Buddhism will suffer the same fate as Christianity
Christianity in the West has been around far longer than Buddhism in the West. It has undergone profound changesand not good ones. If fact, it can be argued that present day Christianity is not the same as early Christianity. Eventually, Buddhism in the West will suffer the same fate. It will not be the Buddhism of the Buddha but something quite different.
Historically speaking, there are two important exegesis in Christianity. The first is spiritual or commonly called gnostic which is related to the pneumatic man. The second is antignostic with a strong this-worldliness emphasis (I hasten to add literalism and historicism as subcategories). It is related to the psychic or animal man. This is the Christianity that has survived being successful at eliminating the gnostic, often in a violent way.
Buddhism is also not without its own two important exegesis much like in Christianity. There is the aryan or noble exegesis of the Buddhas teachings and the common or prithagjana (P. puthujjana) exegesis. In his book, Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, Peter Masefield has done an excellent job of laying out the decisive differences between the aryan exegesis and the common (P. puthujjana). Incidentally, of all the books in my small library, Masefields is the most underlined.
Not wishing to waste the readers time, to put it bluntly, common Buddhism never gets off of the wheel of samsaranever. Those who follow it are only capable of enjoying a dung-like happiness (M. i. 454) according to the Buddha, in addition to still being subject to the rule of Mara the Evil One.
Buddhists who attend Dharma or Zen centers, even including monks and nuns, fall into the general category of being followers of common Buddhism. This Buddhism is far from being supermundane or lokuttara. Such people wallow in ignorance and misdeeds continually giving rise the Five Aggregates (khandhas/skandhas) which means they see their Bu! ddha-nat ure or true self in what is entirely empty of Buddha-nature.
Buddhism stands on more solid ground than Christianity when looking at spiritual exegesis or in Christianity, pneumatic exegesis. Mahayana Buddhism, if we look into it for supermundane teachings is all supermundane or pneumatic. The teachings contained in the more important Sutras of the Mahayana canon are given to Bodhisattvas or, the same, Buddhas-to-be. All have attained the Mind that is awakened or Bodhicitta which is essentially Buddhahood only not fully and completely developed. As much as it might offend the ordinary Buddhist, Mahayana teachings are not for common Buddhists. These Buddhists have no idea of what is going on.
Unfortunately, the Buddhism of the West is probably going to end up like Christianity of the West which is dominated by the psychic or animal exegesis. It is almost certain that those who become the teachers of Western Buddhism will ignore most of the Pali and Mahayana canon for obvious reasons. They will twist the Buddhas words to reflect a teaching which resonates with the common or animal man. And finally, they will justify a kind of censorshipall in the name of good, naturally. This all works to protect the status quo so that no real change occurs, that is, no real change from the common or animal man to the spiritual or pneumatic man.
