I appreciate those criticisms, but they seem facile to me. I follow Thomas McEvilley's comparison of ancient Indian and Greek thought (in The Shape of Ancient Thought), which would make for common conceptions of happiness in the Eastern and Western traditions. But even if there are important differences in that respect, I'm not sure how that would affect my argument. The question of the Buddhist's motives would still emerge, regardless of how the Buddhist understands the therapy's end state or goal.

I appreciate that Buddhism's about the practice, not the doctrine, which makes this "religion" more like an early therapeutic practice, and quite dissimilar from dogmatic theologies. For that very reason, I'm far more reserved in my criticisms of Buddhism than I am in my treatment of theistic religions.

Still, what you say here (or what you report that Buddhist saying) sounds like a dodge. Practices aren't themselves doctrines but they can still imply doctrines. Similarly, physical processes aren't themselves scientific theories, but does that mean science is pointless or foolish? No, we understand phenomena by thinking about them. So just because Buddhists don't want to understand their practice by thinking about it, doesn't mean the philosophy of Buddhism is dumb or that those who think about Buddhism are ignorant. Yeah, that's a facile dodge.

Anyway, you seem to be raising the interesting figure of the bodhisattva, which differs from the Buddha. I'm more focused on early, monastic Buddhism which does seem less humanistic or altruistic. Do we know what the very earliest Buddhists did? I believe the earliest Buddhist texts were written centuries after the fact. And they lived in monasteries. The Dhammapada shows how elitist that early Buddhist perspective was. Yes, they taught, but they also dismissed the foolishness of the unenlightened. We should be wary of wishy-washiness as well as overanalysis.

But I suspect you're right that elite Buddhists are amazing individuals. My criticism is hardly that Buddhists are boring or unimpressive.