Namaste Dorothy
I am sad to hear that you have not had the experience you had hoped for , ....I can understand your feelings and I must admit for many years I had mused on this subject , ...personaly I find Buddhism in the west bare very little resemblance to the Buddhism that I read (and loved) for many years before attending a center .
when I attended the center I came to realise that yes there were those who needed to belong to some kind of social group and Buddhism just seemed Cool !, so unfortunatly there was a lot of self obsession ,....but there were also some who were genuinely working with them selves and trying to overcome western conditioning. ....(not an easy thing to do !)
we are all at individual levels and have our own obsticals to overcome, and that is the path that we should be walking together , with compassion and with acceptance , ......but on the other hand if one is sarrounded by unsupportive sangha there is no true refuge , ....we are after all supposed to take refuge in Buddha Dharma and Sangha .
it is supposed to be a suportive and inspiring spiritual comunity .
to me an important part of what the Buddha taught , was middle way , ...finding ballance in everything . everything one does and everything one thinks , ....Ballancing ones needs with the needs of others , ...centering less on the self and understanding ones commonality with others , ...and yes to me Compassion is a very important part of Buddhist practice , but that dosent nececarily have to take place in the temple , one can take that compassion out into the comunity and work with it any where , Buddhist practice will just help you where ever you are , and in what ever you are doing .
Eventualy I left my comunity because I wasnt happy with the clique'iness or with the or the expectations by some that we should hold sectarian veiw points ! ... and the you are nobody Attitude that some held towards those that could'nt afford to keep on dishing out large ammounts on money for all the retreats .
this is a mistake that happens frequently in the west because in the majority of cases it is the relitively affluent and relitively well educated that take to Buddhism , this also accounts for the fact that many over interlectualise Dharma and treat it as a phylosopical doctrine rather than a practice . ...and unfortunatly this also accounts for what I see as a slightly weird distortion of Buddha Dharma , and the insistance in the west to cross refference many texts with qoutes from 19th and early 20th century western philosophers , ....who them selves over interlectualised Buddhist Dharma and have conditioned us to do likewise .
where as to me Buddhist pactice is more about simplification and non attatchment , ..and it is 'Oh so easy' to fall into the trap of attatching to an Idea about Buddhism which is actualy some what of a contradiction , ....being non attatched dosent mean caring less about others , or caring more , ....it just means being mindfull and and sympathetic in understanding the problems that others are facing .
when you say you see the ignorance in others behavior I can understand what you are saying and it is not nececarily ego driven , one can recognise blindness in others because one understands blindness from first hand experience , ..to understand others we have to first understand ourselves , ...this is the true root of compassion , and prehaps the answer is to look compassionatly on others and on their failings , ...unfortunatly where ever we go we will find some kind of contradiction or problem so the trick with groups and temples is to know that there will allways be some shortcomings and as long as there are more benificial aspects then one should just accept and over look these things , ..but if they outnumber the positive aspects , ...then it is best not to stay .
but I like this approach , ....find some where that you like for its good aspects then start up a group with in to do some form of seva , some outreach work helping others less fortunate than oneself , even just bringing joy into others life , Buddhism at its best is joyfull and caring .
