Is there more to Eastern philosophy than this...?

I write this entirely from a western standpoint, meaning I don't wish to debate eastern philosophy as its applicable to easterners, but how its applicable and translatable to westerners.

So first to compare a generalization of the west to the east, the west is clearly more advanced. Just looking at the music and literature of the west from 1500-1900 alone shows this. But, furthermore one need only look at how so may of the technological innovations that the east now excels at were started in the west. But, that aside, its also clear that besides the west there's no other broad portion of civilization that is or was more advanced than the east.

The east has an aesthetic; its architecture especially, that is very beautiful. Furthermore its martial arts, concerning unarmed combat, is presumably far superior to any other.

Then, to the philosophy itself. When translated to a westerner it can help them take a more relaxed approach to living. Their techniques on mediation especially may help with this. But, it doesn't seem to go much further than that. The idea of obtaining some sort of mental state, whatever it may be called (zen, etc.), is only of so much use, and only to those who have a purpose for it. For the most part, the few westerners who take eastern philosophy more seriously than as a simple hobby do so as a way of escape - it adding nothing of value to their life.

The amalgam of capitalism and materialism is the sine qua non of Western socio-neuroticism; I opine that Eastern philosophy [ E.g., Zen buddhism ] makes a superb antidote to this problem, as you loosely mentioned. If taken to an ascetic extreme, the Westerner will, probably, find himself in contradiction to his worldly life and will have to make a decision as to which path he wants to tread down more. But if a pragmatic approach is taken, one will easily find this practice behooving to the mundane, while maintaining an impregnability to cultural neuroticisms.

Azazel wrote:

If taken to an ascetic extreme, the Westerner will, probably, find himself in contradiction to his worldly life and will have to make a decision as to which path he wants to tread down more.

Either way, the road, the vast tunnel, will be otherworldly, will it not?
Which element of escape to take, the spiritual or the sumptuous, to hide within a sphere of solitude or censure?
Further, we may ask, what connection to the world can the westerner take from the easterner, that, even if erudite, is his own?

Quote :

But if a pragmatic approach is taken, one will easily find this practice behooving to the mundane, while maintaining an impregnability to cultural neuroticisms.  

What is it that befalls us when we step outside the domain of the pragmatic?
A rigid blend of flightiness and vapidity, an amalgam of animalinian shortsightedness and animosity of reality?
And to instill, impregnate the most nervous element, to give birth to a hybrid, an emotional asceticism, has this not been integral to this latent exhibition of east to west?