Editor’s Note: In the interest of facilitating dialogue and providing a forum for a wide range of voices, SBN is publishing this article by Jesus Perez. While the SBN Editorial Committee disagrees with the characterizations of secular Buddhism in the article, we think the article raises significant issues and that it is important that critical perspectives on secular Buddhism be presented. We invite readers to comment.

Jesus Perez is a Spanish inter-Buddhist content creator. He is currently working on a Spanish version of the Lankavatara sutra

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Secular Buddhism, as a form of Buddhist modernism and cultural syncretism, struck me as profoundly interesting from the moment I encountered it. The idea of seriously adapting Buddhist teachings to a modern, rational, and scientifically oriented sensibility sounded genuinely appealing to me. For a time, I was very interested in this approach and participated in several events associated with this group. However, little by little, I began to notice certain aspects that clearly disillusioned me and led me to critically reflect on this Buddhist movement.

First of all, I was surprised that, in the face of the horror we have witnessed—and continue to witness—in Gaza, I have only seen representatives of secular Buddhism express the Israeli perspective on the conflict. The silence surrounding the appalling genocide currently taking place in Gaza has been deafening. This is something I have found difficult to understand: no prominent figure within secular Buddhism has clearly raised their voice to denounce the genocide. I have contacted several relevant individuals within the secular Buddhist community, and the responses I received were truly discouraging.

Moreover, during this critical process, I was struck by how some prominent figures in secular Buddhism commercially offer proposals associated with Buddhist teachings, with a clear orientation toward high-income audiences. These two aspects led me to critically reexamine the cultural and commercial dynamics underpinning secular Buddhism, revealing something that had always been evident: secular Buddhism is, fundamentally, an Anglo-Saxon cultural artifact. As such, it tends to reflect an Anglo-Saxon worldview—one shaped by a commercial mindset and a strong emphasis on individualism, tinted with a sense of cultural superiority over other non-western cultures. The problem is that this sense of superiority makes it particularly difficult for secular Buddhism to adopt a genuinely universalist and inclusive vision of the world.

From this perspective, I argue that secular Buddhism—especially in its most organized and media-visible forms—engages in cultural appropriation by reinterpreting, simplifying, and commercializing fundamental elements of the Buddhist tradition within the frameworks of the Western spiritual marketplace, particularly the Anglo-American one. Cultural appropriation is not always a deliberate or malicious act. It often occurs when practices, symbols, or forms of knowledge from minority or historically subaltern cultures are selected, repackaged, and consumed by dominant cultures, stripped of their original context. In this case, Buddhist spirituality has been reconfigured to meet a specific demand: that of a Western audience seeking alternatives to their existential emptiness, their distress, and psychological exhaustion—products of an era and a world that is hyper-individualistic, where the most important role for human beings is that of consumers. In this context, just as tea cultivated in India is sold under brands like Twinings, Buddhism has been cultivated for centuries in Asian contexts only to be ultimately packaged, simplified, and distributed as a consumer product tailored to Western tastes. In this sense, secular Buddhism is the "gourmet tea" of the modern spiritual supermarket.

What is often touted as the great contribution of secular Buddhism is not entirely new. Earlier movements, such as Theosophy or the neo-Hinduism of Osho, adopted similar strategies: trimming away the more complex, transcendent, or supernatural aspects of the Dharma in order to present it as a philosophy better suited to Western preferences and needs. The novelty of secular Buddhism lies more in its form than in its content: its modern, scientific, and rationalist packaging may well be its best-kept secret. However, that very packaging limits what it can contain. For instance, by condensing the Dharma into a functional framework of four tasks (ELSA) or reinterpreting nirvana as a mere psychological state of everyday calm, secular Buddhism falls into a reductionism that impoverishes—and to some extent betrays—the ontological richness, ethical complexity, and soteriological depth that characterize the Buddhist tradition in its historical and doctrinal diversity.

That said, it would be unfair to ignore the sincere efforts within secular Buddhism to avoid falling into cultural appropriation. Many of its voices strive to act with respect, careful translation, and intercultural dialogue. However, certain aspects of this appropriation are difficult to avoid due to the very market logic within which secular Buddhism operates. The attempt to transplant an “exotic Asian plant” into Western—especially Anglo-Saxon—soil inevitably generates contradictions. The ideal of cultural respect clashes with the need to package, simplify, and sell. This does not invalidate the good intentions of many practitioners, but it does demand that these tensions be acknowledged and honestly discussed.

One particularly revealing example of cultural appropriation is the dichotomy—common in secular discourse—between traditional Buddhism (seen as obsolete, superstitious, and hierarchical) and secular Buddhism (portrayed as modern, rational, and liberating). This contrast is not only simplistic, but it is often articulated by individuals with limited knowledge of the traditions they criticize. Turning traditional Buddhism into a negative foil—as I have witnessed on more than one occasion—in order to legitimize the secular version is a clear form of cultural appropriation, as it involves devaluing and reshaping a complex legacy to suit Western consumer expectations. Such advantageous comparisons between cultures cannot be considered innocent.

Finally, beyond the cultural question, secular Buddhism is deeply embedded in market dynamics. Its operating structure, its forms of funding, and its promotional language all reveal that—even if unintentionally—its actors are not in a position to offer anything other than a consumable spiritual product. The ethics of karma has been replaced by a progressive ethic that avoids conflict with contemporary capitalism and replicates an Anglo-Saxon worldview, while traditional forms of support—such as dana, or even cooperative models—have been replaced by paid courses, memberships, and business models aligned with the individualistic and corporate logic of the modern Western world. In this sense, one might speak of a kind of "corporate Buddhism," carefully packaged and presented as a high-end spiritual product.

In conclusion, secular Buddhism, despite its claim to be a modern alternative to traditional Buddhism, reproduces many of the problematic dynamics of the culture that has adopted it. Its appeal lies largely in its packaging, not in its transformative content. And while there are sincere and important efforts within the movement to avoid cultural appropriation, such appropriation cannot be entirely avoided so long as it continues to operate within the logic of the market. Being aware of these tensions does not mean we must reject secular Buddhism outright, but it should compel us to engage in a deep ethical reflection on what secular Buddhism is doing with the Dharma—how it is being reinterpreted, and how it is being commodified. That task, however, will no longer be mine.