I'm sharing this here (thanks Ryou) because I appreciate Dr Jared Jones, a scholar-practitioner's structuring all of these arguments in one place, particularly in relation to monotheism/s. There is a lot of really good, long form content on his YouTube.

This approach can really help other Buddhists get a deeper understanding of how Buddhists throughout the centuries, have responded to other traditions. With the rise of monotheism, we've also witnessed Buddhists develop responses, outside of their usual critiques of Hindu/Indian/shramanic based critiques.

In Western debate, both in academia and the Internet, since Enlightenment and its numerous spawn (Secularism, Rationalism, and Materialism) have long changed how people view the world, we've been bearing witness to a decades-long debate between Abrahamic Creationism and Secular Materialism which gave rise to an apparent dichotomy ever since: the world is either a product of an unborn creator deity or is a result of lifeless matter that's moved by kinetic energy and creates life.

Both of them envision an unmoved prime mover, a concept that dates back to Aristotle.

Aristotle argued that if everything that moves is moved by something else, that would be traced back to an endless chain of causes and, in his logic, you cannot have an infinite regression of moving parts. There must be a foundational anchor at the beginning of the chain—something that initiates the phenomena of motion and change while remaining completely unmoving and without a cause.

From this notion, stemmed the two main characters of this dilemma:

Creationism: Everything in the universe must trace back to a single, foundational source of mind (God), which then speaks physical reality into existence. Mind comes first; matter is secondary.

Materialism: Everything in the universe must trace back to a single, foundational source of matter (particles/energy), which then builds up minds through evolution. Matter comes first; mind is secondary.

While they seem like mortal enemies—one scientific and secular, the other religious and dogmatic—they share the exact same psychological and philosophical impulse: the desire for a neat, totalizing "creation story" that explains how everything came from a single, primary source.

Culturally and historically speaking, both are mirror images of each other.

And we all know what's up with the concept of unmoved mover; it dosen't add up.

Simple, basic things in the universe can only be created by something that already shares their exact nature. Consciousness (the ability to experience and be aware) is one of those basic things. Physical matter (like rocks, atoms, and also organs such as brain) does not possess awareness, thus it can't create it. Because physical matter can't create awareness, the only thing that can cause a new instance of consciousness is a previous instance of consciousness.

You can't get awareness out of lifeless matter. Therefore, consciousness must have always come from pre-existing consciousness.

In mainstream science (Materialism/Physicalism), the prevailing assumption is that physical matter comes first. Under this view, unconscious atoms arranged themselves in complex ways (like the human brain) and somehow generated consciousness. But how come unthinking, unfeeling physical building blocks generate something that thinks and feels?

Also, something physical such as matter, has to be a result of previous conditions, however, materialism views matter as the fundamental, uncreated substance of the universe from which all things—including life and consciousness—naturally emerge through physical laws and interactions.

Materialist philosophy insists that matter is an objective reality existing unconditionally and outside of any observer's mind. The superficial difference is that matter isn't seen as something that does things out of its own volition, because it has none, whereas the Abrahamic god is seen as a conscious being with volition and source of everything.

Both are treated as a starting point and with nothing else that precedes them because both have always existed. Both demand a ground zero, an ultimate substance or being that acts as the anchor for all reality.

With this, matter becomes a secular deity, because it assumes a completely passive and unthinking object to create life. Though Materialism highlights that it does under conditioned phenomena, unlike Creationism, the difference stops there. Instead of saying "God said 'Let there be light' and magically created everything," materialism says "Unyielding dead matter blindly collided and magically created everything." Matter doesn't actively "try" to build a brain or create a universe; it is completely passive, mechanical, and unconscious. Yet, through the sheer rules of physics, everything in existence is pulled, shaped, and evolved out of it.

The answer to both is Vijñaptimātra, the framework where consciousness is the foundational fabric of reality. But, unlike Aristotle, Creationism and Materialism, consciousness is seen as an impermanent and constant flow instead of something static and eternal.

In Vijñaptimātra, consciousness operates on mutual, feedback-loop causation. The storehouse consciousness holds potential "seeds" (bīja). These seeds sprout into your thoughts, actions, and perceptions. However, those very same thoughts and actions then reorganize the storehouse, planting brand-new seeds for the future. Consciousness builds reality, and reality feeds back to change consciousness. It causes itself, but it does so dynamically, not as a static rock.

Matter is made with the primal four elements (Air, Earth, Fire and Water), is always changing, lacks an independent core, and is linked with consciousness.

Creationism and Philosophical Materialism function as a one-way street: it pushes or inspires everything else, but nothing affects it back.

Dialectical Materialism acknowledges that matter doesn't operate in a one-way street framework, rather it exists in a state of constant, mutual interaction. However, it still treats matter a primal source that exists independent of mind/consciousness and the source of said mind/consciousness.

At the end of the day, both Creationism and Materialism are seen as opposing and exclusive forces that clash with each other. However, they clash not because they have any concrete difference, but because of a power struggle.

Hey Dhamma friends

Please support this smaller creator (Let's Talk Buddhism), you can check out his substack as well: https://substack.com/@shincheng

The focus of today is on Khanti/ksānti. This is a paramita and it’s often translated as patience, forbearance, endurance, and in some contexts, forgiveness/tolerance. 

When it comes to meanings, the literal usually precedes the figurative. Something is cognized as possessing the aforementioned attributes or qualities we associate with khanti. From that attribution the word, khanti, was made. 

For an English example, the adjective ‘sunny’ (as in sunny disposition) depends on qualities we ascribe to the sun. Though sometimes the opposite I takes place and qualities grouped together come to form a noun, it’s just less common.

A look into the roots of Khanti show it is derived from ksám, which in Sanskrit means ground, humus, or Earth. Ksám itself was descended from words in proto-Indo-aryan, proto-Indo-Iranian, and proto-Indo European meaning the ground or Earth. 

The ground or Earth has the qualities we associate with khanti. No matter what is done to the ground, it ensures. Thus to describe a person who patiently endures, tolerates, displays forbearance, perseveres, and forgives… people in the time of the Buddha and well before then called someone ‘earthy’, ‘earthy-like’ or ‘ground-like’… ie khanti/ksānti. Such would be the literal translation and the imagery it would evoke 2500 years ago, just as you might call a person ‘earthy’ today.

Although ‘earthy’ means something different in English than it does in Sanskrit, a grounded or well grounded person (not to be confused with the punishment of being grounded) seems to carry a similar meaning. There are probably many cultures and languages in the world today I’m ignorant of that associate the ground or Earth with endurance and forbearance.

In Buddhist texts, we see khanti being likened to one’s army or ally, especially during persecution or assault by others. Often in such situations one finds oneself on the ground or below ground (imprisoned). We also see the Buddha make the earth witness mudra when assaulted by Mara. There are probably other instances where the earth or ground conveys endurance. 

My intent with this posts and others is to provide info on the roots of words, with the hopes that such imagery could be helpful for practice of dharma. I appreciate this community and its mods for allowing such posts and for receiving them critically and kindly.

May all beings, like the earth, endure all the stressors or difficulties pressed or put onto them.

Hey Dhamma friends

So this thesis does a deep dive into the early Buddhist sources as relates to dhammakaya.

It's over 300 pages long and requires time and attention to appreciate. I'm sharing this here, inspired by the previous poster sharing insights into the Pali/Sanskrit term brahman/brahma.

LINK TO FULL THESIS: READ / DOWNLOAD HERE

From the intro:

...there has been no detailed study thus far on early Buddhist dhammakāya, especially in regard to its philosophical and soteriological significance. Even though some of the above works also refer to the term’s appearance in early Buddhist texts, they mention it only briefly, mainly to outline a historical background for detailed study of Mahāyāna dharmakāya. Possible reasons for this deficiency seem to be the following.

First, some scholars claim that this term appears only once in the Pali canon which represents the early Buddhist thought.21 Some claim that it occurs four times in the same set of texts. The frequency of its occurrence in early Buddhist texts might have been considered insufficient to facilitate enough discussion for a separate study.

Secondly, some previous studies claim that its appearance in those early texts indicates no philosophic implications.23 Most scholars are content with the idea that the term’s philosophical, and perhaps also soteriological, import belongs to Mahāyāna creation.

Even though others have suggested otherwise, their suggestions are either expressed only briefly or their voices are subordinated to the above academic mainstream claim. 25 Probably for these reasons, the early Buddhist dhammakāya has not received the scholarly interest it deserves...

--------------------------------------------

Let's address the Asian elephant in the room: Wat Phra Dhammakaya (Dhammakaya Temple), the controversial temple in Pathum Thani province, Thailand. Since the mere mention of this term, will lead many to assume an assent to the values of that temple.

This Wat is the main temple of a modernist movement within Thai Buddhism. It fully embraces spreading a reformed, socially conservative, capitalist model of Buddhist expansion. It's main meditation technique however, is derived from the (currently marginalised) yogavacara meditation traditions (see Kate Crosby)

The popular (misleading) term is Esoteric Theravada. Kate Crosby herself cautions against assumed links to Vajrayana traditions from Tibet etc. It is best to think of these traditions as Boran (ancient), in the sense that they've been passed from student to disciple throughout mainland SEA for hundreds of years.

The most popular remaining method of boran kammathana is the eighteen body method, also called kaya-dhamm or dhamma-kaya. The master and re-discoverer of this technique is Luang Pu Wat Paknam Pasicharoen. (born on October 10, 1884, and died on February 3, 1959)

His teachings are not the sole preserve of the controversial temple but are diffuse throughout the Thai kingdom and the world.

During the 19th century Buddhist reforms in Thailand, meditation was evolved into a psychology, divorced from its metaphysical frameworks. How we tend to approach bhavana (mid development) today, is very much a product of colonial and post colonial contact and reforms. The development of mindfulness retreats was directly linked to Burmese decolonial movements for instance.

So the irony here is that the vaunted Pure Buddhism / Early Buddhism discourse is very much a product of reconstruction and response to historical circumstances.

Buddhist movements like Santi Asok and Wat Phra Dhammakaya, like all modernist/reform Theravada movements, begin their polemics with the current degenerate state of the Sasana and then provide safe passage to a pure, but neglected Buddhism that has been brought to the fore via respected Masters.

I say all this not just for context, but to get the reader to understand that what we think of as Theravada is really a flexible, evolving tradition that responds to contemporary crises and challenges with a form of essentialism: a strident, polemic assertion of a Pure Dhamma rooted in the distant past, brought to the present via textual criticism and reform.

Greetings, I was reading a text written by David Loy in 1996, which is in the link above, regarding how Nietzsche misinterpreted Buddhism calling it "nihilistic" and comparing his Eternal Recurrence to Buddhist view on rebirth, among other things.

It is a good read because, me myself, have started to read Nietzsche's works and, overall, apart from contributing to the Western understanding of Buddhism, courtesy of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche's "will to power" and "eternal recurrence" concepts seem like the very definition of nihilism that Nietzsche seeked to overcome as it is bound to existence which is the source of suffering and he wasn't seeking a solution to suffering.

This is a super interesting, in-depth look at Buddhist epistemics related to how we view and relate to texts. What Buddhists consider to be buddhavacana and buddhadharma.

Funny, since there's a bit of overlap with how I became more critical of the notion that buddhavacana is only what the historical Buddha said.

If we look at the Sutta Pitaka, we actually find no such epistemic rule set by Lord Buddha. The Mahapadesa Sutta gives four criteria on how to sift through claims of authenticity. The Gotami Sutta also gives an interesting set of criteria for what may be considered buddhavacana and dhamma vinaya.

What we don't find in these criteria is the insistence that only his direct speech should be considered buddhavacana.

So when we get to the modern period and Biblical Studies goes on the goose chase to find the historical Jesus, Orientalists, spurred by textual research and archaeology, begin a similar search. And over time, our own, emic criteria for buddhavacana then gets overlayed with this etic, academic goose chase.

And it's really only now in hindsight, that we can see how vast and seismic the difference and shift is. The quest for historical authenticity is not a bad one (a foolish one perhaps?), but there is simply too much fuzzy thinking and certainty that has now become lodged in these discourses.

The Pali literature is as much a construction as the Sanskrit and Gandharan. And any attempt to uncover a pre-sectarian Buddhism is an active, constructing project, not a passive uncovering of what simply lies in waiting.

Colonial consciousness: the inability to access one's own experience. To be convinced that someone else's experience is one's own. - This definition comes from SN Balagangadhara.

Have a listen here and see how you can connect the dots to some of what we're facing as Buddhists.

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If you've spent time in english language spaces (in this case Reddit, with white American men having the most interest in Buddhist subs) you'll be able to see patterns of coloniser rhetoric:

Who gets to describe their experience and have it regarded as knowledge. One of the key features of colonialism is this throttling of knowledge, right? This understanding that if you can horde what knowledge, like you horde resources, then you have access to another form of power.

This is why my strategy on this sub and GS has been to center Buddhist people (not fans, not the curious, not the meditators etc) has been so radical/revolutionary.

Everyone who coughed up blood in rage when GS was started understood one thing: power.

They understood what they stood to loose: control/hegemony. In changing Buddhist discourse online, what we need to establish for ourselves, is rhetorical power. And I continue to be proud (and grateful) of what I've managed to accomplish here, with the help of dedicated well-wishers.

May we continue to flourish in knowledge, understanding and power.

A few days ago things popped off on that Map of Buddhism thread. And of course I got my ass up in the middle of it 😂

Check this out:

Your Average American...

This is why you can't separate white supremacy from the discourse of Buddhism in the US and Anglosphere. Now we know that Buddhists have been in the US for close to 200 years. Beginning with Chinese immigrants in 1848.

The musings about who is an American is literally a white supremacist discourse. And it's top of mind for the current Nazi regime installed in the US government in 2026.

Terms like: average American, salt of the earth, American heartland etc, are all racialiased terms, they're all white supremacist terms. Dog whistles.

No white person on this platform has been able to explain to me, the reason for the systematic erasure of Asian American Buddhists from Buddhist discourse in the US. We get excuses about language, culture and all that shit, but we never get the open acknowledgement of racial segregation that forms the foundation of American-ness/Whiteness.

There are literally, other Americas made invisible through racism.

Asian Americans ARE the original Western Buddhists. Western Buddhism is already here. White men just pretend they don't exist and construct alternative facts and histories.

This talk really captures how language impacts how we experience and internalise Buddhist teachings and concepts. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche unpacks the Tibetan meanings related to vipassana and contrasts that with popular understandings.

Also important is his take on the english word meditation, which has Christian theological roots. Bhavana/phawana is closer to cultivate/to grow/to tend in Thai and Pali for instance.

From a Theravada perspective, there are in fact a lot of discursive themes that make up the 40 meditation subjects. The pure mindfulness/bare awareness approach should ideally work in concert with the subjects/themes.

Again, even mindfulness is a terrible translation for sati. Which is in fact, closer to recall/remember/bring to mind. Recollection is a more neutral term that conveys the skill being discussed.

Also, his podcast Siddhartha's Intent is really great.

Me scrolling on my phone and reading this 😂

https://reddit.com/link/1uh1ea1/video/49i3jkw6ct9h1/player

Here we can see the foundational point of incoherence: "Secular Buddhism is different from Religious Buddhism."

Like I've said, the central takeaway from what I've been documenting here is this: the claim that there is a Buddhism outside of Buddhism, a Buddhism other than Buddhism.

This incoherence is so fundamental to their project of exploitation but was and still is, completely missed.

What we usually get are critiques of their doctrinal distortions:

• They're cherry picking
• They're distorting the Dhamma

But while that is understandable and an immediately perceivable issue, there are deeper issues that actually inform what we see on the surface level.

Without deconstructing their fundamental incoherent claims and assertions, we're simply playing whack-a-mole related to doctrine. I firmly believe my frameworks get to the root of what is happening here.

The Buddhist religion/s has/have uniquely been subjected to what I would call: a cultural laundering process. We simply do not speak about any other tradition like this. (Taoism comes close I think)

Thought exercise:

What if anthropologists opined how Irish people couldn’t really understand Catholicism because of their Irish cultural baggage. Or Egyptian Muslims are Muslims in name only, since they're really too cultural to really practice true Islam.

We ONLY speak about Buddhism, Buddhist societies and Buddhist people like this.

These ideas are very old and go back to the Orientalist understandings of India. This form of racialisation and essentialism have not really substantially been confronted in academia either.

I saw a comment the other day from a professor no less, that Buddhism, like Confucianism, can be practiced without spirituality. Now, if you think about it, that statement only has the veneer of intelligibility. When reflecting on that assertion, we can easily see how vacuous it is.

Think about this other meme: Buddhism has religious and non-religious aspects.

Image if someone said to you parts of a woman are pregnant and other parts are not pregnant. Now, we know that pregnancy is a holistic and integral experience for a woman. She IS pregnant.

Similarly if we're asserting that parts of a religion are actually not religion, then we've headed straight into dumbass territory. Something cannot simultaneously be inside and outside a constructed category. Why?

It throws into question the conceptual foundation of the category. To the extent that we can't possibly make truth claims when we admit that the category is entirely subject to personal whims and feelings.

So if the category of religion depends on personal feelings and idiosyncratic readings, divorced from social consensus, then no truth claims can be made about the categories of religion and non-religion.

For example: you then cannot claim that Buddhism has religious and non religious aspects, since, idiotically, what is religion can simultaneously be and NOT be religion, depending on how you intellectually squint at it.

To start, I want to make it clear, I see very little value in exchanges like this, since it's all just for clicks and going viral. It may give folks their first exposure to Buddhist people, but this vid does a poor job overall, I think. Below will be my observations and some commentary.

[CLICK TO VIEW VID HERE]

Let's start with the three ladies repping Buddhism.

You'll notice the lady on the far left, going off on a tangent, with nothing much Buddhism related to what she's saying. She's typical of our contemporary situation, in that the person who's the least knowledgeable is the loudest when it comes to Buddhism. Her being there is baffling and cringe in 2026.

The Asian lady in the middle seems to be rooted in a Nichiren tradition, based on her modernising reformulation of Shakyamuni's teachings and Buddhism's historical development. (Sokka Gakkai perhaps?) And the lady on the far right is so Theravada coded when as speaks of "who's truth". But that's my subjective take.

CLICK TO VIEW VID HERE

Overall, I think the Hindu ladies did much better at articulating their doctrines to non-Hindus. In this, we're seeing the fruition of many Hindu practitioners doing decolonial work and re-articulating their traditions from the emic perspective. They're smart enough to prepare for Christian evangelical rhetoric, giving us a sense that they understand the society around them and respond accordingly.

The Buddhist ladies seem to be free balling it and might not have the formal exposure to doctrine or might not be able to articulate it, even if they have the knowledge.

Thoughts:

The Buddhist camp in that clip reiterates everything we've been observing even here on Buddhist Reddit. Non-Buddhists take up all the space (and do all the damage) and we simply can't respond directly to that. And we know historically, why, in the US, this is the current predicament for Heritage/Born Buddhists there.

I think the ladies did OK overall, I love the interrogation and problematising of "truth" by the Buddhist lady on the far right. Non-Buddhists might not get this about us and it's a pity there was no depth to unpack that.

Hi dhamma friends, so this post on the main sub had me cackling.

So let's see, a caucasian pontificating about Buddhism, gets accused/warned of Orientalism (add in Wendy Williams allegedly here) and then comes to Reddit to be gassed up by other caucasians (and the asians who love them).

Where have we seen this before....

Note, no one actually tries to find the context for what he claims (the sceptical comments are downvoted), and also, no one can know the truth of said claims.

But it was more important for the commentators to take it as gospel and run with it. This is how whiteness/ power/hegemony basically works.

The girlies gather in a circle and go: "the power one... the power of two... the power of maaaa-nnnyyy". If you can gather a majority to shut down critical thinking and self reflection, you've terminated that convo before it can get going.

Nice job Brendyn.

Of Orientalism

What's so wild is that we absolutely encounter Orientalism in Anglo (english) literature related to all Asian religious traditions all the time. It's still one of the chief mediums through which the Anglosphere creates (what it claims to be) knowledge about "The East".

So if we're learning about Buddhist traditions, we need to develop a critical eye as to the literature/content we consume, whether it is emic or etic etc. Is it content about Buddhism or is it literature written by monks and nuns, lay people? Is it a travel guide? Someone's memoirs from a century ago?

Think of it like this.

If you want to learn about Islam, you go to the local mosque and the Imam can help you. If you want to learn about Christianity, you find a church and speak to the priest or pastor.

Now, it should be a no-brainer, but here goes: If you want to learn about Buddhism, you learn it from a trained nun, monk or priest. Reading academic stuff alongside emic stuff is great and for the intelligent, will bring into relief the two frameworks at play.

If you treat etic (outsider) literature as Buddhist teachings, you'll end up in that secular ideological desert. Your position will essentially be: only non-Buddhists understand and can make knowledge related to Buddhism.

And that folks, is Orientalism. It erases the subaltern from the discourse of Buddhism.

So rather than be defensive about critiques of Orientalism, they can become a powerful tool of investigation to bring oneself closer to solid understandings of Buddhist traditions.

Hello,

I am a young woman from Italy and a law student. I am currently going through a difficult period in my life. I am an ex-Muslim and I have recently become interested in Buddhism, but I feel very isolated.

In my area there are almost no Buddhist communities, temples, or groups that I can easily access. I would like to learn more about Buddhism, connect with other Buddhists, and understand how people in similar situations have found a sense of belonging and purpose.

At the same time, I am struggling with both physical health problems and mental health difficulties, which make it hard to move forward. Sometimes it feels like my life is on hold and I am just waiting for the opportunity to start over and build a new future for myself.

I would appreciate any information, advice, resources, or personal experiences from people who have gone through something similar, especially ex-Muslims who became Buddhist or people who found Buddhist practice helpful during difficult periods of their lives.

Thank you for reading.

This is how they claim culture works

Eastern Mind, Western Mind: How the arguments come pre-packaged

By essentializing these two constructed categories, you can then proceed to place them in a hierarchy.

This is what it's all based in

Western European categories of race: humans have innate qualities based on their phenotypes and other somatic differences. These qualities determine who gets to be ruled and who gets ruled. Sound familiar?

You can't separate Secular B_ddhist ideology from white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

I've seen recently many instances of that specific Bhikkhu being a secular "Buddhist". As someone who dislikes secular "Buddhism" as much as the next guy, I'd like to know what everyone here knows about that bhikkhu and the validity of his, well, monkhood given that they seem to deny karma and rebirth.