Liberation of the first-person

Buddhism's interaction with the West, as I can see, is on three fronts: 1) the materialistic sciences; 2) Abrahamic religions; 3) psychology.  I hasten to add, by no means is this list exhaustive.  This interaction really involves Buddhism's right to exist as a path of salvation for the first-person.  In this respect, Buddhism in the West should not become a tool of the sciences, the current religions, or psychology. 

What characterizes all three is that they are not paths for the first-person.  They could not care less about self-discovery or self-uncovering which, incidentally, is unique to Indian shramanic traditions like Buddhism.  For the materialistic sciences, the first-person is of no real interest.  Hence, no path.  When we look at the Abrahamic religions, they too are without a path.  Any value the first-person might possess must be subordinated to God.  The first-person is really of no value when compared with the greatness of God.  Psychology offers no path, either, except a path to normal, culturally sanctioned behavior. The first-person matters not.  It is behavior that matters.

Buddhism's path brings to the West a new way of being in the world which involves a path that leads to the liberation of the first-person who is no longer ignored or turned into some thrall to be manipulated.

To make this clearer, the discovery of self or the first-person is not a matter of looking in a mirror and saying, "That's me."  Far from it.  The self is absolutely primordial.  It doesn't appear in a mirror.  It is the substance of the universe which is unable to directly cognize itself which, as a result, is forever lost and overwhelmed by the phenomena which confronts it.

As this path is concerned, it is a process of the first-person objectively realizing the first-person (samâdhi).  This realization occurs by penetrating through the shell of phenomena.  This penetration and finding of itself then becomes a return-to-self.  In other words, the universal substance realizes that the forms before it, which seemingly vex it, are nothing more than a distortion of the very substance, itself.  From this new vantage point, the universe is Mind-only, mind and the first-person being the same.

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