Object-Oriented Buddhism 28: The Specter of Nothingness

The going meta syndrome that I outline in a recent post is synchronized with Buddhaphobia. I find this more than a little interesting. I've thought for a while that the fear of Buddhism often has to do with an anxiety about a nothingness that is the West's own shadow, projected. This seems to put some meat on those bones.

Most conversations I've had about Buddhism recently, with scholars that is, have tended to involve assertions (by them) that Buddhism is claiming that this pencil doesn't exist, that in absolute reality it's just not there. I've been disagreeing, vehemently. The tendency to glorify the absolute over the relative is nihilism, pure and simple. A bad case of meta disease.