Buddhism : a non-theistic religion
The Triratna Buddhist Order - or Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha as it is known in the East - is an Order or Nikaya of the world-wide community of Buddhists. It thus belongs, incidentally, to what is reputed to be the fastest-growing religion in the West. Buddhism is even becoming a bit fashionable, with the film star Richard Gere being almost as well known as a Buddhist nowadays as the Dalai Lama.
The question is sometimes asked: Is Buddhism really a religion? Actually, some people prefer not to call Buddhism a religion at all. Others call it a non-theistic religion, since it does not concern itself primarily with the personal-creator God of the theistic religions. To help allay such questions and doubts, it is perhaps best to reflect upon the term by which the teaching of the Buddha is known in the East: Buddha-dharma, which means the truth seen and experienced by the Buddha, the Enlightened one.
Buddhism is a spiritual path. It is a teaching and a way of practice. It is able to communicate - to those who are open to new experience and willing and able to test, apply and ultimately to commit themselves - the essentials of the spiritual experience of the first Enlightened human being known to human history - Shakyamuni the Buddha.
The experience of spiritual Enlightenment (clearly distinguishable from the eighteenth-century Western 'Enlightenment' of the rationalists and spiritual skeptics) is not something that can be handed to anyone on a plate. Spiritual experience comes through individual, personal effort and perseverance - through purifying one's morality, practising meditation, developing wisdom, and undertaking all this in the context of spiritual commitment to the Ideal exemplified by the Buddha.
The Buddha was the first man known to human history to discover the whole principle of the evolution of human consciousness - the Enlightenment Principle, the principle of the path of higher human development - and to communicate the truth, beauty and peace of that experience to thousands of disciples and followers, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and disadvantaged. As a result of following the Buddha's teaching, his disciples themselves became Enlightened, and the vibrant testimony of their lives and words reaches down the centuries and influences and inspires us even today.
You are welcome to contact me by email
This page was updated on Thursday 28 April 2011