I too dislike the language used by many western buddhists.
It seems like the maps they've created to traverse the territory involve more focus on these types of mystical experiences. At the same time, the buddha was supposed to have gained all types of knowledge after his enlightenment. Are these sources of knowledge similarly on planes above the mental?
(You've mentioned how Steiner got things wrong. Similarly I've heard a perhaps apocryphal story about how early buddhists, despite having access to knowledge that the earth was round from indian astronomers of that era, continued to uphold that the world was flat because it was something the buddha "saw" and instructed his followers on, and they didn't want to doubt him.
I guess my question is, what's going on in these cases (in terms of real sources vs confabulations)?
It just makes me feel a tad pessimistic if even the buddha's epistemic powers were limited.
Re: Q
It seems like the maps they've created to traverse the territory involve more focus on these types of mystical experiences. At the same time, the buddha was supposed to have gained all types of knowledge after his enlightenment. Are these sources of knowledge similarly on planes above the mental?
(You've mentioned how Steiner got things wrong. Similarly I've heard a perhaps apocryphal story about how early buddhists, despite having access to knowledge that the earth was round from indian astronomers of that era, continued to uphold that the world was flat because it was something the buddha "saw" and instructed his followers on, and they didn't want to doubt him.
I guess my question is, what's going on in these cases (in terms of real sources vs confabulations)?
It just makes me feel a tad pessimistic if even the buddha's epistemic powers were limited.