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On Faith, Conflict & Western Buddhism’s Crisis of Hypocrisy
Conviction in kindness is not the same as its other flavors.
Most of us scurry around for our whole lives not much different from the animal kingdom. We collect resources, care for our nests, and snarl at those in the way.
We have not deeply experienced anything within ourselves beyond our mind. So we think its projections (unrecognized for what they are) are ‘the world’ out there.
Add to that dopamine engineering from tech interfaces, a declining economy, and political polarization. Is it any wonder we assume “kindness” is an unrealistic kind of hippie escapism?
Modern people are not willing to accept the missing ingredient.
“In the Buddhist field, especially the mahayana bodhisattva field, this attitude is perfect and great.
But from a worldly perspective it might seem foolish. People might think, ‘He has no brains.’”
The quote above comes from a commentary on altruism, which I not-so-briefly…
