alt Hacker NewsThis is a strange question. It's like asking if Christianity has any basis in scientific and objective reality, which as a religion it does not, none do. It doesn't even make any sense to ask the question, like what does an objective reality of a religion even mean? You explicitly disclaimed discussion about the cognitive benefits of its practice so I'm not really sure what else you could be asking concretely.
I suspected that most people on HN viewed Buddhism the way you do: as something with no basis fundamentally in science and therefore reality but felt that the practices have side effect health benefits or other benefits undiscovered by science.
From the sample size of people who responded, I would say I am wrong. A good amount of HNers believe it literally as something beyond science.