>>25,29
I came across Theravada separately from Scheme, having been interested in Buddhism for a long time and finding its plainspokenness appealing and more in line with the suttas compared to Mahayana, particularly the ten-thousand-Buddhas-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin quality of Pure Land. So Sussman putting out a new book seemed a good opportunity to riff off of the /prog/ joke about satori, as >>28 says. It's true that I'm certainly no sotāpanna, and thanks to a fraught living situation haven't even been able to maintain a regular meditation schedule lately. I'm curious about the other instance in which you saw Theravada mentioned with reference to Scheme, if you want to share.
>>26,27
Hardly. The predominant form of Buddhism known to the West is Zen, starting from the Beats on to the hippies, after which it was commercialized and New Aged into the vapid modern pseudo-Buddhism that has led to such absurd misconceptions as "Buddhism is nihilistic" and "meditation is thinking about nothing". There's also some minor awareness of Tibetan Buddhism purely because of the Dalai Lama (a shame because tantric imaginal practices are fascinating) but almost zero knowledge of Theravada, which I think is a little too rigid to be as easily commoditized beyond a few relatively small internet communities where people like to LARP about the sizes of their dharmic penises.