What is "Buddhism"? Why are even modern Buddhism groups biased against Zen?

We have a really interesting wiki page in which modern definitions of the term "Buddhism" are explored through statements of faith and academic discussion: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/Buddhism

definitions we got wrong

The word Buddhism is an English term coined by the colonial British. The British called people "Buddhists" the way that they called people in North America "Indians". Neither word actually describes the heterogeneous groups it is used on.

"Mahayana" is not actually a kind of Buddhism traditionally. Given what I've read so far it's a very old pre-Chinese term that refers to a specific spirit of protest against a certain kind of religious conformity... Which ironically has come to mean in modern times a specific religious conformity.

Zen Master Buddha

There are two questions that instantly expose the tremendous hypocrisy and bias of Buddhists.

1. What do Buddhists believe that makes them Buddhists?

   • Western Buddhists absolutely have no answer for this that they can agree on, and there's no way they can ever link that definition to Zen teachings.

2. Haven't you heard that Zen Master Buddha held up a flower to transmit the Dharma?

   • Zen Masters say that Buddha was just a Zen Master. No magic powers.
     
   • For Zen Master Buddha to be attributed to a different tradition is something Buddhists are very angry about to this day.
   • For the transmission to be wordless mind-to-mind Vulcan stylez without the need for holy texts makes Buddhists angry to this day.
   • For Zen to come to China and drown out Buddhism for a thousand years, to drown out Buddhism whenever Zen is mentioned, makes Buddhists angry to this day.
   • There are lots of accounts of Buddhist teachers converting to Zen, but no accounts of Zen Masters converting to Buddhism.

Jelly on the Written Record

Zen has a much more accurate, long-ranging, and detailed written record than Buddhism has. This difference, especially given Zen's denial of the authority of written records and buddhisms dependence on records, makes Buddhists angry to this day.

In addition, Zen's written record is full of explicit teachings and definitions and examples that do not allow for the wishy-washy way that Western Buddhism tries to include all philosophies and religions. Buddhists try to pretend that this makes Zen intolerant when really it just makes Buddhism overly vague and suspiciously meaningless.

r/Buddhism?

The history of the conflict between these two forums begins and ends with www.reddit.com/r/Zen/wiki/lineagetexts. That this list does not include Japanese Buddhism when Japanese Buddhism is the majority of Evangelical Western Buddhists, turned out to be the beginning of a permanent rift.

r/Buddhism keeps Dogen at arm's reach, but don't dare suggest that his religion is in any way in conflict with Buddhism.

The most interesting Buddhist scholar I've come across is a professor from Japan named Hakamaya www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/Hakamaya. Using a rational western methodology, Hakamaya exposed riffs between Zen and Buddhism and between many people calling themselves Buddhist generally... Basically the modern equivalent of Luther but for Buddhists.

give it to me in a nutshell

www.redit.com/r/zen/wiki/catechism

This wiki page never got finished because no one was really interested in the nuances of Buddhist doctrine, but even the skeletal bits of it are useful in illustrating the tremendous doctrinal disputes between Zen Master Buddha and Buddhism.

1. Buddhists believe in a doctrine of Impermanence, Not Zen.
2. Buddhists believe in dead words, Not Zen.
3. Buddhist believe in karmic-sin, purification, and practice attainment, Not Zen.
4. Buddhists believe in messiahs, Not Zen.

Submitted July 21, 2022 at 04:45AM by ewk https://ift.tt/VrwC9TO