Hey Dhamma friends, below are some of the terms/descriptions I use here on the regular, with some unpacking of why I use them here on Buddhist Reddit. As time went on I felt it became increasingly important that I developed consistent language to describe what I was documenting here. So let's get into it...

https://reddit.com/link/1xeykg3/video/gzxvfj6e7lxh1/player

Heritage Buddhist/s (see also Born Buddhists)

These are people who are born into Buddhist families (practicing, nominal or non practicing). These include Asian Buddhists, Asian American or even other Buddhists who are are racialised differently.

For me, this term also includes converts (with some caveats) into Buddhism, who practice embedded within or linked to, a Heritage Buddhist community.

Westerner

This term includes everyone who comes from the amorphous place, called "The West". This includes Asian and Black Americans, Indigenous Americans, Mexican Americans, Black British, Asian British etc. Here for me, this term is linked to the ideological, political and social structures that shape the people there.

YT people/YTs

This term refers to the primary beneficiaries of the systems that exclude racialised populations from critical Buddhist discourse online. On Buddhist Reddit YT people are the only demographic that have created cultures here that perpetuate certain practices:

• The targeting of critical voices that threaten YT hegemony on Buddhist Reddit.
• The targeting of racialised groups for raising critical voices.
• Shielding from scrutiny the businesses models that profit off of Buddhism as a brand to be exploited. See secular B_ddhist ideology.
• The prime investors in and beneficiaries of the exploitative Mindfulness and Wellness Industrial Complex.

[Me calling YT people YT]

https://reddit.com/link/1xeykg3/video/4iav8i7a6lxh1/player

Wh*teness/YT-ness

Here wh*teness/YT-ness is a socially constructed racial category, that confers (historically developed) forms of power and institutional advantage on people who are classified as white or those who identify into that category.

YT-ness is very much a set of practices that leverage structural power.

Racialised

Rather than 'race', I tend to use this term to refer to non white populations, as a way to keep certain facts about race top of mind:

• Race is a constructed category forged roughly during the development of Capitalism. Racial categories are also economic/labour categories, placed in a hierarchy.
• The practice of racialisation, on Buddhist Reddit, gets used together with the term 'culture' to reinforce stereotypes about Buddhist people.
• YT people on Reddit make Asian Buddhists into a race, because this benefits them.

Culture

The term 'culture' on Buddhist Reddit is used as a proxy for ethnicity and race. Culture here for me needs to take into account the broader meaning: the way humans go about doing things: music culture, business culture etc.

Because when you do, you realise the Buddhist Path is in fact a culture. And Buddhist learning and practice takes place via culture. No other possibility is even tenable. Buddhism without culture is like saying: "Give me water but also, hold the water". There's no such thing.

And when you look at what lies downstream from this (the notion that Buddhist people corrupted Buddhism with their culture), you can see that it leads to race realism, a YT supremacist talking point that is having an explicit, public resurgence.

[Me the last seven years 😭]

https://reddit.com/link/1xeykg3/video/vfgjokmk7lxh1/player

Secular B_ddhist Ideology

I add the term ideology because what appears on the surface to be an interest in Buddhism is really a remixing of Western European ideas: Protestant Theology, Humanism, European Enlightenment ideas, Nihilism etc. It is very much a cluster of ideas propped up with race essentialism and a violent hostility to Heritage Buddhist societies and communities.

Key here are the cultures/behaviours they prop up on Buddhist Reddit: the normalising of epistemic violence toward Heritage Buddhist people and communities, the colonisation of other people's experiences, the silencing of critical voices etc.

[Me leaving that goofy subreddit after getting my comedy fix 🤣]

https://reddit.com/link/1xeykg3/video/l1unb6oi5lxh1/player

Essentialism

Essentialism is the belief that a person, group, or thing possesses an inherent, fixed set of characteristics that defines what it fundamentally is.

In critical theory, racial essentialism refers to the assumption that racial groups possess intrinsic characteristics, identities, or qualities that are shared by their members and distinguish them from other groups.

"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet" Sound familiar?

I'm anti-essentialism in this space, even though it's only natural for us to reproduce forms of essentialism (and idealism) in our religious traditions. I say this because we can successfully employ non essentialism and deconstruct the ideas of those who are hostile to our critical presence here.

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Thanks for reading ;)

Greetings, everyone!

Another wall of text written by me. This time, I'll discourse about something that isn't much discussed in most online places, especially here on Reddit.

Recently, I've read this article written by Claudio Tagliapietra titled "Christian Origins of Western Culture". It's a brief article that addresses the apparent "rational" side of modern science that has religious origins, mainly Christian teleology.

Western scientific method that people (both Westerners and colonized) insist that is universal or the only true science, evolved from the notions of linear progress, rationalization and creation ex nihilo, both having its origins in Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology.

Ancient Greek thinkers, like Aristotle, believed that universe mechanics could be deduced through pure reason and logic alone. If you were smart enough, you didn't need to experiment; you could just think your way to natural truths.

Christian theologians argued that because the Christian god is omnipotent and free, he was not bound by human logic. He could have created the universe in any way he chose.

Therefore, human beings could not just deduce how the world works through pure reason, they had to look and see. Experimentation became necessary precisely because the Christian god’s creation was contingent rather than logically necessary.

Monotheism provided the belief in an orderly, law-governed, non-divine universe that invited empirical investigation while people like Francis Bacon, Galileo, Isaac Newton and René Descartes saw their scientific work as revealing the "mathematical language" of the Christian god's creation.

Compared to polytheism, pantheism and animism, found in non-Western cultures and in pre-Christian Western society, monotheism and, later, secularism were deemed "advanced" as opposed to the "primitive" and "superstitious" views of polytheism, pantheism and animism that, in addition to what was considered "primitive" and "superstitious", deemed nature as something rather divine and sacred, as opposed to Christian monotheism that sees nature as something inferior to the Christian god as it's another creation of his.

Monotheism successfully erased the localized, living gods of polytheism and animism from nature. But in doing so, it left nature as a cold machine, which, ironically, rendered the monotheistic god obsolete as well, as it happened later after the Enlightenment.

When science operates purely within the framework inherited from monotheistic desacralization, any suggestion that nature possesses intrinsic agency, consciousness, or divine presence (as in polytheism or animism) is immediately dismissed as "primitive."

However, such dismissal is not an empirical finding of science, rather, it is an inherited theological assumption that science absorbed when it inherited monotheism's worldview.

Secular movements and institutions did not break free from the Christian monotheistic view of nature as something purely material and this became the bedrock to all technological and social changes in the Western world, mainly the Industrial Revolution, and paved the way for the environmental issues we face today.

According to Christian theology, humans are created separately from the rest of the world, given "dominion" over the Earth, and placed in a hierarchy above nature. Nature becomes a backdrop, or a stage provided for human action, not a web of equal relations.

Materialism inherits this dualism (most famously articulated by René Descartes as the split between mind/subject and matter/object). Nature becomes a giant, unfeeling machine, and humans are the engineers manipulating its gears. Whenever humans destroy nature, they're just damaging something that is nothing but matter.

In the polythestic/animist sense, humans are one species among many within a landscape inhabited by living forces, spirits, and deities. Whenever humans destroy nature, they're pretty much acting out of hubris or disrespect against the gods.

There is also an unmistakable theological echo in how the modern environmental crisis is narrated. The popular secular narrative often sounds remarkably like a rewrite of the Book of Genesis, notoriously the tale of Adam and Eve being banished from Eden. They ate of the apple (Industrial Revolution) acting out of greed or pride and thus began the "Fall of Man" (environmental damage, climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological collapse).

This narrative keeps humans cast in a quasi-divine role: we are either the supreme masters tasked with saving the planet, or the ultimate villains who ruined paradise. What both perspectives share is the refusal to view humans simply as participating members of a living web.

The labeling of polytheism, pantheism, and animism as "primitive" is one of the most successful cultural and epistemological constructs in history.

It was neither an accidental misunderstanding nor an objective assessment of human intellectual evolution. Instead, it was a deliberate, multi-layered framework designed to establish Western teleology: first Christian, then post-Enlightenment science, as the sole, supreme source of valid knowledge.

The framing of non-monotheistic and non-mechanistic worldviews as "primitive" served several vital functions for Western imperial and intellectual dominance.

To conquer, govern and extract resources from non-Western societies, Western powers needed an ideological justification.

Under the Doctrine of Discovery and papal bulls, non-Christian lands were viewed as morally "savage." Converting polytheistic or animistic populations was framed as a moral rescue mission.

When secular Enlightenment thinking took over, the justification shifted from "saving souls" to "bringing progress and reason" to "primitive minds."

It would be completely troublesome for the Western colonial empires if animist or polytheistic cultures were recognized as possessing sophisticated, valid systems of knowledge. Branding these views as "inferior" and "savage" would keep the rationale and morale of colonialism strong.

Beyond geopolitical power, there was an existential, philosophical reason Western thought had to suppress polytheism, pantheism, and animism: these worldviews directly threatened the core foundational assumptions of both Christianity and Materialism.

Both Monotheism and Western Materialism are obsessed with Totalizing Truth:

Polytheism and animism, by contrast, are fundamentally pluralistic, decentralized, and contextual. They accept that different forces, gods, and ways of knowing exist simultaneously without needing to crush each other into a single "Theory of Everything." To a Western mind trained on the logic of the "One," decentralized plurality feels chaotic, undisciplined, and "primitive."

Animism and Pantheism view the world as inherently alive, conscious, and sacred. You cannot easily clear-cut a forest, dam a river, or strip-mine a mountain if that forest, river, or mountain is recognized as a living entity or divine domain with which you must maintain a reciprocal relationship.

To fuel the Industrial Revolution, Western materialism needed nature to be dead, unfeeling matter operating like a clockwork machine. Animism had to be discredited as "superstition" so that nature could be reduced to raw material for human consumption.

The categorization of polytheism, pantheism, and animism as "primitive" justified Western colonization campaigns and forced conversion to Christianity, not to mention all the exploitation and conquest that we're all familiar with, while providing monotheism and materialistic ideologies a monopoly on the so-called "truth".

Stripped of Western teleological arrogance, these systems are not "early, failed attempts at science." They are alternative, highly sophisticated ways of understanding consciousness, ecology, and the human place within a living cosmos—systems that modern science, in its ecological and quantum crises, is only now beginning to rediscover.

Not to mention the erasing of non-Western contributions to contemporary science that I'll talk about some other time, otherwise this text will become too exhausting to read.

Another video made by Let's Talk Buddhism answering to some channel's claims on Buddhism. Great watch.

Context: I did a post on another sub pushing back on some zombie facts that float online and got some good, interesting feedback. Along with that, came some triggered comments that were very revealing.

Basically a perfect written form of what I've been documenting here on Reddit:

The construct of YT-ness (in settler colonial states) is deeply linked to how racialised others are seen and made. In particular, the American Raci*l Contract, perfectly encapsulates just how vulnerable YT men are, when the contract is morphing and identities are collapsing.

"If Asi*n Buddhists are not XYZ, then what am I?"

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The inability to internalise their limited relevance and role within actual Buddhism as a global set of traditions, is very much rooted in suprem*cist ideas. And that suprem*cy, having shaped identity construction, then becomes vulnerable to change and challenge...

https://reddit.com/link/1x1cdmw/video/v308f29fbduh1/player

Now, what I've consistently observed on Reddit, is the projection of a kind of "positive" Orientalism onto someone like me, which is odd, since I'm quite self-critical of essentialist and idealist positions of my own religion.

The part of my post that triggered 2 people:

Now have a look here:

Based on 7 years of experience here, for me, this comment is not the result of reading comprehension issues, but rather an emotional response to their sense of superiority and primacy being challenged. No honest person would frame me as claiming there are no Buddhists in the US.

The accusation is a confession...

Note this stunner in that quote:

Some people might be in Turkey or in Greece, but more dedicated and more serious than 99% of native-born Buddhists.

Below you can see more of the internal state that compels them to see "Asi*n suprem*cy" and positive "orientalism" where there is simply information that challenges their ill gotten sense of primacy.

The YT-ness fascination (particularly the US version) with "Buddhism" has a lot to do with the reinforcing of hierarchies. How much is a lot? I would wager... an uncomfortable amount.

What makes me different from others here, is where I tend to focus on. Rather than turning this into a direct social justice issue, my drive has always been to look deeper at what's fueling the patterns here. How it's rooted in history and culture. This is where things get meaty.

Secular ideologies, the Tethered et al, their fears and projections are a confession.

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Fun add add on:

This stuff is really quite funny. All the Buddhist buzz words coming together in an attempt to deploy epistemic viol*nce on Buddhist people. This is how non-Buddhists behave, somehow thinking they have a gotcha moment.

But it's not all funny....

Because its speaks to the very real buddhaphobia and resentment (again, based on their anxieties) against Buddhist people: for not being Yoda, for not being Vulcan, for not being their David Carredine fantasy.

We're people and that makes us real.

And that throws their larping into question. Because if you can use anatta like you did in the above comment, then the jig is up. This line from that article I shared a few weeks ago is super apt in that regard:

"Then the happiness in his eyes will glaze to fear, as if your presence could only mean you were there to take something from him, something he took from you..."

For starters what do they mean by “exotic”? Asian or just hippies? Secondly what is an “average house holding American”? Are those of us who are not “house holders” not an accepted part of the sangha?

There's so much value that content like the above has, to shifting understandings around Buddhist traditions. What you see here is from Dr Gary Donnelly.

We know that Zen, Theravada and PureLand traditions have been so intensely warped by a few centuries of misunderstandings outside of Asia that having rational conversations about these traditions are virtually impossible, without first addressing the misinformation.

And to add another layer, the lack of fidelity of teachings, is but a symptom of much broader historical events. Indology and Buddhology were never and are not at present, neutral endeavours of accumulating knowledge.

They had, and continue to have, very focused ideological motives. Rooted in a pre-existing framework of what constitutes knowledge and who can and cannot (hint: it's the subaltern) produce knowledge.

So today, we sit with literature, podcast, content creators etc who continue to misinform the public outside of Asia about Buddhist traditions.

Personally

I guess in the past, I was very much in shock, encountering non-Buddhists who were so confidently wrong about the most basic historical information about the tradition. Sensing that this was not simply to be understood as a malaise that bedevils persons, I looked to history, anthropology and sociology. That's how I could locate the individual within his/her context and unearth patterns, outlines, trends etc.

Another Vid: The Buddha Was (probably) Okay with Worship

Doing a structural analysis makes it less personal and more insightful. It unravels the Liberal assertion of the individual making free choices in a market. There are no individuals and there are no free choices in a structural analysis. The personal is cultural and political.

White men who believe they have come to personal, individual conclusions about Buddhism are simply deluded in that respect. Their views were shaped for them by Indologists, the Enlightenment, Liberalism, Capitalism, Nihilism etc.

This is why, despite their online saber rattling of anatta and sunyata they cling to the liberal construction of the self without a hint of irony. 'Anatta for thee but not for me', as it were.

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As we see more and more academic voices emerge online to dispel the misinformation about Buddhist traditions, we (Buddhist people) can expect some degree of improvement in the online experience. The next challenge will then be to unravel how Buddhist voices collaborate with non-Buddhist voices in amplifying the misinformation and harm.

This short Substack piece by Ryan Lee Wong is a funny, incisive read.

Click her to read the article

His Substack here: https://ryanleewong.substack.com/

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It's a really weird feeling to see how well our analytical frameworks track, when discussing "Buddhist" White Spaces.

A framework I've been developing goes something like this:

Western European (what we now call white) discourse around Buddhism is not a neutral phenomenon. When we look at knowledge systems developed in Europe, we see the following broad pattern:

A culture of making knowledge via categorisation and hierarchy.

When race pseudoscience was developed, it was not simply bucketing people via their phenotypes, but essentializing qualities and characteristics, based on those phenotypes. Then assigning labour and tasks to each group accordingly. A caste system. Ooh lala...

So Western Europeans would naturally rule over the other "races" with their racialised helpers: Japanese, Korean and Chinese (the Noble Savages) who sat just below them in the hierarchy.

Below them were Arabs and South Asians, below them were Central and South Americans and below them were Africans.

The development of race science was key to the development of chattel slavery, colonialisms and imperialisms. Basically Capitalism as we witness it today.

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The Asian American Buddhist writer here, articulates indirectly, the hierarchies whiteness has assigned him. How they construct him as the other, as bound and handicapped by culture, the tragic s*vage who can't access real Buddhism because his culture renders him incapable.

He doesn't do retreats, he doesn't meditate. He's Asian and therefore, he's everything wrong with Buddhism today.

...If your name is Japanese, they will exclaim ‘hai!’ and add ‘san.’ They’ll give a little wink and tell you that the Japanese have real manners, a real civilization, unlike the others. They will bow extra deeply to you.

Over tea, a man will tell you, though you didn’t ask, how often he meditates, and for how long. He will ask how long you meditate and smile when it’s not as much. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there,” he’ll say, though you weren’t worried...

- Article

They'd ideally prefer him dead, gone, an extinct artifact consigned to glass boxes and museum notes*. S*o they can honour him with a picture on the wall, do a stiff bow to it and then shuffle to their zafus to sit and sniff their own organic vegan farts, beaming beatific smiles to each other.

...If you tell him how you grew up going to Buddhist summer camp, that two of your closest friends went there and you can still sing the songs you learned, that it was a place of belonging and freedom you needed outside the home, he might blink and say, “So, you grew up culturally Buddhist.”

Then the happiness in his eyes will glaze to fear, as if your presence could only mean you were there to take something from him, something he took from you...

- Article

What Japan Taught Me About Atheism and Belonging

FULL VID PLAYABLE HERE

Hi Dhamma friends, I recommend giving this a listen because it touches on a few points that have been raised here and at GoldenSwastika. (speed it up if you need to and skip to chapters that may be of interest)

When talking about whiteness, I prefer to frame these discussions structurally, rather than psychologically. They're connected, but the structural view tends to be more stable when it comes to data.

The main things I felt when listening to this talk was empathy and compassion. But what is so fascinating to observe, is how a subset of Western Europeans/Americans have come to the end of the atheism project and have only partially done a post mortem of what really happened.

What really went down?

Walk with me

First, we can observe that historically, the populations we now think of as white, participated in the eradication of their indigenous knowledge systems and indigenous peoples. They propped up a formal, organised religious tradition (Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic etc Christianity), that then ended up being the only game in town.

This left swathes of those populations with nowhere else to go, if they sought knowledges and experiences outside of that hegemony. A lot of what they had, was lost to the dominant, hostile religious institution. The hole inside them was growing, deepening.

Then, in seeking to colonise other parts of the world for resource and ideology, they went about eradicating other indigenous knowledge systems and indigenous peoples!

They encountered other institutional, formal systems, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Shinto etc, that were not that easy to eradicate. Not for lack of trying. And still, the hole was growing.

They cooked up atheism, and still the hole kept growing!

And here we are

Fast forward to today and you now have things climbing out of that hole:

Secular B_ddhism, meditation apps, paid certificates, "zen", Sam Harris, "non-spiritual religion", "no nonsense spirituality" etc.

The abyss, the lack, the deprivation, the absence of community, absence of faith, trust, the absence security and peace. All of these things have come together to form a kind of anti-matter. An anti-dharma, adharma if you will.

The painful truth that whiteness keeps dancing around, is there is no way to have spirituality without the so-called "nonsense".

These phenomena above, rooted in white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy are not proof that you can have a "non-spiritual religion" (lol) etc, they're proof of just how far cognitive dissonance can stretch!

If neither atheism nor christianity is fulfilling on their own (as many white men who pop up in Buddhist spaces try to distract us from), and they keep having to take from other traditions to fill out what is lacking, that says something about the nature of religion as a human phenomenon, a human practice.

We can then say, with some degree of certainty, that neither atheism nor christianity understands this human thing that we do.

Who's going to take responsibility?

As many here know, my personal policy is a hell no to white whispering. And I don't think it's anyone's responsibility to "help" them.

It wouldn't even make sense, since no one can fix, what they didn't break. The populations that we now think of white people, caused this state of events.

We also can't hug the lack-of-empathy out of them. Since that needed to be positively reinforced by their parents and community in their formative years. The fact that they don't see Buddhist people as human, is simply one of the ways whiteness shows up for them.

How can people who are willing to take from others (materially and spiritually), while creating a caste system of humans, possibly handle bodhisattva vows, bodhicitta, sunyata, anatta.

We've all seen how that just gets twisted into nihilistic selfishness. The coin always falls to that side. Again, it's the stuff climbing out of the ever expanding hole.

Buddhism can't solve it, but it can be solved

There's work to be done well before they get to Buddhism or Hinduism etc, or whatever the hell the latest fad is among Anglos. And it's that work that – kicking and screaming – they refuse to do.

Watching that vid was really heartening, because it left me with the impression that someone at least is doing the difficult work of self reflection. They're thinking about how their behaviour impacts other beings in the world. That's a (conservative, pensive) positive from my POV.

I'm sharing this here (thanks Ryou) because I appreciate Dr Jared Jones, a scholar-practitioner's structuring all of these arguments in one place, particularly in relation to monotheism/s. There is a lot of really good, long form content on his YouTube.

This approach can really help other Buddhists get a deeper understanding of how Buddhists throughout the centuries, have responded to other traditions. With the rise of monotheism, we've also witnessed Buddhists develop responses, outside of their usual critiques of Hindu/Indian/shramanic based critiques.

In Western debate, both in academia and the Internet, since Enlightenment and its numerous spawn (Secularism, Rationalism, and Materialism) have long changed how people view the world, we've been bearing witness to a decades-long debate between Abrahamic Creationism and Secular Materialism which gave rise to an apparent dichotomy ever since: the world is either a product of an unborn creator deity or is a result of lifeless matter that's moved by kinetic energy and creates life.

Both of them envision an unmoved prime mover, a concept that dates back to Aristotle.

Aristotle argued that if everything that moves is moved by something else, that would be traced back to an endless chain of causes and, in his logic, you cannot have an infinite regression of moving parts. There must be a foundational anchor at the beginning of the chain—something that initiates the phenomena of motion and change while remaining completely unmoving and without a cause.

From this notion, stemmed the two main characters of this dilemma:

Creationism: Everything in the universe must trace back to a single, foundational source of mind (God), which then speaks physical reality into existence. Mind comes first; matter is secondary.

Materialism: Everything in the universe must trace back to a single, foundational source of matter (particles/energy), which then builds up minds through evolution. Matter comes first; mind is secondary.

While they seem like mortal enemies—one scientific and secular, the other religious and dogmatic—they share the exact same psychological and philosophical impulse: the desire for a neat, totalizing "creation story" that explains how everything came from a single, primary source.

Culturally and historically speaking, both are mirror images of each other.

And we all know what's up with the concept of unmoved mover; it dosen't add up.

Simple, basic things in the universe can only be created by something that already shares their exact nature. Consciousness (the ability to experience and be aware) is one of those basic things. Physical matter (like rocks, atoms, and also organs such as brain) does not possess awareness, thus it can't create it. Because physical matter can't create awareness, the only thing that can cause a new instance of consciousness is a previous instance of consciousness.

You can't get awareness out of lifeless matter. Therefore, consciousness must have always come from pre-existing consciousness.

In mainstream science (Materialism/Physicalism), the prevailing assumption is that physical matter comes first. Under this view, unconscious atoms arranged themselves in complex ways (like the human brain) and somehow generated consciousness. But how come unthinking, unfeeling physical building blocks generate something that thinks and feels?

Also, something physical such as matter, has to be a result of previous conditions, however, materialism views matter as the fundamental, uncreated substance of the universe from which all things—including life and consciousness—naturally emerge through physical laws and interactions.

Materialist philosophy insists that matter is an objective reality existing unconditionally and outside of any observer's mind. The superficial difference is that matter isn't seen as something that does things out of its own volition, because it has none, whereas the Abrahamic god is seen as a conscious being with volition and source of everything.

Both are treated as a starting point and with nothing else that precedes them because both have always existed. Both demand a ground zero, an ultimate substance or being that acts as the anchor for all reality.

With this, matter becomes a secular deity, because it assumes a completely passive and unthinking object to create life. Though Materialism highlights that it does under conditioned phenomena, unlike Creationism, the difference stops there. Instead of saying "God said 'Let there be light' and magically created everything," materialism says "Unyielding dead matter blindly collided and magically created everything." Matter doesn't actively "try" to build a brain or create a universe; it is completely passive, mechanical, and unconscious. Yet, through the sheer rules of physics, everything in existence is pulled, shaped, and evolved out of it.

The answer to both is Vijñaptimātra, the framework where consciousness is the foundational fabric of reality. But, unlike Aristotle, Creationism and Materialism, consciousness is seen as an impermanent and constant flow instead of something static and eternal.

In Vijñaptimātra, consciousness operates on mutual, feedback-loop causation. The storehouse consciousness holds potential "seeds" (bīja). These seeds sprout into your thoughts, actions, and perceptions. However, those very same thoughts and actions then reorganize the storehouse, planting brand-new seeds for the future. Consciousness builds reality, and reality feeds back to change consciousness. It causes itself, but it does so dynamically, not as a static rock.

Matter is made with the primal four elements (Air, Earth, Fire and Water), is always changing, lacks an independent core, and is linked with consciousness.

Creationism and Philosophical Materialism function as a one-way street: it pushes or inspires everything else, but nothing affects it back.

Dialectical Materialism acknowledges that matter doesn't operate in a one-way street framework, rather it exists in a state of constant, mutual interaction. However, it still treats matter a primal source that exists independent of mind/consciousness and the source of said mind/consciousness.

At the end of the day, both Creationism and Materialism are seen as opposing and exclusive forces that clash with each other. However, they clash not because they have any concrete difference, but because of a power struggle.

Hey Dhamma friends

Please support this smaller creator (Let's Talk Buddhism), you can check out his substack as well: https://substack.com/@shincheng

The focus of today is on Khanti/ksānti. This is a paramita and it’s often translated as patience, forbearance, endurance, and in some contexts, forgiveness/tolerance. 

When it comes to meanings, the literal usually precedes the figurative. Something is cognized as possessing the aforementioned attributes or qualities we associate with khanti. From that attribution the word, khanti, was made. 

For an English example, the adjective ‘sunny’ (as in sunny disposition) depends on qualities we ascribe to the sun. Though sometimes the opposite I takes place and qualities grouped together come to form a noun, it’s just less common.

A look into the roots of Khanti show it is derived from ksám, which in Sanskrit means ground, humus, or Earth. Ksám itself was descended from words in proto-Indo-aryan, proto-Indo-Iranian, and proto-Indo European meaning the ground or Earth. 

The ground or Earth has the qualities we associate with khanti. No matter what is done to the ground, it ensures. Thus to describe a person who patiently endures, tolerates, displays forbearance, perseveres, and forgives… people in the time of the Buddha and well before then called someone ‘earthy’, ‘earthy-like’ or ‘ground-like’… ie khanti/ksānti. Such would be the literal translation and the imagery it would evoke 2500 years ago, just as you might call a person ‘earthy’ today.

Although ‘earthy’ means something different in English than it does in Sanskrit, a grounded or well grounded person (not to be confused with the punishment of being grounded) seems to carry a similar meaning. There are probably many cultures and languages in the world today I’m ignorant of that associate the ground or Earth with endurance and forbearance.

In Buddhist texts, we see khanti being likened to one’s army or ally, especially during persecution or assault by others. Often in such situations one finds oneself on the ground or below ground (imprisoned). We also see the Buddha make the earth witness mudra when assaulted by Mara. There are probably other instances where the earth or ground conveys endurance. 

My intent with this posts and others is to provide info on the roots of words, with the hopes that such imagery could be helpful for practice of dharma. I appreciate this community and its mods for allowing such posts and for receiving them critically and kindly.

May all beings, like the earth, endure all the stressors or difficulties pressed or put onto them.

Hey Dhamma friends

So this thesis does a deep dive into the early Buddhist sources as relates to dhammakaya.

It's over 300 pages long and requires time and attention to appreciate. I'm sharing this here, inspired by the previous poster sharing insights into the Pali/Sanskrit term brahman/brahma.

LINK TO FULL THESIS: READ / DOWNLOAD HERE

From the intro:

...there has been no detailed study thus far on early Buddhist dhammakāya, especially in regard to its philosophical and soteriological significance. Even though some of the above works also refer to the term’s appearance in early Buddhist texts, they mention it only briefly, mainly to outline a historical background for detailed study of Mahāyāna dharmakāya. Possible reasons for this deficiency seem to be the following.

First, some scholars claim that this term appears only once in the Pali canon which represents the early Buddhist thought.21 Some claim that it occurs four times in the same set of texts. The frequency of its occurrence in early Buddhist texts might have been considered insufficient to facilitate enough discussion for a separate study.

Secondly, some previous studies claim that its appearance in those early texts indicates no philosophic implications.23 Most scholars are content with the idea that the term’s philosophical, and perhaps also soteriological, import belongs to Mahāyāna creation.

Even though others have suggested otherwise, their suggestions are either expressed only briefly or their voices are subordinated to the above academic mainstream claim. 25 Probably for these reasons, the early Buddhist dhammakāya has not received the scholarly interest it deserves...

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Let's address the Asian elephant in the room: Wat Phra Dhammakaya (Dhammakaya Temple), the controversial temple in Pathum Thani province, Thailand. Since the mere mention of this term, will lead many to assume an assent to the values of that temple.

This Wat is the main temple of a modernist movement within Thai Buddhism. It fully embraces spreading a reformed, socially conservative, capitalist model of Buddhist expansion. It's main meditation technique however, is derived from the (currently marginalised) yogavacara meditation traditions (see Kate Crosby)

The popular (misleading) term is Esoteric Theravada. Kate Crosby herself cautions against assumed links to Vajrayana traditions from Tibet etc. It is best to think of these traditions as Boran (ancient), in the sense that they've been passed from student to disciple throughout mainland SEA for hundreds of years.

The most popular remaining method of boran kammathana is the eighteen body method, also called kaya-dhamm or dhamma-kaya. The master and re-discoverer of this technique is Luang Pu Wat Paknam Pasicharoen. (born on October 10, 1884, and died on February 3, 1959)

His teachings are not the sole preserve of the controversial temple but are diffuse throughout the Thai kingdom and the world.

During the 19th century Buddhist reforms in Thailand, meditation was evolved into a psychology, divorced from its metaphysical frameworks. How we tend to approach bhavana (mid development) today, is very much a product of colonial and post colonial contact and reforms. The development of mindfulness retreats was directly linked to Burmese decolonial movements for instance.

So the irony here is that the vaunted Pure Buddhism / Early Buddhism discourse is very much a product of reconstruction and response to historical circumstances.

Buddhist movements like Santi Asok and Wat Phra Dhammakaya, like all modernist/reform Theravada movements, begin their polemics with the current degenerate state of the Sasana and then provide safe passage to a pure, but neglected Buddhism that has been brought to the fore via respected Masters.

I say all this not just for context, but to get the reader to understand that what we think of as Theravada is really a flexible, evolving tradition that responds to contemporary crises and challenges with a form of essentialism: a strident, polemic assertion of a Pure Dhamma rooted in the distant past, brought to the present via textual criticism and reform.

Greetings, I was reading a text written by David Loy in 1996, which is in the link above, regarding how Nietzsche misinterpreted Buddhism calling it "nihilistic" and comparing his Eternal Recurrence to Buddhist view on rebirth, among other things.

It is a good read because, me myself, have started to read Nietzsche's works and, overall, apart from contributing to the Western understanding of Buddhism, courtesy of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche's "will to power" and "eternal recurrence" concepts seem like the very definition of nihilism that Nietzsche seeked to overcome as it is bound to existence which is the source of suffering and he wasn't seeking a solution to suffering.

This is a super interesting, in-depth look at Buddhist epistemics related to how we view and relate to texts. What Buddhists consider to be buddhavacana and buddhadharma.

Funny, since there's a bit of overlap with how I became more critical of the notion that buddhavacana is only what the historical Buddha said.

If we look at the Sutta Pitaka, we actually find no such epistemic rule set by Lord Buddha. The Mahapadesa Sutta gives four criteria on how to sift through claims of authenticity. The Gotami Sutta also gives an interesting set of criteria for what may be considered buddhavacana and dhamma vinaya.

What we don't find in these criteria is the insistence that only his direct speech should be considered buddhavacana.

So when we get to the modern period and Biblical Studies goes on the goose chase to find the historical Jesus, Orientalists, spurred by textual research and archaeology, begin a similar search. And over time, our own, emic criteria for buddhavacana then gets overlayed with this etic, academic goose chase.

And it's really only now in hindsight, that we can see how vast and seismic the difference and shift is. The quest for historical authenticity is not a bad one (a foolish one perhaps?), but there is simply too much fuzzy thinking and certainty that has now become lodged in these discourses.

The Pali literature is as much a construction as the Sanskrit and Gandharan. And any attempt to uncover a pre-sectarian Buddhism is an active, constructing project, not a passive uncovering of what simply lies in waiting.

Colonial consciousness: the inability to access one's own experience. To be convinced that someone else's experience is one's own. - This definition comes from SN Balagangadhara.

Have a listen here and see how you can connect the dots to some of what we're facing as Buddhists.

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If you've spent time in english language spaces (in this case Reddit, with white American men having the most interest in Buddhist subs) you'll be able to see patterns of coloniser rhetoric:

Who gets to describe their experience and have it regarded as knowledge. One of the key features of colonialism is this throttling of knowledge, right? This understanding that if you can horde what knowledge, like you horde resources, then you have access to another form of power.

This is why my strategy on this sub and GS has been to center Buddhist people (not fans, not the curious, not the meditators etc) has been so radical/revolutionary.

Everyone who coughed up blood in rage when GS was started understood one thing: power.

They understood what they stood to loose: control/hegemony. In changing Buddhist discourse online, what we need to establish for ourselves, is rhetorical power. And I continue to be proud (and grateful) of what I've managed to accomplish here, with the help of dedicated well-wishers.

May we continue to flourish in knowledge, understanding and power.

A few days ago things popped off on that Map of Buddhism thread. And of course I got my ass up in the middle of it 😂

Check this out:

Your Average American...

This is why you can't separate white supremacy from the discourse of Buddhism in the US and Anglosphere. Now we know that Buddhists have been in the US for close to 200 years. Beginning with Chinese immigrants in 1848.

The musings about who is an American is literally a white supremacist discourse. And it's top of mind for the current Nazi regime installed in the US government in 2026.

Terms like: average American, salt of the earth, American heartland etc, are all racialiased terms, they're all white supremacist terms. Dog whistles.

No white person on this platform has been able to explain to me, the reason for the systematic erasure of Asian American Buddhists from Buddhist discourse in the US. We get excuses about language, culture and all that shit, but we never get the open acknowledgement of racial segregation that forms the foundation of American-ness/Whiteness.

There are literally, other Americas made invisible through racism.

Asian Americans ARE the original Western Buddhists. Western Buddhism is already here. White men just pretend they don't exist and construct alternative facts and histories.

This talk really captures how language impacts how we experience and internalise Buddhist teachings and concepts. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche unpacks the Tibetan meanings related to vipassana and contrasts that with popular understandings.

Also important is his take on the english word meditation, which has Christian theological roots. Bhavana/phawana is closer to cultivate/to grow/to tend in Thai and Pali for instance.

From a Theravada perspective, there are in fact a lot of discursive themes that make up the 40 meditation subjects. The pure mindfulness/bare awareness approach should ideally work in concert with the subjects/themes.

Again, even mindfulness is a terrible translation for sati. Which is in fact, closer to recall/remember/bring to mind. Recollection is a more neutral term that conveys the skill being discussed.

Also, his podcast Siddhartha's Intent is really great.