The Belligerent Buddhist
Nearly every Buddhist teacher I know of, okay, every Buddhist teacher I know of, presents themselves as very kind and mild mannered. Okay, Brad Warner is not at all mild mannered, but Zen does have its own, specific tradition of more flamboyant teachers. I appreciate his voice.
But the vast majority of Buddhist teachers sound very gentle in what they write. This is entirely consistent with the Buddhist path as a philosophy, or whatever you want to call Buddhism. Lovingkindness and compassion are chief virtues on the Buddhist path.
But there is the concept of tough love, or the idea that, if you really love someone, sometimes you have to tell them what they do not want to hear. The model in our society would be the intervention, in which a group of people get together to confront a person who suffers from some chemical dependency to try to persuade them to get help with that problem.
In general, teaching involves telling students when they are wrong. There are better and worse ways to do that, but no one wants to hear that they are wrong.
The Buddha’s message is ultimately a tough love communique to humans generally. At base, he tells us all that we are deluded for hoping that we can make our lives better. Clinging to ideals is just a matter of fooling ourselves.
