Comment by colechristensen

There is plenty of it in ancient literature, both Western and Eastern. Humans' fundamental attachments remain more or less remain recognizable over time and place.

There is, though, something especially cheap about how it is mostly done today. At least we got treasures like the Cantongqi/Sandōkai out of it in the past. (Or maybe I just committed exactly the same error by invoking the Sandōkai.) I'm sure it was done similarly back then, but likely mostly in actual conversation.

Maybe enough of today's commented noise will filter down to a small number of some particularly astute internet comments which will be studied in the year 3226, but I doubt it. Today's best thinking is still found in books and articles. Which has always probably been true, but it used to require some additional amount of work to hear foolishness.

I think everyone, to some extent, does that when they encounter something they already know. The truth is, we don't all share a unified way of thinking, and HN, being one of the most prominent Western platforms where information spreads quickly, is viewed by people from many countries. In fact, Japan, China, and Korea all have sites that curate content from here. And when you spend time here, you see a lot of differing perspectives. It's like the difference between an outsider's view and an insider's view.

Western Zen has also adapted to fit certain needs, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just that, as an East Asian, when I clicked on a post about Zen, what I expected and what I actually saw were different.

In fact, from what I've seen on Korean YouTube and elsewhere, when something tied to one's cultural identity gets modified, it's a fairly universal human reaction for someone who knows the original to say, 'This seems different, doesn't it?' What you're talking about often tends to become a kind of power struggle over 'who gets to define this culture.' When the insider's definition differs from the outsider's, that dynamic frequently plays out. It's a common trait of online communities.

However, this is usually influenced by the dominant demographic of the community, so generally speaking, the community's majority tends to shape the norms. In that sense, it's usually the outsiders who need to adapt. I'm trying my best to do that too. HN is fundamentally Western-oriented, and I try to adjust to native speakers like you, even if it means slightly altering my approach. The problem is that our ways of thinking differ in so many ways that for me, what feels like a low-cost critique can read to this community as a high-cost one. That gap is something I find quite difficult.

In any case, it's just a fresh perspective for me. I don't think Western Zen is bad (and that's an important point).

It's like this: if an actual Chinese person goes to the US and eats Panda Express orange chicken, they'll say, 'This isn't Chinese food.' But is that really the Chinese person's fault? Localization is only natural. When you think about it, it's simple. Most people don't stay on this site for long (I stay about two hours a day, so I guess I'm a longer-term user). Many people don't even leave comments. But when they click on a title that interests them and find it different from what they expected, they might leave a comment.

And isn't that part of what makes life interesting? The fact that you and I think differently, that our predictions don't always match. Rather than framing it as a 'non-Western way of thinking,' I'd ask you to understand it as a gap that arises because you're a native of a site watched by people all over the world.

In any case, I don't think the Western adaptation of Zen is wrong. Cultures naturally get localized. Just like how I feel a sense of unfamiliarity when I see K-pop Demon Hunters, but that's a natural reaction. I just hope you'll see it as a third-party observation that certain things feel different. Isn't it better to have a diversity of perspectives?