7 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Is zazen truly Zen?
Some member of r/Zen show signs of “Critical Buddhism”. It’s something I’m not very familiar with really, but at a quick glance their views seem to fit the description
Comment by JundoCohen at 26/01/2025 at 01:17 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Not really. "Critical Buddhism" was a movement, a few decades ago in Japan, led by a couple of professors who made some very narrow critiques of Zen Buddhism, primarily on the ground that it turned "Buddha Nature" into a Great Self/Atman in ways that early Buddhism rejected. Basically, the Zen folks responded that they are not doing so, and the debate pretty much died out long ago. You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical%5C_Buddhism[1][2]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical%5C_Buddhism
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Buddhism
and for more detail, this review and the "Pruning the Bodhi Tree" book ...
https://www.princeton.edu/%5C~jstone/Review%20essays%20and%20field%20overviews/Some%20Reflections%20on%20Critical%20Buddhism%20(1999).pdf[3][4]
Comment by DonumDei621 at 25/01/2025 at 10:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Indeed that seems to be the case. I wasn’t aware of Criticical Buddhism before this.