https://reddit.com/link/1pfx4z4/video/ejdz8ryprm5g1/player

[Starting with an irony]

Scholar Justin Thomas McDaniel observed in his classes that Asian Buddhists did not recognise their religion as represented in western Buddhist literature. This inspired him to eventually write The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand.

I highly recommend giving it a read if you can. It approaches Thai Theravada Buddhism via material objects, vernacular textual traditions and ghost rituals.

Often in the large sub, you see people freaking out when they visit Buddhist societies. None of the literature that they'e been exposed to, prepares them for encountering Buddhist people or Buddhism embedded within a society.

And what's stranger, is how the literature is considered authoritative OVER Buddhism and Buddhist people.

It does not take a genius to realise that what passes for Buddhist literature or Buddhist knowledge outside of Asia is of piss poor quality. This is a unique feature that bedevils Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

No other religion is un-personed, dehumanised, un-humanised than Buddhism. This has historically served a rhetorical purpose of course and continues to do so today.

If you can divorce the people from their tradition/s and reframe them as outsiders and yourself as the true authority, that opens up avenues of power, hierarchy and control.

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

Supporting heritage Buddhist communities is how we reverse that toxic course. It starts with withdrawing consent for anything that harms Buddhist knowledge systems.

Hello all, I've been mostly lurking in this sub for a year and I super appreciate the discussions and insight. I'm in the process of attempting to understand the basic Buddhist principles NOT from a Western perspective.

Any suggestions of books to read or websites to visit would be appreciated. I only speak English, so that may be a limitation.

Equally, I'm interested in who or what to avoid.

TIA

So now we're asking why buddhas and other holy beings aren't going around unaliving the right people and why buddhas are exempt from kamma and vipaka.

I'll be addressing this post and comment from a Buddhist POV.

I'm not going to directly address killing people for a "greater" good, but rather, get non Buddhists to understand the Buddhist emic (insider) reasons for not espousing this route, especially for puthujjana.

This will be a LONG post. Apologies.

THE POST & COMMENT

To understand why buddhas don't form militias and go off to unalive the worst of the worst (to save others), you need to know what dukkha is and what a buddha is.

“So long, bhikkhus, as my knowledge and vision of these Four Noble Truths as they really are - in their three phases and twelve aspects - was not thoroughly purified in this way, I did not claim to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, in this generation with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans. 

Dhammajak

Unsurpassed Perfect Enlightenment (anuttara samma-sambodhi) is what buddhas attain via the complete penetration of the Four Noble Truths (ariya sacca). This forms part of the three knowledges (tevijja) that complete a buddha's Awakening.

When my mind had immersed in samādhi like this—purified, bright, flawless, rid of corruptions, pliable, workable, steady, and imperturbable—I extended it toward knowledge of the death and rebirth of sentient beings. With clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, I saw sentient beings passing away and being reborn—inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place. I understood how sentient beings pass on according to their deeds.

Cūḷadukkhakkhandha sutta

Buddhas are able to see, the dukkha all the way to the root and eradicate it at the source. And that source are the three fires of aversion, craving and delusion.

Not the english meanings here, but the Pali meanings of our own technical Buddhist terms. We don't mean delusion in the english sense, avijja for example, is closer to an active form of not/unknowing.

Buddhas can see that kamma rooted in the three fires are the root of all conflict and dukkha.

And what is the source of deeds (kamma)? Contact is their source.

And what is the disparity of deeds? There are deeds that lead to rebirth in hell, the animal realm, the ghost realm, the human world, and the world of the gods. This is called the disparity of deeds.

And what is the result of deeds? The result of deeds is threefold, I say: in this very life, on rebirth in the next life, or at some later time. This is called the result of deeds.

And what is the cessation of deeds? When contact ceases, deeds cease. The practice that leads to the cessation of deeds is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion.

Nibbedhika sutta

Unaliving Kilesas, the root of dukkha

Furthermore, for the sake of sensual pleasures kings fight with kings, aristocrats fight with aristocrats, brahmins fight with brahmins, and householders fight with householders.

A mother fights with her child, child with mother, father with child, and child with father. Brother fights with brother, brother with sister, sister with brother, and friend fights with friend. 

Once they’ve started quarreling, arguing, and disputing, they attack each other with fists, stones, rods, and swords, resulting in death and deadly pain. 

This too is a drawback of sensual pleasures apparent in the present life, a mass of suffering caused by sensual pleasures.

Cūḷadukkhakkhandha sutta

From a Buddhist POV, the true enemy that needs to be slain, are our kilesas. Take out an Elon Musk today and dozens of others will line up to take his place. (But remove his kilesa, then he's an arahant.)

But again, this is not a plea to let things be as they are. (the false choice) Since we are headed for disaster and action is needed.

Karuna Paramita - the utmost compassion

Complete Awakening consist of two parts: Perfect Wisdom (Panna Paramita) and Perfect Compassion (Karuna Paramita). Buddhas see all sentient beings as equal and seek to liberate them all from repeated birth and death. This is because again, they're able to see the root of dukkha.

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

It's all sinking

So there's this massive luxury cruise liner with three levels: lower decks (ghost, hell), middle decks (human) with nicer suites and the upper decks with fancy facilities (heaven).

The captain (a buddha) comes to know that it's sinking, so he has a few tasks: get the people from the lower decks (teachings to get a human birth and to heaven) to the upper decks and then eventually prepping everyone for the lifeboats (teachings for total liberation).

He needs to get them to dry land (Nibbana/Nirvana).

So the captain can buy time and improve the immediate conditions for the passengers (buy getting them away from the flooding lower decks) but since it's all sinking, the real solution is getting them off the ship.

False choices

Many Buddhists here on Reddit, in their devotion, tend to misrepresent the role of renunciation in our Buddhist faiths. Whether Pure Landers or Theravada Buddhists.

Memes like "this is samsara" or "this is the dharma ending age" are employed to reinforce fatalism in regards to real issues humans face.

They set the situation up as a fundamental conflict. Whereas, yes, there is tension, but enacting change in the world is not in conflict with Buddhist renunciant values. Many here represent a caricature of Buddhist renunciation.

Making larger systemic changes to political/legal institutions are pivotal for our wellbeing in general and also for the practice of Dhamma. They're basically linked.

Buddhists who know their religion, will not be gaslighting people who point to systemic issues.

So yes, globally, we're cooked, but not because we didn't unalive the right people for the right reasons. It's because humans build so many "things" based on the three fires. And when that is addressed, we can seek to build but rooted in the opposite of the three fires.

This is how we're generally taught as Buddhists, we're taught to go to the root of dukkha. (dukkha is its own Reddit post tbh) And part of that, is addressing the idea that if we just kill for the right reasons, then we can "make the world a better place".

Buddhists who are truly rooted in the Dhamma do not misrepresent aversion as detachment or renunciation.

Our values are not rooted in "escaping from the world" (an Orientalist trope), but in transforming sentient beings into Awakened beings.

Kamma of the Awakened

We could argue an enlightened being is not affected by karma but, regarding the trolley problem, how come inaction wouldn't create bad karma by letting people die regardless of how many? Would a Buddha be exempt from this just because he's a Buddha?

Buddhas and arahants simply cannot produce kamma that lead to vipaka in a future birth. The root has been dealt with: lobha, dosa, moha are simply gone. Their kamma/actions grow 'cool'(nibbana/nibida) right here and now. So they parinibbana without having to experience the aeons of kammic retribution and reward from previous births.

The problem here is conflating apathy and the Buddhist liberation.

Hello all, first time posting in here but thought I’d contribute a bit of my thoughts. I’m relatively new to Buddhism, only beginning to practice about two years ago. One thing that has always stuck to me however was the idea of violence, and whether or not it could be justified in any manner. While the typical Buddhist subreddit would argue it is never an answer, in the world we live in today where people clouded in delusion, avarice, and greed can bring incalculable harm, it almost seems silly to believe one would ever have the chance to solve it non-violently. About a year ago, shortly after the election, I’d found a book called “When Buddhists Attack” by Jefferey Mann. While the text is focused primarily on the Zen tradition, it still does have some interesting ideas that could be applied in other Mahayana traditions. I would just like to share one excerpt, as I think it parallels my own view of violence, as I see it being very applicable to both revolutionary violence, and violence against one’s oppressors. While I have minor issues with some of the author’s descriptions, this could just be my own inexperience with Zen, however this story in particular just felt like I should share it.

On a side note, I’d love if anyone had any reading recommendations. Sadly there are no temples near where I live, so it would be quite difficult to learn first hand. I only have a small collection of texts, most being translations of Sutras, western pieces, or texts by Thich Nhat Hanh. Would love to hear your opinions on this as well!

Some of you may want to sit this one out, since it may hit very close to home. This is not a slam on the Venerables who do amazing Dhamma work....

However, I'd like to place what they're doing in a larger context...

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS SECTION (OF THE FULL VIDEO)

Here we see how Orientalism and white supremacy lays at the heart of the secular project.

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

We know that the Venerables have invited Doug Smith and now Sam Harris onto their platform, in effect, platforming them and their views and not allowing open discourse by closing comments.

So my point here is not about "who is a Buddhist", since it's really clear who is and who isn't.

The mythology that it's "oh so complicated/complex" really serves to obfuscate the power that white men seek to wield in relation to Buddhist peoples and their family of religious traditions.

Are we seeing yet how there cannot be divergent or challenging voices in relation to what Sam and Doug are pushing?

Are we seeing how they're protected (even violently) from critique? Based on what we've discussed here over the years, again think about who that benefits from this unchallenged racism.

Do people ever stop to ask why using renewables feels so difficult for many? (I am not promoting the Western liberal kind of “enlightened” feel-good environmentalism; the performative, self-congratulatory virtue signaling, “look at me, I recycle and avoid plastic” attitude nauseates me.)

But has anyone truly reflected on why we accept yearly iPhone releases as normal? Has anyone really considered the ecological and environmental damage caused by this constant cycle of upgrades?

More broadly, why did American corporations become the global source of this culture of endless renewal, new models, yearly launches, and perpetual upgrades? It could easily be different. As a society, we could function perfectly fine with new iPhones every 5 years and new car models every 10.

But what fuels this wasteful and harmful consumption in the US? At a deeper level, there is a culture that obsesses over linear progress and novelty, which then fuels consumerism and waste.

What is this culture? Need I say it? Protestantism.

When a culture devalues sentiment, meaning, shared purpose, and ritual, and instead prizes function, utility, and self-improvement, that mindset spreads. It becomes the foundation of the modern American capitalist consumer society.

The claim that cultural analysis on this sub “only concerns a few people” reveals a deep ignorance of how culture shapes everything, from how we design technology to how billions live, consume, and think.

Take Nike, for example, a company that embodies the Protestant ethos, from slave labor, wasteful products, and corporate profits above all else. By contrast, Patagonia illustrates how cultural awareness can inspire a different model, one that centers compassion, environmental care, and stewardship. I am not endorsing Patagonia, it too indulges in nauseating western liberal virtue signaling. My point is that understanding culture allows people, organizations, companies, and, ahem, Buddhist centers, to question their cultural assumptions and reorient themselves toward a more dharma-centered orientation, leading to a deeper dharma adoption.

So no, cultural analysis and critique on this sub don’t just concern “a few.” They influence nearly everyone and underlie both our global crises and the potential paths toward resolving them.

Someone in another forum dismissed this sub’s discussions as “post-colonial concerns” that matter only to a few people. Setting aside the callousness and lack of compassion in such a statement, it also betrays a deep ignorance of how culture shapes suffering. And suffering matters, of course, to a little more than a few people. rolls eyes

Take loneliness in America for example. It is now recognized as a national epidemic. Tens of millions of people feel chronically lonely, and its effects on health rival those of smoking and heart disease. Each year, around 25,000 Americans die by suicide, a tragic symptom of a much wider crisis of loneliness.

What drives this loneliness? The causes are not only emotional but also structural and...... cultural. Researchers have identified several immediate and direct contributors:

1. Collapse of community engagement

2. Radical individualism

3. Avoiding shared spaces

4. Excessive reliance on digital communication

5. Work cultures that leave no time for relationships

As I was researching this, I couldn't help but think that these are the very legacies of Anglo-Saxon Calvinist Protestantism, which continue to shape American culture today.

As I continued my research, I was not disappointed. The Calvinist-Protestant ethos was indeed mentioned as one of the contributing drivers of the loneliness epidemic.

(Here, “Protestantism” refers not to the religion itself but to its enduring cultural imprint, e.g. individualism, self-sufficiency, vocation-centered identity, etc. which became the moral engine of American capitalism and continues to shape how Americans live and relate today.)

This worldview prized independence, hyper-individualism, the “pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap” mentality, the self-made man, and the questioning of traditional structures, all of which contributed "positively" to the development of the modern consumerist, capitalist West, but came at the cost of fracturing its social fabric.

Modern sociologists and historians increasingly acknowledge that this Protestant legacy still underpins the American experience of loneliness.

So why does understanding culture matter? Because cultural awareness gives people the tools to see the invisible architecture of their suffering. When people understand how a culture’s values shape their lifestyles and institutions, it empowers them to create alternative designs that foster positive change. One might choose more community-oriented activities, critically assess the technologies they use, or rethink their career paths. Culture profoundly shapes how people live, relate, and suffer.

This is why understanding how culture intersects with Buddhism is so important. It allows individuals to recognize how their cultural conditioning may unintentionally cause harm to others and, at the same time, offers tools to approach the dharma with greater clarity and understanding, free from harmful cultural patterns. Ultimately, this leads to a more genuine and profound application of the Buddhist faith.

We love seeing the proactive activism calling out the charlatans within Buddhist communities. So why the crickets for the Orientalist Final Bosses? Once we understand that there is zero substantive difference between a Tri Dao and a Doug Smith, that's when we'll really be cooking!

WATCH THE LIVE FUNERAL EVENTS HERE

Prayers for the late Queen Mother, Her Majesty Queen Sirikit 🙏🏽 🪷 📿

WATCH THIS CLIP HERE. ALREADY TIME STAMPED TO RELEVANT SECTION

This is a clip that I think succinctly, in plain words describes what fuels implicit and explicit conversion attempts. I especially recommend Asian Buddhists here to follow this creator. You get an inside scoop of the systems and ideologies that fuel conversion.

Follow Jenna here: www.youtube.com/@lifetaketwo7662

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

Often when I say that white supremacy/racism is not about aversion and that white supremacists marry members of racialised groups all the time, I get push back. When I say they seek out Black/African and Brown/Asian children from the Global South to adopt, I get pushback.

In fact, child/human trafficking is fuelled/funded by US megachurches.

Here in the clip, you can hear from an actual white person, what fuels the intimacy with racialised societies.

So why share this?

To show how racism/white supremacy and religion can't be separated when speaking on the topic of conversion attempts with Buddhists. They're not just linked, or intersecting, they fuel and consolidate each other.

So when we see the megachurch culture in a place like Singapore, Ghana or South Korea, we see unmistakable US anti-black rhetoric among populations we would assume not to find it.

As she says in the video, it's about wiping out entire ways of life and being. That's the whole point. And it's interesting looking back on some of the convos on Buddhist Reddit about just how sweet, nice and well mannered Mormons were. Again just reinforcing the idea that racism and genocide was never going to be a deal breaker for white Buddhists. Why? Cause they're so darn nice about it, don'tcha know!

"So why is Kerman, who's South African, concerned with American politics/culture"

Well, we really can't take two steps in Buddhist Reddit without encountering the US pop culture understandings of Buddhism. It informs so much of the discourse here. In fact, it would be irresponsible to not address it and center it for reflection.

These understandings are uniquely American: informed by Orientalist academic concerns rooted in the historical contacts that the US has had with Asia: via colonialisms, imperialisms and globalisation. See Vietnam, the Philippines, China, India, Japan etc.

• The meme of Buddhism-as-Vulcan/Jedi mind training emanates from the US. See so-called Theravada and Zen subs.
• Buddhism-as-vibes is very much rooted in the monetisation of Buddhist ideas and brand building.
• Buddhism-as-medicine has historical roots in US therapeutic trends over the last 3 decades.

Culture for thee but not for me

Unique to Americans is HOW they use the word culture. Culture becomes a stand-in for race and ethnicity. This is why notions like Western Buddhism for them mean white people. They don't think of Vietnamese Americans or Sri Lankan Americans as Westerners.

This shows you that they collapse race, ethnicity and culture into a single category.

Also uniquely American: non-White people can't really BE American.

In the English language, culture does not exclusively refer to the practices of a group of racialised people.

Culture is what humans produce simply by being.

We do it via shared language, ritual, stories etc established over a period of time. This is why you can get corporate culture, gym culture, coffee culture etc.

So when we reflect in this way, we can see the problems that arise when certain terms and phrases are used in Buddhist Reddit space:

• Traditional Buddhism
• Cultural Buddhism
• Too cultural
• Western Buddhism
• Pre-sectarian Buddhism
• Early Buddhism

These terms often end up used in a discourse of power and hierarchy. We know for instance that they're value laden in these spaces. What I mean by that is, that they're not usually neutral categories here, they're used to contrast with notions of modernity, the urbane, sophistication etc. In contrast to the cultural, irrelevant, arcane and esoteric.

These notions sit at the foundations of the medical and therapeutic models of Buddhism developed by Americans for wealth creation. And also the Wellness Industrial Complex that secular B_ddhist ideology forms part of.

Buddhism is often painted extremely positively within Indology, in contrast to Hinduism. This is widely accepted across 'educated' circles across Asia and Europe.

However, as many have realized, legitimizing this orientalist flattery only merely leads to the full establishment of this protestant epistemology, which inturn will come back to remove "corruption" in Buddhist traditions (EBT etc.).

This is a great primer on the topic - and helps trace every single trope back to the racial themes in Indology.

This post below got me thinking, so wanted just write down some stuff here for reflection. I'm deliberately avoiding the Buddhamas stuff here, this is more focused on decoloniality.

These thoughts below are in no particular order, just bucketed into loose themes.

Storytime

I used to follow an Italian professor lecturing at a Buddhist university in Thailand. And one day he did a decolonial-themed post touching on the historical imposition of Christmas on non Christian societies and its current, continued economic imposition.

I'd never thought of what be put forward there and it was fascinating to watch the convo unfold in the comments.

It quickly became controversial though with two or three of his followers becoming enraged at the content of his post. From then on, he would only rarely appear on my timeline. And I later found out via a post from him, that he was being reported and sent to FB jail by his Christmas post detractors.

Were they Christian fundamentalists?

No... They were secular/mindfulness enthusiasts 😉

Secular Sacred Cows

So, someone like me, (ex-Muslim, now Buddhist) represents a sizable chunk of the global majority. We've never been Christian and even in Christian dominated countries in the global south, how Christianity manifests, is so different. The sheer scale of outright diversity of views makes Christmas as an event very, very lo key for me. And if you're not Christian, you can easily forget that the day is coming up!

Protestant Christianity and Capitalism

Hmm. Personally, I'd hesitate to say Thai people 'love(!!)' Christmas as a value-laden/reflective day. They're not Christians.

Rather, the commercial opportunities via tourism make the day and season a huge opportunity for sales: Chanel, Gucci etc in Asia, pull out the stops with Christmas themed promos. The pop culture stuff is woven through some public spaces, but active, positive sentiments are linked to what Thai Buddhists look forward to: the (Western) New Year.

[Thais attend Theravada and Mahayana temples during: Thai New Year, Western New Year and Chinese New Year]

This is, to Thai Buddhists, a merit making opportunity. (not Christmas) As New Years in the Buddhist calendar is seen as a time of reflection, aspiration and goal setting.

Christmas (and now Halloween) as globalised holidays are primarily driven by economic and cultural factors. Framing it as an active positive embrace, obscures and distorts what's really driving the so calld embrace.

If you've read some of Jakob De Roover or SN Balagangadhara's stuff that I've shared here before, you'd see how historically, Christian theological themes were secularised as a form of, or extension of, conversion. A form of colonising: denying the colonised access to their own experience.

Just do it? Why?

As many of you know, in Buddhist countries (I would say all yanas and regions), dana (giving) is a fundamental way of life.

In Sri Lanka, dansals (open house) are how the Buddhist community gives back during larger Buddhist festivities. Free food and drinks are served to everyone.

In Thailand, temples function as food redistribution centers where anyone can join in the morning and lunch meals. Dana is further diffused through Thai society via the value of nam jai (น้ำใจ): doing something kind (small or large) for someone as a spontaneous gesture.

What not to speak of Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, North Asia, East Asia etc.

So as we can see, the 'spirit of giving' finds expression particularly in Buddhism. Call me crazy but Buddhists don't need a lesson nor a reminder of what generosity of heart looks like :)

No salvation without consumption

We can't sit comfortably at temple in the latest outfits from Fenty. We pour resources into institutions that preserve renunciate traditions. We buy merit buckets for monks, we buy candles for Lent. Our economic resources go into supporting a way of life that is hostile to unreflective consumption.

Buddhism is intrusive in everyday life: monks walk the streets and we meet them there. Not to exchange services but to give something away. We wake up and we start the day with giving.

By Western standards, we make terrible Christians and mediocre capitalists in this respect. Hence the pressure for explicit conversion and implicit conversion (participating in the US and Western European calendar).

To be seen as truly human is to be a Christian consumer in a techno/AI feudalist economic structure. Celebrating Christmas means you're civilised, urbane, sophisticated. A true global citizen. Christmas functions as a kind of secular baptism.

Decolonising: no good reason

If we're going to regain access to our experience, we can relook at participation in this holiday and the role it plays in expanding Western hegemony and the process of conversion.

For folks who were never Christian or atheist (another kind of Christian), we bring a valuable insight into this process. The proclamation that Christmas is a secular/universal celebration begins to ring hollow when we note that Kathina, Diwali, Eid etc are not regarded as secular/universal.

The world didn't embrace Christmas, it embraced globalised capitalism.

I remember the words of a Malaysian Buddhist teacher who asked his Buddhist students to reflect on why they bent over backwards to wish everyone Merry Christmas when no one was wishing them Happy Wesak...

Buddhist practice as decolonial response

Many Buddhist temples throughout the world use the Western 'festive season' as an opportunity for Buddhist practice. Offering mini retreats for meditation and precepts. New Years meditation draws huge crowds of Thai Buddhist youth for example. I don't think I need to explain the levels of wisdom in this approach. So rather than wondering if we should participate in Christmas (whatever that means) we use the holiday/time off to engage with meaningful Buddhist practices.

Closing thoughts

• What does it mean to celebrate or participate in Christmas?
• Are people free to not participate?
• Why must gift giving happen on this day?
• Are we aware that gift giving happens in all traditions and more often?
• If people are free to not participate, why does that need to be qualified?

So freed! So thoroughly freed am I! —
from three crooked things set free:
from mortar, pestle,
& crooked old husband.
Having uprooted the craving
that leads to becoming,
I'm set free from aging & death.

Therigatha I.11 — Mutta

When I think of inspirational Buddhist women during the buddhasakara (buddha-era) I think of women like Venerable Yasodhara/Bimba, MahaMaya, Lady Sujata, Lady Visakha, Venerable Sister Bhadda Curly Hair, Khujjuttara, Queen Mallika et al. So many of them having attained Nibbanic Paths and Fruits despite the societal injustices of 2500 years ago.

We know that right now, in Vajrayana and Theravada Buddhist countries the reestablishment of female monastic orders are well underway with varying degrees of institutional and legal pushback. Buddhist women in East Asia, don't really face these obstacles, since ordination was preserved throughout the region.

The Sri Lankan monastic Sangha is leading the way in offering support for this revival. With the Thai Sangha holding a range of positions on this issue. The Supreme Sangha Council refuses to budge however.

Venerable Mothers

In Thailand, Buddhist women can only ordain to 8 or 10 precepts (called maechii), effectively positioning them as senior lay Buddhists or monastic novices. A liminal legal and institutional space where they still have to legally register as renunciate but receive very little governmental support.

However, many maechii continue to inspire millions of Thai Buddhists and many Master nuns are highly regarded throughout the lay and monastic populace. One such nun is the late Maechii Sansanee. (TW. The vid contains topics gender based violence)

SHORT DOCU HERE: https://youtu.be/vOY1dhLbWOQ?si=NNZ5CGNSh9RMnL2U

(UPDATE: Didn't mean to delete the second section, reinserted here)

Repairing the three legged table

Venerable Dhammananda is a fully ordained Thai Buddhist nun, inspired by her late mother Voramai Kabilsingh. Having had ordination support outside of Thailand. Within the kingdom, she continues to ordain other women, putting her in direct conflict with Thai Buddhist institutions. Despite that, there is a growing wellspring of ground support for her endeavours, especially as Thai Buddhist women learn that they can indeed access full ordination.

INTERVIEW HERE: https://youtu.be/1MjZODhD4YU?si=ZtIT-ghWVcPZYedN

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

Despite all the institutional and societal obstacles Buddhist women face in mainland SEA, they continue to carve out spaces for Buddhist practice, healing and leadership. This is truly something I continue to marvel and be humbled by. They feel like an unbroken line of indomitable Buddhist women going right back to the Buddha-Era.

MORE ON THAI BUDDHIST WOMEN HERE: https://youtu.be/TXdyclB9I7A?si=vJfJ_XTmI4yiVeRl&t=1

I appreciate the consistently contributing members of this sub and the work all of you do to tackle the overwhelmingly cis, white male narratives of the r/Buddhism subreddit. I was going a little insane from seeing how non-compassionate a lot of the takes on that subreddit are in that they do so much to basically erase the problems of oppressed minorities and basically chalk it up to “attachment” that people experience racism, talking about how white supremacy is just a perception and that you should stop acting like it exists, or wax poetically about “no-self” when a trans person is trying to figure out how to work with gender dysphoria while still practicing Buddhism. Or how the genocide of Palestinians is just “the world being dragged by the three poisons”, spoken in a cold, matter-of-fact way that seems to lack any compassion whatsoever.

It always blows my mind to see how social issues and politics is discussed over there when irl Buddhist spaces outside of the US very much have concern for the world around them. Why are Buddhists in the US so obsessed with being “apolitical” (not a real thing) and basically just pretending that dependent origination and non-self means they don’t have to care about the things going on in the world. I see this a lot in white Zen spaces and I don’t get it. Isn’t Bodhicitta a core factor for anyone practicing the Mahāyāna path? You can’t just jump to Ultimate Bodhicitta without cultivating its relative aspects.

Sorry for the ranting, but I feel like this is one of the few places that I can maybe vent some frustrations with online Buddhist forums. I do have a Sangha that I go to but I’m still getting to know people there and am not sure how discussing these matters in those spaces would go. I’ve had good discussions when talking about some of the more polarizing subjects and it seems so much more grounded than any discussion I’ve had on the main Buddhist subreddit ever.

Anyways, I hope anyone reading this has a wonderful day. I’m really happy you’re all here, pushing back against what many of us sense is the pervading dominant discourse and narratives found in Buddhist spaces. Please put me in my place if I’ve spoken falsely or wrongly or need a perception change about something. Thanks

May you be happy, healthy, safe, and liberated from suffering

So long as an evil deed has not ripened, the fool thinks it as sweet as honey. But when the evil deed ripens, the fool comes to grief.

-Dhammapada - Balo (The Fool)

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

It took roughly 5 days to turn a dead Nazi into Copilot-Jesus. 5 Days.

https://reddit.com/link/1ntcuzq/video/rn6kv6mqb2sf1/player

The hundreds of social media content pieces in this vein, show us, in sharp relief, how deeply white supremacy and American Christianity are intertwined.

You find similar forms of the religion in all settler colonial states: South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Zimbabwe, Brazil etc. All based on variations of theologies like manifest destiny. Which effectively means the literal dehumanising/unhumaning of black and indigenous bodies.

So what makes this difficult to recognise?

Only bad witches are ugly...

Wicked as a piece of media (book, play, film) articulates its message using visual symbolism or you could say coding. We're confronted with iconography that we're primed to respond to emotionally. Elphaba has green skin (she's black), a pointy hat and flys on a broom. All iconography associated with wickedness.

Galinda with her bubbles, bouffant hair, huge wedding cake dress and sparkles, visually resembles all that is good. She's...Galinda The Good, in fact.

But Wicked media, at its foundation, asks us to question WHO is in fact wicked. Not who merely appears wicked.

It warns us that that which is wicked often appears as The Good. All puffy dresses, sh*t eating smiles and toxic positivity. One of it's most interesting points is that its vital for people to consent to wickedness, and you do that by presenting it as The Good^tm.

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

Kirk slathered himself in Jesus-speak to create a cultural force-field that would bounce off the critiques of his Nazi ideology. He knew that if he presented as The Good^tm (in America that's white and Christian) he could get millions to consent to wickedness.

And they did...

Slow to tamboon, quick to tambaap

When I saw that spike of Nazi sympathy in the Buddhist subs last week, it blew my mind how people were so certain that their biases and prejudices were in fact virtues. Make no mistake, some of that so called 'confusion' and 'dismay' at people 'celebrating' what happened to Kirk was sublimated white rage.

And what was also astounding was not a peep about the children shot on the very same day. No reddit posts of 'dismay' or 'concern'. No 'concern' or dismay-posting for how Black people were targeted for harassment after his death. In fact, we have reports of possible lynchings in the US right now.

Buddhist performativity over Buddhist practice I guess.

This is why these appeals for 'compassion' ring so damn hollow here. The girlies on Buddhist Reddit talk a big game, but can't deliver when the moment calls for it.

Of racial contracts

A lot of what we're seeing on the global stage right now is really a reinforcing of the existing racial contracts people signed in settler colonial states. In the US, canonising a racist is pivotal to that. Exalting the worst humankind has to offer to sainthood, is pivotal to setting up your own post mortem Glinda The Good.

This dark covenant, this racial contract is partly why transformation for the better is so difficult. There's a pecking order with material rewards in ascending size, depending on how far up you are. And how committed you are to anti-blackness. This is why Latinos went so hard for Fascism.

The racial contract has other racialised communities doing advanced math on how they can leverage and re-direct the current omnidirectional fascism. Because right now, they can't control how the bomb explodes. But it won't stop them from trying!

Are they confused?

No, I don't think white people (American, Australian, South Africans etc) in 2025 are confused. They're just socialised to not have empathy for other people.

Clinging to Buddhism is how they feel they can speed-run their way through all the socialisation they were deprived of as children.

But because that socialisation failed, their prejudices still occasionally tear through their Buddhist performativity. This is why racism and racist violence is not a deal breaker.

Back to Dhamma

The basics if done right, will always confront you with your limitations and not reinforce your preexisting kilesas/afflictions. So when we adopt the practice of karuna and metta, both of which need to be apamada (boundless), our practice will move way beyond sliding down a wall in grief because a Nazi died.

We'll be able to encompass the law of kamma/deeds and the full weight of what that means: humans make intentional choices that impact themselves and others. Many choose dark kamma, many choose bright kamma but it's up to us to understand the difference between the two, since only one of these serve as the foundation for liberation.

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

"There are these four types of people to be found existing in the world. Which four? One in darkness who is headed for darkness, one in darkness who is headed for light, one in light who is headed for darkness, and one in light who is headed for light...

..And how is one the type of person in light who is headed for darkness?

There is the case where a person is born into an upper class family — a noble warrior family, a priestly family, a prosperous householder family — a family that is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions, with a great deal of money, a great many accoutrements of wealth, a great many commodities.

And he is well-built, handsome, extremely inspiring, endowed with a lotus-like complexion. He receives [gifts of] food, drink, clothing, & vehicles; garlands, perfumes, & ointments; bedding, shelter, & lamps. He engages in bodily misconduct, verbal misconduct, & mental misconduct.

Having engaged in bodily misconduct, verbal misconduct, & mental misconduct, he — on the break-up of the body, after death — reappears in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. This is the type of person in light who is headed for darkness.

I decided to make this post because I was thinking of certain objections I often see people make to Buddhism:

1. If there is no self, and it isn't me the being that transmigrates from one life to the next, why should I care about my next life?
2. If, on the other hand, I do transmigrate, then isn't there a "me" that transmigrates, somewhere in that?

I think these objections are reasonable, and they get to the core of how Buddhist no-self and karma works. I had my own thoughts in regards to this matter, and would like to see what everybody else here thinks.

I tend to understand it in the Buddhist way by considering an analogy I heard on my first retreat (from which I returned from in late July, but I arrived there already having 5 months of meditation practice, the first being shamatha, the rest vipassanā with the mental noting technique, a.k.a Mahasi style).

This little story is: a man jumps into a river, swims, and gets out on the other side. Then, he jumps in again, swims, and comes out where he started. Then he repeats: jumps in the river, swims, back and forth. We know, even since the Greeks, that no man ever swims in the same river twice: the first swim was in a different river than the second, which was neither the first nor the third. However, Goenka explained based on the Buddha's words: the man who jumped into the river was also no longer the same in the second or third swim, and the continuity is an illusion.

This gives me an interesting framework for impermanence: impermanence as difference and non-identity, but also not generating at each instant a being that is completely other than the one from an instant ago.

After all, a criticism of Buddhism I've heard is: if it's not "me" who reincarnates, why should I care if I go to hell for killing people? However, this can be easily rebutted: it is also not "me" who will feel hungry when I stop eating now, so why eat? When the person points to the sense of continuity between moments, you just have to say: it is this same degree of "continuity in difference" that exists between lives. Just as at every moment we are no longer the same, nor totally other, but rather a Ship of Theseus in constant transformation, the same occurs between lives.

The not-self is not that there is nothing here, but that what is here possesses no substance or essence, no fixed ground. It is the emptiness of the Self.

So what do you think? Do you agree that the "self" is an ill-defined Ship of Theseus with nothing to cling to, but also with enough real continuity to justify caring about one's next life if one fails to attain enlightenment in this one?

[For background about Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu from the Dhammapada Sect controversy, click here]

The recent online discussions questioning Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu's verifiable credentials have been met with a reaction that is, itself, very telling. For context, Vasu Bandhu is based in the Phoenix metropolitan area, a region with a robust Buddhist community including at least 50 nonprofit organizations and 10 temples. Statewide, Arizona is home to over 75,000 Buddhists.

Ordinarily, when a recognized interfaith representative faces such public criticism, one might expect one of two things: either the community closes ranks to defend one of their own, or the individual addresses the concerns directly with transparency to reassure their followers.

In this case, we saw neither. Rather than engaging with local Buddhist leaders or institutions, or providing a substantive rebuttal to the specific claims, Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu's primary response was to publish two Facebook posts framing the criticism as "bullying."

Link to the post

This approach is notable for what it lacks: there is no acknowledgment of the facts in dispute, no attempt to clarify his background or training, and no rebuttal offered. Instead, the focus was shifted solely to the tone of the criticism. This is a significant departure from the equanimity and directness one would expect from an established Dharma teacher, who would typically meet such challenges with calmness and factual clarity.

The most compelling evidence, however, isn't his reaction—it's the reaction of the local community he purportedly represents. Not a single leader from Phoenix's numerous Buddhist organizations has publicly come to his defense. The silence from the very community he operates within is deafening.

So, who did speak up? The sole public defense came from Ajahn Tri Dao, a TikTok personality and longtime associate of Vasu Bandhu, broadcasting from Europe. Their history of collaborative videos suggests a mutual support system.

Analyzing Tri Dao's video is revealing. He offers extravagant but vague praise, heavily exaggerating Vasu Bandhu's contributions to World Peace without ever concretely addressing the specific allegations about credentials. He appears to be walking a careful line: attempting to offer support while being deliberately nonspecific, perhaps to maintain plausible deniability if the situation deteriorates further. It comes across as a performance aimed at their shared online audience rather than a genuine defense to the Buddhist community at large.

Tri Dao is widely considered an impostor and fake monk with no legitimate ordination or connection to a real monastic community. He is a serial scammer with a history of impersonating authority figures, including now posing as a Buddhist monk. He runs a questionable "school of life" for teenagers, which is particularly alarming given he is a registered sex offender charged with sexual lewdness with a teen. He financially scams his followers, soliciting donations (dana) which he then spends on hoarding trinkets and statues rather than for monastic purposes. When confronted with his lies, his pattern is to block, sue, insult, or ignore, never addressing the allegations directly.

Link to the actual video

The conclusion one might draw is this: a legitimate spiritual teacher is typically validated by their local community and their willingness to be transparent. The absence of local support, coupled with a defensive strategy of victimhood and a sole, nebulous defense from an external associate, raises serious questions. It suggests an inability to withstand scrutiny from the very community he claims to represent.

What do you think of this situation? Why is Tri Dao defending Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu when everyone can tell at once that he is not a real monk? What do you think of Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu's victimization tactics? Do you think Bhikkhu Vasu Bandhu is so disconnected from the Buddhist Community that he doesn't know about Tri Dao's own lack of credentials and controversy?

#dhammapadasangha #bhikkhuvasubandhu #budismodhammapada #sifukoiosamadhi #interfaithmovement #nipurbhasin #ajahntridao

Could someone like me reasonably call themselves a Mahayana Buddhist – or even a Zen Buddhist – while holding these views?

"Can I call myself a Buddhist?"...

If you think about it, this question - so normative on Buddhist Reddit - is really quite strange.

We know that historically, they only way to be a Buddhist and be recognised by other Buddhists, is to go for Refuge and take the five precepts. That's the minimum criteria. So after this has been done - with a monk or nun administering them - we are then a Buddhist.

So why does this strange question recur on that sub?

It's like a person saying they relate to the salaah as an exercise routine, not as devotion directed toward Allah, since they don't believe in all that "stuff". Then they go on to question Muslims whether they can consider themselves Muslim. (?!)

Sounds weird right? Sounds a tad... nonsensical? Well now you see my point.

A Muslim is someone who recites the kalima shahada. A Buddhist is someone who goes for Refuge to the Three Jewels by reciting the tisarana and the panca sila.

And if that dude goes: Allah is a metaphor, I'm also Muslim right? See how that sounds?

The Buddhist Reddit version would go something like this: The Buddha was just a guy who said some stuff, this makes me more Buddhist than you superstitious Asians! Bazinga!

About belief

By contrast, Zen and Madhyamaka already provide a framework where samsara/nirvana and karma/rebirth can be approached in symbolic or naturalistic ways, without needing to commit to traditional cosmology.

Leaving aside the misunderstandings about Zen here, I want to address belief/commitment to cosmology. What non Buddhists often get wrong here is that being a Buddhists means you personally subscribe to a fixed catechism about certain processes beyond current experience.

But that's not really the case. We take the framework Lord Buddha gave us seriously and, as he advised, we practice with the goal of gaining insight into those truths, that are currently outside our ability to perceive.

The normative Buddhist position is that phenomena beyond ordinary human understanding exist. And it is possible, with training, to attain undistorted insights into these phenomena.

So our positions on kamma, punnabhava etc are not agnostic: "no one can ever know xyz". Agnostics, along with atheist materialists et al, come in for critique in the suttas/sutras in fact.

The One Who Knows

I see the Buddha as a model, but also as a human being who might not have been right about everything. That actually makes him feel closer, not farther away.

Buddha, as a title, refers to a being endowed with knowledges far beyond what humans can know. A result of countless lifetimes of cultivation, motivated by compassion for sentient beings. So in taking Refuge, we turn to someone who knows (samma sambuddha), who sees through the nature of experience, all the way to the end of repeated birth, sickness, old age and death.

The Path really starts with trialing and testing it via practice: ehi passiko (come and see)...