Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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omph
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Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by omph »

I've been listening to Buddhist interviews and reading articles lately that has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism. At first I thought it was a joke -- but it appears not to be. Someone please enlighten me.
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Dan74
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

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catlady2112 wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:43 am I've been listening to Buddhist interviews and reading articles lately that has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism. At first I thought it was a joke -- but it appears not to be. Someone please enlighten me.
Perhaps it would help to provide a bit of context, quotes, etc. I'm not American, though I can perhaps guess what is meant, I don't want to run my mouth off on a wrong tangent.
_/|\_
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by justindesilva »

catlady2112 wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:43 am I've been listening to Buddhist interviews and reading articles lately that has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism. At first I thought it was a joke -- but it appears not to be. Someone please enlighten me.
Can I be enlightened on the meaning of Baby boomer Buddhist pl.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
catlady2112 wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:43 am ...has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism...
People who are grudgeful that the suttas and the practices that have built up around them do not necessarily align with their socialist ideals, perhaps? (A bit like how every second article in Tricyle is about "diversity", "empowerment", "environmental catastrophe" and "white privilege" etc.)

Or is it something else?

Looking forward to the clarification...

:popcorn:

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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DooDoot
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by DooDoot »

catlady2112 wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:43 am I've been listening to Buddhist interviews and reading articles lately that has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism. At first I thought it was a joke -- but it appears not to be. Someone please enlighten me.
Where do i fit in? :shrug: Generation X (Baby Bust) The term Generation X has been used at various times to describe alienated youth. OK. I am not guilty! :thumbsup:
Baby boomers (also known as boomers) are the demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The Baby Boom generation is most often defined as those individuals born between 1946 and 1964.
Baby boomers - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers
Millennials (millennial generation, Generation Y) is the phrase used to generally describe a person who reached adulthood in the early 21st century and covers the generation of people born between 1980 and 2000.
What is Millennial (Generation Y)? Webopedia Definition
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/millennials.html
:popcorn:
retrofuturist wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 4:47 am socialist ideals, perhaps? (A bit like how every second article in Tricyle is about "diversity", "empowerment", "environmental catastrophe" and "white privilege" etc.)
VBB, born 1944, therefore also not a Baby-Boomer thus also "not guilty"! :thumbsup: The following is VBB's latest offering!
One example of how victims of rape are humiliated or discredited was highly publicized in the U.S. this past fall. President Trump had nominated a judge named Brett Kavanaugh to fill an empty seat on the Supreme Court. Just as he was about to be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee a woman named Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology, alleged that when they were in high school, Kavanaugh had attempted to rape her at a party. Although she gave extremely convincing testimony ;) at a Senate hearing, even stating that she was “100 percent certain” that the boy who tried to rape her was Brett Kavanaugh (which would have disqualified him for the position), the Republican senators on the committee came to his defense and tried to discredit her testimony. In the end, the Senators dismissed her testimony – and that of other women who reported sexually inappropriate behavior on his part – and confirmed Kavanaugh to the Court.

When such moving testimony ;) is rejected, we can easily imagine the ordeals an ordinary woman must face in reporting sexual abuse by a person of power and stature. Nevertheless, over the past several years, a movement has gained ground in the U.S. (with offshoots in other countries) called “Me Too :!: ,” whereby women report how they were sexually abused or exploited by powerful men. In a number of cases, their revelations have brought to an end the careers of the men who abused them

https://www.lionsroar.com/a-buddhist-pe ... iberation/
Guilt is not something to be proven. Guilt is based on "moving testimony" rather than factual evidence. A woman can never lie, even when her witness friends did not affirm her testimony. :)
Mendicants, there are these eight noble expressions. What eight?

Saying you haven’t seen, heard, thought, or known something, and you haven’t. And saying you’ve seen, heard, thought, or known something, and you have.

These are the eight noble expressions.

https://suttacentral.net/an8.67/en/sujato
https://suttacentral.net/an8.68/en/sujato
Last edited by DooDoot on Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:27 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Pondera
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by Pondera »

Before the powers that be settled on 1980 as the defining year of the millennial - there was a “generation flux” between 1980 and 1984.

It consisted or consists of those people who came of age in the recession of 2008 - generally outlining the basic shyt deal we got when it was our time to enter the workforce and/or buy a house; settle down; raise a family - ie. right around the time the Sachs brothers were getting a huge bailout from the US govn’t for destroying the economy with their “derivative” trade methods. Ie. right around the time that Baby Boomers were cashing in and leaving the future generation high and dry.

You can still see it to this very day. I can barely afford rent. My baby boomer neighbour bought his house for $100,000 in the sixties or seventies and is making a cool million off the property now - selling it to some off shore interest who’s a god damn money launderer.

Meanwhile, I’m scraping by a living - driving my 2003 Hyundai Elantra while Baby Boomer Joe Shmo is suddenly concerned about the environment and decides to by a Tesla - because (what the Hell?) - he’s going through a mid life crises anyway.

Tasting the bitterness over here yet, OP?

That’s the gist of a millennials feelings towards the baby boomer generation.

Regarding Buddhism? I would say the issue is you want enlightenment and mindfulness and all of that jazz but you can’t find a powering station for your $80,000 Tesla - and that’s your dukkha.

Me? I’ve got a job which is going nowhere and I’m making ends meet every month, if I’m lucky. And short of being a slave to the system - I want peace and happiness too - and that’s my dukkha.

But - then again; I’m young. Baby Boomers are getting old. All of those years of prosperous materialistic living are catching up and weighing down on the baby boomer ego.

Me? I couldn’t be materialistic even if I wanted to. Can’t afford it. The economy is shit. My University degree didn’t do pluck all.

But trust me. I don’t begrudge you. All of my very successful brothers are boomers and I care about them and their problems dearly. I love them and I would help them with anything at the drop of a hat.

Everyone suffers. I wouldn’t wish bad on anyone at this stage in my life.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
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DooDoot
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by DooDoot »

Pondera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:23 am Sachs brothers were getting a huge bailout from the US govn’t...
Sutta Central just announced new Anti-BDS legislation banning Antisemitism on their website. Fortunate you are not posting the above, there, to avoid the Gulag. Born November 4, 1966 in Perth therefore also not a Baby-Boomer therefore also not guilty! :thumbsup:
Pondera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:23 amIt consisted or consists of those people who came of age in the recession of 2008 - generally outlining the basic shyt deal we got when it was our time to enter the workforce and/or buy a house; settle down; raise a family - ie. right around the time the Sachs brothers were getting a huge bailout from the US govn’t for destroying the economy with their “derivative” trade methods. Ie. right around the time that Baby Boomers were cashing in and leaving the future generation high and dry.

You can still see it to this very day. I can barely afford rent. My baby boomer neighbour bought his house for $100,000 in the sixties or seventies and is making a cool million off the property now - selling it to some off shore interest who’s a god damn money launderer.

Meanwhile, I’m scraping by a living - driving my 2003 Hyundai Elantra while Baby Boomer Joe Shmo is suddenly concerned about the environment and decides to by a Tesla - because (what the Hell?) - he’s going through a mid life crises anyway.

Tasting the bitterness over here yet, OP?

That’s the gist of a millennials feelings towards the baby boomer generation.

Me? I’ve got a job which is going nowhere and I’m making ends meet every month, if I’m lucky. And short of being a slave to the system - I want peace and happiness too - and that’s my dukkha.
OK, thank you for arousing my compassion. But how is this related to the "holding back the future of Buddhism"? Thanks :heart:
There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand.

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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

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DooDoot wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:29 am
Pondera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:23 am Sachs brothers were getting a huge bailout from the US govn’t...
Sutta Central just announced new Anti-BDS legislation banning Antisemitism on their website. Fortunate you are not posting the above, there, to avoid the Gulag. Born November 4, 1966 in Perth therefore also not a Baby-Boomer therefore also not guilty! :thumbsup:
Err. Please don’t accuse me of antisemitism, dear Guru DooDoot. It happened to be the Goldman Sach investment group that was trading in derivatives and brought down the US economy. I don’t really care about their ethnicity. I’m more ticked off that they messed the world up over night; went completely belly up; and THEN got a bail out. Again. They belong to history as one of leading causes of the 2008 recession. Whatever their ethnicity is, I don’t really care.

In fact the man who developed the algorithms for trading derivatives hails from my Alma Mater. He happens to be Asian in ethnicity- but again. I don’t really care. Greed is greed. There are good and bad people in every ethnicity.
Pondera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 5:23 amIt consisted or consists of those people who came of age in the recession of 2008 - generally outlining the basic shyt deal we got when it was our time to enter the workforce and/or buy a house; settle down; raise a family - ie. right around the time the Sachs brothers were getting a huge bailout from the US govn’t for destroying the economy with their “derivative” trade methods. Ie. right around the time that Baby Boomers were cashing in and leaving the future generation high and dry.

You can still see it to this very day. I can barely afford rent. My baby boomer neighbour bought his house for $100,000 in the sixties or seventies and is making a cool million off the property now - selling it to some off shore interest who’s a god damn money launderer.

Meanwhile, I’m scraping by a living - driving my 2003 Hyundai Elantra while Baby Boomer Joe Shmo is suddenly concerned about the environment and decides to by a Tesla - because (what the Hell?) - he’s going through a mid life crises anyway.

Tasting the bitterness over here yet, OP?

That’s the gist of a millennials feelings towards the baby boomer generation.

Me? I’ve got a job which is going nowhere and I’m making ends meet every month, if I’m lucky. And short of being a slave to the system - I want peace and happiness too - and that’s my dukkha.
OK, thank you for arousing my compassion. But how is this related to the "holding back the future of Buddhism"? Thanks :heart:
Don’t know. I’m just showing the OP why he or she might be suspicious of millennial disdain.

Materialism? Maybe? Maybe boomer Buddhism is highly materialistic? Maybe millennial Buddhists are suffering from a certain level of oppression and poverty.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

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It takes time for each individual to properly understand where hostility comes from. The younger the person, the less likely to have that understanding and the tendency is to direct such hostility towards authority figures which tends to be parents. Parents in turn, particularly buddhist ones i suppose, tend to become more tolerant. Meanwhile society, or the group mind, is continually being manufactured. In an economic paradigm which depends on consumption for survival the trend is towards fragmentation of the consumer base and one could speculate that tolerance or tolerance itself, because it tends to unite rather than fragment, is actively discouraged in order to broaden the consumer base and make the base more malleable because of it's belief in its independent thought. Just ideas. I don't watch tv, read news, listen to radio. Ignorance is bliss. Not really...

. "This, bhikkhus, the Tathāgata understands. And he understands: 'These standpoints, thus assumed and thus misapprehended, lead to such a future destination, to such a state in the world beyond.' He understands as well what transcends this, yet even that understanding he does not misapprehend. And because he is free from misapprehension, he has realized within himself the state of perfect peace. Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through non-clinging.

"These are those dhammas, bhikkhus, that are deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful and sublime, beyond the sphere of reasoning, subtle, comprehensible only to the wise, which the Tathāgata, having realized for himself with direct knowledge, propounds to others; and it is concerning these that those who would rightly praise the Tathāgata in accordance with reality would speak." -
https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn ... .bodh.html
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings DooDoot,

Yes, "eight noble expressions" vs "moving testimony" (or, uncorroborated proclamations of "lived experience") is a good example of where the Dhamma itself may deviate from or retard one's worldly ideals.

:buddha1:

We'll see what catlady says upon her return...

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by Spiny Norman »

It were tough being a Buddhist back in those days... :jumping:


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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by mikenz66 »

catlady2112 wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 3:43 am I've been listening to Buddhist interviews and reading articles lately that has led me to believe there is a wave of millennial anger towards Baby Boomers, blaming them for holding back the future of Buddhism. At first I thought it was a joke -- but it appears not to be. Someone please enlighten me.
Is this one of the sources?
Gen X and Millennial Perspectives
...
In interviews with thirty-three Generation X teachers, I discovered that in addition to putting diversity and justice concerns at the top of their agenda, they saw themselves as distinct from their baby boomer counterparts in a number of ways. The interviewees suggested Gen Xers are less individualistic and have a stronger desire for peer contact and accountability. Being more open to cross-lineage collaboration, they also said they are forging a more pluralistic, nonsectarian approach to Buddhism. Another common sentiment was that Gen X teachers have an increased awareness around the historic and cultural processes that have shaped Buddhism in the U.S. and are therefore more sensitive to the ways in which Western ethnocentrism has discarded certain aspects of traditional Asian Buddhism.
...
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-shifting- ... n-america/
:heart:
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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by DooDoot »

Thank you Mike. This appears to be a useful article. To add some quotes:
....first-generation American baby boomer teachers such as Lama Surya Das and Jack Kornfield, as well as popular Generation X teachers such as Noah Levine and Sumi Loundon Kim....

“the promise and the pitfalls” of the secularization of the dharma, the challenges of adapting the dharma to new contexts “without losing depth,”

Concern was expressed regarding the underrepresentation of Asian and Asian American teachers and lineages; closely related were critiques about the lack of racial, gender, and sexual orientation diversity within the predominantly white, straight, male American teacher body. While many teachers enthused that such conversations were long overdue, others decried what they characterized as the conflation of Buddhism and progressive politics...

One common distinction made in this early research was between the so-called “two Buddhisms” in America: “ethnic” and “convert.” According to the researchers, the ethnic or “immigrant” Buddhism of Asian Americans (what scholars now commonly refer to as heritage Buddhism) focused on communal, devotional, and merit-making activities within a traditional cosmological context, whereas the convert Buddhism of overwhelmingly white, upper-middle class practitioners was individualistic, primarily focused on meditation practice and psychological in its approach.

[interesting quote re baby boomer stereotype] Rev. Imamura’s letter echoes the early characterization of primarily white, meditation-based convert communities, observing that “White practitioners practice intensive psychotherapy on their cushions in a life-or-death struggle with the individual ego, whereas Asian Buddhists seem to just smile and eat together.”

One significant event at the Maha Teachers Council was a meeting between two groups of Western Buddhist teachers: the self-identified “pioneers,” or first-generation American teachers, and the “NextGen” teachers, with each group presenting a set of declarations and requests to the other. One of the three statements delivered by the younger group asserted that they would transform the dharma in their own unique way, being called, in particular, “to bring the dharma more fully to the needs of our diverse world, serving the Buddhist community more equally, and answering the call of injustice and inequality everywhere in our world.”

Regular Buddhist Geeks contributor Rohan Gunatillake, for instance, explained that he designed buddhify, a meditation app, after having conversations with millennial peers who were interested in Buddhist meditation but felt alienated from its association with “hippie or new age culture.

Generational differences between the boomers and Gen Xers are also highlighted in the Pragmatic Dharma community, which forms a large crossover with the Buddhist Geeks/Mediate.io network. Spearheaded by Kenneth Folk and Daniel Ingram, Pragmatic Dharma is a loose international virtual community that focuses on a developmental goal-oriented approach to awakening. Pragmatic Dharma presents itself as an alternative to the Buddhism taught by the “hippie” baby boomer generation, particularly the American Insight movement. They claim that within these lineages, meditation has been reduced to a therapeutic tool and the goal of enlightenment has been replaced with emotional well-being. In contrast, Pragmatic Dharma claims to offer a more “hardcore” approach that draws from various canonical Buddhist maps of awakening and is marked by a pragmatic, experiential, and transparent approach to meditation practice.

Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book (2008), presents his perspective as “the unrestrained voice of one from a generation whose radicals wore spikes and combat boots rather than beads and sandals, listened to the Sex Pistols rather than the Moody Blues, wouldn’t know a beat poet or early sixties dharma bum from a hole in the ground and thought that hippies were pretty friggin’ naive.” A similar framing is often found in the Dharma Punx community and its affiliated Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, a network started by Noah Levine. Levine’s memoir, Dharma Punx, details his journey to sobriety through Buddhist practice and his crafting of an alternative form of American Buddhism that draws its inspiration from the punk/hardcore scene rather than the hippie counterculture that shaped the first wave of American convert teachers.

The first generation of meditation-based convert practitioners brought the discourses of psychology, science, and liberal feminism to their encounter with already modernized forms of Asian Buddhism. With the “three turns,” previously excluded, neglected, or entirely new conversations—around critical race theory, postcolonial thought, and cultural studies—are shaping the dialogue of Buddhist modernism. These are not necessarily replacing earlier influences but sitting alongside them and engaging in often-heated debates.
Personally, I am struggling to picture how punk rock and the Sex Pistols fits into or would inspire Buddhism? If it is "anti-establishment" then that appears similar to "hippies" although where is the "peace & love" in punk rock? :shrug:
Punk rock (or "punk") is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in 1960s garage rock and other forms of what is now known as "proto-punk" music, punk rock bands rejected perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. ... As 1977 approached, punk became a major cultural phenomenon in the UK. It spawned a punk subculture expressing youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing and adornment (such as deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewelry, safety pins, and bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock
Whether the aggression of Gen-X punks wearing black leather or drugs & sexual excess of baby-boomer hippies, personally I struggle to see how these are identified with Buddhism. The suffering remains the same, both internal & external. :smile:

Video about 1970


Video about 9/11 and post 9/11
There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand.

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Re: Why so much hostility towards Baby Boomer Buddhists?

Post by Justsit »

DooDoot wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 1:16 pm Personally, I am struggling to picture how punk rock and the Sex Pistols fits into or would inspire Buddhism? If it is "anti-establishment" then that appears similar to "hippies" although where is the "peace & love" in punk rock? :shrug:
Punk is the antithesis of hippiedom!

There was a movement in the US a few years ago led by some young Buddhists who were or had been "punks." Some are still be around - Dharma Punx https://www.dharmapunxnyc.com/ was one, there were several groups some led by children of older American Buddhists. Brad Warner led a Soto Zen group, I think it was. They attracted quite a few young people who were struggling with finding their way in life, some had been involved in drugs and were looking for something to hang on to. Lots of tattoos and street language.

Another of the 84,000 dharma doors.

Image
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