The Buddhist blogosphere is largely moribund these days, which I guess gives me a space more or less that isn't that crowded... Someone I know in social media mentioned if you want to know if some person X is in or leading a cult, just Google "X cult."
Well, I did that and here's one of those links. There is an allusion to a "1993 Dharmsala Western Buddhist Teachers' Conference," which, according to that author, seemed mentally in the same category as a conspiracy theorist's ruminations on the Bilderberg Group or maybe Davos (though I do have reservations about Davos, to put it very mildly). Here's the only substantial link I could find on said conference.
Now full disclosure: In the 90s when I lived in New York I did meditate at zendos that no doubt were affiliated with the teachers who attended that conference, and while the prevailing politics were liberal/progressive, I doubt that came from some conspiracy hatched at a conference 31 years ago.
In fact, I would submit that one reason this conference was held was rather for the Dalai Lama to project soft power for the Tibetan government in exile; read that link I mentioned above. Clearly Bhodin Kjolhede was rather enamored and deferential to the Dalai Lama. Now, I myself am on record as being rather critical of the Dalai Lama and the whole "Free Tibet" movement. (Also here.) I'm not an apologist for Chinese rights violations, but the record is right there out in the open if people will look.
However, this is not the message the author of "Vividness" wishes to convey, but rather, those nasty Boomers with their "Boomeritis" created liberal Western Buddhism, yada yada yada. As things would around this time or later be, it turns out that both views by second generation American convert Buddhists and the Ken Wilber/Brad Warner/Vincent Horn/etc. "new generation" American convert/Buddhist brat Buddhists...were mighty white.
As I wrote earlier, when I lived in New York I did meditate at zendos that no doubt were affiliated with the teachers who attended that conference, but I lived in New York. I also visited Shaolin-si in Flushing, as well as many Chinese temples. Similarly when I moved to the Pacific Northwest I visited many temples that don't get space in Tricycle or Lion's Roar; from Pure Land to Shingon to Vietnamese to Chinese Pure Land. Moreover, the teacher with whom I trained then was virtually unknown in the United States, so while I saw the above thesis/antithesis of white Western Buddhism, it kind of passed me by. Or to steal a phrase from a right wing pundit, I was in Western American Buddhism but not of it, at least in the sense that I joined one camp at the exclusion of another camp. Or maybe I stood outside both camps.
Today, in retrospect, it seems the whole critique of white Western Buddhists as a stifling consensus has collapsed into a puddle of conspirituality. (See also here.) It seems many of the same folks who criticize "consensus Western Buddhism" also are anti-vaxx, and demonstrate gullibility in other areas of our political and economic system; e.g., one I know was a big fan of Ken Wilber; now he's a fan of Elon Musk.
But, all of these things are fundamentally illusory! Of course the phenomena I'm describing are phenomena, and one can agree or disagree with my apprehension and views on such phenomena.
But they describe divisions where divisions don't fundamentally exist. As I wrote previously with disputes such as these or divisions, we should try to remember to have the mind of a newborn baby with no sense of self apart from others, and to keep THAT MIND in engaging others.
This does not mean accepting others' delusions, or encouraging them in their delusions especially when those delusions would be harmful to beings. This goes for using "Buddhist" justifications for certain behaviors that are at their core casuisty. YES, Donald Trump has Buddha nature, but he's also an adjudicated felon, rapist, and con man who will be doing harm to this country and most of its people.
But NO, that doesn't give me license to engage in more division either. I have to remember to keep THAT MIND.
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