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Feb 28, 2025
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I am someone born and raised in India, from where all the "dharmic religions" originated and this is a thing I believe even most Indians get wrong. Dharma and religion are 2 separate things. The entire eastern philosophy is based around 2 things. Dharma and karma. There is no "religion". Everything and everyone is bound to dharma or duty. God is not the central focus of our spiritual journey. Our spiritual journey is shaped on what karma (action) we do to fulfill our dharma (duty). Duty is abstract and varies from situation to situation. For example, a Christian or a Muslim fulfilling their duty towards their god is also them fulfilling their Dharma.
We are duty bound to various things like our family, our friends, our belongings, our work, the earth we live on, etc. we have the freedom to choose which duty we wish to fulfill.
With colonialism, the essence of dharma started to vanish. Religion is a tool to control people and I won't say that ancient Indians never used it as a weapon. That's where the caste system came from. It is necessary to understand that it was never a debate between which religion is better or which God is better. I say this because I have seen people getting killed over it. I see how this divides people and how it creates deep hatred amongst individuals.
I hope I provided a better insight. I haven't read too much eastern philosophy apart from the absolute basics, but I have experienced it first hand and this was my perspective.
Dharma practitioner here… there’s a lot that could be said here, but this perspective doesn’t consider the influence of the Abrahamic religions on the western world, which, for practitioners and people interested in truth, is entirely relevant.
People born in the west will simply have less success solely relying on eastern tradition. Compared to their eastern counterparts.
I’m practicing for streamwinning, for example. AKA, the first path of enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism. I’m from America. What did my teacher introduce to me as something that could potentially get me there faster? Western prayer. So you can have your preference but it may also be in your best interest to understand it doesn’t have to be “this or that”. There are no teams, and if there are, it’s goodness/truth vs ignorance.
This hot take is less aligned with dharma than if someone were rejoicing about God.
I agree w/ you though, in the beginning of my practice, aesthetics were everything and what the west presented looked wack by comparison. 🤠
willy-james I think this is interesting: how different tools/methods can create a similar result depending on the cultural background of the individual. At least serving as an entry point before moving fully into more traditional Dharma practices.
While I have been practicing meditation and studying Buddhism for over a decade, I’m now noticing how some of my most Buddhist ways of being were first introduced to me in therapy. Lessons about mind/body as a non-duality, and how this idea of my “mind” as separate reifies this idea of Self as ghost in the machine; practices in being mindful in my body and noticing my physical experience, not only those in my cognitive mind; noticing the ways I may imagine past/future but acknowledging that even then I am having this experience in the present moment.
Gestalt Therapy (which my therapist practices) was also influenced by Taoism and Zen Buddhism, but I wasn’t being taught these concepts as Buddhist. It was only later that I was reading various teachings and seeing the overlap. So, I find this interesting how Western approaches can help open Americans (et al) to the Dharma and maybe make it more accessible to how they might view the world.
