Yeah, maybe, sort of.

Today, large chunk of Buddhism (well Mahayana (Chinese buddhism) and Vajrayana (Tibetan buddhism) at least) is practiced in societies where there was never Hinduism in the first place.

So it mixed with the local religions instead and what we get in China, Japan, Korea is mix of local religious traditions and Buddhism.

Theravada ("Sri Lanka and company" buddhism) seems to me closer to the "actual" original Buddhism, but really I was never in any Theravada majority place for a longer time, so I don't know

Vipassana is actually quite a new tradition, as is for example Japanese zen as we know it now (from what I can gather, it was sort of a reaction to Meiji reforms in Japan that violently separated Shinto and Buddhist traditions, not that long ago).

> Vipassana is actually quite a new tradition

Hmm, no not really.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81)

It's dealt with in a couple of the Pali suttas afaik.

One can interpret certain suttas as showing the Vipassana noting technique, but it's not explicitly pointed out in an instructional way, so it's hard to say if it's not a later interpretation of the text used to justify a newer practice that developed in Burma and Sri Lanka.

The explanation Goenka gives is that the technique of noting was passed down from teacher to teacher all the way back to the Buddha, but of course every tradition says this about every technique so it can be hard to verify.

Maybe I misunderstood what you are saying, but there is nothing exceptional in Buddhism origin. Every religion is based, or is a reinterpretation of an existing tradition : Islam on Judaism and Christianity, Christianity on Judaism, Judaism was probably influenced by Zoroastrianism and Egyptian tradition. It is turtles all the way down.

I was certainly not trying to imply that Buddhism is in any way exceptional. I was trying to explain why Buddhism seems strange and religious to people who did not grow up in a Hindu society.

For example, many people believe that Buddhism teaches reincarnation. But Hinduism also has reincarnation, and Buddhism simply chose to alter the concept, and it is this alteration which is the interesting bit. Buddhism can only be properly understood as a reaction to Hinduism, not by coming to it fresh and reading about the eightfold path or whatever – that way it will only come across as weird.

Hinduism as it exists today didn't exist in the Buddha's time. There were sects of Brahmans who practiced varied ritual folk religions with contradicting beliefs and ideas. Actually, at the time of the Buddha, there was a lot of debate between Brahman clans about what happens after death. There were arguments for reincarnation, which Buddhism clarifies as rebirth without an eternal soul, as well as for eternalism (ie you go to heaven forever if you're good) and annihilationism (ie you die and that's it, no more existence), both of which the Buddha explicitly refuted.

Buddhism did not spring fully-formed from the mind of Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhism, like Hinduism, grew slowly in reactions to one another.