Diegetics

That's certainly the way I always heard it, but I'm no expert, especially at discerning the difference between the theory from the history (which I know even less adequently).

.



.

I think that a lot of Western "pop-Buddhists" fall in to the trap of denial, displacement and reaction-formation in their quest to avoid suffering.

I also think that Chinese Buddhist schools tend to be weighted toward Chinese syncretism rather than authentically based on what the Buddha actually taught.

I've considered taking a class or two from , who was a student of . As far as I can tell, he's an authentic Buddhist.

Ansuchin: You remind me of a lesson that stuck with me. Lavishing someone with praise is an act of violence in a way, because it encourages them to become prideful. That's what your comments on 'authentic' Buddhism bring up for me.

I am reading a book on gnosticism, and the author has overcome his ego and is damn proud of it!

Thanks, ansuchin. I read over what you posted and will go over it again. While I'm familiar with some of it, it is a lot to digest and I should go over it again.

I like what you said about Mara being a teacher. It seems that many western Buddhists think that they can get rid of Mara: they think that they can live without illusions, so are ignorant, perhaps willfully so, of the reality in illusion itself. I also like the contrast you made between equanimity and indifference.

I hope I didn't appear to be criticizing authentic Buddhism by posting the excerpt from Zizek, which I mainly posted because I found it funny and thought provoking.

Zizek was criticizing the Western pop-Buddhism of George Lucas, etc., not Buddhism as it is practiced traditionally.

They key issue is whether reincarnation and the doctrine of karma is essential to Buddhism or not. What is notable about Western Buddhists is that they reject virgin birth and dying -and - reborn God made flesh as clearly magical nonsense, and then embrace a dualist metaphysical doctrine for which there is not any reasonable evidence (none of the "past lives" stuff is convincing).

A sanitised Zen-style purely practical guide to meditation has plenty of empirical supporting evidence, is not unique to Buddhism but is more central to it, as it is to Hinduism. In the Abrahamic religions mysticism has always had an air of official suspicion around it, often degenerating into persecution. It fails to engage many people's emotions however - no archetypal stories, in Jungian terms.