Japanese Buddha of Doom?

This morning loosecanon pointed me at this interesting article: Did Antidepressants Depress Japan?

I found it engaging enough to read the thing to the end; Japanese culture fascinates me. I agree with Alan Watts who said that if you want to understand your own culture, study another culture as different from yours as possible. ( I'm paraphrasing from memory, I hate it when I can't find a quote. )

However, the article made an assertion that I would challenge. "For 1,500 years of Japanese history, Buddhism has encouraged the acceptance of sadness and discouraged the pursuit of happiness -- a fundamental distinction between Western and Eastern attitudes. The first of Buddhism's four central precepts is: suffering exists. Because sickness and death are inevitable, resisting them brings more misery, not less."

There is a grain of truth in this, though the tone and perspective is seriously off the mark. This kind of shallow misinterpretation of Buddhism is common in the literature. Indeed, read anything on Buddhism written in English before 1950 and you will most likely find semi understood concepts filtered through popular nihilistic or existential suppositions.

Strangely, the Japanese in the piece seems to confirm the author's statement. This might just be the author's focus, or it could in fact be the case. Buddhism has more shades and schools than Christian protestants. By way of example, and to woefully oversimplify, Tibetan practices emphasize the Heart, while Zen emphasizes the Mind. But that's traditional teachings; popular ideas usually offer more permutations.

It's an odd thought, that lay Japanese understand Buddha about as well as American Fundamentalists understand Jesus. Once again, I'll offer Alan Watts, the man largely responsible for dispelling those pre 1950 English misinterpretations. "It is as difficult for Anglo-Saxons as for the Japanese to absorb anything quite so Chinese as Zen." - Beat Zen (Found that quote! )