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cyberpunklast Wednesday at 6:42 PM2 repliesview on HN

Well, disclaimer — I am a practicing zen buddhist, but it’s something I came to myself, we aren’t recruiting like religions, and there is no dogma or origin myth to believe in.

You’re unlikely to see a buddhist missionary asking if you’ve heard to truth about emptiness on a street corner ;)

My point was simply that, at least in my personal experience, if i had found zen as a tool to achieve something, e.g it was sold to me as having some effect other, it would not have worked.


Replies

Dilettante_last Wednesday at 10:15 PM

>You’re unlikely to see a buddhist missionary asking if you’ve heard to truth about emptiness on a street corner ;)

And if you do, kill him! ;)

throwforfedslast Thursday at 10:10 PM

> You’re unlikely to see a buddhist missionary asking if you’ve heard to truth about emptiness on a street corner ;)

That made me lol, because yes I've never experienced that. But then I remembered that SGI had a lot of controversy due to their aggressive proselytizing in Japan in the 20th century. [1]

Also, we do have to bear witness to Theravadin monks in Myanmar advocating for (and participating in) genocide against the Rohingya due to their religious beliefs. Similarly in Sri Lanka against Tamils and Muslim populations there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dsei_Toda#Aggressive_pro...