Sublime
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Rinzai Roku (a celebrated Zen text of the T’ang dynasty) and the teachings of Bankei, the seventeenth-century Japanese master who, for me, represents Zen at its best.
Alan Watts • In My Own Way: An Autobiography
Confessionalism requires full and unconditional belief in the entirety of a religious teaching. Different interpretations of the story of revelation are not tolerated. For the bulk of the believers in Asian societies, there is often no exclusive loyalty to a single overpowering God or to the exclusive truthfulness of a single story. People may diff
... See morePrasenjit Duara • The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Asian Connections)
The externals of religion--symbols, institutions, doctrines, practices--can be examined separately . . . . But these things are not in themselves religion, which lies, rather, in the area of what these mean to those involved. The student is making effective progress when he recognizes that he has to do not with religious systems basically but with
... See moreBut, as the church grew, something happened to its mixed-race nature—it disappeared, and the congregation became nearly all-African American. Perhaps because the pastor was black and thus practiced a nonwhite style of preaching and leadership, perhaps because white Americans are accustomed to being the majority, a pattern developed in who visited a
... See moreMichael O. Emerson, Christian Smith • Divided by Faith
A secular reconciliation, by contrast, recognizes that “there is nothing degrading about being alive” (as Hegel puts it in a poignant phrase).77 Being vulnerable to pain, loss, and death is not a fallen condition but inseparable from being someone for whom something can matter.
Martin Hägglund • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
WANG P’ANG says, “All creatures share the same breath. But the movement of this breath comes and goes. It ends only to begin again. Hence, happiness and misery alternate like the seasons. But only sages realize this. Hence, in everything they do, they aim for the middle and avoid the extremes, unlike the government that insists on directness and go
... See moreRed Pine • Lao-tzu's Taoteching
As we transform suffering into compassion, we realize our interconnectedness with all of life. This profound realization gives rise to a second and key aspect of the bodhisattva’s aspiration: “May my life be of benefit to all beings.”
Tara Brach • Radical Acceptance
Buddhism
Lupe • 1 card
He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wars are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.