real vs. fake Buddhism

Watch these two videos:

One of the above is a good example of what happens when you start smuggling in Western culture and values into what is supposedly a Buddhist message. Whether the Western culture and values are themselves good or bad isn't the point: it's the disingenuousness of passing off a non-Buddhist message as Buddhist—at least by implication. Can you guess which of the above videos is more or less "authentically" Buddhist?

Discussion

It should have been an easy guess since one features a real monk while the other features a script read by a monk-like AI voice. Phrases in the AI-voice video like "it only disconnects you from your truth" are clues that the script is subtly smuggling in Western concepts like your truth. This is also true of language like "Your memories live in your soul..." or "If the energy dishonors your spirit...." Buddhists aren't big on "soul/spirit" language—which is more Christian—because of the doctrine of anatman/anatta (無我/무아/mu-a, lit. "no self," in Chinese and Korean Buddhism), often roughly translated as no self or no soul. It's not that Buddhists believe there is simply no such thing as a self; what they deny is that the self is anything fundamental, permanent, and eternally unchanging, which is what the atman is in Hinduism, i.e., a diamond-hard core of self. Instead, Buddhists see the self as a processual aggregate—constantly changing and evolving yet retaining a certain impermanent distinctness. Over in the West, in AN Whitehead's process philosophy, a close analogue to the Buddhist concepts of self and distinct phenomena is arguably concrescence—i.e. the coming-together of things into a discrete-but-impermanent phenomenon, like a distinct wave in the ocean that is there, brought together by the confluence of matter, energy, and forces, and then gone. Of course, the water that made up the wave still remains, so in a sense, the wave is never truly gone; it's just that particular concrescence that is no longer there. By that reckoning, a human life, and a human's being, is little different from that wave: there for a while, then gone, but never really gone. Being is process. The AI video also uses very moony, California-like language like, "Go where your energy is respected." Californians love "energy" language; maybe the AI's scriptwriter is from there.

All of that said, I don't think the AI video's message is bad, per se. The advice can be boiled down to (as one video commenter wrote—I'm stealing this straight from him/her): 

THINGS NOT TO SAY (AS A SENIOR)

1. Back in my day, things were better.
2. I am too old to change.
3. I wish I had... 

THINGS NOT TO DO (AS A SENIOR)

1. Stop chasing the approval of the younger generation.
2. Do not hoard out of fear.
3. Stop dwelling on what you have lost.

PLACES NOT TO GO (AS A SENIOR)

1. Stop going where you are not respected.
2. Stop going where you are merely tolerated.
3. Stop going back into your past trying to fix what is already finished.

I can see the Buddhist messaging in a lot of this, so I'm not implying that the video is utterly un-Buddhist. It isn't. And it's entirely possible for Buddhists to use "God" and "spirit" and "soul" and "energy" language in foreign cultures if that's what it takes to get the basic message through, which is a message of detachment from the impermanent because reality is always in flow, and we merely need to recognize that.

The real Buddhist video, by contrast, sounds like many of the dharma talks I've heard. It moves directly to this idea that we are all clinging to something, that we form attachments, and that these attachments can lead to suffering. "We destroy the beauty of things" through our desires, our attachments. Our attachments, in the form of desires, seem to bind us to things, but as the monk says, we're not so much attached to things as we are bound by our desires. Things merely are what they are—impermanent, part of the flow of reality. To let go of desire isn't to let go of pleasure and the enjoyment of things: it's to put yourself and the world each in their proper place. Note that this video contains absolutely no soul/spirit/energy or "God" language: it's a dharma talk straight from the mouth of a Sri Lankan monk. I could feel the authenticity of the Buddhist vibes right away.

Buddhism doesn't traffic in quite the same conceptual/moral world of Christianity, with its dramatic (Karen Armstrong's adjective for monotheism) sense of sin, fallenness, redemption, soul/spirit, righteousness, purity, faith, belief, metanoia, sacrifice, etc. There are definite overlaps between Buddhism and Christianity, especially on the ethical/practical level, but beware of seeing these vague similarities and declaring them to be exact parallels.

In the meantime, watch for videos that subtly try to hoodwink you into thinking you're hearing 100% Buddhism when the message is, in fact, laced with non-Buddhist language and values. At the same time, don't dismiss the message as garbage just because you're aware that it's a jumble of ideas from different places and perspectives.