HHDL: Religion Is No Longer Adequate

[plwk]

"Any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.
What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics," he wrote.
Read on...

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

I love him.

[lobster]

Wonderful.
The religious impulse, experience and expression is strong in many of us.

Through the innernet and internet a new religious / mystical Transcendence
of new age mish mash and sect dogma is emerging.
We can now provide dual natured scientists and mystics / meditators with the resources
to provide the means to our integration as a people.

Onward and upward. Sideways and inward.

[viniketa]

Through the innernet and internet a new religious / mystical Transcendence
of new age mish mash and sect dogma is emerging.

There is a great deal of truth in that statement. I doubt HHDL ever imagined the "rock star"-like popularity he would gain in the West. He set about attaining a certain amount of notoriety simply to have the case of Tibet heard by the Western world, but did not anticipate the hunger in the West for a spiritualism based in both inner and inter peace.

Now, despite HHDL's admonitions that we must leave religion aside in international peace processes and move toward secular ethics, Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism in particular is gaining a Western following which, in the end, may entirely change the way Buddhism is perceived and practiced. Rather than take-up the proposal that religion can be left out of the equation, people are "converting" to the religions they see as the source of such "holiness".

One wonders how many books HHDL will need to write to get the point across.

[Lhug-Pa]

One wonders how many books HHDL will need to write to get the point across.

And yet also not get taken out of context.

His Holiness is still certainly no Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or Stephen Batchelor.

For example imagine the types of smug remarks you'd most likely get from at least two of the latter three, if you asked them what they thought of the Rainbow or Light Body. Whereas H.H. the Dalai Lama has said that Rainbow Bodies have definitely happened.

[viniketa]

One wonders how many books HHDL will need to write to get the point across.

And yet also not get taken out of context.

His Holiness is still certainly no Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or Stephen Batchelor.

For example imagine the types of smug remarks you'd most likely get from at least two of the latter three, if you asked them what they thought of the Rainbow or Light Body. Whereas H.H. the Dalai Lama has said that Rainbow Bodies have definitely happened.

I must admit, Lhug-pa, that you've lost me here. What has Rainbow Bodies to do with secular ethics?

[oushi]

"Any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.
What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics," he wrote.
Read on...

What new can be invented that will be better then the Golden Rule?
Simple, obvious, universal, known globally.
I wouldn't mix ethics with inner values, as those are often opposites. To look for inner value people need to know it exists and people only know what they experienced. Ironically, people discovered a swift way "in" through using plants, but it is now fully blocked by ethics.
Ethics are constantly being developed and modified by society, not by humans. Humans don't need anything beside the Golden Rule, but society it different. It uses ethics to "enslave" people, tell them what is good and what is wrong. It is a way of making people alike, by shaping them in the same way, by the same rules. But when we take ethics away, the inner values will arise on their own. Unfortunately no one can do that globally. Religions are the best defensive mechanism that people invented, but they still fail in a global scale.

[Lhug-Pa]

Viniketa, I guess I'd assumed that everyone here was already aware that many of the online articles, on this quote from H.H. the Dalai Lama, are comparing the Dalai Lama to materialists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc.

I don't have much time to further explain myself right now, however that's the gist of why I posted what I'd posted.

[viniketa]

Viniketa, I guess I'd assumed that everyone here was already aware that many of the online articles, on this quote from H.H. the Dalai Lama, are comparing the Dalai Lama to materialists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc.

Ahh, I see, like the article pointed to here: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=10192&start=0, which seems to indicate that Richard Dawkins is either a world-renowned spiritual leader or a Tibetan monk. If they can't get that part right, what chance is there that the rest is correct?

To my knowledge, HHDL has never said that 'religion' or 'spirituality' or whatever else one may wish to call the 'inner' should not exist, go away, be dropped like the proverbial hot potato... Only that the likelihood is almost nil of getting folks to agree to a set of ethics derived from one religious doctrine. Therefore, for the sake of international relations, we must move to non-religious (e.g., secular) ethics.

Thank you for the clarification, Lhug-Pa.