[net.religion] Buddhism as if it were a religion or maybe not, who can say?

crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (03/12/85)

Just as you all thought it was safe to read net.religion again...

Laura tipped me off that there was a debate on the Nature of God (or maybe
the God of Nature, eh, Tom?)  I don't intend to get into it.  Much. 

However, the (semantic and mostly content-free) argument about what is a 
religion sounded a little more amusing.

Rich Rosen posted something long ago that used the definition of a religion
that required a belief in a deity of deities, mentioning Webster's New
Collegiate Dictionary.  My copy here has:

	Religion: 1) the service or worship of God or the supernatural
	... 2) (not in the original note) a personal set or institutionalized
	system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

fast forward to "religious"...

	religious: 1) relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an
	acknowledged ultimate reality or deity....

note that we can take the second definition for religion and the first defn for
religious and avoid the whole problem: a reasonable defn is available which 
DOES NOT require worshiping a Deity.

This is real handy, since it means that we CAN still talk about Buddhism as a
religion.  Which I think it is.  However, classical Buddhism DOES NOT !! insist
on belief in a god or deity of any sort.  In fact, when pressed on the question,
Buddha said something to the effect of "don't bother your pretty little head
about it, you've got troubles enough here and now."

Note these things that the Buddhist religion just does not have:

1) A creation myth -- it instead claims that creation IS a myth;  the universe
   simply universes, always has and always will.  (Don't try to drag in
   First Cause arguments here, buddhism is pretty weak on cause and effect
   too.  All maya...)
2) A God.  Buddha made a big point of saying to anybody who tried to treat
   him as a god that he was just another fella -- maybe had a good idea, but
   fundamentally the same as everyone else.  (I admit that many Buddhists 
   either treat Gautauma as a god, or worship various Bodhisattvas -- I even
   occasionally think worship-like thoughts about Kuan Yin myself -- but these
   are strictly superstition.  It's just that Buddha also said that superstition
   was OK too.)
3) Rules by which you SHOULD live your life.  The Eightfold Path is stated
   basically as an implication: IF you do these things, THEN you will probably
   be happier much of the time (well, really, that should be "THEN you will be
   able to free yourself from the frustration of transient causation
   (*dukkha*)").  But if you don't, that's OK too.

So don't tar Buddhism with your deist brush.

Now, the second point.  I am a Buddhist (rinzai Zen, with occasional wanderings
into Shingon, Tantra, and Taoism) and I also believe in some sort of God.  I
believe in this thing because I have perceived the existance of this thing 
during some meditations.  This thing is NOT a personal anthropomorphic god, but
rather the Universe ``grokking together in oneness.''

I suspect that anyone who performs the same series of exercises as I did will
eventually come to perceive this same thing.  Therefore, I claim that this 
thing is in some way a ``real'' thing.  Since it only can be perceived by
someone who makes these exercises or otherwise apporaches the same state of
mind, it could be claimed that this is only subjective.

BUT, the same thing can be said of quantum physics: if you work long enough,
and hard enough, you eventually will reach a point where you can perceive
the existance of quanta, through things like bubble-chamber photos.  It takes
at least as long as the meditative exercises I did.  Why should I beleive 
more in quanta than I do in my ``god?''
-- 
			Opinions stated here.

			Charlie Martin
			(...mcnc!duke!crm)