The other day someone asked me if I was a Buddhist after I mentioned something about meditation. The answer was no and here’s why:
What is Buddhism? Well it depends on who you ask but for me it breaks down like this.
A few thousand years ago this guy Siddartha looks at the world around him and comes up with some good ideas, teachings, and practices to help him and others live in the world.
Some of his ideas were quite socially radical in terms of his rejection of the Hindu caste system for instance. His “religious” ideas were also quite unorthodox in that he wasn’t really concerned with deities, he didn’t deny their existence, he just thought they were irrelevant to his model of spirituality.
In a way you could say his ideas were one of the first post modern systems of thought, more akin to a school of philosophy or modern psychology than a religion. It wasn’t a set of revealed truths or dogma more a DIY guide to exploring the nature of your own existence. Any rules associated with it were not laws to be blindly obeyed but suggested guidelines for living that he found useful if you wanted try and put some of his ideas into practise.
Posted by monkeylogical 