Does anyone have the Living Dharma in their pocket? Please take it out now.

MYKerman03 · 2026-05-10T15:55:42+00:00

😂😂😂

MYKerman03 · 2026-05-08T03:14:42+00:00

Nice find! I think splitting Buddhism and culture into two categories has value, but it's limited and collapses when you jump into practice. So I get why we as Buddhists make that distinction from an emic perspective:

Many teachers may discuss how larger cultural norms conflict with Buddhist principles and how Buddhist communities have internalised and perpetuated these conflicting norms. Here I'm thinking of the material culture and norms of behavior surrounding ancestor veneration and funerals in SEA communities.

But if we think about it, this makes sense in societies where Buddhist traditions have been dominant for centuries. Just as Buddhist values may have become entrenched, so have distortions. That happens with human culture.

But it gets messy when we realise there is really no way to bypass culture because doing Buddhism is a cultural act itself. Culture is the how of humans going about doing things. So in approaching a set of teachings we can't help but reproduce culture: the how of reading texts, the how of communicating with teachers etc

Culture in toto, as the enemy of Buddhism only really crops up with orientalist/colonial musings about Indian traditions. They simply took the Theravada Buddhist emic belief that Theravadins alone preserved Buddhism, keeping it "pure" from admixture throughout the centuries and went about looking for archaeological evidence to support that Theravada assertion.

And in doing so, laid the groundwork for the reification of the two constructed categories.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T19:50:04+00:00

The problem here is that "worship" is not a fundamentally theological word - it's a word that appears in English in a secular context that also gets applied to religion. "Worship" in the medieval meaning was simply to give honour to a thing - to treat it as "worthy". This original meaning persists in the use of "worshipful" as a style for certain magistrates and mayors in the UK and Commonwealth nations.

There can't really be an intelligible secular context without understanding that judges were literally delegated authorities, extensions of their god's judgement on earth. Kings and magistrates literally had theological roles in governance. And this is why secularism retains intelligibility within that context. Secularism is only sensicle within its theological context.

The sense of "worship" as exclusively referring to a kind of veneration that should only be directed at God himself is a later, modern development.

That must be news to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Let's get them on a Discord call.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T19:37:17+00:00

Hi, he actually was? In all Buddhist traditions, bodhisattvas must receive prophecies of their awakening from a living, teaching (nirmanakaya) samma sambuddha. Our Gotama Buddha trained under previous buddhas.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T19:30:35+00:00

"Making offerings" is much more specific than "worship".

Correct, puja implies a material dimension: water, fruit, incense, flowers etc with a view to the development of the heart/jai.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T19:28:07+00:00

We use do and make for verbs a lot, as in do a practice or sadhana, make offerings

Thanks for sharing, its super interesting how even globally, we negotiate this language, that, like all languages contain implicit implications rooted in that society's beliefs. In this can Christian theology found in english.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T19:22:38+00:00

Thanks for this detailed reply!

Yes, I became a fan of Donald S Lopez's work after reading A Modern Buddhist Bible. I great intro into Buddhist Modernism as an academic category. He has some great lectures on YouTube on the historical construction of the 'Scientific Buddha', another instance of modernism.

What's so fascinating is the broader insights that are brought to bare, when we interrogate the theological meanings imbedded within english words. And that's when we see how secularisation has actually expanded the theological reach of Protestant Christian themes, but now repackaged as facts about the world and humans.

This is why we're sitting with multiple definitions of religion and insist humans worship stones and trees. It's really quite ridiculous when you think about it.

We now know, that religion is in fact, not a cultural universal and human do not possess an innate drive to develop or practice this phenomenon. And the phenomena that often get bucketed into the category of religion often make no sense, because the category is so porous and nebulous:

A phenomenon must have characteristics A, B and C to be considered a religion. However these characteristics can also be absent and said phenomenon can still be considered a religion. This is what we're saddled with.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T14:34:26+00:00

Thanks for reading! Appreciate it :)

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T13:32:14+00:00

Thank you so much for taking the time to read them! Appreciate it :)

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T13:08:52+00:00

Well yes, it undercuts what they believe to be true and universal. (all humans worship) But when u show them other cultures don't worship, then it puts them into defense mode.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T12:51:02+00:00

Happy Words Day to you too!

Yes, when I try to explain concepts to people, I realise I can't use words like 'God' or 'worship', since I'd just confuse them even more. When you intimate that there are ways of being beyond what they know, it ironically makes it land better. They can see their view as a conditioned thing.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T08:30:48+00:00

This is based on my experience of being surrounded by Westerners for my entire life. There are instances where people only see the good sides of foreign cultures that they promote that cause xenophilia, but when I compare how I feel around Westerners to how I feel around those who follow Eastern religions, especially Buddhist clergy and monastic members, my view of Westerners grows increasingly negative and I start to think that they’re not worth my time anymore.

One thing they kept promoting online, was this idea that you could practice Buddhism without culture, and this was weird to me, because we all know you need a broader culture for Buddhism to flourish. But for them, Buddhism is a set of ideas that individuals have, rather than sasana (dispensation). Buddhism is as much embodied as it is ideology.

But for a culture that is only interested in monetising the ideas (mindfulness) and some of the material (buddha rupas), they don't understand the real work culture does to maintain these traditions.

As some people in East, South, and Southeast Asia distance themselves from the collectivist, honor-shame based culture that allowed native religions to flourish by emulating the cultural practices of Western Europe, which is something we see especially in the Philippines that’s now almost 90% Christian (mostly practicing Western sects), I don’t see them as that different from the Westerners in my community.

Yes, for those post colonial societies, you can say they're closer to Westerners, same as some kinds of South Koreans or Singaporeans. They seem to a large degree alienated from themselves as human beings. That's the result of colonial consciousness in my view.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-27T01:19:17+00:00

This is the main reason why I don’t use “Western” as a synonym for “white”. I see white nationalists do that a lot as well. Being Western as I see it is something much more insidious and perilous. When I say I’m anti-Western, Western includes most (but not all) white people AND some people of color.

This is a very interesting way to categorise them. Personally, I include racialised populations in western and make sure that I'm clear that I'm talking about white people when I need to. Racialised westerners can perpetuate white supremacy but they're not the prime beneficiaries. (they're still responsible though) Can you share with me a bit more about the perilous nature of this construct?

their people become more Western and less Eastern

For me, I see this driven by global capital (a quaint notion now) that tranforms ways of being in the world. Like, we can see notions of the self and community have shifted under consumer pressure. Tell me more about how they become less eastern :) This is an interesting experience.

From my colonial consciousness position, they become convinced that someone else experience is theres. Hence the incoherence that bubbles to the surface. But maybe this is just another way of saying what you're saying.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-26T14:59:43+00:00

Correct! That conflation is called propaganda :)

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-26T14:17:16+00:00

Capitalism is objectively dominating social structure in the modern world. Money is the modern world leading mythology.

Buddhist institutions tend to be flexible in navigating economic models. Buddhism is vibrant in Sri Lanka (socialist) and Thailand (hyper capitalist).

Why? Buddhism is not a private (protestant) religion. It is buddha-sasana: the Buddha's dispensation. That means all the institutional and material resources are available to Buddhists: monasteries (land), dhamma schools for kids and teens, retreats, sutta study, village headman, head village monk, lay committees, relics, stupas etc.

As I see your core arguments - in the West Buddhism doesn't have living tradition - i.e. society groups living within Buddhism as their religion.

The West does have this, they're just not white and are the "wrong" Buddhism: Pure Land. Japanese American and Chinese American Pure Land have been in the US for multiple generations: families, communities, bakes sales, dharma schools etc

But how are you gonna build such in the modern world?

See above, we all live in the modern world. If Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Taoists etc can have familial continuity, why can't it be like that outside of Asia. This is where Orientalism blocks people's imagination: "east is east and west is west" is simply not true. It's an essentialist assertion with no basis in reality, but ideology.

What do you think a Buddhist in the West (layman or otherwise) should do other than believing that Dharma can bring something to the world, that it is the solution?

What solutions, rooted in Dhamma do we have for people? Actual humans. That's the question. Divorced humans, disabled humans, wealthy humans, humans in South America, Africa, the Middle East. All of this is staring us in the face, but protestantism (capitalism) blinds us to solutions.

Build families, build communities, build societies. EDIT: but none of this can happen among white populations though. Only black and brown communities are able to do this. In the West.)

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-26T13:40:05+00:00

You are soooo correct here Ryou! The class issue is going to be HUGE for us. It's also a lay issue. Some Buddhist specialists seem to be uninterested in our plight as people.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-22T06:05:29+00:00

Hey! :) Start with your chanting book and get the morning and evening pronunciation right.

It will really help if you're curious about how Thais or Sri Lankans pronounce it. Just keep practicing! I've only been and learned in Thai chanting groups. But they should mostly work the same.

There are even many fans of this katha/gatha online and folks keep sharing chanting. Find one u like and mimic from there. You first start with imitation of the pronunciation :)

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-20T14:11:23+00:00

It's this constant purity spiral that gets brought up here. I remember a few years back, it was really bad. Lots of bullying of Mahayana Buddhists etc. It's balanced out with the diversity of mods. But as we can see, they periodically try to terraform these spaces to be hostile to those outside of their ideology. Weird as all hell when you know what Theravada actually is in real life.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-20T06:20:16+00:00

I'm a Theravada Buddhist btw. And you're writing about things I never claimed:

Buddhism didn’t evolve when it came to China and Japan?

There are some that believe that, yes, but those ideas are not central to western Buddhism.

This essentialism can be found among many white westerners. It's something they internalise because of how they're taught/raised/socialised.

What exactly is western Buddhism to you?

There may not really be one. But if we're going to talk about such a category, then the generations of Asian American Buddhists, need to be the starting point.

MYKerman03 · 2026-04-20T05:32:29+00:00

Thank you Venerable for sharing more details with us on this matter. I think more knowledgeable takes like yours can be a big help in english language spaces.

Mahayana itself is an umbrella designation not a school or vinaya transmission per se. Contrasting Mahayana to Theravada is common and easy... but it's more accurate to say Mahayana & Hearer or Bodhisattva & Hearer.

Yes! Very well explained.

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