Buddhism Is...

A practitioner or scholar of Buddhism learns quickly that there are numerous ways to define Buddhism, and that none of them can be both precise and all-encompassing. The first question on most peoples minds is whether or not Buddhism is a Religion, or if perhaps it is simply a rich form of philosophy, encompassing a system of ethics.

To begin I will give a definition of religion that I think is most helpful in the study of religions. This definition comes from Robert Oden. Ph.D., the current president of Kenyon College and former Chair of the Department of Religion at Dartmouth University. His definition goes as follows [and I should note that he acknowledges borrowing and only slightly revising the definition given by H.H. Penner]:

I'll begin by discussing each of the 3 main parts of this definition and how Buddhism does in fact fit into them.

First, religion is a communication system. It is a way of communicating with others, both within and outside itself. Forms of communication include scriptures and oral stories of course, but also come in the form of dress and hygiene. Buddhism is certainly a rich source of communication through its 2500 year history. Most forms of Buddhism also prescribe dress codes to distinguish between lay and monastic followers, as well as hygienic rituals such as shaved or shortly cropped hair.

Next is the issue of supernatural beings. In the West when we think of "supernatural beings" we think of God, angels, Satan, etc. These are beings that, if we have embraced a purely scientific/secular worldview, we feel quite strongly do not exist. Oden defended this point by giving us a perhaps more toned down way of looking at supernatural beings. He says that Buddha fits this definition in a way by simply being extraordinary, or superhuman; by possessing traits that no other human possessed. This is where the crux of defining Buddhism as a religion or not comes in. If, on the one hand, you see the Buddha as having been within the bounds of normal humanity, aside from being perhaps an extraordinary human, and reject all stories of his birth, life, and death which denote a sort of superhuman presence, then I would consider you to be something of a secularist. In this case you may even consider yourself to be a Buddhist and I wouldn't argue with you, but you would be kind of a non-religious member of a religion. This is possible in perhaps only a very small number of religions, including Buddhism, that espouse that it is your practice, your way of living your life, and ultimately the insights that follow which make you a member of the religion, as opposed to religions more familiar to us in the West such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam that hold belief itself to be the key to membership. But, on the other hand, there are stories/myths of the Buddha's birth, life, and death that could lead to him being considered beyond the human plane. Even this, however, if you want to get into the pithy philosophy of Buddhism, is contestable. Nonetheless, for these purposes I will say that while Buddhists do not revere the Buddha as a God in any way, he can be considered to have been above normal humanity.

The third and final part of the definition is that of specific patterns of behavior. While the specific patterns do vary a bit from tradition to tradition [Theravada, Zen, Vajrayana, Vipassana, etc], there certainly ARE specific patterns of behavior to be found in Buddhism. The one most commonly found is simply one form of meditation or another. Others include the practice of bowing, removing shoes in a shrine room or temple, and chanting.

So from this I feel we can confidently consider Buddhism to be a religion. And as such it is the 4th largest world religion with around 300 followers worldwide. With this is may be appropriate to go into the history of Buddhism a bit, but I don't see myself as being capable of doing any more than regurgitating perfectly good historical accounts that can be found readily elsewhere. I also see little point in any discussion of the religion in the current day. I will, however, refer back to both the past and the current state of Buddhism in my following account of what I see it to be and what my views and hopes for it in the future are.

...Check back soon for that account.

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