[Buddha-l] Bourgeois Buddhism

[Richard Hayes]

On Mar 14, 2012, at 8:31 AM, Joy Vriens <joy.vriens at gmail.com> wrote:

> With a bit of luck and everything going according to plan, we could send
> over one of our greatest lights by May the 6th.

Yes, Sarkozy would fit in very well over here. I can envision him on a ticket with Newt Gingrich. He might be a bit too rational to fit in with Rick Santorum just now, but after a few years of living here and reading de Tocqueville he would probably learn to fit in. Another possibility for Sarkozy would be somewhere near the top of the gaggle of oil barons now running the Canadian Reich. 

As for Buddhism, the only Americans I have seen coming even close to an authentic Buddhist practice are the Amish. The rest of us are getting around in airplanes and automobiles, watching television powered by electricity generated by burning coal, and using the energy-hungry Internet to send unnecessary emails like this one from our laptops powered by highly toxic lithium batteries. If most of us had to live even half a day by Buddhist standards, we'd have to be carted away in an ambulance.

Marx wrote about bourgeois communists who rationalized their luxurious lifestyles by saying they were in using their resources for the good of the workers. The label "bourgeois Buddhist" is perhaps to so far off the marks.

Richard Hayes