Humanistic Buddhism

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Hi Bloggers,

It's been a while since I last blogged, but don't think I haven't been practising or thinking about things. I think what's uppermost on my mind these days is how Buddhism might come to have a universal and global appeal. And I don't mean just for those people who believe in life after death, but also for complete materialists, who reckon it's a straight black out when you die, and who certainly don't believe in any sort of mystical universal justice through a notion as unprovable as karma.

What's my own position on these questions? Well. I used to be a firm believer in karma and rebirth. However, the more I studied science, both in terms of physics and biology, the more I have come to doubt the truth of these. I certainly hope my doubts are unfounded. I certainly hope consciousness isn't simply a bi-product of the biological process. I hope that consciousness exists independently and that the brain and nervous system are simply the mediums through which it functions in the material world. However, it is difficult to prove either way.

Regarding karma, I now consider that to be primarily an internal event. I think the permutations of the external world are simply too vast to be explained by karma. Clearly a lot of events, both fortunate and unfortunate are random. Not to mention the glaring injustices in our world, such as people being born into hopeless poverty traps or being struck by natural disasters, etc. To me karma works only inwardly, in that the shape of one's mind is truly karmic. Practice love and you will have a beautiful mind. Go around being nasty to people and you will be uptight and will never get that happy, relaxed, open mind that meditators seek.

As for rebirth, well, the problem is where do we get reborn. In the Buddha's day, they had a fixed view of the universe. Now we know it will almost certainly eventually self destruct, with no guarantee of another conveniently similar one popping up somewhere else. Could we be born on another dimension or what. Who knows?

Anyway, despite these perplexities, I still fully believe in the importance of practicing the Buddha's teachings, particularly doing meditation. Ironically, by removing the theological debate from the equation, Buddhism may gain a much wider appeal in that it will become the ultimate form of humanism, and could be approached as such. In fact, there would be two ways of practising Buddhism, firstly in the traditional religous way it has been for centuries and secondly in a completely modern humanistic way. Either way, the benefits would be vast.

I'm going to stop here for now. Will continue in my next blog.

Look forward to getting some comments from you!

Happy Meditation,
Robert