Discussions

I should wait until some long time member respond
but being as impatient as I am here goes.

1. Secular Buddhism most likely is a term that get determined
by the collective action of those that are active at SBA and

2. If we as individuals have our own very personal take on it
then our ideas only refer to our individual take on it and
would not necessarily have any lasting impact on what the others
have consensus on what the word refers to.

And example of this problem is that already some days or weeks
after you set the site up a lot of people had already decided
what to think about SBA and their ideas did not rhyme with
your collective intentions what SBA is supposed to be and
so you had to answer them correcting their misunderstandings.

I will give my personal individual take most likely within days or weeks because I am too impatient to wait months for to express such

But just now I am curious on all of you who are active here. Go at it

For me, it's a naturalistic take on Buddhism that focuses on "this age" as Stephen Batchelor puts it.

I don't necessarily take it as "without religion" since there are some aspects of religion that I find useful and am happy to partake in, such as ceremony and community.

Well i've been beginning to let go the label buddhist but i find its really the best in the contexts that i'm using it. I don't really know if i feel worthy of the term secular buddhist these days but i will certainly continue to use the teachings and practices of buddhism that speak to me.

But if asked to say what it means to me to be a secular buddhist, the main things would be:

1. Trying to follow the teachings of the buddha in practice insofar as what makes sense to you from your own study of the buddhist texts and more recent commentators or scholars, so that means not feeling it necessary to follow anybody else's interpretation, though it's certainly worthwhile be aware of them and considering them.

2. Not holding to anything that would normally be regarded as supernatural or explained by magical or mystical reasonings. Its come to my attention that the term naturalism raises issues for certain philosophers so i wouldn't want to box myself in such a way as could be undermined by a rigorous philosopher and as it was never part of my vocabulary anyway, i wont start using this word now.

3. Not feeling it necessary to follow any traditional practices that seem to belong or fixed in another cultural context and don't make sense in mine to me but being free to practice any that seems to make sense.

I think those three things are the main factors essential to me for secular buddhism.

I really loved that many of my questions weren't necessarily met with hard answers, but often with "What have you observed?"

I don't think you are describing something that's happened to you here. Where did you experience this? The thing about questioning, testing and observing is not supposed to be specific to secular buddhism, its what the buddha, according to the suttas told people to do.

I really loved that many of my questions weren't necessarily met with hard answers, but often with "What have you observed?" Questioning is encouraged --

This is also very similar to what some therapists do. I'd be annoyed if people told me to find all my own answers all the time. Of course it can be useful but we all had to find our own answers to everything, we wouldn't advance much.

Well i guess it depends what questions you were asking in the first place.But for instance i remember asking people about the matter of eating meat. IT was useful to have input from other people. I think hearing about what others do helps us find what we really think/feel/believe.

To put it mildly, I have no use for supernaturalism, so unless it's possible to rid Buddhism of its supernatural content, I have no use for Buddhism, either.

So, I approach secular Buddhism as naturalized Buddhism (with some guidance from analytic philosopher and "buddhaphile", Owen Flanagan). That's my starting point.

That said, I'm open (and even a little sympathetic) to the argument that secular (qua naturalized) Buddhism is too radical a departure from religious/traditional Buddhism to qualify as a member-in-good-standing of the Buddhist family. At the very least, I can understand why a religious-traditional Buddhist might find it alien and/or deem it a "black sheep".

I'm also not terribly confident that secular (qua naturalized) Buddhism is something that I'm prepared to commit to and identify with, given all of the other wisdom traditions that I admire and am still in the process of exploring (first and foremost of which is Western philosophy from Plato & Aristotle up to the present), but it's definitely an idea that I find enticing, such that I keep coming back to it.

As a new user, researcher (if that's the right word) into Buddhism, and what I understand Secular Buddhism to be, it's basically what I personally feel Buddhism to be. It should be the practice/use of Buddhism, without any mystical/supernatural elements, as a blueprint towards being a better person and trying to live a better life (granted I can do that without Buddhism, but I digress...).