Discussions

Anybody see this recent Tweet from His Holiness?

"I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether."

Thoughts?

Just sharing . First of all the " title" or regconition ' his Holiness" or " Master" or " Venerable' in my current view should NEVER be associated with Buddhism . In Buddhism every one , every thing is a being of SAME and EQUAL . I am same with the Sun , any living of any shapes / nature , animal, plant , micro-orgnisma and all the non-living water ,rock , rubbish etc .
All beings ( living or non-living )is in own process of purification from the attachment / pollutant ...to be pure , to be empty .
So I CANNOT find any reason in my own common sense that Dalai Lama is accepting the "award' be regconised as " the holiness"...a higher regard from others .........but ofcause in Buddhism that is his journey of his choice and his will in his own world that never involves others ..........

In my current view , Buddhism NEVER is , never was and SHOULD NEVER be a religion . Buddhism to me is a PROCESS of understanding , knowing , experincing , exploring OWN SELF that is of all desire , emotion , greed . compassion , love etc by being awake by own realization leading to acceptance of own self and purity / emptiness .
It is a PROCESS to free from attachment on knowledge , attachment on ownself and liberation to all suffering .
From start Buddhism is the way........perhaps is the so call " master " , " teacher" , " his holiness" is mis-leading the understanding of Buddhism ......the intention to " teach" Buddhism rather to learn from others and the attachment on " faith" , "beliefs" , ego is causing human for the past 2500 years still in circle ' a merry go round" in Buddhism .
Sorry in advance is my writing seems rude . I am sincere to understand Buddhism and always eager to learn from others . I never have any common sense that anyone could " teach" Buddhism to others because " realization" of a person about his ownself is impossible to measured or compare to others realization on their ownself ......
Please show me otherwise as I am in a process to understand myself .
Thks
CSEe

Quote from CSEe on June 13, 2012, 18:19
...the " title" or regconition ' his Holiness" or " Master" or " Venerable' in my current view should NEVER be associated with Buddhism.... Buddhism NEVER is , never was and SHOULD NEVER be a religion...

Attachment to titles and terms... aversion to titles and terms. Buddhism isn't about drawing hard lines and saying "One should NEVER..." it's about recognizing that the aversions and attractions and the lines we draw based on these are the root of our problems.

It is a PROCESS to free from attachment on knowledge , attachment on ownself and liberation to all suffering .

Yes, but that includes attachment to thinking that one's own way of seeing things is the way others have to see it too.

For myself, I have no problem calling Buddhism a religion, but my definition of "religion" is much broader than most people's. I see religions as serving society's needs for community and celebration and shared values. Religions aren't inherently evil; we need to pay attention to how we build them and use them.

I have no problem giving titles of respect to those I respect, or hearing other people offer the same to either those I do or don't respect. It's just language; just tools for communicating how we're thinking about the world. As such it's a good thing -- I get more information about the speaker's relationship with another person, depending on how they address them.

Sorry in advance is my writing seems rude . I am sincere to understand Buddhism and always eager to learn from others . I never have any common sense that anyone could " teach" Buddhism to others because " realization" of a person about his ownself is impossible to measured or compare to others realization on their ownself ......
Please show me otherwise as I am in a process to understand myself .

I don't hear you as being rude -- I hear passion about your ideas, and English as not your first language.

Of course someone can teach Buddhism to someone else; what they can't do is *realize* the teachings for someone else. I would never have gotten this far in my practice without several good teachers explaining what I was missing (about the way we humans behave) to me -- I'm unlikely to have ever come to such clear sight myself -- but the intellectual understanding given to me in this way is incomplete without putting it into practice, and that one has to do for oneself.

CSEe. Not according to the man himself. The Buddha was not averse to calling an idiot an idiot. I forget the context now, but someone else here will know the incident when he called one of his students an idiot for getting a basic concept totally wrong.

There are right ways, and wrong ways. Judgments are not only possible, they are almost mandatory, otherwise you are back in the 60s (where some of us started), and Anything Goes. Man.

A.

The DH is not a secular Buddhist because he holds a number of supernatural beliefs including, but not limited to, belief in Karma and Rebirth. He can make a statement asserting that when there is a conflict between science and religion we must go with science because he, like certain Christian theologians can hold to the view put forward by Steve Gould that the two domains are "non-overlapping magisteria," and thus remain non conflictual.

Mufi, I agree. I never really bought into NOMA but it is a convenient way for the DL to have his cake and eat it too.

Quote from allen on June 16, 2012, 02:33
CSEe. Not according to the man himself. The Buddha was not averse to calling an idiot an idiot. I forget the context now, but someone else here will know the incident when he called one of his students an idiot for getting a basic concept totally wrong.

There are right ways, and wrong ways. Judgments are not only possible, they are almost mandatory, otherwise you are back in the 60s (where some of us started), and Anything Goes. Man.

A.

To me Buddhism is all about OWN SELF , not to follow others including what being said to be from Mr Siddharta ...as all the story , the " gossip" is for own learning process , is always YOU of what you wish to learn from all the actions you saw , from all the story you know or from all the " gossip" you might heard ........is always you my dear friend ,not one else . Is you in your choice , in your will of path in your world .
So to me , all " teaching" is a " gossip" same as the action from a serial killer , same as the action from an ant in garden...a source of learning to know ownself.
Buddhism is all about PROCESS of learning to know ownself . The attachment on faith , on knoewledge , on beliefs perhaps is the cause of human existance ...the cause of all suffering . Biuddhism is freedom to knowledge not attachment to "knowledge". Freedom to exploration on ownself NOT creation of ownself by having beliefs or faith . Liberation to suffering NOT to cause more suffering.
Thks
CSEe

It's easy to poke holes in Tenzin Gyatso's secularism. But I ask myself what I'd do in his position -- being a leader of a people whose authority is derived from the supernatural beliefs of those people, having a responsibility to them but also becoming aware that supernaturalism is at odds with the naturalism that makes sense of the world, and in the form of institutional religion is an obstacle to human solidarity. Would I drop the robes and the titles and tell my people, "hey, this reincarnation stuff doesn't make a lot of sense"? Or tell people they shouldn't worship Dorge Shugden because protector deities are only myths? Or that it doesn't matter if the Chinese name a Panchen Lama because there is no literal rebirth? I don't know if I can answer such questions.

From the Wiki article about NOMA, a speech by NOMA author Stephen Jay Gould:

"In a speech before the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Gould stressed the diplomatic reasons for adopting NOMA as well, stating that the reason why we support that position is that it happens to be right, logically. But we should also be aware that it is very practical as well if we want to prevail." Gould argued that if indeed the polling "data was correct—and that 80 to 90% of Americans believe in a supreme being, and such a belief is misunderstood to be at odds with evolution—then "we have to keep stressing that religion is a different matter, and science is not in any sense opposed to it," otherwise "we're not going to get very far."[4] He did not, however, consider this diplomatic aspect to be paramount, writing in 1997: "NOMA represents a principled position on moral and intellectual grounds, not a mere diplomatic stance."

Diplomatically, Gould did not elaborate on what scientists have to say about a Supreme Being. If a Christian were to ask a scientist his opinion of atheism, there's a fairly good chance that the scientist would point out its difficulties. But if the Christian said, "So you think God created the world," it's likely that the scientist would say, "No, I think that God IS creating the world, and I expect Him to keep creating after our species is extinct."

Quote from Doug on June 25, 2012, 03:42

Quote from Tom Alan on June 25, 2012, 01:00
If a Christian were to ask a scientist his opinion of atheism, there's a fairly good chance that the scientist would point out its difficulties. But if the Christian said, "So you think God created the world," it's likely that the scientist would say, "No, I think that God IS creating the world, and I expect Him to keep creating after our species is extinct."

I believe that something over 90% of members of the National Academy of Sciences are atheists. They would be unlikely to engage in this kind of God talk at all, except perhaps as explicitly metaphorical.

Gallup poll cited in the National Center for Science Eduction article "Do Scientists Really Reject God?"

1. Special Creation, 10 000 years 5%
2. Evolution, God Guided 40%
3. Evolution, God had no part 55%

http://ncse.com/rncse/18/2/do-scientists-really-reject-god

Doug, I just read the Wiki article you linked us to. Yes, there's a high percentage of atheists in the National Academy of Sciences, but the Pew Research Center poll suggests that the Gallup finding considerably underestimates religiosity --

"the Pew Research Center found that "just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power."[102] 48% say they have a religious affiliation, equal to the number who say they are not affiliated with any religious tradition. The survey also found younger scientists to be "substantially more likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God". Among the surveyed fields, chemists were the most likely to say they believe in God.[96]"

As you say, the phrasing of questions is important. The Gallup poll I showed you offered participants a choice of evolution in which God had no part at all.

Science requires skepticism. By that, I mean a willingness to consider evidence objectively and remain open-minded when results are not conclusive.