mikenz66 wrote:Kim O'Hara wrote:
...which is another way of saying it's pointless trying to impose a universal solution on multifarious people; also of saying that it would be far better to go out and talk to the real people we can perhaps share with, rather than setting up a line of imaginary stereotypical strawmen and deciding whether or not they should be knocked over.
I agree. I think it's better to try find common ground by interacting with, and trying to understand, people on their own terms before rushing to propose solutions to the real or imagined
shortcomings of their Dhamma culture...
Mike
daverupa wrote:It's worth spending quite a bit of time on solving these deep problems; "hopefully things will change" can only occur when people comprise the change, a fact which demands earnest personal engagement.
I conveyed a similar idea earlier, but notice how "impose" and "shortcomings" have made an appearance as part of the argument, when this way of engaging with the topic was never introduced except by those arguing against it.
It seems people see the Gombrich piece as challenging the way ASIAN CULTURE does things; but that's a red herring. It's challenging the way THERAVADAN BUDDHISTS have historically, and up to today, done things. That they have been mostly enmeshed in an Asian culture is purely incidental, and by speaking about these things I do so with Western biases, but
as a Buddhist. This is the playing field within which we should communicate, not some culture or emergent tradition.
This incessant nation/culture/etc. talk is precisely the problem.