The not so bright people
Who runs and controls popular Buddhism that is fed to the public? Believe it or not it is the ambitious-not-so-spiritually-bright-people. They might even be a Zen master or a nun or a psychologist. They look for subjects of interest they believe the average person will easily understand requiring very little if any reflection. Mainly, the subject has to be compatible within the context of modern, secular life.
As we might expect, there will be hardly any unpacking of fundamental Buddhist tenets and notions. Nirvana, for example, will be glossed over receiving none of the attention it deserves.
At this point I need to say that popularization of any deep and profound subject such as Buddhism leads to oversimplification. What can come of this, in the example of Buddhism, is a Buddhism which has been severely distorted and inverted.
Such a a distortion and inversion works to undermine the spiritual content of Buddhism. Buddhism stops being spiritual and soon embraces secularism and materialism, a humane materialism I hasten to add. Secularism, it is important to remember, purposely excludes religious considerations. Although some would argue that secularism is a development of religion which allows the recognition of all religions and their right to exist, secularism becomes injurious when it insidiously tries to reform a religion like Buddhism.
In my opinion Buddhisms popularization by ambitious-not-so-spiritually-bright-people has led us to almost a full-blown paradigm war. It seems fairly obvious when the following question finds no acceptable answerer: By whom is the message of the Buddha to be articulated and defined including the categories of the secular? An indication of this war (more at logomachy) is the ongoing battle between Stephen Batchelor, the existentialist, agnostic, atheist, and B. Alan Wallace, the open minded scientist/religionist.
The only calm island away from this war seems to lie in the canon, itself. To read the DhammapadaDhammapa! by the light of a kerosene lamp in a cabin with no electricity or telephone, the nearest neighbor being seven miles away, is quite an experience. The force of the Buddhas words seem to go deeper, much deeper, than reading the same text with the din of modern everyday life going on in the background.
My own impression of the ambitious-not-so-spiritually-bright-people is they dont like to read the words of the Buddha, especially alonereally alone. They much prefer the bustle of modern life which helps them to come up with pop explanations of what the Buddha taught which, incidentally, make the Buddha seem like a dull, mediocre fellow. In short, a secular materialist.
It is important to mention also that the Buddha found in the canon is not a guy who particularly liked the average person and their goals which he said constituted a dung-like happiness (M. i. 454 = iii 236). Nor did the Buddha show a fondness for the lay and monastic community leaving the community at one time to live in the forest staying under a Sal tree with an elephant (cp. Udana, IV, v).
