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comment by Herunar
Herunar  ·  3406 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Does Mindfulness Mean Anything?

I do agree that people often pay lip service to the spiritual elements of the cultural bits and pieces we've amalgamated, like yoga and meditation. And yeah, Western religions do tend to focus on dogma so it is pretty easy to see why the spiritual benefits of such practices are overlooked.

In fairness though, the Abrahamic religions do have spiritual sects to them - namely the Sufis in terms of Islam - but I think certainly in mainstream, modern practice the spiritual elements have become pretty diluted. Still, you'd be surprised as to how much that is the case in certain sects of Buddhism as well - the Tibetan school in particular prides itself on debating every little detail of the religion (to the point where, interestingly enough, crowds in Tibet gather to watch two scholars debate, much in the way we treat sporting matches in the West). There is, I think, a lot more similarity between Western and Eastern religions than than is often assumed (personally, I dislike sort of grouping them up in such broad labels - as a historian I'm a bit averse to it for a few reasons).

I think generally in a modernized Western society though, as you said, we look towards the practical and stay away from something that might be considered a bit too 'out there'





user-inactivated  ·  3406 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I dislike sort of grouping them up in such broad labels - as a historian I'm a bit averse to it for a few reasons.

I definitely understand where you're coming from. Personally though, I don't think there is much harm in saying "Here are some overarching similarities between these cultures, but please refer to the footnotes for statistical outliers."

While it's not something that either you or I touched on, I do think it's important to point out that we in the west tend to over romanticize eastern cultures and practices. To us, their ideas and beliefs seem exotic and compelling. To them though, it's every day life and they probably don't give much of it a second thought the way we don't give a lot of our beliefs a second thought.

Herunar  ·  3406 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh yeah, I definitely agree. Heck, people in the East romanticize a lot of about the West too - I guess it's just human nature in a sense to view other cultures as an 'other', if that makes sense. We're just sorta weird like that I guess!