Secular Buddhism

Excellent explanation

New to the forum but a Buddhist for 25 years.
And when I say a Buddhist I don't mean this as an intellectual pursuit.
I have spent a lot of time on the cushion working with my mind.
Have a number of retreats under my belt the longest of which was 30 days of practice.

Buddhism first and foremost is a set of methods and perspectives that allow a person to meet their life fully and openly.
It is not a religion.
It does not fit the perimeters of a religion because there is no divine agent.
Second because there really isn't salvation, thought the word is used in the traditions.

There are a few things that should be covered in talking about Buddhism.
The first is everything that is being talked about is translated and therefore not exact.
Translation presents problems on lots of levels but the first is, is the translation literal or figurative?
The next is it descriptive or prescriptive.

In any wisdom tradition there are great poetic verses describing how wonderful the universe is via the traditions world view. Kingdom of heaven etc.

But what is being described is often taken as a prescription for behavior and belief instead of a description of the result of the methods of training for that specific tradition.
When this happens people try to practice the description and it literally drives them crazy.
Things like you should practice "Detachment"
Detachment or better non-attachment is a description of the result of training in meditation with a specific POV.
Not a prescription for just being disengaged.
See the difference?

Buddhism has 4 Noble truths. This is common for for all traditions.
The 4 truths follow ancient medical methods of dealing with ailment.
Siddhartha was after all an educated man before he went into the wilderness.

So these 4 truths are basic problem solving.
1:Identify the problem.
2:Identify the root cause of the problem
3:Conclude there is a solution
4:Layout the path to that solution.
Its very very very simple.

The 4 noble truths are
1:life is suffering.
Suffering here is a bad translation.
A better translation is Life is struggle.
Look at this forum, a lot of it is about the struggle of finding balance in all of these relationships.
People looking for help with their struggle.

2: The cause of that struggle is Ignorance.
Ignorance here is needing a specific piece of information.
You need to know something that you don't at this point know.
And because of this you struggle against your experiences.

3:There is an end of this struggle called Nirvana. Nirvana just means cessation.
Cessation of struggle.

4:There is a path to end this Struggle.

There are 8 folds of this path.
They are listed as right this and right that.
Again, right is not really the correct word.
Its more like appropriate.
And most often people take something like "Right Speech" As a prescription of behavior.
In other words don't be a lier, don't speak harshly, don't gossip etc.
But what we actually find is that if we bring attention to our speaking we stop lying. Because we are paying attention we see the lie as it begins to form in our mind and begins to come out of our mouth.
So attention to actions is the prescription and appropriate behavior is the description of the result which eventually leads to peace.


This is where training in meditation comes in.
Meditation comes in 2 forms.
Resting in attention IE calm abiding.
And using that attention to look into our experiences and habits. IE Insight or Vipassana.
We especially look into our reactive emotional habits.
Reactive emotional habits and patterns are suffering, struggle and dissatisfaction and that is what the Buddha Dharma's aim is to end.
Part of what one sees when practicing is that life is built out of our 5 senses and our thoughts and emotions.
There is nothing more than that.
When we look deep enough we see that there is no fixed solid entity having these experiences.
This is the non-self of Buddhism.
When emptiness of self and emptiness of other is truly experienced the result is the expression of openness in 4 ways.
1:Loving kindness
2:Compassion
3:Sympathetic joy or the joy we get from other peoples happiness.
and
4:Equanimity. Peace of mind and the understanding that we all hunger and thirst for the same things.
Peace, safety, love etc.
I think we can all see why this would be a good thing and how it has a direct relationship to Working with one or many relationships.

When the Buddha says the cause of suffering is desire what is actually being said is the way the mind has a cyclic method of dealing with the things it values.
The mind when it encounters any experience, object, whatever, values it in one of 3 ways.
It sees it as good, bad, or neutral.
Because of this the mind then grasps at what it perceives as good or pleasurable, pushes away what is bad or unpleasant and ignores everything else.
This is done unconsciously and creates all sorts of problems in life.
You could say that this perceiving when it is mistaken which it is a lot.
Again, see many of the problems talked about here on the forum.
X doesn't value me, and I'm going to be left out or am going to loose something etc.
Is this true perception or is it tied to this cycle of reactive habits?
So, its not really the wanting that is the problem, it is our reaction to the wanting.
Look into any emotional reaction and we can see an unfulfilled want under it.
When we are not in reaction or having what are considered healthy responses to life IE love, compassion, joy and equanimity we don't feel a want.
There is no grasping for anything there.

The purpose of the method is to see through that whole game of mind.
To see what the ground of experience is and to see ones habitual reactive patterns and to let go inside the experience of the pattern.
To not take it as real, as truth as solid etc.

Its very valuable and in my life has been of tremendous benefit.
But its practice.
It requires work, real work and is much less philosophy than it is training.
And even for me after 25 years there are things I run into that the patterns are so deep and so painful that I fail in my ability to just let go in them.

That in large part is why I am on this forum.

Finally just like a person reading a book on polyamoury does not make them poly and really cannot say anything about what it is like to be poly. Reading a book about Buddhism and thinking you understand it without living it is a disservice to ones self and Buddhism.
It is specifically about experiential knowledge which may begin with an intellectual investigation but one who practices knows that is the least of what is actually happening in it.

As far as secular Buddhism goes.
Because the tradition is 2500 years old and spread out through many cultures it picked up in each of those cultures superstitions etc.
Especially for the uneducated "Believers" who were not practitioners.
Take Tibet as an example.
Tibetans think the world is flat. No bullshit. Until they were exposed to the rest of the world in the late 20th century Tibetans believed the world was flat.
The Dalai Lama was taught the world is flat.
Consider that.
That is there cosmology.
The work they did in codifying the Buddha Dharma is amazing.
Tibetans are great a making lists and categorizing things.
The desire to take what is useful from Tibet's 1000 plus years of training and investigation without taking on their belief that the world is flat is the reason there is secular Buddhism.
Which also seeks to eliminate patriarchal hierarchy which even with Buddhisms egalitarianism still exists.

I'll leave it for now, but I'm glad to talk with anyone about this.
It has done tremendous things for my life.

Great ! It is very beneficial for people who are confused....
 
I just purchased the book, Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World by Stephen Batchelor and will begin reading it (slowly) today. If anyone wants to join me in the reading and to discuss it I'm all for that.

I said "reading it slowly" because I have a massive amount of reading to do each day for my unrelated writing projects. (I'm writing a series of articles on climate change and energy transition.)
 
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