Is Buddhism a Religion? Yes, and No. How's That for a Koan?

We often talk about Siddhartha, the young man who became known as the Buddha, as if he were a god. The fact is that he was just a simple Indian guy, a human being like you and me. We think of him as some kind of super-genius for having attained complete spiritual awakening, but in fact his real genius was in showing how any one of us can attain the same awakening as he did. We describe him as a prince and a member of the elite royalty of his time, and we think that must have given him an advantage over us -- but the reality is that most of us today are probably better off, in material terms, than Siddhartha was. The point is, we shouldn't mythologize Siddhartha's life and think that his spiritual awakening was due to his special circumstances. Most of us today actually live in conditions very similar to Siddhartha's, in terms of our material situation.

James: This is something that many in the West don't understand. They think we worship Buddha when we bow to his statues. I think a segment of this misunderstanding stems from the Western idea of what a religion constitutes. The main religions practiced in the West all have the common denominator of a belief in an omnipotent being that rules over all humanity--a "God." Combine that with a relative cultural isolation of many Americans and you have a recipe for misunderstanding Buddhism and other non-Western belief systems.

Siddhartha was a truth seeker, nothing more. He wasn't looking for religion, as such -- he wasn't particularly interested in religion. He was searching for the truth. He was looking for a genuine path to freedom from suffering. Aren't all of us searching for the same thing? If we look at the life of Siddhartha, we can see that he found the truth and freedom he was seeking only after he abandoned religious practices. Isn't that significant? The one who became the Buddha, the "Awakened One," didn't find enlightenment through religion -- he found it when he began to leave religion behind.

James: I don't think this means that we should abandon monasteries, temples and teachers but it is a necessary caution in reminding practitioners that these things are tools to help us along the path that only we can walk. For example, I think we deify our teachers a bit and lean upon them sometimes too much like a crutch. Yet Buddha was clear that we can know the Dharma like the back of our hand but all that is worthless unless we set out on our own and put them into practice. No one can walk the path for us. No teacher can cure us of our suffering--regardless of how enlightened and talented they may be. So, in that sense Buddhism isn't a religion in the Western sense but rather, perhaps, a spiritual school. Let me be clear, however. It doesn't hurt to practice with others in a physical sangha because it offers us support and encouragement but just remember that Buddha had none of these things. And if he can do it, so can we.

After all, what would you do if you were the last Buddhist on Earth? Would you stop practicing because there were no more teachers, temples, statues and sanghas? Of course not. These things are maps but they aren't the path itself. Spiritual materialism and attachment to it's trimmings is just as sure a pitfall as falling into the delusional hole that we don't need any teaching or guidance at all. Ironically, fittingly and beautifully we come back to the conclusion that Buddhism itself should be approached with the middle-path mindset. The way we view it should be balanced between traditional practice and freelance adaptation to an individuals particular karma.

Neither wrong to attend a temple or monastery nor wrong to be more of a hermit Buddhist as Buddha initially was. Some teachers I have read will actually recommend certain students leave the monastery to study on their own as a hermit. So, there are many paths but only one Dharma. That said, neither I, nor Rinpoche are advocating we do away with Buddhism as a religion but rather to go beyond Buddhism as a religion. This means having the structural integrity of the Dharma as our foundation but we shouldn't let organized religion hold back our practice to where we simply copy someone else's practice. In my years of practice I have found that mimicking the path of someone else is simply yet another delusion.

To read the rest of Rinpoche's insightful article, simply click on this sentence.

~Peace to all beings~

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Christopher Hitchens on the Why the Universe Doesn't Care About You.

Christopher Hitchens is a thorn to some and a champion to others, but to the cosmos he's nothing. The famous (or infamous, depending on your beliefs on religion) British Atheist is known for being up for a good fight; he now has a fight that is even daunting to his larger than life personality. That fight is against cancer but his acerbic wit is still, thankfully intact. In addition, his daunting challenge hasn't shaken his acceptance that none of us have guarantees in this life, which has prevented him from using too much of his precious days left to ask, "Why me?" His response to that question is almost koan material, which is ironic for not only a committed Atheist but a passionate advocate against religion altogether. To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

It's not an easy thing to admit because it feels like we're losing control over our life. However, this life was never "ours" to begin with, which I think it partly why so many people go through the "5 stages of grief" when facing the exacting, unbending and non-discriminating bringer of death (but also other crises in our lives). It is said that the ego-driven mind goes through 5 stages of grief before finally accepting the inevitable. The stages are as follows: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally Acceptance. Interestingly these stages seem to mirror the Buddhist process of accepting the reality of suffering and the impermanence of all phenomena. It's a thought that itches my brain with wondering, "Do awakened people such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh go through such a process when faced with death?" The answer chimes clearly like a temple bell calling all to meditation, "No, because if one hasn't accepted the unwavering power of impermanence and the delusion of our ego; how can one be fully awakened?" It makes me wonder too if most Buddhists are better prepared for death than others?

The Buddhist teaching that always comes to mind when I meditate and contemplate about the impermance of life comes from the famous and beautiful Diamond Sutra:

The Buddha asked, “Subhuti, if a man had a body as huge as a mountain, would he be a great man?” “No, Lord. Because “a great man” is only words, and being a great man is an illusion, created by the belief in ego.”

"So listen to this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. --
So should you understand the world of the ego.”

James: And so it is with all things too; not just death. The sooner we accept that our ties to this body, personality, accomplishments and pleasures aren't anchored in rock after all but sand slipping through the fingers of time, is the sooner we overcome suffering to bloom like a lotus in the bright, clear, sky of radical acceptance. Letting go is when we are the most free like a rock climber floats suspended in the mid-air after letting go of a rock wall. If you've ever been rock climbing and been stuck on the rock wall out of fear of falling you cling to what little grip you have as if your life depended upon it. You have to face your deluded mind and make it let go of the fear of falling to free oneself from the panic and fear that is keeping you stuck in an unstable and uncomfortable state.

Just as with life, it is terrifying to let go of all that we know but that rock we are clinging to is not giving us much comfort, which makes us cling to it tighter. Yet whether our mind lets go of trying to control life or not; sooner or later it will have to let go. Christopher Hitchens has let go and is accepting the possibility of death. It must be said, however, that some cancer survivors have said that cancer was the best thing that happened to them. They state that it freed them from a lot of emotional baggage and suffering that was preventing true peace and happiness from blossoming in their life previously. Everything happens for a reason--so let go. You won't regret it because that letting go might just allow you to fly high into the peaceful heavens of awakening.

---End of Transmission---

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