Dharma Wheel

You can realize the benefits of the path progressively. That is, you can directly experience and realize changes to your quality of mind and life from the teachings and their practice. Such changes are not a matter of faith because you realize them I'm the first person. Also if you look at the core ...

I agree that there are many fantastic passages in the Mahayana scriptures, and indeed in much pre-modern religious literature. When you read the accounts of Faxian's Pilgrimage to the West to find the scriptures, it was full of tales of miracles. Literally 'fabulous'. But this is where interpretive ...

My simple interpretation of the anatta teaching is simply that to say that 'nothing is self' is NOT the same as 'there IS no self'. And the self ('being') is not an object of cognition. It is never to be found amongst the objects of cognition or experience. Knowledge generally relies on the relation...

I agree with your post, except I still don't think that spirituality and religion are exactly synonymous. I consider myself in the category of 'spiritual but not religious'. I left the Christian church age 13, rather than take the confirmation ceremony and commit to that belief system. But I have al...

Any theory as to why there is this reluctance? What factors might be behind that?

those who think about themselves as spiritual people only want to use whatever they find acceptable in Buddhism but disregard the rest without much worry about it. That assumes, however, that to be spiritual is to be someone who only wants to use whatever they find acceptable. It might not mean tha...

It's not against 'any mystic experience' but there is an abundance of historical and documentary evidence about the persecution of mystics judged as heretical to the mainstream. But, don't bother, this is a Buddhist board, it will take us too far afield, thanks for your input. //edit// although ther...

It is also interesting that 'Easterners' and 'Westerners' tend to have a different view of the question! I wonder if this might be because 'the East' didn't go through things like the Inquisition or the 30 Years War that could be largely attributed to conflicts about 'right belief' in European civil...

As said above, a vast topic I think one of the problems we have with it is that in the West, emptiness is associated with anomie, or with alienation and meaninglessness. 'I feel so empty' is associated with feelings of disillusionment and abandonment, perhaps after the loss of a relationship or a lo...

IMO a lot of the negative associations with religion in the West, and why Western society has become so anti-religious, is a consequence of religion that is lacking in spirituality -such as the dogmatic religiosity of Reformed Theology.

Obviously, a difficult thing to define in objective terms. It is the subject of 'esotericism', and a distinction can be made between esoteric religions (and philosophies) and their more mainstream counterparts. (I don't much care for the term 'exoteric' which is often used in this connection as I th...

I think a valid distinction can be made between spirituality as a search for inner truth which can be validated in experience, as distinct from religion as an allegiance to a formal creed and institutional structure. Sure there is overlap and ambiguity and many shades of grey, but the distinction is...

Also covered in Tricycle. The linked post in the Elephant Journal is a very detailed analysis of the situation and raises some tough questions.

There is an interesting essay on the topic called Consciousness Mysticism in the Discourses of the Buddha . This essay seeks to show how some aspects of both Vijñānavāda and Sūnyavāda were implicit in certain passages in the Pali nikayas. But I think William Waldron's book, which has already been me...

I think the distinction is as follows: it becomes idolatry when you are seeking a benefit, boon or assistance, in some matter, by way of the power imputed to the idol/symbol/form. This certainly can apply to Buddhism, just as much as any other religion, and only insofar as Buddhism is a religion (be...

Hi all - I found this forum via a cross-link at ZFI where I have been a member since October last. I also used to post on Philosophy Forum but got a bit tired of butting heads with materialists. I am enrolled in the Master of Buddhist Studies program at Sydney Uni, been practicing mostly under my ow...