Are Buddhists intellectually lazy?

I am beginning to believe, with the exception of the Buddhist academic world, that most Buddhist practitioners (not all!) are intellectually lazyI mean why bother with the Pali or the Mahayana canon? Here is something I found on Zen Forum International which fits with what I just said. By the way, the brackets are mine.

Anatman [lit. not the self] is an antidote the the assumption of a subjective essence. The assumption that there is an ultimate experiencer of experiences is deeply rooted. Anatman is an antidote to that. Anatman is used up in resolving this erroneous assumption. Anatman and Atman are both dropped in practice

The author misses the essence of the Buddhas teaching by a nautical mile. Anatman is not an antidote for the assumption of a subjective essence; it is the fact that what is impermanent and suffering, such as the Five Aggregates, is not the self or the same, not our true self. Nor should we assume that the Buddha denied the self.

Above all, the Buddha didnt want us to mistake the Five Aggregates or skandhas, with our true selfthis is what anatman is about, namely, the skandhas are not the atman.What else might explain why the Buddha, looking at each aggregate, said: This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self. Obviously, the self or atman of the Buddha was not identified with any aggregate!

It is also a fact that in the Pali canon and the Mahayana canon we can find no clear evidence that the Buddha denied the true essence of reality otherwise known as nirvana, Suchness, luminous Mind, Dharmakaya, Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature, the unborn, the true-self, etc.

As for the phrase subjective essence this is obviously a modern term with its own peculiar meaning. If the author intends it to mean a Buddhist practitioner who sets out to realize nirvana cannot realize it because his realization of it would make it a subjective essence, then the author is wrong. The authors intention doesnt tally with this passage from the Majjhima-Nikaya:

H! e [thus] dwelling contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating renunciation, does not grasp at anything in the world, and not grasping he is not perturbed, not being perturbed he attains utter nibbana in his very self (paccatta.myeva parinibbyati) (M. i. 255).

In the above it is obvious that the subjective experiencer is not grasping at anything in the phenomenal, samsaric world. Yet he attains transcendent nirvana in his very self (paccatta) which is beyond his carnal body, which makes him not of the body! Oh, but this is not Buddhism. Well, yes it is Buddhism.

And what about terms like pratya-atma which is rendered as self-realization found in the Lankavatara Sutra or other terms like praty-atma-arya-jna? When the Buddha says in the Lankavatara Sutra, a Sutra that formed the basis of early Zen: "Now, Mahamati, the highest Reality is the state of inner Self-realization (pratyatma) by means of Noble Wisdom (aryajna)" are we not to take this as a personal religious experience when beholding ultimate reality? Certainly, we as a subject of many experiences can also experience a higher reality that transcends our carnal body. In fact, intrinsically, we are this higher realitywe just dont remember or recognize it because we are suffering from spiritual amnesia (avidya).

Here is how the passage should read, if the author spent more time with the canon of Buddhism.

Anatman, which literally means not the self always means, do not identify your self with what is impermanent and suffering such as the Five Aggregates. Anatman is not telling us there is no self or atman but that what we have identified our self with is not our true self. Fundamentally, we are the ultimate experiencer and true self but an experiencer who has not yet recognized and awakened to their true self, who continually identifies their true self with something that is impermanent and suffering in the example of their corporeal body and its world.