That’s indeed contrary and disrespectful of their original intent, but why does it matter what culture does it?
If people from a traditionally Buddhist country like Nepal disrespected Buddhist ideas, it would presumably be just as disrespectful as if people from America did, so I don’t think “cultural appropriation” is the right way to analyze this.
By the way, practically every religion has been transformed and warped so much over time as to be almost unrecognizable. This again is normal human behavior.
I'm not sure which is more disrespectful, but I do think the two situations are different. If I'm immersed in a culture or practice and I reject some aspects of it, from a place of familiarity, that means something different--maybe something more disrespectful!--that if I display the trappings of a culture without understanding what they mean.
> removed of their source context and used in a way that is contrary or even disrespectful of their original intent.
Ironically all this talk of cultural appropriation is "contrary or even disrespectful of the original intent" of Buddhism. Buddhism never belonged to Magadha, India or Asia, so it is not possible for anybody to appropriate it. It is not anyone's property to begin with
Each of those places has a very different culture.
Buddhism is not a monolithic entity. It took on vastly different forms in each of the places it landed. Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism have different scriptures, different approaches to bodhisattvas, different paths to awakening.
Was it disrespectful of the Chinese to take Buddhist teachings when they arrived and transform them to fit their cultural context? Should we go eliminate Buddhism from China because it's not native there and they twisted it to fit their culture?
If people from a traditionally Buddhist country like Nepal disrespected Buddhist ideas, it would presumably be just as disrespectful as if people from America did, so I don’t think “cultural appropriation” is the right way to analyze this.
By the way, practically every religion has been transformed and warped so much over time as to be almost unrecognizable. This again is normal human behavior.