>>24274it depends on the way you want to appropiate their concepts. If you just leave them as they are in their autoctonous context, i.e. if you consider them under the EMIC approach, this might be the case, but even still, buddhism is not a homogenous set of dogmas, there are many distinct traditions with many different believes. Pure land buddhism i think could be an example of what you are saying. without considering this essential heterogeneity of what we call buddhism, we, as outsiders, have the privilege of approaching their systems of thought in an ETIC approach (see emic etic distinction) and appropiate the concepts developed by them in the way WE see fit, accomodating them in our own more conceptually advanced western philosophical-scientific outlook. It is always easy to criticize another system, to present it as poor and underdeveloped from the coordinates of our own system, but this is a libidinal trap, a trap through which we believe that we are gaining something from that kind of activity, when as a matter of fact the most productive thing is trying to take whatever advantage we can get from them, and silently and diligently working for our own advancement and ideally that of others and the system we live in.
But in general, the focus of buddhism is awakening, and the cessation of all suffering, and for them it is the case that their "dharma" or "dhamma" is the one and only true means for those ends. So, this goal is compatible in many ways with political practice, although the principle of not increasing general suffering, if approached in a deontological/kantian sort of way, may lead to severe political inaction, but this is not necessarily the case. Nor is it necessarily the case for this principle to be taken as a sort of utilitarianism, since their concept of suffering is not merely quantitative, but qualified: suffering is due to ignorance of the true nature of reality, and this ignorance is in turn a product of the imposture of the ego-construct as our real cognitive form and identity.
I believe many buddhist, especially mahayana (i.e., as of now, east asians) and vajrayana (i.e., tibetans) buddhists, if convinced that politics was a political system that facilitates the genaral goal of enlightement, they would consider it a skillfull mean for the goal of a bodhisattva, as long as that means doesn't degenerate into not achie
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