Blue Jean Buddha : Voices of Young Buddhists

Rating:
Summary: Buddhism for the next gen Yuppie
Review: While some of the stories in this collection may be inspiring it points out several things.

Aspiring yuppies have lost the core of Buddha's teachings.

The author feels that if you are not college educated or a monk/child of monks/hippies that you have nothing to offer and your views don't count.

This book presents an unrealistic view of Buddhists with its failure to present a realistic cross section of peoples.

I could easily go out and collect stories of "new agers" uneducated or not and their thoughts on Buddhism and it would most likely drip with the same inaccuracies of what Buddhism means as this book. I understand that "Buddhism means different things to different people". What the author does not understand is "DIFFERENT PEOPLE" and "BUDDHISM". All the people who contributed are little clones of one another in sooo many aspects and no matter what you *think* Buddhism means - THERE IS A COMMON GROUND among ALL Buddhist - which many of the contributors do NOT share. Thus I would NOT even consider them Buddhists at all. Just yuppies into "new age" bunk.

If you get into new age psycobabble and mommy and daddy have a lot of money, or you were raised around monks and get into new age psycobabble you will probably enjoy this collection.