"The Creativity of Ignorance in American Buddhism," a quick excerpt from Jeff Wilson "Mourning the Unborn Dead (2009). From p.114:
"One of the ironies of studying Buddhism in America is the eventual realization that ignorance, the bugaboo of Buddhism, is at times just as responsible as understanding for the creative development of distinctive forms of Buddhism...
that allow Zen and other groups to become acculturated and grow. For instance, not knowing that Japanese Zen practitioners don't make bibs or engage in cathartic circle sessions, Americans readily conjure up entirely innovative "traditions" and then retro-project them...
onto an Asian parent lineage that they both deeply value and sometimes only partially comprehend. This further complicates the trope of adaptation in Buddhism's transmission to the West. Adaptation is often not a process of taking a preexisting model and changing it...
to meet a different cultural understanding. Instead, it involves inventing new forms from whole cloth and then perhaps modifying them later to better reflect Asian models when knowledge of Japanese practices increases."
@LangenbergAmy @agleig does something like this happen with your subjects? I.e. they (unknowingly) misread the old texts in creative ways that allow them to do what their moment requires? And as they learn more (including from your own monographs) they adapt further?
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