Greetings all,
I practiced Buddhism on and off in the past, and was up untill recently what you might call a 'religious Buddhist'. However in recent months I began to have my doubts about the whole thing. The attractive thing about Buddhism is that it poses itself to be completely free of the negativities seen in other religions, but to me given a dose of rational thinking it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I lapped up all the stuff about rebirth (be very weary of calling it reincarnation to a Buddhist!) and karma and all the rest of it. Like other supernatural phenomina, rebirth can be easy to delude yourself into believing, especially when you have teachers saying 'look at nature you see things dying and being reborn in different forms every day' and also telling tales of people who have supposedly seen into their past lives etc.
Recently I've stopped to accept rebirth through these terms, and began to look at Buddhism in a very skeptical manner. It seems to me that Buddhism is just like any other religion, and in someways it could be considered worse, because is poses itself in such a way as to make you think that its not religious. It is true that a vast amount of Buddhism is philosophical. However, I start to see an awful lot of negatives in there, for example; Buddhism goes on about suffering, in Buddhist terms suffering is everywhere from the obvious old age sickness and death to the less apparent things where it poses everything enjoyable to ultimately be suffering. With me at least that had a brain washing affect, I was thinking in terms of everything being some form of suffering and thus it appeared that way and I started to feel a lot of guilt; 'I shouldn't be wasting time watching TV, I should be meditating' and feeling bad for having perfectly natural thoughts of sexual lust etc.
I tried to talk about these doubts to Buddhists and the response was that I was deluded and had the wrong end of the stick etc. I just felt like Buddhism had taken over all of my thoughts and was giving me too much grief for having a good time. Then when talking about rebirth, there are many who say that you cannot follow the Buddhist path without accepting rebirth as it is fundamental to 'the path' and not much point carrying on if you don't accept it. There is a lot of fear and hope surrounding rebirth also - which to me ties it in nicely with other religions, the following quotes illustrate that point:
"to take refuge, two conditions must be present -- fear of rebirth in the three lower realms, and faith in the power of the objects of refuge to protect you from this threat".
- Dalia Lama
"with no conviction in future lives, naturally there is no genuine concern about falling into the lower realms. Indeed there are many who lack conviction in the very existence of these lower realms ... Our practice of the Dharma itself is likely to be motivated by the eight worldly concerns, and if that is the case, it becomes doubtful whether our practice actually qualifies as a Dharma practice."
- Karmapa
I decided to stop affiliating myself with Buddhism, and I feel a whole lot better for it. I think there is a lot of good stuff I can get out of Buddhism - being a decent person for instance, and also meditation can be good to reduce stress etc. I just feel of late like the illusion of Buddhism being different to other religions has worn off and I'm starting to see the parallels. What are your thoughts on the matter? I'm hoping my criticisms of Buddhism won't be met with the same 'you're deluded' response as it did on Buddhist forums.
I feel like a weight has been taken off my shoulders being relieved of the burden of calling myself a Buddhist.
All the best
Laurens
I practiced Buddhism on and off in the past, and was up untill recently what you might call a 'religious Buddhist'. However in recent months I began to have my doubts about the whole thing. The attractive thing about Buddhism is that it poses itself to be completely free of the negativities seen in other religions, but to me given a dose of rational thinking it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I lapped up all the stuff about rebirth (be very weary of calling it reincarnation to a Buddhist!) and karma and all the rest of it. Like other supernatural phenomina, rebirth can be easy to delude yourself into believing, especially when you have teachers saying 'look at nature you see things dying and being reborn in different forms every day' and also telling tales of people who have supposedly seen into their past lives etc.
Recently I've stopped to accept rebirth through these terms, and began to look at Buddhism in a very skeptical manner. It seems to me that Buddhism is just like any other religion, and in someways it could be considered worse, because is poses itself in such a way as to make you think that its not religious. It is true that a vast amount of Buddhism is philosophical. However, I start to see an awful lot of negatives in there, for example; Buddhism goes on about suffering, in Buddhist terms suffering is everywhere from the obvious old age sickness and death to the less apparent things where it poses everything enjoyable to ultimately be suffering. With me at least that had a brain washing affect, I was thinking in terms of everything being some form of suffering and thus it appeared that way and I started to feel a lot of guilt; 'I shouldn't be wasting time watching TV, I should be meditating' and feeling bad for having perfectly natural thoughts of sexual lust etc.
I tried to talk about these doubts to Buddhists and the response was that I was deluded and had the wrong end of the stick etc. I just felt like Buddhism had taken over all of my thoughts and was giving me too much grief for having a good time. Then when talking about rebirth, there are many who say that you cannot follow the Buddhist path without accepting rebirth as it is fundamental to 'the path' and not much point carrying on if you don't accept it. There is a lot of fear and hope surrounding rebirth also - which to me ties it in nicely with other religions, the following quotes illustrate that point:
"to take refuge, two conditions must be present -- fear of rebirth in the three lower realms, and faith in the power of the objects of refuge to protect you from this threat".
- Dalia Lama
"with no conviction in future lives, naturally there is no genuine concern about falling into the lower realms. Indeed there are many who lack conviction in the very existence of these lower realms ... Our practice of the Dharma itself is likely to be motivated by the eight worldly concerns, and if that is the case, it becomes doubtful whether our practice actually qualifies as a Dharma practice."
- Karmapa
I decided to stop affiliating myself with Buddhism, and I feel a whole lot better for it. I think there is a lot of good stuff I can get out of Buddhism - being a decent person for instance, and also meditation can be good to reduce stress etc. I just feel of late like the illusion of Buddhism being different to other religions has worn off and I'm starting to see the parallels. What are your thoughts on the matter? I'm hoping my criticisms of Buddhism won't be met with the same 'you're deluded' response as it did on Buddhist forums.
I feel like a weight has been taken off my shoulders being relieved of the burden of calling myself a Buddhist.
All the best
Laurens
