Buddhism seems to lend itself well to all kinds of cults and abuse. If all is one why shouldn't life and work be one? Compare to the abrahamic religions with their clear separation between the sacred and the profane.
>Buddhism seems to lend itself well to all kinds of cults and abuse. If all is one why shouldn't life and work be one?
I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and guess that Buddhism is a little more complex than "all is one," and just point out that one of the Abrahamic religions is responsible for the Protestant work ethic, which literally considers a life of suffering under labor to be sacred, and all forms of rest and pleasure to be profane.
And there are currently 45,000 Christian "cults" (denominations) in the world today.
Buddhism does not lend itself to cults and abuse any more or less than any other religious system, and certainly not compared with Abrahamic religions. Yes, Christian denominations are the same as Buddhist cults. We call them cults because, from the Christian point of view, all non-Christian religions are cults. But it is, in all practical purposes, the same. Buddhist "cults" and Christian "denominations" are differing schools of thought, worship and ritual which diverged from a common religious and philosophical core.
"All is one" is something you find on a fortune cookie, not a description of Buddhist philosophy. The article doesn't describe the practice of Buddhism, rather the incorporation of vague concepts such as “authenticity,” “purpose,” and “passion,” which it ascribes to Buddhist thought but which could just as well be affixed to Judeo-Christian ideals. Your further implication that Buddhism recognizes no clear distinction between the sacred and the profane is absurd, and based on no apparent knowledge of Buddhism, much less anything evident in the article.
The conclusion you seem to want to reach is that the Judeo-Christian religions teach a better work life balance than Buddhism, but this is patently absurd given that American work culture is based on Christian ideology, and the entire premise of Buddhism is balance. The Protestant work ethic is a thing. That Protestants go to church on Sunday doesn't contradict this.
The "theocracy of work" presented in the article is not Buddhist, it is Capitalist. That some small part of a particular movement within some part of it uses superficial Buddhist trappings says nothing about Buddhism as a religion. The premise that one must devote oneself wholly to work is explicitly a Christian philosophy, not a Buddhist one.
