[zozbot234]

It's not like the West doesn't have its own meditative and contemplative traditions. The Cynics and Stoics of the Classical world could have very diverse attitudes to wealth and material comforts, with the former being quite more disdainful of them and quite literally "living like dogs". We see the same thing in Western ascetic monasticism later on - some Western monks and nuns focus on helping others and doing their assigned duty in society, while others pursue a more focused spiritual and contemplative path.

[felipeerias]

There's a passage by Chesterton where he jokes that many of his contemporaries had simply become bored with Christianity and would happily embrace it again if it came wrapped in the exotic garbs of a far away land.

[somenameforme]

An interesting anecdote I've experienced on this topic living abroad is how many Buddhists, in an almost exclusively Buddhist nation, have some degree of admiration for Christianity while having some degree of disdain for their own religion or philosophy.

I think it's the foreign aspect, but also another one is that when you have limited experience of what a casual Christian (or Buddhist) is like, it creates a falsely positive impression. Many of the Christians people in this country would be familiar with are a mixture of missionaries and people who came and did things like set up schools and hospitals for people at little to no cost. And, vice versa, Buddhists Americans are generally familiar with are going to be those genuinely interested in the pursuit for its own sake, rather than driven to such out of cultural inertia.

By contrast here you get daily news about things such as monks being busted running illegal gambling dens, and sometimes the rather more perverse. And there's also a culture associating various Buddhist icons with good luck which trends towards a complete bastardization and mockery of it as people try to literally use such for good luck. Think of something like the equivalent of a poker player praying to God 'Just one time, Jesus' while rubbing a crucifix. The various Buddhist "rituals" for good results during finals are well, not something that's going to exactly exemplify the moral pursuits of Buddhism.

Seeing people express something along the lines of the myth of the noble savage, when you're that savage and certainly not noble is quite interesting, and jading!

[zozbot234]

Yes, the sangha in natively Buddhist countries can be a rather mixed bag but that's just as true of the various churches and other religions in the West. These things are somewhat natural when you have a religion in a "popular" role.

[pyuser583]

Which country are you from?

[curuinor]

and seneca the stoic had 300 million sestertii total net worth, compared to the ordinary yearly wage of 200 sestertii, give or take!

lots of rich religious folks out there in history. when they expropriated the buddhists in the huichang expropriation during the tang, they took tens of millions of acres of arable land and liberated 150,000 temple slaves

[biztos]

> when they expropriated the buddhists in the huichang expropriation during the tang…

Do you happen to have any good links for learning more about this?

The Wikipedia page[0] is a mess and my Google skills have fallen short.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huichang_Persecution_of_Buddhi...

[curuinor]

best to go read reschauer's book, cited in the wiki page