My favorite religion besides Buddhism is Unity, which is not to be confused with Unitarian.
Unity draws from teachings of all the major religions, while encouraging its members to follow their own spiritual path. There are even Buddhist meditation groups at Unity churches.
Mahayana Buddhism teaches that all beings have Buddha-nature, the inner potential for enlightenment. This is the same, according to Unity, as saying that we are all the Christ-nature waiting to be born in the world. According to Unity, “God” is a word-symbol for the divine potential in all beings, rather than a literal Judeo-Christian god.
Semantics are important when imparting meaning, yes.
Also, a large number of westerners dislike the term religion, the growth of the “nones” or irreligious folks (statistically, those who say they have ‘no religion’ on sensus and surveys) is one of the most significant events in modern religious history.
So strategically, this is also a good [branding] move for Buddhism. Not like it hasn’t been done before - the “buddhism is not a religion” meme is at least a hundred years old now.
To say that all of the rapidly growing number of “nones” in the whole of the western world are all religiously disaffected hipsters is to misunderstand what the demographic data means.
I’m thankful because this teaching presented emptiness to me, and thereby I found space for all of my gods and whatnot, and didn’t force me to kick anything anywhere - just let it be …
You may find also interesting the history of Quakerism Quakers - Wikipedia especially the practices of contemporary “unprogrammed” meetings. There are Buddhists and buddhist-friendly among them. One interesting belief: no dogma, every person has a personal responsibility and freedom of belief, which unites.
While I appreciate the liberal Quakers, I am very much a Mahayana Buddhist. I am thankful that both my current town and my home town have nice Mahayana Buddhist temples.
oh yes, did not mean to suggest anything otherwise. But as another example of coexistence and even emulation of Buddhists, they exist. I also know most unprogrammed meetings will rent space or host groups which they consider compatible. Thus for isolated Buddhists, they might be a friendly resource. As are some other groups, of course.
On the cross cultural front, their idea on no dogma (not a belief/ethic of all quakers, especially church or pastored quakers) is quite interesting. It is not a theravada value, certainly; orthodoxy is valued perhaps to a harmful degree. I am unfamiliar with other Buddhist values or practices regarding a no dogma approach, but would be quite interested to learn from you or read your thoughts.
I used to do “silent worship” with the Quakers, and found it interesting from a Buddhist POV. Though “silent worship” isn’t actually silent because people talk during it.
There were some non-theist Quakers, which I found a little confusing, given the regular references to “God”. Good people, though rather woolly about their beliefs.
In my experiences with them, most believed god, whatever it was, cared less about knowledge and belief than behavior and … well, equanimity, ability to be cordial and accepting of differences.
Yes, they do try hard to be inclusive and accepting. But I also picked up a developing tension between a traditional majority ( basically theists ) and a progressive “non-theist” minority ( basically atheists ). For example the non-theists want to remove references to “God” in the Quaker text “Advices and Queries”. And of course “silent worship” is tricky for an atheist!
It’s perhaps comparable to the emergence of Secular Buddhism, and the tensions around that. I wish the Quakers well, but my guess is that there will be a split eventually.
lol there has already been a split, the historical details are documented but i do not have time right now to provide. And there may be more splits, or reconciliations, for which there seems to have been efforts at times. But it might be a mistake to easily assign deism here and atheism there; in reality, there is much fuzziness toleration and complicated views. Of course, fundamentalists among them would disagree; that seems to be part of the nature of fundamentalism.
Sure, there’s a spectrum, but I didn’t see fundamentalism, just some very different and contradictory beliefs, and quite a lot of tension about the future direction of Quakers. Should it remain a Christian theist tradition, or morph into something much more secular, or split?
I see some similarities here with the development of Western Buddhism, similar tensions around secularism and interpretation.
Hmmm. … In my bit more than casual studies of history of Quakers and Quakerism, I never saw a generation of Friends NOT worried about the future of Quakerism. In the first generation there were saints and almost saints read out of membership for crossing beyond the bounds of even Quaker tolerance, there were christians, and cannot-quite-be-called-christians. For the last 80 or so years, those lines have seemed clearer, but the push pull between factions just seems to keep cycling. It is the blessing and curse of congregational, decentralized religious fellowships without dogma (doctrine which must be accepted for orthodoxy).
I do not see this as offering illumination for the development of Western Buddhism; this might be a failing of my pov. But in Buddhism as i understand it, there is dogma, there is quite a different understanding and distribution of authority, which springs up naturally in a balanced way with a 4 fold assembly and strong adherence to the Dhamma and N8fp.
But it is possible you see what i do not, which if one can share within Good Speech, i hope you do. If not - no worries!
