and contemplative path.
There's a passage by Chesterton where he jokes that many of his contemporaries had simply become bored with Christianity and would happily embrace it again if it came wrapped in the exotic garbs of a far away land.
An interesting anecdote I've experienced on this topic living abroad is how many Buddhists, in an almost exclusively Buddhist nation, have some degree of admiration for Christianity while having some degree of disdain for their own religion or philosophy.
I think it's the foreign aspect, but also another one is that when you have limited experience of what a casual Christian (or Buddhist) is like, it creates a falsely positive impression. Many of the Christians people in this country would be familiar with are a mixture of missionaries and people who came and did things like set up schools and hospitals for people at little to no cost. And, vice versa, Buddhists Americans are generally familiar with are going to be those genuinely interested in the pursuit for its own sake, rather than driven to such out of cultural inertia.
By contrast here you get daily news about things such as monks being busted running illegal gambling dens, and sometimes the rather more perverse. And there's also a culture associating various Buddhist icons with good luck which trends towards a complete bastardization and mockery of it as people try to literally use such for good luck. Think of something like the equivalent of a poker player praying to God 'Just one time, Jesus' while rubbing a crucifix. The various Buddhist "rituals" for good results during finals are well, not something that's going to exactly exemplify the moral pursuits of Buddhism.
Seeing people express something along the lines of the myth of the noble savage, when you're that savage and certainly not noble is quite interesting, and jading!
Yes, the sangha in natively Buddhist countries can be a rather mixed bag but that's just as true of the various churches and other religions in the West. These things are somewhat natural when you have a religion in a "popular" role.
and seneca the stoic had 300 million sestertii total net worth, compared to the ordinary yearly wage of 200 sestertii, give or take!
lots of rich religious folks out there in history. when they expropriated the buddhists in the huichang expropriation during the tang, they took tens of millions of acres of arable land and liberated 150,000 temple slaves
I don't know that it's necessarily fair to describe this as a purely Western phenomenon. The Lamas were a hereditary elite who ruled over Tibet in a brutal caste system which reduced most of the people in it to the status of serfs, and all with their own particular strain of Buddhism used to justify and excuse it all. On our fridge, my wife has a picture of the Dalai Lama wearing a big fancy watch on his wrist. I always wonder how such a luxurious ostentation is supposed to fit in with what he preaches.
In a way, it is good for a famous spiritual leader to have obvious human flaws. I don't know too much about modern Buddhism but I don't think it would be good for Buddhists to worship their leader as being more than a mere mortal who might enjoy wearing a fancy watch.
It's a petty concern for someone who visits world leaders and maintain international relations at that level. It could be a conversation-starter in more unofficial moments, for fun (spiritual people are allowed 1 teaspoon of fun each day!) or just being practical.
These kinds of topics are unfortunately what the focus many will remain at.
generally speaking -- rolex collections don't spring up from practical reasons -- and he's known to purposely use cheap watch bands and flip the watch faces towards his wrists in an effort to hide them from view..
The man has to keep time, and has the money to throw at that... Ever seen the dude all distracted starting into an iphone? He has clearly done away with such worldly goods and isn't making a dime on that at all! [1]
Great article, thanks. Can't fault a man for having a passion for mechanical watches, especially when as the article states he has disassembled / assembled some of them. I can only begin to imagine the fine motor and mental control required.
> Some even leave everything and go to forest or mountains to practice for years.
Except the Buddha and his stories explicitly advised against asceticism...
> they should practice "Raja Yoga" which is also a spiritual path where one raises their spiritual plane
Again, according to who? Why not Jesus? Or Scientology? What's your personal experience?
> However simple breathing exercises still work for the body and can be easily incorporated into every day lives.
Well this is out of nowhere. It doesn't connect to anything that's been said. Do you do this?
> When one goes to discover/amplify their inner core
Inner core is new. What's that and who asked? Is it the same as a True Self?
I'd say let's just focus on this: "Meditation is a part of ones spiritual journey." That's correct and all this issue needs. MBSR and the other sanitized, faith-cleansed scientifically quantifiable practices are not synonymous with mindfulness, meditation, or Buddhism. They're tangential, and for some they are nice greeters at the door to a path of spirituality.
Yeah. I know even living in B'lore you are blind to your own culture. The authentic breathing techniques are passed on by so many practitioners and time-tested, unlike modern western crap.
- Why not Jesus?
Because church bastardized Jesus so hard, they filled the whole fucking book with prruuuufs of his existence instead of teaching the essence of his thinking.
Stop wasting your time on Church and find better alternatives from the east.
The western adaptation is reducing meditation and mindfulness to a "tool" of relieving stress and better ones mental well-being. As easy as downloading an app and stay calm for few minutes.
Unfortunately, this is not ideal. The traditional way is to seek a guru who asks the disciple to cleanse their heart first. Put them on the spiritual path of purifying the soul. Meditation is a part of ones spiritual journey. Some even leave everything and go to forest or mountains to practice for years.
Fortunately, for those who want to live in a society closely, they should practice "Raja Yoga" which is also a spiritual path where one raises their spiritual plane by helping others and following ones duty with high-integrity.
However simple breathing exercises still work for the body and can be easily incorporated into every day lives. There are so many apps helping with the patterns of different breathing techniques.
But don't expect you or anyone to become a better person just by doing some mindfulness exercises. When one goes to discover/amplify their inner core, you will just highlight whats inside you more. I.e. if you are bad, you will get worse. Mindfulness has nothing to do with it but just amplifying what is already there as you discover yourself more through mindfulness.