Is there a Buddhist here who can help me?

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I've been an Atheist for more than half of my life. I'm not going to get into why I am because I feel it'd be rude to give the "whys" and possibly start an argument. That's not why I'm here.

Even though I've been an Atheist for most of my life, I've always loved Buddhism. To me, it's more of a belief system than a religion because I feel that there needs to be a Deity involved for it to be considered such (my opinion, not stating it as a fact). For those who don't know the story of Buddha, I'll summarize the one that was told to me.

Buddha was a prince in India (as far as I know, a real person). After years of not seeing outside the palace walls, he finally saw his people, but they were suffering. His people were poor, hungry, and miserable. He wondered why he got to live a comfortable lifestyle while his people suffered so much, so he gave up all of his things and lived the rest of his life off the kindness of others. This is why I think they sometimes portray Buddha as overweight. He was filled up with kindness. My view could be wrong and I'd love to learn the correct story if this is incorrect.

The primary theme I see in Buddhism is compassion. Not too long ago I read a book on anger. In it, the author says that anger fuels anger, but compassion calms it. Compassion is the "magic bullet" to conflict. To me, compassion is being able to see where another person is coming from, no matter how irrational, and understand why that person is a certain way. This is what makes me want to follow Buddha's teachings. It just makes sense to me and I feel that if two people had compassion on this level, they may disagree on everything, but they could still be the closest of friends.

Now there are some things I don't believe in, like reincarnation. I don't believe in Karma as a supernatural force, but that negative actions bring negativity into your life while positive actions bring positivity. If you punch a wall in anger, your fist will hurt, but if you exercise when you're angry, you expel the anger and benefit from the exercise. I've experienced these types of situations a lot in my life.

How is me being Atheist relevant to this? The name itself means "without a God" and to me religion involves a Deity. Many people consider Buddhism a religion. You can see where I'm a bit conflicted. I would really like to know if there are any other Buddhists on this board who could clarify whether or not Buddhism is a religion in my personal definition or if it's a religion without a Deity? Are the eastern Gods part of Buddhism or not? If I only practice Buddha's teachings, but don't believe in the spiritual portion of them, am I still considered Buddhist? Or am I considered an Atheist who follows some of Buddha's teachings?

I can't speak to the way a Buddhist would interpret this, but as someone who has also admired some of the moral teachings within Buddhism and who has also been an atheist for most of his life, I get where you're coming from.

For me, my desire to avoid participation in Buddhist activities is because I do not believe in the faith-based reasoning that it still embraces. At my core, I'm more a skeptic than an atheist, and so a religion (to me, I'm not trying to fight) is an organization that hands down assumptions which are treated as unquestionable and which must be adhered to by members. In my mind, it's not the deity that makes the religion, it's the inability to question basic precepts.

To that end, I get along great with individual spiritual types (shamans, Quakers, some Buddhists) who view their spirituality as personal and based on reflection or personal reasoning and who simply concluded (differently from me) that god(s) is/are real. I just don't get along with people who say "I believe this because (the priest, Mao, Stalin, the Bible, the Flying Spaghetti Monster) told me it was so".

So to me, it's not possible to be my kind of atheist and to be involved in Buddhism. But my kind of atheist is also one that has a little "a". My kind of Skeptic, however, has a big "S".

The word 'Buddhism' describes both a philosophy and a religion. I'm an agnostic with a Buddhist philosophy.

Most Buddhists in the world believe in gods, but those gods are subject to birth-death-reincarnation. Being human is actually more favourable than being a god because gods have it too comfy to attain enlightenment. I'm agnostic regarding gods (leaning towards atheist). Some Buddhists (not always the Western ones) are agnostics/atheists. Some follow traditional nature-based religions like shamanism and Shinto as well as Buddhism. Some are Taoists, as well.

I don't know if Siddartha believed in gods himself, but he lived in Northern India in 5 hundred and something BCE, so he was teaching people who overwhelmingly believed in gods. I think he was more focused on breaking people out of the cycle of suffering than on gods.

It's hard to explain, but no, you don't have to believe in God to be a Buddhist. I neither believe, nor disbelieve, in god(s). It might be hard to get along with certain schools of Buddhism as an atheist though, for example, Pure Land or Tibetan Buddhism. Zen and traditional Theravada (though they are totally different) both go okay with being an atheist.

Wrt karma, a lot of Buddhists see it as cause and effect, rather than a supernatural force. The traditional interpretation of it is that it's a supernatural force, though. This is due to the Hindu roots of Buddhism. I can say that Zen doesn't place a lot of emphasis on reincarnation, though some schools do - this is again due to the Hindu roots of Buddhism.

In Zen, 'is God?' is not a relevant question and neither is 'is rebirth?' because they don't pertain to the here and now. Also, what, exactly gets reincarnated? 'I' is an illusion, just a concept in my head. Asking if 'I' get reincarnated makes as much sense as asking, 'is purple true or false?'

Wrt the overweight Buddha thing:

The really fat images of the Buddha are not Siddhartha Gautama, they're a boddhisattva called Budai, or Hotei. He was originally and eccentric, good-natured monk.

Some images of Siddhartha Gautama show him with a bit of a pot-belly. I think this is because it makes him look relaxed and at ease with himself? Especially when you compare it to 'starving Buddha' images of him during the days when he became an ascetic and lived in the wilderness:

OP, I think the book on anger you read was probably by Thich Nhat Hanh, he is a very interesting teacher as he does not 'bang on' about karma and reincarnation (he talks about reincarnation in a science way of your water and carbon going into plants when you compost). If i were you I would read more on him.

I always found the Theravada style Buddhism a turn off as its very ritualistic, I would compare it as being like Catholicism where as zen is more like Quakers. Ive always been an atheist but i like Thich's style of zen Buddhism.


anyway here is some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh
http://www.plumvillage.org/
http://interbeing.org.uk/about/thich-nhat-hanh/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKiN11FARE&feature=related[/youtube]

Is there a Buddhist sandwich shop where the counter-man can make me one with everything?

ruveyn

I too am an atheist that embraces the Buddhist philosophy. Many of the books I've read about the philosophy state that followers think of the universe as "God," in terms of the "what is, is" way of life.

I am guessing that the exact book for you is Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor. It's a very good book, quick and easy to read; it addresses the philosophy of Buddhism without getting into the religion of it.

I would recommend the book, "The Way Of Zen," by the late Alan Watts, where he talks about "the religion of no religion," Buddhism. There is also an excellent Alan Watts podcast series available on iTunes, which features many of his recorded lectures.

Hi, as a practicing lay Zen Buddhist, I thought I might be able to help out even though this topic is a little old.

Some sects of Buddhism do have ideas about karma and reincarnation, and you may even see talks about this in Zen literature. But at the core of Zen, is just to see the true nature of things. It is not about belief or faith at all.

If you go to a Zen monastery or lay-practice zendo, neither will tell you what to think, but rather they will tell you to give up what you think so that you can see what is actually happening. Once you sit in meditation at a wall long enough, the mind relaxes from creating the world, and then the eyes can just see the world, without interpretation or conceptual overlay.

In that way, Zen isn't about acting compassionately either. It's just that when you see things the way they are, compassion is all that there is. If you're trying to act compassionately or if you think it's a good idea to act compassionately, from a Zen standpoint, you still have work to do on yourself.

Most people come to Zen once they conclude on their own that the relative world is suffering and that nothing they have done has satisfactorily eased that suffering. Or they come to Zen for the meditation, just to relax their minds and not be controlled by them.

Of course, if an idea just sounds like a good idea to you, then why not live by it? You don't need to subscribe to a title or group to use a good idea.

if you'd like to stay sepperate from your sandwich you would do better not to eat it.