Tornado: I am not real big on the FSM idea. It’s kind of childish to me, but I agree with you that it points out the childish, immature approach many people take with religion. It’s a response to the “my religious views [or lack thereof] are better than your religious views” behavior that so many, including Buddhists and Atheists, adhere to in their lives. :-/

Psychic Nomad: It’s tricky because people can’t seem to agree on what defines a religion and what doesn’t. I just kind of gave up on it myself.

Isn’t that what a religion is? That’s what I’ve always looked for in a religion.

I feel like a lot of people have a pre-defined idea of “religion” as being dogmatic, being concerned with “flying spaghetti monsters”, etc. When they encounter religion without bombast and dogma, they immediately say “Why, this isn’t religion at all!”

I feel all religions were created for a reason and there is no “wrong” religion. For those that believe in Buddhism it is the correct religion for them just as for those that believe in Christianity being the correct religion for them.

Namu Amida
Namu Amida Butsu
Amida Butsu

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_46.html

In any case, Buddhism doesn’t exact demands that you follow beliefs A, B and C before you can be a Buddhist. To become a Buddhist, one just intentionally takes refuge in the Buddha, Dharma (teachiings) and Sangha (community). The rest is taken at face value for the time being, and as one follows the path, they investigate things like karma, rebirth and such to see if they really pan out. As I stated in the blog post, the Buddha taught that these thiings could actually be observed with training and such.

As for prayer, prayer in Buddhism is a varied subject. People pray for all kinds of things. Some folks pray to the Buddha for things like wealth and happiness, while others pray for the welfare of others, and still others pray for wisdom and strength to follow the path. The act of prayer, in and of itself, is not so important as one’s intentions. Going back to my experience at Chion-in, to clarify, what the monk was actually doing was reciting a Buddhist text. We do this very often in Buddhism, and dedicate any good karma for the act to benefit all sentient beings (people, animals, whatever else exists in the Universe).

Buddhism doesn’t limit itself to humans only. We often use the term “all sentient beings” to denote all possible beings. The Metta Sutta I had posted in your blog illuded to this, but it’s an important thiing to bear in mind. All living things, including aliens if they exist, are embraced by the Dharma and assisted to reach liberation. So Buddhism is open to the idea of other lifeforms. In classical Buddhism, they did borrow beliefs in Hindu gods and such, but the gods mostly play a kind of supporting role (to defend Buddhism, etc) but whether they actually exist or not doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t affect a whole lot in the day to day practice. Read the link I had in the post about Vajrayana Buddhism for more info.

Good luck,

http://community.tricycle.com/forum/topics/the-great-debate-reincarnation?x=1&id=2758483%3ATopic%3A48405&page=1#comments

There are claims of metaphysical phenomenon (reincarnation, and a reference to a monk praying to a sculpture (which I assume represented a conscious being?)).

So I should have asked this:
Is part of your belief structure include metaphysical events, beings, or items?

If so, why do you choose to believe in things which are pure speculation?

Thanks once again, and I still like a lot of the ideas here.
Slingword

My original post was more meant to bring attention to where on the spectrum of “totally objective to totally subjective” our beliefs are. When people claim there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://www.flyingspaghettimonster.com/) they best come up with something pretty solid to back that up with.

You make no such claims, so I don’t require any dramatic proof.

You (Buddhists and you) are just saying something more like: “Look, here is a way to live, a way of thinking about life, and some ways that others have lived that worked out pretty well. Think about this”
(Damn, I hope I have this right…..)

In that regard, I have no problem, and a lot of admiration!

All my best, and of all the replies to my blog, I have loved yours the most,
Slingword

PS Please let me know if I got the basics and executive summary right. I’m no expert here in Buddha land.

I would also like to emphasize the Kalama Sutra as a guide to Truth. Yep, there’s only one, but that doesn’t exclude that there are many ways to get there.

A circle can’t be rounder. Even a compass-drawn one is imperfect on some level. Is there ever a perfect circle? Only the Platonic? Anything we can ‘make’ is only a model, never the real thing. So, how can we ever achieve the perfect circle?

As Doug says, basically, just get on with living.