I always felt like Buddhism was more a philosophy than a religion. It can be used as a religion, but it really boils down to “Life sucks, but you can be happy if you stop thinking about how much life sucks”.
Some sects are more dogmatic than others, with some woo woo metaphysical nonsense and ceremonial practices. Secular Buddhism though is definitely just the philosophy and practice of mindfulness that uses the same allegories but ditches the more problematic stuff.
… I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the Suck has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
In Zen, seeking Nirvana, seeking to abolish suffering, can be in itself a source of suffering, so Nirvana is said to be already here and now. There’s no path, nowhere to go. Make peace with things as they are.
Yes, it sounds like a contradiction in terms. But just stop and smell the flowers. 🌹🌹🌹
I never understood that part. Maybe the next life does suck, but so what? I’m not going to be there to experience it, and the next guy won’t have any memory of me, so who cares? Reincarnation as a concept never made sense to me. You get a new body, your memories get erased… what is even left of you?
Even if I did believe in that, I still wouldn’t care. Trying to destroy your soul by reaching nirvana so that it can’t be reborn seems to me akin to trying to destroy your carbon atoms so that they can’t be recycled into other organisms’ bodies. I mean… you could, I guess, but why on earth would you care about that?
I have been to South East Asia and married a women from the Thervada tradition. If it isn’t a religion I don’t know what that word means.
Yes of course you can treat it like a philosophy. You can pretty much do whatever you want. I am pretty confident I can treat 3rd wave feminist thought as a metaphysics system if I put my mind to it, I am also confident that I could interpret a child’s drawing via a Marxist-Hegelian lens. Anything can be modeled as anything else. I can model the sun and the banana. Both appear yellow to me, both have dark spots, both make human life more enjoyable.
The issue is if that means anything, is it useful to us? So yes you can go thru their 25 centuries of writing spread over an area 3x of Europe, with 4x the population. Filter out everything you want and keep only what you want. Then slap a label on it called Secular Buddhism. You can do this, but don’t really expect us to all say what you are doing relates at all to what they are doing.
No offense but I don’t think you’ve read any of the texts or seen any Bhuddist practice if you think so. The corpus of texts that belong to the different traditions are massive and Bhuddists have everything from prayer to pilgrimage. It’s only not a religion if you ignore everything.
I always felt like Buddhism was more a philosophy than a religion. It can be used as a religion, but it really boils down to “Life sucks, but you can be happy if you stop thinking about how much life sucks”.
Some sects are more dogmatic than others, with some woo woo metaphysical nonsense and ceremonial practices. Secular Buddhism though is definitely just the philosophy and practice of mindfulness that uses the same allegories but ditches the more problematic stuff.
Not really. It’s more like: “Life sucks, and there is not much you can do about it. Accept this, and life with suck a bit less.”
… I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the Suck has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
There’s also Nirvana, so it’s more like “Life sucks. Rebirth sucks. If you follow the path of Buddha you might be able to break this cycle”.
In Zen, seeking Nirvana, seeking to abolish suffering, can be in itself a source of suffering, so Nirvana is said to be already here and now. There’s no path, nowhere to go. Make peace with things as they are.
Yes, it sounds like a contradiction in terms. But just stop and smell the flowers. 🌹🌹🌹
I’m allergic :(
Bummer. Try muffins.
I never understood that part. Maybe the next life does suck, but so what? I’m not going to be there to experience it, and the next guy won’t have any memory of me, so who cares? Reincarnation as a concept never made sense to me. You get a new body, your memories get erased… what is even left of you?
Your soul. If you believe in fairy tales, that is.
Even if I did believe in that, I still wouldn’t care. Trying to destroy your soul by reaching nirvana so that it can’t be reborn seems to me akin to trying to destroy your carbon atoms so that they can’t be recycled into other organisms’ bodies. I mean… you could, I guess, but why on earth would you care about that?
I have been to South East Asia and married a women from the Thervada tradition. If it isn’t a religion I don’t know what that word means.
Yes of course you can treat it like a philosophy. You can pretty much do whatever you want. I am pretty confident I can treat 3rd wave feminist thought as a metaphysics system if I put my mind to it, I am also confident that I could interpret a child’s drawing via a Marxist-Hegelian lens. Anything can be modeled as anything else. I can model the sun and the banana. Both appear yellow to me, both have dark spots, both make human life more enjoyable.
The issue is if that means anything, is it useful to us? So yes you can go thru their 25 centuries of writing spread over an area 3x of Europe, with 4x the population. Filter out everything you want and keep only what you want. Then slap a label on it called Secular Buddhism. You can do this, but don’t really expect us to all say what you are doing relates at all to what they are doing.
No offense but I don’t think you’ve read any of the texts or seen any Bhuddist practice if you think so. The corpus of texts that belong to the different traditions are massive and Bhuddists have everything from prayer to pilgrimage. It’s only not a religion if you ignore everything.