With respect, this talk feels unhelpful . To teach that one culture is better or worse than another is relative, subjective, dualistic, and creates conflict. Many people seek Buddhism to learn a method of freeing themselves from conflict, both inner and outer. This tendency to overly concern ourselves with “better” and “worse” seems fruitless. Thank you.
I agree that labelling cultures better or worse would be unhelpful, dualistic, divisive and so on; only that wasn’t my perception of what was said here. It seems to me - and of course I may be mistaken - that this was about learning from what particular things certain cultures do well, which seems quite different from saying that culture as a whole is better than this other one. To learn by example in this manner is surely skilful?
With respect, this talk feels unhelpful . To teach that one culture is better or worse than another is relative, subjective, dualistic, and creates conflict. Many people seek Buddhism to learn a method of freeing themselves from conflict, both inner and outer. This tendency to overly concern ourselves with “better” and “worse” seems fruitless. Thank you.
I agree that labelling cultures better or worse would be unhelpful, dualistic, divisive and so on; only that wasn’t my perception of what was said here. It seems to me - and of course I may be mistaken - that this was about learning from what particular things certain cultures do well, which seems quite different from saying that culture as a whole is better than this other one. To learn by example in this manner is surely skilful?