I've been getting into buddhism for some time and did a 10-day retreat last fall which was eye opening.

One of the benefits that western buddhists have is that the can pick any sect or version they want. It was interesting to hear some scholars talk about how the pure Pali Cannon has been turned slowly over thousands of years into more of a common ritualized religions with heaven, hell, demons, saints, etc. of other religions.

My own take is that of the Thai Forest tradition, Vipassana, and others, which is to go with the original Pali Cannon and treat everything after that as suspect. Somehow this gets used against the western practitioners as cherry picking and insincere since Buddhism is completely different to people living in many parts of Asia, where they will have to light incense to get good luck at X life event, for example. So, no, I have absolutely no interest in those sects even if they are the most widely practiced in southeast Asia.

However, I feel that Westerners sticking with the sects that place all emphasis on original Buddhist texts and ignoring the changes and resulting sects over the years is actually more true to the buddha even though that idea may fly in the face of someone practicing a more ritualized diety-based buddhism.

I feel some of the arguments made in the article are a bit straw-man-y, cherry picking some ideas and texts from sects that aren't really practiced in the west. For instance, "First of all, it can lead to, essentially, a scolding relationship with the mind, in which you dismiss all of your desires and fantasies as undesirable “ego mind.” (I have been there. It is horrible.)" Find me a buddhist school that says you should be scolding yourself?! This would be engendering the hindrances that are in opposition to the path. This is a core teaching you would get anywhere, even a 10 minute mindfulness guided meditation - "go back to the breath and don't be upset with yourself about having lost it."

There is a very real critique of buddhism which is when meditation is successful but things go wrong. I feel this is due to the Western way of stripping TOO much away, and I agree with the author here. For instance, S.K. Goenka in his Vipassana teaches to watch the body sensations but stresses over and over again about equanimity to all sensations. Some people can get carried away with the awareness of their body to a point they can't function. It seems that they missed the equanimity part of it. Staying in the tradition and having someone to help guide you would keep that pretty small percentage of people from experiencing negative effects like the one the author faced. Perhaps the answer here is better training, more monasteries, better teachers, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree with the bad way western buddhism is taught as "ignore your problems and they'll go away," kind of garbage. It's subtler than that. The dumbing down and commercialization of the dhamma/"mindfulness" I blame for that. Personally, I find that I couldn't go deep in meditation unless I got through some personal issues, the more the better. Most of meditation is about bringing these issues up (for instance, negative self talk) and dealing with them in reflection. Sounds like the author didn't engage in that practice.

The last point the author makes I believe is misguided. Buddhism can be a bummer, but it's based on some deep truths. I say "truths" because you can experience them. The issue is 99% of buddhists won't experience them for themselves because they can only be accessed through very advanced states of meditation and are rarely talked about. The Thai Forest tradition talks about these Jhana states quite openly. They also like to reference how the buddha talked about them all the time in the Pali Cannon but are somehow overlooked by many today. After coming down from these advanced meditation states you have an unmatched clarity of mind and can experience all the truths of buddhism - immaterialism, nonself, etc. I do understand the feeling of the lay person getting less-than-excited about buddhism due to these truths being told to them in the face of an interesting world out there. However, if you experience these states and these truths there is a very high likelihood of you losing your hair and wearing robes.

I don't know if Buddhism is the best way to go about things, for instance, I think of very happy people I know who are very engaged in the world and clinging to loved ones and food, and other sensual pleasures. I'm just having a hard time doing that at the moment and Buddhism is giving me some answers - enough to have me continue the path for now.