[Buddha-l] Marx and Buddhism

[Chan Fu]

On 10/1/05, Dan Lusthaus <dlusthau at mailer.fsu.edu> wrote:
> Boy, talk about contemporary Westerners imagining an imaginary Buddhism in
> their own image (as was discussed here not so long ago re: Zen).
>
> >Capitalism
> > is completely incompatible with Buddhism, by the way,
>
> Buddhism literally crawled out of the swamps in India when it allied with
> the Merchants, who not only helped them establish a major base in Gandhara,
> but led them through the Silk Road from Parthia to China. Mahayana Buddhism
> (e.g., Sambhoga-kaya) is capitalist through and through and through.
> Buddhism survived when it did in Asia due to patronage from the upper
> classes (merchants, officials, ruling classes), and it is similarly no
> accident that those in the West most attracted to Buddhism continue to be
> middle class or better.
>
> Marx's so called "materialism" (dialectical materialism) is not really as
> materialist as is often thought, and many contemporary thinkers now concede
> he never overcame Hegel's idealism, as he viewed it, but repeated it in a
> modified form. Instead of nirvana, he offered a this-worldly utopia.
> Buddhism would have been one more opiate of the masses (so that, e.g.,
> Western Buddhists can imagine they are not really middle class dependents on
> the capitalist system).
>
> To quote another 60s poet-musician who also came up with some insightful
> lyrics from time to time:
>
> "Keep you doped with religion, sex and tv,
> now you think you're so clever, and classless, and free,
> But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.
>
> A Working Class Hero is something to be..."
>
> ("Working Class Hero"; John Lennon)
>
> Dan Lusthaus

I never really knew I was a communist until I found this:
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/section-Standard/