Pop Buddhism

It is hard to lump up the goings on of modern Buddhism with one concise word.  I decided to use "pop Buddhism" as a catchall term.  Alongside of this, there is an implied contrast which is not "unpopular Buddhism" but more like esoteric Buddhism.  Such Buddhism is for a certain type of person (in the Buddha's discourses these persons are called arya).  It is mystical in its orientation insofar as almost all of the Buddha's discourses are of an anagogical nature referring to the transcendent or unconditioned world which is beyond the reach and range of the temporal.

Everyone who becomes interested in Buddhism for the first time begins as a pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality.  They have a few ideas about what they believe Buddhism teaches, for example, compassion, being a vegetarian, or doing meditation.  The other dimension to this is not everyone stays a pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality.  Some have a nose for the esoteric who are thus able to leave the pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality world in a year or so.  They are not uncomfortable with the Buddha's anagogical discourses which point beyond our temporal world.  Regrettably, others never leave the fold of pop Buddhism.

Pop Buddhism, in a word, is not Buddhism.  Measured against the Buddha's discourses pop Buddhism's interpretation of what the Buddha taught is too materialistic and to a lesser extent, behavior oriented.  Pop Buddhism is like Ellis Island in the old days when immigration to the U.S. was at its highest point. It acted as a point of transition.  Not one new immigrant knew what life was actually like in the U.S.  All, pretty much, had pie-in-the-sky dreams of America.  Much of it was wrong.  When these immigrants actually entered the U.S., they saw an America not of their dreams but one, nevertheless, that offered immense possibility unlike in their native country. 

Pop Spiritual Consciousness Spiritualitys are, figuratively speaking, still on Ellis Island.  Most will not get off.

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