It seems fairly safe to say that orthodox, canonical Buddhism was a religion of and for individuals – or, to slant the point somewhat more strongly, a religion of antisocial individualism. In focusing its critique of the world on egotism, Buddhism highlighted and gave additional form, weight, and meaning to the very phenomenon it attacked. At the same time, all its solutions to the problem, while designed ultimately to eradicate the sense of personal ego, entailed further isolation of and attention to the individual. One who would be saved must renounce all ties of family, marriage, and wider social reciprocity. The quest for salvation is a matter of private mental exercises, and no one can help another in this quest. Further, the quest entails discovering that all the problems that seemed externally caused are really within one. Social life and social bonds are thus doubly devalued – they are trivialized (not the real causes of one's problems), and yet seen as insidiously destructive in enmeshing and blinding one, blocking awareness of truth.

There is, then, an a priori logic to the argument that Buddhism, given its premises, will be antagonistic to social life and will thus be problematic for lay people operating in religion's shadow. The Sherpa case seems to manifest this logic. Sherpa Buddhism, which in many respects can hardly be called orthodox, nonetheless retains the central Buddhist tendency to isolate and atomize the individual, and devalue social bonding and social reciprocity.