Doug wrote:
> Not for me, thank you. Maybe I'm hopelessly corrupted by the West, but I
have no interest in embracing anti-individualist notions from the East.
I do not think it is that a person is corrupted by the West, but rather that she is indoctrinated in the cult of individualism. Since capitalism reinforces this illusion, the concept of individualism becomes even more ingrained and more of an obstacle.
> I'm a socialist because, like Marx and many of his followers, I think that
capitalism limits the development of a rich individuality by forcing us to
become money-grubbing competitive
monads, just as capitalism frustrates the political promises of free
expression and democratic governance.
But capitalism is the economic system that individualism calls into existence. The "rich individuality" of Marx was simply the best idea that he could come up with having not studied Buddhist thought in any depth.
Audre Lourde wrote: "you don't tear down massa's house using massa's tools." Marx relied on the same flawed understanding of identity that created capitalism in an effort to undo it. I realize you know Marx much better than I do, but it seems to me while he got the diagnosis correct, he botched the cure. He lived before Buddhist thought, evolutionary biology, and quantum reality were part of Western ideas.
> I have no interest in emptying my ego.
With respect, Buddhist thought does not recommend the emptying of the ego. It does recommend unattachment from ego (not to be confused with detachment). In the West, emptiness is always depicted as the greatest horror: a chicken in every pot; two cars in every garage; continuous and escalating consumption/materialism must be maintained.
Hence, Buddhist thought is mischaracterized as requiring the "emptying of the ego" in an attempt to scare people away from studying it.
> What is a true sense of identity?
A human being is the result of causes, conditions and forces. As the causes cease, so do the conditions that give rise to that "identity." There is no one true sense of identity: the universe and human beings are both pluralistic and in a constant state of flux.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister