Quote:
Originally Posted by path12
I am not any kind of expert either but you nail what for me is the appeal -- rather than an external/all powerful deity it encourages me instead to look within, and that satisfies both my instincts and my innate skepticism.
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Yeah, it was particularly fascinating to me to realize that I had an American cultural bias built up around Buddhism as some sort of "Eastern Mysticism", but the more I read about it the more I realize that all of the "Eastern Mysticism" is ironically an entirely Western construct.
The best example of this that I see regularly, is the Western belief that karma is some sort of mystical force that forces balance in the universe, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, whereas the actual Buddhist teachings seem more along the lines of "if you
actively cultivate a "good" (or bad) environment, doing good work, thinking good thoughts, and surrounding yourself with good people, then those things will obviously increase the likelihood of more good things happening to you."