This article is just one example of a formula piece which gets printed and reprinted with obnoxious frequency.

It could just as easily have been about the young, hip, thirty-something Christians who pray about the meaninglessness of societal success before heading off to the bar. I'm sure I've read that article before in Salon.

Or it could have been about the young, dynamic, hip Christian pastor/Muslim cleric who is changing the face of his religion/faith/whatever to serve the poor, disaffected yuppies who only respond to well-placed Jay-Z references. Oh, and whose usual complaints are that they have too much money and too much success.

I'm sure I've read that article in Salon before, too.

The problem is not that people are too busy, or too rich, or too hip, or whatever; the problem is that they are all doing things every day that are ultimately meaningless to them. This is capitalism, and it is mindless conformity, and it is familial pressures and traditions, and it is a whole host of things that people are simply unwilling or unable to address or change. So instead, they turn to religion, meditation, healing crystals, prayer beads or beer to try and soothe their unhappiness.

If we changed society so that people could do things that really mattered to them, and were also intellectually, emotionally and ethically satisfying, then people wouldn't need to seek out double-talking hooey like Buddhism to try and quell the utter stupidity of what a money-based society defines as success.

Instead, they push papers at a giant corporation all week and then wonder why they're not happy. And then I'm subjected to yet another article about how being spiritual/religious/whatever is now hip, daddy-o.

If only we could get reality to be that hip...

I'm wondering how this 'hip' 21st century Buddhism is supposed to be any less impermanent than the Buddhism of the 60s and 70s to which it is supposedly a reaction. To my mind, this new American Buddhism sounds like a faddish dilution of actual Buddhist philosophy, much the same as its hippie predecessor.

Take for example the replacement of the word 'suffering' with the word 'stress': both refer to the Buddhist idea of dukkha, but while 'suffering' is a merely inadequate translation of the concept, 'stress' seems, to my mind at least, not at all up to conveying the necessary depth of meaning. Stress is the result of some perceived discrepancy between a given situation and the individual's ability to cope with it; you can eliminate stress by removing yourself from the stressful situation or by resolving it. Dukkha, on the other hand, encompasses not just stress, but other emotional pains, physical pain, the impermanence of happiness, and the suffering/unease arising from clinging to aggregates, of which the human mind/self itself is one. It is inherent in every facet of human existence (including, unlike stress, even the times when we are the most happy), and is vastly more difficult to eliminate than stress.

My point is this: it sounds as if, in attempting to make Buddhism accessible to the average young-ish American, they are sacrificing a significant amount of philosophical depth. The words you use to describe something exert a powerful influence on how you think about it—how you're able to think about it. In today's world, stress is such a common and frankly banal complaint that to use it as a stand-in for a much more complex concept like dukkha is to shear away many important layers of meaning. I'm not saying that this is necessarily bad; some of these new Buddhists will probably go on to a deeper study of the philosophy, and for those that don't meditation is still a useful practice. But this isn't necessarily the beginning of a great new American Buddhist tradition. A philosophically shallow foundation is not a lasting one, I would think.

Or perhaps I'm overestimating the importance of depth of understanding in a religion's success. I wonder how many of the most fervent Christians could articulate the difference between Calvinist and Arminian doctrines, or give a full accounting of the ideas of Original Sin and Total Inability? Perhaps simple, easily apprehended teachings are the way to wind converts and swell the ranks of the faithful, though whether this is doing any favors to a religion whose ultimate goal would seem to require of the practitioner an incredibly deep understanding of its philosophy is questionable.

Or perhaps this is all just a false dilemma, and casual, hip Buddhism and a more studied pursuit of the religion are not mutually exclusive. Maybe I've just fixated on one minor linguistic point without regard for that fact that the rest of their lesson may well be perfectly comprehensive. But on the other hand, if my gut reaction is correct and what's being produced here is a generation of non-conventional, casual lay-Buddhists, then I wouldn't hold out hope of this being a permanent addition to the American religious landscape.

The trouble with Buddhist communities in the United States is that they are, by and large, structures created by people who were in flight from structure. Many of the early "seeker" types of the 60's and 70's had bad experiences and bad memories of the churches and synagogues of their youth, and set out to avoid the flaws that had driven them away. What they created were typically one of two things: personality cults aligned around a particularly charismatic teacher, or insular clubs of vaguely like-minded people who consciously declined to provide the sort of ritual and structure that creates community.

In both cases, the results have been strongly mono-generational. Few teacher-centered groups have survived the departure of a focal leader, and the more loosely structured groups didn't create any "glue" that would encourage the younger generation to participate. The early creators of these groups were so eager to avoid the mistakes of traditional churches and religious institutions that they didn't see one thing that these groups do very well: create cross-generational social structures that can survive for many years.

The 'Dharma punx' groups strike me as more of the same. Focused intently on the wants of a particular demographic, they don't have much chance of creating enduring communities. As the participants age, the topics of discussion will change to follow them. Their children won't be interested in attending an hour of their aging hipster parents talking about the pressures of work and parenting, any more than current 20-somethings are interested in attending their baby boomer chats about the prospect of retirement.

The 'practice center' model encourages the creation of groups that have more in common with an exercise program than a real community. You go in, you do your sitting, maybe say your piece at a discussion. There isn't any homework. You don't have to bow. You don't have to read suttras or recite prayers and mantras. Despite all the talk about Buddhism being a practice that can be carried into any part of life, I think such a structure encourages a compartmentalization of your life. Buddhism is something you do when you are stressed out. Or on Thursdays, from 7PM to 8 PM. Because you "don't have to do anything", you never have to feel uncomfortable. But by being always comfortable, you are never challenged. Buddhism is being adapted and pruned to fit your life, rather than the other way around. But will someone following such a restricted, circumscribed practice of Buddhism ever really experience the benefits that proponents of Buddhism claim? Will they value it enough to deepen their understanding of it? To pass it on to their children, or to continue their "practice" when they're shorter on time, or feeling more contented with their lot in life? I have a hard time believing that will be the case.