Welcome to Gaia! ::

Welcome to our Guild! biggrin It's good to have more non-Pagan, non-Christian members here, for the sake of diversity.

I find Buddhism a very fascinating religion. For a while, I myself was looking into becoming Buddhist. I understand your problems and perhaps my post will help out a bit. Perhaps not.

The first thing that must be understood is that in some parts of the far East, the population of Buddhists is like the population of Christians here in America. In America 82% of the people are Christian and 1% is Buddhist. In Japan, 80% are Buddhist and 1% is Christian.

The reason this is important is because there are many people who call themselves Christian here in America but only go to church on holidays, or not at all. Some of these "nominal Christians" don't even believe in the teachings of the Christian faith, but consider themselves Christian simply because they don't *want* to be considered atheist. It's estimated only 36% of Americans attend regular church services. The exact same it true of Buddhism in Japan. Most people consider themselves Buddhist out of tradition, or because of family ties, but only 20% of people are estimated to practise the religion.

While I'm sure some of these nominally religious followers might be unsatasfied with their religion, many others are quite comfortable with it. They might follow part, or all of the beliefs, although not practise due to time constraints or not finding the proper crowd to join. They call themselves a member of that religion to feel that they continue to be part of something bigger.

I'm not sure if this relates to you or not, or if it helps. I have other ideas, but to keep this from becoming a really long post, I'll let you read this one before writing more.

(I had a long post written up last night, but the internet died just as I submitted it, so I lost it. sweatdrop Let's see if I can duplicate that post.)

I'm aware that you're likely not a nominal Buddhist. Like I said, I didn't want to write an obscenly long post and stopped where I was. In the mean time, I seem to have forgotten why I brought up nominal Buddhism. xd

I'm sure you are already familiar with the three major schools of Buddhism, but I'll write about them for the knowledge of those who don't already know. There are three major schools, Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna. The first two are Sutric schools, meaning philosophically based, and the last one is Tantric, meaning technique based. Vajrayāna stems from Mahāyāna.

In addition to these major schools, there are many sects of each school, each believing or emphasizing different aspects. Take a look at this list and see if any might seem fitting for you. Each link goes to a page explaining a little bit about that specific school:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_Buddhism

If you can't find any help there, I sugguest finding a local Buddhist group, contacting the leader and asking for spiritual advice. I'm sure the leader of such a group will be fully understanding of your situation, and the advice you get from them would likely be the best advice you'll find anywhere.

As far as metaphysical aspects of the religion, I personally thought that reincarnation and enlightenment were required beliefs to be Buddhist. I could always be wrong though. I've studied Buddhism briefly while considering it for my personal faith, but I've never looked at it in depth and I am by no means an expert.

As far as political beliefs, I'm certain that has always been a personal matter. Buddhism in America didn't really arise until the 60s, which would have been the height of the Hippy movement. Because of this, many Hippy ideals have become synonomous with Buddhism. This is just a stereotype, and outside of America, especially in the East, many much more conservative Buddhists can be found.

Another reason for the majority of Buddhists in America being liberal can be attributed to the connection that Christianity shares with Conservativism. Most liberals seem to be more open to and accepting of other religions, while most conservatives seem to be strict in their beliefs. This can be seen in groups such as the Religious Right. While I understand that they are not a majority in the US, several of their members are prominant Republicans, allowing Christianity to play a large role on the Right-wing side.

On a side note, your mention of Capitalism reminded me of an article from National Geographic that I read about a year ago. It spoke of the rise of Buddhism in America, mentioning that there was an especially high rise among businessmen. One part of the article spoke of the Vice-President CEO of a successful company living on the street for a weekend in order to learn to apathize with the homeless. It showed a picture of him sleeping on a park bench. The article might prove inspiring to you. Here's a link to the web version of the article:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0512/feature4/multimedia.html

I hope the post proved more of a help than my last one. I especially feel that you should seek a local Buddhist priest to talk to, as asking an expert on the religion is the clearest path to travel.

Well aside from any vows you could take, or what comes after devoting yourself to a monastic life, there really isn't anything "required" in Buddhism from what I can see.

When I made it known to other Buddhists that I have difficulty adopting these metaphysical concepts, they tell me it doesn't matter because in time the Dharma will "reveal itself" to me.

The Buddha himself said you should be concerned with your own state of suffering before you get lost in theories and concepts. (The quote about paying attention to the arrow, rather than where the arrow came from).

I have some Buddhist beliefs, after reading some Thich Nhat Hanh I am more open to the idea of the impermanent, interdependent nature of things and that everything is empty of an independent existence, but my attachment to Buddhism (funny choice of word) doesn't stem much from my faith in it, so much as in the fact that I have felt more peaceful, happy and aware practicing meditation and Buddhist tantra more than anything else.

It's working now, very nice piece of flash. heart

I have never heard of Hermeticism, I'm reading about it right now.

Basically the arrow quote isn't commanding you to not look at the nature of the universe (the bowman) so much as you won't be able see the nature of the universe until the arrow is removed.

Enlightenment is omniscience through complete liberation of negative emotions and false concepts, which cloud your view.

Just a few thoughts. I was interested in Buddhism, and still am to some extent. It was through the book 'Destructive Emotions - And How We Can Overcome Them' (great book btw) that I was introduced to Buddhism, and especially Buddhist meditations. The nueroscience is at the moment making a strong case for the benefits of meditation, as is psychology.

However, after reading a bit of the neurosciences and psychology, it seemed to me that unbeneficial desires and negative emotions can never actually ever be completely eradicated, but that techniques and the training of the mind (via meditation) can limit the effect of impulses and negative emotions to a great extent, and create a higher baseline of happiness.

In short, I agree a lot with the states of mind the Buddhists are after, the techniques they use, and a lot of their philosophies such as existentialism). However, I just can't bring myself to believe something has no evidence to back it up, such as karma, rebirth, and nirvana.

As to the Buddhists here in Japan, I think even more are Buddhist in name only, and most Japanese Buddhists could be termed as 'funeral Buddhists', as they only go to temples or hold Buddhists ceremonies for a funeral or memorial service. It is just their family's tradition, and most Japanese here have beliefs in community and materialism (consumerism).

I have read that a lot of the actual more Buddhist countries like Thailand have populations of people that believe in Buddhism, but don't do some of the things like meditations that I consider the most beneficial for both the individual and community. They will build stupas, visit temples, and make offerings, but they just don't meditate. In fact, a Christian church was torn down by a village of Buddhists out of fear.

It would be interesting to see just what the situation there is. Perhaps I might find that a lot of Buddhists there don't actually know a lot about their religion, just as I know a lot of Christians that don't know theirs but attend church regularly. Since I have engaged in Christian apologetics and debate for a good three years, I find that I am often providing apologetics instead of those that are actually Christian, and I do get thanked at times for providing an answer that they couldn't come up with.

P.S. Another book I'd highly recommend is 'Flow - The Psychology Of Optimal Experience' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It's written from a secular perspective, and it provides some more natural explanations for the incredible feelings Buddhist and Hindus feel when they've reached a vey concentrated state of mind they call 'Jhana/Dhana/Samahdi'.