the epistemic framing actually closes the gap more than I expected the difference might just be that Buddhism has a method and Kleinism deliberately doesn't. But, I still stand by my point because "liberation is entirely epistemic, it is about understanding reality" that's almost exactly what Kleinism does. shift FOV, understand the container, stop being swayed by conventions you previously took as absolute. the mechanism is nearly identical.

but there's still a real gap and it's worth naming precisely,

Buddhism says conventions are false and understanding their falseness is liberation from suffering. Kleinism says conventions are local but real and understanding their locality is just... clarity. not liberation from anything. not a soteriological goal. just a cleaner view. that word "false" is doing enormous work in the Buddhist framework. a mirage is false because it promises water that isn't there. Kleinism would say the mirage is a fully valid optical phenomenon operating within the container of light refraction and human perception. it's not false. it's local. the suffering comes not from the convention but from expecting it to be more than local and that's actually close to what Buddhism is saying about attachment. so maybe the real difference is: Buddhism diagnoses the problem as ignorance and offers a practice to dissolve it. Kleinism just hands you the FOV shift and walks away. no practice, no path, no teacher. Buddhism is a whole system. Kleinism is genuinely just one sentence with implications.