[Buddha-l] FW: Bourgeois Buddhism

[Jo]

This thread has become ridiculously a scene of incompatible views because
various contributors are talking at cross-purposes. It is you folks who are
not being consistent. 

If Andy wants to focus on Buddhist epistemology or metaphysics than do that.
If nobody else wants to, then drop it.   If others wish to focus on Buddhist
anthropology, then do that.  Anthropology is descriptive and relativistic.
Today it has nothing to do with metaphysics, or truth with a capital T.
 
Following up this latter level of discourse, don't forget that among the
plethora of beliefs and practices ascribed to Buddhism in various parts of
the planet is the tendency for rich believers to go to excesses of making
merit, which in the 20th c. has been transformed into a gambling game, a
veritable merit casino. 

See this report from Taiwan, for example:
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.phpoption=com_content&task=view&id=3829&It
emid=192  : Taiwan's prayer animals wreak havoc with the wild into which
they are released.
'... "biotic homogenization" describes a major environmental nightmare that
the Taiwanese are helping along. Occurring on a global scale, species are
transported to spots they would never have reached on their own. Released
into the wild either accidentally or deliberately, most plants and animals
die soon after, but a few manage to conquer their new ecosystems, sometimes
causing extinction among indigenous species. Whereas elsewhere abandoned or
escaped pets give environmentalists headaches, in Taiwan, it is these prayer
animals.'

Anyone with an ounce of compassion for animals or the environment should
hang their heads in shame at the papanca to which this alleged merit making
has gone.

Joanna