“Motivated to misread”? A Buddhist’s vaunted patience ends, then, with a politely worded personal attack. (And what are you thereby attacking? The separate self you think is unreal? Or yourself?) The fault can’t lie at all with the one trying to explain Buddhism? Where’s the famed humility? You blame the disagreement on the motivations of the non-Buddhist who’s asking critical questions to try to understand Buddhism better. That’s a cheap defense mechanism that typically protects an inflated ego.

I criticize Buddhism as I understand that religion. My mind isn’t entirely open because I have some theoretical understanding of the matter. Of course, I could be wrong about Buddhism. You tried to show where I go wrong, and when that proved too onerous, you retreated to the inner mystery of Buddhist practice.

That retreat to the incommensurability of theory and practice, however, is dubious and suspicious. It’s like the theist’s retreat to the mystery of the afterlife. All will be revealed after you die, so follow the Church now and you’ll be alright with God later--even though if the Church is wrong it will be too late to course-correct by that point.

Likewise, by saying the “heart” of Buddhist practice must be experienced and can’t be explained second-hand, you’re saying the initiate must start down the Buddhist path without knowing fully what he’s getting into. That presents the problem of the frog in the pot of boiling water, which looks like an institutional defense mechanism. Instead of being upfront about the result of applying Buddhist teachings and techniques, you retreat to the mystery of firsthand experience. That’s the source of Buddhism’s mystique, by the way, the mystique in Buddhism’s pop cultural representations.

Regardless, I’m grateful for your helpful clarifications of Buddhism. Thanks for the discussion.