This was not just old books, which nobody cared about, but pervasive everyday practice.

I very much believe that you had different experience and am happy for it. There’s a lot of Buddhists and different traditions and it’s very difficult to generalise. I myself also practiced in - more western - communities, where there was no noticeable gender imbalance. But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are sexist.

1) You did not see nuns. Formal lineage of nuns died in Theravada lineage hundreds of years ago. Women were wearing white robes right? Those are the robes of novices. You need 5? female nuns to ordain a new nun. Sri Lankan monk, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (aka Bhante G) asked Tibetan nuns so bootstrap the tradition in Theravada, but it's just starting and there is resistance.

2) Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are not separate from the culture around them.

>But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are sexist.

Yes there are and that is to be expected. (Unless you believe that Buddhism makes people somehow perfect. "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path" by Jack Kornfield is a good book that explains how full of shit Buddhists are no matter how much they train.

Buddhism is not about creating perfect world in this world or in afterlife.

This definitely makes clear again my lack of deeper understanding of their culture and the hubris of me judging their culture after having been in Burma for only a month.

That being said, there definitely were signs of sexism, women did not have the same standing and we should not close our eyes to this part of Buddhism. I don’t mean “and therefore Buddhism is bad”, but “as a Buddhist I think we can and should strive to do better”.

When Buddhism supports and reinforces misogyny, racism or jingoism from the surrounding culture, this is also a failing of Buddhism.

There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and emphatic living as a core teaching and result of Buddhist practice. As a simple example, metta meditation is often advertised as actually helping you be more compassionate in “real life”.

Buddhism as a religion has constantly and reliably failed throughout history. "This is not true Buddhism" is putting head into the sand. Buddhism that is deeply embedded into culture and tradition carries the baggage of the culture. Often when it transfers to a new culture there is a nice break from the tradition.

>There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and emphatic

Yes. The wisdom of Jack Kornfield is taking western secular values adopting them into Buddhism and getting rid of the bad. Buddhism like any religion can be changed to anything you like, good or bad.

Sure - but aren't monks and priests also supposed to be a model, demonstrating what a really dedicated, pious follower of the religion should look like?

Wouldn't you expect a full-time professional footballer/dancer/poet to be better at football/dance/poetry than the average person on the street?

The notion that priests and monks should be holier than the common folk strikes me as very Abrahamic. This forms a hierarchy in the mind.

I'm not a Buddhist, but if I were, I would interrogate (and probably reject) such hierarchies.

Ethnic Buddhist traditions are usually among the most conservative forces in the society. They try to be conservative models. In Burma and Sri Lanka many of the politically most active monks favor ethnic cleansing and preach religious intolerance.

> "It is extremely important to note that world religions [...] are, naturally and inevitably, in large part compendia of rules for managing daily life." - John A. Hall, Ideas and the Social Sciences, 1993

This is why I think it's a good thing that western Buddhism exits. It gets rid of all the bad stuff. And there are really interesting insights in Buddhism, like the concept of non-self or the four noble truths.

That’s laughable. Who decided what “the bad stuff” was? The early adopters were people who rejected western religions but projected western, individualistic culture onto eastern traditions.

You mean modern Buddhists aren't. Early Muslims considered the Buddhists they encountered as "people of the book."

Source: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2018/14...

Given the context, he probably meant they aren't "by the book", not strict about their scripture.

Buddha became more God-like as the centuries passed; some Prajnaparamita and later texts describe him as being the height of seven palm trees, for example. But he's never been considered infallible, like a prophet.

That's exactly his selling point, that through deep meditation he had profound insights, regarding impermanance and no-self. But yeah, that was his own realisation, not just some words some god said to him that are supposed to be infallible.

Would love to know more ...

Religions start with key important figures, events and practices long before they get encoded as text. The only one I can think of off the top of my head that might have gone somewhat in the reverse direction was L. Ron Hubbard writing Dianetics and other books to develop a schema and theory for psychological healing before he officially started Scientology. But I don't know all the details about early Scientology so it's hard to say precisely how much was pre-encoded there. I've heard rumours that Hubbard was involved in Freemasonry before starting Scientology so if it's true, it's likely that some of his experiences in it shaped his writings. I also heard that Paul Twitchell, founder of a lesser-known group called "Eckankar" spent some of his earlier days in Scientology. But I digress.

When you strip practices away from dogma in an attempt to further enrich corporations, it's almost like trying to start over with the practices borrowed from some past heritage, the corporation's leadership as the key figures who give advice or select practice consultants to confer with, and with some milestone of success as the promised "awakening event". It definitely runs the risk of turning the corporation into a personality cult where your boss directly or indirectly tells you how to reach a spiritual objective... Of making them money.