Buddhism

My posts on Buddhism are not designed to preach, but to share some of my thoughts on the Teachings of The Buddha. They are extracts from books, and articles on and about Buddhism, and Buddhism as I understand it to be. 

I embrace Buddhism as a Philosophy, A Way of Life, rather than as a religion. The Great Teacher lived more than 2,500 years ago, but His Teachings are ageless. 

What I like about Buddhism is that it does not demand blind faith from its adherents. In Buddhism there is not, an Almighty God to be obeyed and feared. The Buddha does not believe in a cosmic potentate, omniscient and omnipresent. There are no divine revelations or divine messengers.

A Buddhist (believer or follower of Buddhism), is therefore, not subservient to any higher supernatural power which controls his destinies and which arbitrarily rewards and punishes. But Buddhism recognizes the infinite latent possibilities of man and teaches that man can gain deliverance from suffering by his own efforts independent of divine help or meditating priests.

Many people think that to be a good Buddhist one must have absolutely nothing to do with the materialistic life. This is not correct. What Buddhism teaches is that while we can enjoy material comforts without going to extremes, we must also conscientiously develop the spiritual aspects of our lives. While we can enjoy sensual pleasures as laymen, we should never be unduly attached to them to the extent that they hinder our spiritual progress.

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should…avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things as a meaningful unity… If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism." - Einstein