Forums > Social Discussion > Buddhism - Religion or Way of Life?

Yet another thing I'd like to gather views on. For all you Buddhists out there, do you think Buddhism is a religion or more a way of life?

As a Thervadan Buddhist, I believe it is both.

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

 Written by: Mr Majestik


both, a religion is a way of life.

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

 Written by:


At the heart of each of the world's great religions lies a transcendent ideal around which its doctrinal principles orbit. In Buddhism this truth is nibbana, the hallmark of the cessation of suffering and stress, a truth of utter transcendence that stands in singular distinction from anything we might encounter in our ordinary sensory experience. Nibbana is the sine qua non of Buddhism, the guiding star and ultimate goal towards which all the Buddha's teachings point. Because it aims at such a lofty transcendent ideal, we might fairly call Buddhism a religion.


In stark contrast to the world's other major religions, however, Buddhism invokes no divinity, no supreme Creator or supreme Self, no Holy Spirit or omniscient loving God to whom we might appeal for salvation. Instead, Buddhism calls for us to hoist ourselves up by our own bootstraps: to develop the discernment we need to distinguish between those qualities within us that are unwholesome and those that are truly noble and good, and to learn how to nourish the good ones and expunge the bad. This is the path to Buddhism's highest perfection, nibbana. Not even the Buddha can take you to that goal; you alone must do the work necessary to complete the journey:
"Therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves, seeking no external refuge; with the Dhamma as your island, the Dhamma as your refuge, seeking no other refuge."

DONT DO DRUGS THERE BAD FOR YOU.
SO GIVE THEM ALL TO ME AND I WILL GET RID OF THEM FOR YOU!

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

 Written by: pitman


this is way to heavy for my understanding lol

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

Chaos is the natural state of the universe

Some days I'm the pigeon, some days I'm the statue.

honourary militant margerine ninJAH

If it wasn't for displacement activity I wouldn't get half as much done

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

 Written by: AnDien


In and of itself, religion also needs faith - it's when it's ONLY a way of life that religion loses its meaning.

"You've gone from Loey the Wonder Lesbian to everyone wondering if you are a lesbian." - Shadowman

Yesterday is yesterday. If we try to recapture it, we will only lose tomorrow.

 Written by: Mr Majestik


but if everyones ultimate goal is to achieve enlightenment then prolonging that path is self punishment and enlightenment is the end goal, or reward if you like

Chaos is the natural state of the universe

Some days I'm the pigeon, some days I'm the statue.

honourary militant margerine ninJAH

If it wasn't for displacement activity I wouldn't get half as much done

 Written by: Mr Majestik


If buddhism is about the cessation of desire, then it would make sense that you should cease to have sex as that is a very strong desire. since some buddhists are not ceasing havng sex they are infact perpetuating their rebirth, causing themselves more suffering if you like. so if Buddhists were really committed to achieving enlightenment they would restrain themselves from having sex, and if everyone were a buddhist then humanity would cease to exist wouldn't it? it just shows that Buddhism is not for everyone, otherwise it wouldnt work.

(no doubt you'll have some kind of counter arguement for this, as all religions based in obscurity do for everything)

 Written by: Winton Higgins



1. Refraining from harming living beings/practising loving kindness
2. Refraining from taking the non-given/practising generosity
3. Refraining from committing sexual misconduct/practising contentment
4. Refraining from false speech/practising truthful communication
5. Refraining from intoxicants/practising mindfulness.

These precepts take the form of voluntary, personal undertakings. They are not commandments; there is no god in Buddhism, so none to issue any.

The precepts express basic principles rather than fixed, legalistic rules that any one action falls inside or outside of. Like any non-fundamentalist ethical system, Buddhism provides us with general guiding principles while in no way relieving us of the obligation to make appropriate moral judgements in each morally significant situation we come across. Moral judgement is never a question of blindly applying a rule.

The five precepts constitute an integrated set - each precept supports the others. To know what 'sexual misconduct' means you look at the other precepts. 'Sexual misconduct', in the spirit of the precepts as a job lot, means any sexual conduct involving violence, manipulation or deceit - conduct that therefore leads to suffering and trouble. By contrast good sexual conduct is based on loving kindness, generosity, honesty, and mental and emotional clarity - conduct that has good results.

There are two 'pure types' of religion - ethnic ones and universal ones. Ethnic religion seeks to regulate many civic aspects of a particular tribe or people, and especially to regulate the biological and cultural reproduction of the tribe. It thus stipulates all sorts of rules to do with marriage, family, sex roles, bringing up children, etc. Judaism could well stand as a sophisticated example of an ethnic religion.
A universal religion, by contrast, is indifferent to ethnic civic life, transcends cultural particularism, and stands aloof from issues to do with the reproduction of the tribe. One is born into an ethnic religion, but the only real way into a universal religion like Buddhism is by personal conversion. You can convert to a universal religion from any ethnic starting point whatsoever.

Any ethnic religion contains what we might call - in our secular modern mode - a social engineering element. Social engineers, both the religious and the secular ones, make it their business to regulate relations between the sexes so that plenty of babies are born to reproduce and even expand the tribe, and to see that the children are looked after and properly inducted into the folkways and traditional (gender and other) roles of the tribe. Social engineers want to manipulate people so that their sexual energies are channelled into babymaking, and not frittered away on non-procreative sexual activity (what today's media calls 'recreational sex'). A social engineering God or state tends to promulgate laws that criminalise, stigmatise and pathologise non-procreative sex.

The Buddha was in fact a social engineer's worst nightmare. Not only did he not waste a word of condemnation on non-procreative sex (hence no list of no-no's), but he inspired thousands to ordain into celibate monasticism and so leave babymaking behind altogether. This was not because he disapproved of sex or babies, but in an era when a non-celibate usually ended up with many children to feed, clothe and house and so had little freedom or time for spiritual pursuits, celibacy made a lot of practical sense for many people with a spiritual urge. Needless to say, the choice is not nearly as stark in developed countries today, where contraception is available and earning a living is a good deal easier.

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

 Written by: stone

on the faith thing, you don’t need to prove someone has achieved enlightenment.

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

 Written by:

Buddhism, IMO, is much less corruptable than most religions. but it still requires faith, you cant neccissarily prove someone has achieved enlightenment and wont be reborn, in the same way you cant prove people will go to heaven or hell.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

 Written by: Stone


Hi LilBBoy, I’m not a Buddhist, but I’d go for “way of life” mainly because Buddhists don’t believe in the “supreme being”.

I’d like to ask a couple of questions on this re-birth thing. Do people have to physically die to be re born, or is it being re born when reaching a higher level of existence?

I believe that when we die, we die and that it's - game over. Any claim to physical re birth or reincarnation in a physical sense is not physically possible.

Time does not exist. In theory, everything with a beginning has an end. Therefore, only things with an end can have a beginning. As time has no end, it has no beginning, therefore does not exist. GO PHILOSOPHY!!!
Brittle Week was the shizz!!!

 Written by: stone

On the faith thing, you can prove someone has achieved enlightenment, for example by meeting someone like the Dali Lama.

 Written by: stone

I can never understand the faith thing, because faith tends to imply a belief in a "supreme being". Call me sceptic, but I don’t I don’t do faith or souls or spirits or reincarnation.

 Written by: LilBBoy


If you think about it, 2,000,000 sperm a second = 2,000,000 minds a second.

 Written by: lilBBoy

If i ask you "what part of the brain is the mind?", you could not answer. That is because the mind is not part of the brain, it is our soul/spirit/ethereal being.

 Written by: LilBBoy

Minds function differently, but sometimes you will find minds that function similarly to each other (twins, for ex.). This is because when the mind enters one body, and the other has no mind, the mind splits and enters both bodies. This explains why twins are known to "share thoughts" and "share conditions".

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh