Modern American Society and Buddhist Enlightenment

Is it possible to live according to the Buddhist teaching of enlightenment which requires one to detach oneself from selfish cravings and desires in the U.S.? It could be possible but it certainly would be a difficult proposition. I would even go so far as to say that the proposition is difficult for our time period first and foremost.

Buddhist teaching and specifically the teaching of the way to enlightenment involving detaching from the narrow concern with oneself, escaping the prison of one's own desires and illusions was expressed hundreds of years ago when people were far more isolated and less connected to the rest of society. To detach in such a way was far easier because one potentially had far less in the way of social relations, material possessions and distractions since things were far more simpler then. People were closer to 'nature' in some respects as well. The very act of detachment was perhaps easier.

In this time period, we live closer together, we are connected by technology in ways that I am sure people in the early days of Buddhism could not have even imagined, our social connections are broader, many people live in advanced cities where education and betterment of the self is the goal to remain alive and survive in a societies influenced by or run entirely by capitalism. There is less reliance on nature in that resources are not gathered by us specifically but we rely on others to gather them for us and then we compensate for such gathering. Our lives are very much colored by the desire to 'find ourselves' and we do this either through formal education or through career hopping, travel or self education. We reward those who formally educate themselves and look up to those who seem sure of themselves. In many ways celebrity culture is part schadenfreude and part reverence for those who seem to possess what most only can dream of namely the very materialistic qualities of perfect beauty, perfect fitness, perfect wealth.

To add to this, the media over the last 40 years or so has launched billions of images, mantras and ideals for us to work towards. We see airbrushed, illusionary images of models in commercials advertising the newest way to get thin, get rich, get happy and we fall for them (using we as the general populace) because there is a heavy emphasis placed on finding oneself and then bettering oneself in every way imaginable. It definitely is a culture based around concepts of self and selflessness is not something that is sold. This is pretty much the opposite of the Buddhist teaching of the path to enlightenment. As I postulated above though, given our time period and the technological and scientific advances which bring us closer together and give us more insight into ourselves I am not sure that the Buddhist path to enlightenment is any easier today (even with the persistent media messages pushed at us daily) than it was hundreds of years ago.