Buddhism without the trap-pings

Before we can understand Buddhism, we have to first understand the Buddha’s teachings. In one word, awareness.

Getting caught up with the trap-pings of terminology, jargon and rituals can obscure our understanding and experience of awareness, and the awareness of awareness and the emptiness of emptiness.

Knowing where the Buddha’s teachings end, and eastern culture begins can sometimes be difficult. It is vital to understand the difference between the esoteric, the exotic, and the exoteric.

Esoteric: The internal – intended for or likely to be understood by those with a specialised knowledge and interest.

Exoteric: The external – intended for or likely to be understood by the general public. The outer display.

Exotic: Originating in, or characteristic of, a distant foreign country. Another culture.

There is no right or wrong about these matters, as one can lead to another. It’s just important not to be confused about them. The arrogance of westerners exaggerating the exoticism of eastern culture can become toxic.

It’s so easy to get hold of the wrong end of the stick – and then hang on to it desperately 😉 As an example: I was involved in a recent discussion where, to one person, the words “inner peace” meant being stuck in a state of peaceful ignorance (which is not impossible). He was searching for a secret teaching (in his case, sexual kundalini practices) to escape the blind stupidity in the world, and believed that inner peace teachings were exotic and exoteric (lacking inner meaning). I had to explain that “inner peace” itself is the escape from the blind stupidity of the world. Even though we may wish for advanced, exotic practices, we need a stable mind first: without this, we will run into all sorts of problems.