I suspect the reason is because Buddhism is lumped in with the other major world religions, and therefore considered a form of faith or belief. If the author knew Buddhism well then they would realise that couldn't be further from the truth.
Another possibility has occurred to me: they know Buddhism but don't want to scare away readers that have the above misconception. Actually I often find myself avoiding Buddhist terminology when I'm asked about my meditation practices.
I had major misconceptions about Buddhism for years, and avoided anything related. This was probably because of a very toxic (Christian) religious upbringing that left me very suspicious of anything resembling religion.
When I started getting curious (and later serious) about meditation and then started going down the rabbit hole of understanding Buddhism, I couldn’t believe just how completely different it was than I was expecting, and how useful it was without taking on any metaphysical or otherwise religious beliefs.
I also find myself dancing around the details when I talk about meditation now. The misconceptions run deep, and I always feel compelled to clarify that I’m not talking about anything religious. I often think about how I would introduce a past me to these concepts without scaring that person away. I think it boils down to focusing on the philosophical ideas and experiential possibilities without touching any of the jargon.
The secular core of Buddhist thought has parallels in the Sankhya system of thought in the set of knowledge systems collectively called Hindu metaphysics.
Buddhism and Hinduism had active and passionately debated exchanges of ideas leading to continuous improvement of each.
Hinduism while considered to be a religion broadly speaking has a philosophical core that is rich and sophisticated in its treatment of the mind and how to observe and tame it. The thick outer layer of colorful belief systems makes it easy to reject it all as nonsense and hard to penetrate to get to the metaphysics of the mind.
The subjects discussed in this newsletter would be some of the first things a neophyte monk in 200 BC India would encounter whether couched in Buddhist or Hindu wrappers.
Hot take -- religion is a Western concept that formed the basis of a strategy for colonialism. The latest Dune movie references this well.
Buddhism as a lived experience is a set of guidelines and practices that direct a way of living. Ask folks from India as well and they will say Hinduism is a way of life and that is their "dharma".
The word "dharma" itself is often used as a translation for the religion, however it is closest to duty. And a Hindu will often follow practices from both Hinduism and Buddhism because ultimately they aren't in conflict and religion isn't meant to be identity. If you follow it as such, there is nothing to avoid.
> Buddhism as a lived experience is a set of guidelines and practices that direct a way of living.
Pretty much all sincerely religious people would describe their religion in these terms, including christians.
Buddhism and hinduism are certainly religions as well, especially when you look at the culturally embedded practice of them in asian cultures. "Only able to respect religions that they can consider not really religions" is a whole type of guy you find a lot on the internet. But globally it's a very fringe extreme minority kind of religious experience.
You can just value and respect religious experience, even though or, radically for this venue, perhaps because they are religion.
There's a body of thought that agrees. it says that at root it's the definition of the distinction between religion and the non religion. In defining what a religion is we define what it is not.
State Vs religion for example. How should religions affect a secular society. I'm not sure but it kind of started explicitly around the first millennium AD but some see the seeds before that embedded within from the beginning.
Another possibility has occurred to me: they know Buddhism but don't want to scare away readers that have the above misconception. Actually I often find myself avoiding Buddhist terminology when I'm asked about my meditation practices.