YouTube video by Gary Donnelly

Regular readers (ha!) or TikTok viewers will have no doubt seen how much time I’ve been spending arguing that we can categorise Buddhism as a religion with largely Western enthusiasts who are very keen to wriggle out of any such notion. Well, I’ve been reading a book, as I am wont to do, and it makes the case that ‘religion’ as a concept is a modern invention, and its application to ‘ancient’ traditions is anachronistic and so should be abandoned.

There’s been a whole hoo-ha online recently about whether or not we can say that Buddhism has any ‘dogmas’ (or dogmata, as I like to pretentiously call them). Many people claim that Buddhism has no dogmata whatsoever: it is a faith (lol) based on reason, enquiry, deciding for yourself; it is scientific, fits neatly into quantum mechanics, has no trappings of…

Does anybody remember that phrase, ‘the stink of Zen’? That idea within Zen that practitioners can be a bit to self-impressed and self-assured, thinking they know it all, detaching themselves from real life and facts on the ground? I think we see a similar thing a lot with lay Theravādins, too. Anybody who subscribes to me on Tik Tok and if you don't, why not?) will have seen that for the past couple of weeks, I have been engaged in some back-and-forth with some particularly vocal, usually Western, Theravādin Buddhists.

Does anybody remember that phrase, ‘the stink of Zen’? That idea within Zen that practitioners can be a bit to self-impressed and self-assured, thinking they know it all, detaching themselves from real life and facts on the ground? I think we see a similar thing a lot with lay Theravādins, too. Anybody who subscribes to me on Tik Tok and if you don't, why not?) will have seen that for the past couple of weeks, I have been engaged in some back-and-forth with some particularly vocal, usually Western, Theravādin Buddhists.