2. Peter Morrell's article on Buddhism
He defined Buddhism as an "applied religious
philosophy" since it is concerned with the big
philosophical questions like
● where do we come from?
● where do we go to?
● what is the purpose of my life?
● why am I unhappy, dissatisfied?...
3. It is religious because it is concerned with a
spiritual view of life and the world.
There is an overlap between a philosophy of
life and a religion and it's quite blurry when
we come to define them.
4. Philosophy of life is your belief system which
may or may not be applied in your life.
For example:
● We might believe in stopping cruelty to animals but we
wear leather shoes and eat some meat.
● Some “religious people” regularly go to the
church/temple and pray but they might be unloving,
uncaring people.Such people may have set of belief
but don’t act upon them or apply them.
5. In case of Buddhism, there are those who
practice and those who only read about it.
Practice is the essence of Buddhism. Without
practice it will become a dead set of ideas
with no lasting value.
6. The reason for this is that Buddhism is better
described as an 'applied religious philosophy'.
It is a set of ideas about man and the world,
but it also has the life-transforming quality of
a religion when, and only when, it is applied.
7. Michael McGhee from Guardian.com
In an article dated October 7, Michael
McGhee, a renowned Gaurdian.com
philosopher, talks about his views as to
whether or not Buddhism should be referred
to as a religion or a spiritual practice.
He has a high level of intelligence and has a
intellectual way with words.
8. In one statement McGhee said,
"But it is one thing to seek to liberate Buddhist practice
from unsustainable or unbelievable worldviews and
another to reduce it to a mere technique, even one that
is therapeutic. The usual culprit is the calming technique
that makes it easier to carry out the bombing run or
makes one a more sharply predatory capitalist. The
reason one might want to say that meditation has been
reduced to a technique is that it has lost its essential
rootedness as a practice of ethical preparation."
9. The article talks about how some of the
traditional Buddhist practice has been
watered down or changed as it came to the
United States.
McGhee raises questions as to whether or not
Buddhism is a religion because in it's
traditional form it was both a spiritual
practice as well as a religion.
10. Buddhism is what you want it to be. Just like for every
person the path to peace if different, the idea of what it
is is also different.
This is a good thing because it shows, as McGhee put it,
"Thinking of Buddhism as a philosophy brings it into
dialogue with the ancient conception of philosophy, one
of whose essential components was precisely what was
called spiritual practice or exercise, the various ways in
which one is able to liberate oneself from illusion and
make oneself better capable of ethical action and, of
course, the ethical refusal to act."
