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Notes -
There's some truth to this. But also a lot of confusion (I won't go into technical nuances others have explained to you well enough). Buddhism does appeal to pessimists, yet some have reinterpreted it into a life-affirming religion that only seeks to restore authenticity of the impersonal Being and eradicate the ego, the internal bureaucrat begetting the target of suffering, the self-important rampaging mechanism for stringing together episodic memories… which in the West got further trivialized into «mindfulness» practices popular with the middle class, which promise ridding the client of neuroses, conflict-prone behaviors and such. The less is said of «Eastern Spirituality» gurus of the second half of the 20th century, the better. But then in Tibet you have praying wheels and the rest of blatantly Hindu silliness which Gautama Buddha himself, atheist of the highest caliber, would probably just sigh at.
It's very hard, perhaps impossible to convey even very simple truths such that no meaning drift will occur – especially when the straightforward interpretation of your truth creates a selection mechanism winnowing out those who see it most clearly. Religion may start as a coherent philosophy, but it matures and stabilizes on the level of ritual that soothes the traumatized peasant – without driving him or her into extremes of societally disapproved cultism. Maybe that's what it's best used for.
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