I've developed a strong preference to pluralize the word Buddhism(s) when discussing it. It's such a common error by many people not familiar with it to assume there is a central sect or authority or even unifying narrative behind it where there is not one.
Pluralising like that also shifts away from perennial type thought which might assert Buddhism - or any human made religious tradition - is at core the same absolute truth or essence. These are human traditions w/ different contexts & practices. We're lost if we forget that.
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I was recently told by a lay Taiwanese Chan Buddhist that Tibetan Buddhism is bad because of their different, therefore *morally wrong*, attitudes toward vegetarianism, celibacy and alcohol.
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She was missing of course completely the point that in Tibetan Buddhism people can have very different types of practice commitments depending on their lineage and style of practice with both monastic or non-monastic formal ordinations.
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yes, that's an excellent point. the more I engage with this stuff the more appreciation I gain for the importance of acknowledging context and the importance of cultural containers and traditions. As much as I like Huxley, "Perennial Philosophy" is utopian ideal at best.
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and a harmful distraction at worse. imagining that we are pursuing an eternal hyper-reality instead of engaging with our own selves in our own time and place and people and culture is yet another turn in the garden of forking paths.
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