The Zen of Quakerism (2016)

There is considerable cherry picking along with cultural appropriation going on here. Buddhism has flavors that are worlds apart from what is described in the post.

A spicy example is discussed in the book "Zen at War"[1]. Myanamar and Sri Lanka[2] have their own ultra nationalistic Buddhists movements.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_Buddhist_nationalism

Obviously there are many flavours of Buddhism and many flavours of Christianity, but the author is simply relating his own experience. I really don't see how cherry picking or cultural appropriation could possibly apply here.

The author picks and chooses aspects of a tradition/religion/philosophy and names the result as the original tradition/religion/philosophy.

Does that help?

I think the author is speaking about a specific tradition of Buddhism, Zen, and is drawing parallels between that tradition and Quakerism. The “picking and choosing” point doesn’t make sense to me from that angle. Are you picking and choosing from Christianity when you talk about Protestantism, for example? His thoughts on Zen are pretty on point.

IMO it's wild to have the expectation that a Quaker author writing in a Quaker publication about his direct experiences with Zen Buddhism (as practiced in a specific New Jersey group) and how it helped him meditate is deficient because it doesn't provide caveats or overviews of the in's and out's of the various forms of Buddhism.

You REALLY think anyone would benefit from him adding:

BIG CAVEAT: BUDDHISM IS A RELIGION OF BILLIONS AND SOME PARTICULAR GROUPS MIGHT NOT FIT WITH THE DESCRIPTIONS OF MY EXPERIENCE!!!!

ALSO, IT IS ABSOLUTELY *IMPERATIVE* THAT YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE SOME MILITANT BUDDHIST GROUPS IN MYANAMAR!!!! WARNING WARNING WARNING!!

???

Quoting examples without an effort to show that it is representative of Buddhist teachings is basically a smear. Like starting a discussion on liberalism, not with principles of individual freedom, but instead saying that the attempt to bring democracy to Iraq is the representative example of liberalism.

(Some on the left who oppose liberalism actually do some versions of this, quoting Mills on colonialism - but that is a genetic fallacy.)

It makes much more sense to say that anytime some teaching/philosophy becomes popular at a continental scale, the people who are involved in conflicts will try to appropriate it to justify their position.

If you want to evaluate the role of the teaching itself, one would have to compare it to alternatives and whether they would be more easily appropriated.

The author is ultimately speaking of a specific practice, meditation. A practice that predates Buddhism by probably more then a millennium. Zen is not relevant here as it is a latter development.

> cultural appropriation going on here

Can you tell us more about what you mean by "cultural appropriation," and how you see it as differing from "imitating others' useful practices"?

That’s what comes to my mind when I read things about American-style Buddhist meditation. Why don’t they mention Myanmar-style racism?

> Like starting a discussion on liberalism, not with principles of individual freedom, but instead saying that the attempt to bring democracy to Iraq is the representative example of liberalism.

Some prefer to discuss what a purported ideology or its adherents does out in the real world.

Sure, as long as your real world examination is careful about getting the causation right as practically any idea can be appropriated. For instance, someone makes false charge to lock up someone innocent in the name of 'reducing crime', is the issue the goal of justice and low crime or is it the problem with the standards of evidence used to lock up the criminal?

> For instance, someone makes false charge to lock up someone innocent in the name of 'reducing crime', is the issue the goal of justice and low crime or is it the problem with the standards of evidence used to lock up the criminal?

The immediate problem is the troll that is lying and hiding behind a purported agenda. Exposing their real agenda is the immediate fix.

You don’t rhetorically concede to the troll that “reducing crime” is good because they’re a troll. Conceding anything to them is a strategic blunder. They are trolling. It’s irrelevant to the case.