4NT little known in the East?

[pilgrim]

According to Wikipedia "The Four Noble Truths are little known in the Far East." source

Is this really true?

By my limited experience, yes matey.

I have freinds who are Malaysian buddhists (their school translates as "one way path") and they know nowt of buddhism as it is mostly discussed here.

In other ways though they know more about being buddhist than 99 out of 100 of the more traditional type buddhists I've ever yet met.

if by "one Way Path" you are referring to the "It Kuan Tao", they are seen as a cult which borrows Buddhist ideas, and not accepted by the Buddhist mainstream.

[pink_trike]

oLuang Por Chah once said that one of the reasons that it was important for the Dhamma to be established in the west, was so that it could be reimported to those cultures where folk religion had replaced the Dhamma. He said that westerners were seeing the Dhamma with less cultural accretion. He added that westerners have their own limited vision too, an over reliance on philisophical approaches, and that perhaps between the west and Asia we could all see " with two eyes".

[BudSas]

According to Wikipedia "The Four Noble Truths are little known in the Far East." source

Is this really true?

Not true!

It depends on how one defines what "Far East" means! According, again, to Wikipedia on "Far East", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East, it's an old term which is currently a combination of "East Asia" and "Southeast Asia". If this is the case, then one would see both Mahayana and Theravada traditions exist in the "Far East" region.

- The Four Noble Truths, are well known in Southeast Asia countries where Theravada Buddhism is dominant.

- The Four Noble Truths are also mentioned in the Heart Sutra (although in negative term), which is revered and chanted daily by many Mahayana Buddhists in East Asia.

BDS