On the Supposed Jewish Control of Western Buddhism (and Hinduism, and Christianity)


The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. —Adolf Hitler


     I have been a Buddhist, more or less, for a long time, and a professionally practicing one for going on 29 years. And although I’m a westerner, I had very little to do with organized western Buddhism before I was ordained as a monk; instead I studied ancient texts and then dived right into Asian Buddhist monasticism. Then I went to Asia and lived there for more than twenty years. Even after returning to America, with the anomalous exception of a year or so of interacting with a (more or less) Buddhist meditation society in the Pacific Northwest, I have had little to do with western Buddhism as taught and practiced by western laypeople, or even with other western monks. Consequently I know traditional Asian Buddhism pretty well but am not familiar enough with liberal western Buddhism to speak with absolute authority on the subject of the present essay, which is the alleged Jewish control of western Buddhism. Nevertheless, few people are discussing the subject, and it is plausibly an important one for western Buddhists, so I’m discussing it.

     I have encountered very few fellow bhikkhus who were ethnically Jewish or Hebrew, and almost as few Buddhist laypeople. I am aware of only one ethnic Jewish monk today, namely ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi; and I used to have a friend in Burma, now disrobed, whose father was a secular, non-practicing Jew, though his mother was a shiksa (Yiddish for Gentile female, derived from the Hebrew word for “detested thing”). So it appears that ordained Jewish bhikkhus, although they are out there, are not extremely common. On the other hand, it may be that most of the most famous American lay teachers are ethnically Jewish; and some of the biggest male names, including Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, were formerly ordained as Theravada Buddhist monks.

     Anyway, although I’ve long known of their existence, I thought little of these so-called JuBus. Hebrew Buddhists are simply not an issue in Southeast Asia. I read long ago a plausible explanation to account for the multitude of ethnic Hebrews involved not only in Buddhism but in eastern spirituality in general, namely that Jews are intelligent and may have some considerable depth of spirit, but that Judaism as a religion is a very this-worldly, quite “samsaric,” and relatively shallow religious ideology. I certainly do not consider the Old Testament to contain much profound wisdom. So, spiritually inclined, open-minded western Jews occasionally turn toward something they perceive to be wiser and more spiritually satisfying, something deep and also intelligent, like Theravada Buddhist Dhamma.

     Then I came into contact with good old Brian Ruhe (alias “the Nazi Buddhist”), and I came to be continually exposed to mentions of the supposed Jewish “control” over western Buddhism. Especially at first, I was very skeptical about this, and I am still rather skeptical. I have succeeded in persuading Brian to say “influence” rather than “control,” at least when he’s speaking with me; but lately, again thanks to Herr Ruhe, I see again and again that Dharma halls in the west are spending a grotesque amount of time and effort emphasizing cultural Marxist “progressive” causes, like racial diversity, gay and trans rights, and climate change. And, as I’ve already mentioned, many of the leaders of these lay sanghas are ethnically Jewish. Also, I know enough about cultural Marxism, which lately is approximately synonymous with “progressivism,” to know that its origins lie in the patient efforts of 20th century Jewish Marxists, including the Frankfurt School and all the Anthropology departments in academia that were taken over by the disciples of Jewish Marxist Franz Boas. So there is some plausible connection between leftist secular Judaism on the one hand, and the creeping progressive insanity of western Buddhism on the other, even if there is no grand conspiracy or cabal (←ha, that’s derived from “Kabbalah”).

     So I suppose a case could be presented—and actually it has been presented by others—that this is a deliberate conspiracy by some left-leaning ethnic Jews to commandeer western Buddhism, and then use it for the purpose of furthering secular Jewish political interests, such as attacking and undermining the European race and most of what it has represented over the past two to three thousand years.

     I may as well observe that not only Buddhism and Hinduism have felt this influence, but also “liberal” Christianity. For instance, there is a Methodist church not far from where I sit that flies the LGBTQ(…) rainbow flag in front of the House of God, thereby publicly endorsing the sin of sodomy, or so it would seem. (For those of you unfamiliar with the Bible, the New Testament declares male homosexuality to be “abomination,” and the Old Testament commands homosexuals simply to be taken out and killed. The God-given purpose of a man’s seed is to impregnate his wife, period.) By the same weird token, I’ve been told that most of the “woke” western Buddhists endorse abortion, too, despite the plain fact that abortion is literally murder from the perspective of Buddhist ethics. (For instance, Theravada philosophy asserts that a human life begins at conception, and that the “stream of karmic consciousness” of a being ready to take rebirth is a prerequisite for conception to occur.)

     Nevertheless, despite all this I have yet to see any actual proof, or even persuasive evidence, that people like ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi and Jack Kornfield are deliberately corrupting Buddhism for the explicit sake of furthering a Jewish social or political agenda. None of the monks I have known have identified as Jewish, secular or otherwise, and only three of the laypeople that I can remember knowing. Generally if someone told me of their Jewish ancestry it was with no more affect than if they were admitting to being part Italian, Arab, or Cherokee Indian. They just did not consider it to be particularly important. Also, it seems pretty damn likely to me that most people at western “sanghas,” including most of the teachers, have not a clue that their political beliefs, mixed up salad-wise with their Dharma, contain distinct Jewish and/or Marxist elements.

     Even so, anyone who has read Kevin MacDonald’s Culture of Critique may recall that many secular Jews who renounce the religious aspect of Judaism and no longer consider themselves to be members of the Jewish religion, like the Bolsheviks and other Marxists of the 20th century, may still retain a subconscious tribal identification with their ancestral ethnic Judaism. Some of the early Jewish Marxists, for example, in later years returned to the religion of their fathers, according to MacDonald, and some admitted that they had never totally left it, without even realizing it. So there’s that for a mitigating or obfuscating factor.

     Another point to bear in mind, something hugely important but very often ignored, is that Gentiles and Jews have literally formed a symbiotic relationship in western civilization that has endured for over two thousand years. Like it or not, a strain of Judaism has existed as an elemental key ingredient in western civilization, an extremely obvious example of which being the plain fact that ALL of the three main religious systems in the west (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are offshoots of Old Testament Judaism. Not only religion but art, music, architecture, and virtually every other aspect of western culture has been deeply influenced by Christianity at least, which, again, began as a reform movement and schismatic sect of Judaism. For the thousand years of the Middle Ages the people of the west unanimously, literally worshipped a deified Jew, as the son of the Hebrew tribal god Yahweh, and many still do.

     This adoption of Jewish cultural elements in the west during Roman times helped the Jewish religion and race to continue to exist, despite the occasional massacre or persecution, because the Christians’ own Bible, supposedly the infallible Word of God, told them that the Jews were God’s Chosen People. A big reason why the conservative right in America is so pro Israel is that Evangelical Christians to this day consider the Jews/Israelites to be a special people favored by God, even if they are no longer His absolute favorites. This centuries-long symbiosis (not always a mutualistic symbiosis) is essentially built right into western culture at this point, due mainly to the influence of Christianity; and the perennial dichotomy of Gentile/Jew in the west may be due to some strange psychological quirk of the western mind, some kind of dualistic thinking that requires antinomies or contrasts in a state of balanced tension. But I’m just guessing on why it is.

     So Jews have lived in the west for millennia, and continue to identify as Jews, consciously or unconsciously; and consequently they perceive the world differently from Gentiles, for cultural reasons if not genetic ones. And just as a person learning a foreign language will speak that language with the accent of his own native language, so a person converting to a new religion will think that new religion with the “accent” of his native culture, which means he will distort its message to make it more in harmony with his native way of thinking. Anglo-Saxon Buddhists do this, and Hebrew Buddhists do it as well; so that particular element of Jewish influence also is not necessarily deliberate or even conscious, even though it does exist. Jewish Buddhism will be different from Anglo Buddhism, and both will be different from Burmese or Sinhalese Buddhism—though these last two differ from each other as well, and for similar reasons. And all of them are different from the original, ancient Indian Buddhism.

     Jewish people, being relatively intelligent and energetic, generally speaking, also tend to rise to the top of social structures in which they participate, and thus there is disproportionately high representation of Jews in the leadership of western lay Buddhism—so they will inevitably influence the more intellectual mainstream forms of it. At present I consider their influence over western lay Buddhism to be more a matter of their influence over western culture as a whole, with “liberal” Buddhism (and Hinduism, and Methodism) simply being symptoms or side effects, not the main point of it all. There could be an element of deliberate highjacking of Buddhism to serve specifically Jewish ends, but this appears to me to be a trace element at best. At any rate I have seen zero persuasive evidence of it, though I have lived in the Sangha for many years and am not exactly blind; but as I’ve said, I tend to avoid western lay Buddhism anyway, so sinister, creepy stuff could be going on there that I just don’t see.

     Meanwhile, some people on the ideological fringe have personal, idiosyncratic axes to grind, and so they twist and spin any evidence to support some theory or other involving malevolent conspiracies. Some go to the extreme of spinning obviously wise and sincere spiritual seekers and teachers like Ram Dass into nothing more than charlatans with malevolent (or just Jewish) motives. Supposedly any Jew who has converted to Buddhism, or Hinduism, or maybe Christianity, is simply a fraud who just pretends to be Buddhist or whatever in order to further a Jewish political agenda…and I really have to call bullshit on that. I recently did an interview with Brian Ruhe with regard to Ram Dass in particular, who was one of my first spiritual teachers via books, and in the comments section below the video a few really virulent Jew-haters endeavored to tear Ram Dass a new asshole, virulently bashing and cursing him, because of his Jewish ancestry primarily, and secondarily because he was bisexual. In fact recently some Jew-obsessed silly person sent me a number of comments to the effect that Buddhism is literally a modern Jewish invention, created with the specific purpose of undermining western civilization.

     The very idea that EVERY person with Jewish ancestors is some kind of evil scheming liar and child molester is beyond stupid. It’s much worse than mere stupidity, and it poisons the mind of whoever wallows in that stuff. Hate is bad karma, regardless of its target, and even regardless of whether that target really does have sinister (or just anti-western) motives. I know enough about Ram Dass in particular, after reading his books and listening to his talks, to know that he was a very sincere disciple of a Hindu guru, and was not nearly as bad as people who spew hate in comments sections. Believe it or not, Ram Dass was a better man than most Nazis. Though of course not all Jews are as saintly as Ram Dass, or Bhikkhu Bodhi either.

     I gotta admit, though, that ultraliberal western Buddhism is going off the freaking deep end, and that is largely caused by influences of western secular Jewish origin. But I suppose you may already have noticed that.



Joseph Goldstein, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society

Comments

  1. Humans by nature, tend to have parasitic and authoritarian qualities. When you combine that with high IQ it sometimes amplifies the authoritarian nature of the man. Bloomberg for example (if you look at the things he has said and done over his career); he clearly sees himself as "knowing better" than the average man. He has no problem imposing his beliefs onto those he has political power over - for their own good in his mind. He believes this so intrinsically, that he has no problem saying it out in the open repeatedly, as if it were common knowledge among all people.

    This is a common thread through various religions in the West. I would guess that highly authoritarian types are drawn towards positions of leadership within a church. They have a sort of narcissism that lends itself to the thinking that there are poor little sheep out there that NEED them. I think a truly enlightened and selfless spiritual leader who is not led by ego would be truly rare, but finding one would be a treasure. Tolle seems to fit the bill, but who knows...

    My point is that it is easier to take the parasitic route and hijack an existing religion that already has a massive following. The hard work has already been done for centuries. In the case of Buddhism and Christianity in the West, motivated and tenacious "leaders" have simply walked in, been handed the keys to the castle, then proceeded to bastardize the entire foundation into their own vision with no regard or reverence for the religion itself.

    If there were a truly great man among them, they would build their own vision from the ground up and put in the work to make it grow (Hubbard did it and Mormons kinda did it; at least they used Christian principles then ran with them in a direction away from the traditional church), but that requires time, work, innovation, and real talent (and in the end you will be labeled as a cult, sometimes becoming one.) If your ideology fails you go down with your ship along with the ego you cling to. It is easier to mask your ideology parasitically within an existing behemoth that is too large to fail... So we are left with Buddhist orgs being run by Marxist Jews and woke western feminists, and Christian churches proudly hanging rainbow flags above their doorsteps. A hollowed out bankrupt culture that receives their spiritual input from the equivalent of an Asian Fusion Buffet in a low rent strip mall ...

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    1. I didn't remember this after the first time I read your comment, or after the second, but then I watched the video I did with Brian Ruhe on this same subject (link here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/wBsKQF81XnsN/) and noticed that I did mention how the Jews have remained a distinct "tribe" for thousands of years despite living more or less assimilated with Gentiles mainly because of their vehement certainty that they know what's right better than anyone else.

      I suppose the Christians' historical intolerance and desire to convert or destroy the followers of other religions, in Europe especially, was a result of the early Christians adopting this sort of exclusive self-righteousness from the Jews.

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  2. Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu is a well known Theravadan monk of Jewish origin. While I can see some occasional cultural Marxist views peek through, he is overall very orthodox and highly venerates the Abhidhamma and the commentaries even. He teaches in the Mahasi tradition

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  3. Since whites will always be wary of subversion when practicing such broad international religions (with exception of Hinduism), is it possible for the Nordics to restablish connection with the Old Northern Gods? Or are Odin,Thor,Freya dead due to lack of veneration? This is a serious query....Is it possible to reconstruct the Northern religions by doing some sort of timetravel meditation...like a modifcation of nimitta meditation, where you look at an ancient religious artifact and make a mental picture how life might have been like during that time..and then engaging in deep meditation (one hour +)

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    1. I don't think the gods are dead so much as the ancient archetypes and initiatory lineages. Probably the best bet for the west is to find a new system that is more applicable to western civilization than ancient cults from the forests of iron age Europe. If some sort of polytheism were adopted I think it would have to be more abstract, like the Indian way of attributing Absolute qualities to seemingly lesser deities.

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  4. Gnosticism had much in common with Buddhism or at least Eastwen philosophy (maybe more Advaita sometimes) except the goal was to rise above an evil creator god or demiurge to the God above God, to go beyond the 7 heavens of the creator to the 8th heaven. We can posit that the deva heavens in samsara are the 7 heavens of the creator and nibbana is the 8th heaven. Mara is the evil creator. The God above God is Brahman or Adi Buddha depending on how you want to look at it. And since the creator or demiurge character is invariably the Jewish god in Gnosticism, that means Mara is the Jewish god in Buddhism.

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  5. There is another imo interesting side development in American Theravada Buddhism stemming from the IMS. There is a guy called Jhanananda Jeffrey S. Brooks. He was a helping organiser at IMS Barre and also practised meditation there. Besides, he went on solitary retreats in the mountains around Phoenix, Arizona. He got on a list of "controversial spiritual persons" as he claimed attainments through meditation. He asked to be allowed to teach meditation at Barre but obviously was denied due to "not being able to show a lineage" (which sounds funny as they must have observed has practice developing). He created "The Great Western Vehicle" of Buddhism and is himself very knowledgable in the scriptures as well as by intense own meditation practice. Check it out? https://greatwesternvehicle.org/
    P.S.: To me there is nothing controversial. In my perception he is indeed a great guy. There are also utube videos of some of his explanations.

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