E vs W

Y un poco más adelante, siempre en el inagotable blog del inagotable Sullivan (que entre que vengo aquí a copiar sus cosas y vuelvo ha actualizado ya un par de veces), un lector le da un interesante tirón de orejas a la manía orientalista, a cuenta de mi santo patrón, además:

I'm often struck by how people find in Eastern traditions valuable insights -- which is great -- and act as though they were not available in the West -- which is a little frustrating and probably a serious indictment of modern education. The lovely quote from your reader about non-attachment in Buddhism is almost exactly like the teachings on the subject by St. Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises.

Since Ignatius is right smack in the middle of Western culture, he is of little interest to many who have dismissed such teachings a priori in favor of non-Western sources. This is fine if they find these same valuable ideas there. But it's equally true that Ignatius has taught hundreds of thousands of people for half a millennium the value in the ability "to conquer oneself and to regulate one's life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment." He devised (or synthesized from sources ancient, medieval, and modern) a means to a greater degree of freedom from one's own likes, dislikes, comforts, wants, needs, drives, appetites and passions, so that the soul may choose based solely on what it discerns as God's will is for it.

Me gustaría ver intercambios parecidos en blogs españoles de altísima circulación, como es el de Sullivan. Hace mucho que estoy convencido: si la cultura occidental va a perdurar, será gracias a los yanquis, esos incultos comedores de hamburguesas y adictos a las bombas de los que tanto pero tanto nos gusta reirnos.