Well, I felt inspired to a little Buddha post: http://www.geraldnaus.com

The two Dhammapada translations I link to are quite nice.

As far as personal interest goes, reincarnation and all the realms etc. never meant anything to me. But I think it’s very interesting overall – and I haven’t met a Buddhist that pissed me off ;) Maybe I should drop by Mt. Shasta, it’s a few hours north of here. Not to worry, not becoming a Buddhist, didn’t the first time around. At heart, I’m really an eclectic person. The witch-hunter persona went away as soon as I started taking OCD medication, which is when my old blog started to be doomed. Or, as I said to my wife, give a Catholic an SSRI and you’ll get an Episcopalian ;)

Notice my definition. I didn’t say anything about a god in it. However, for a point of fact, Buddadharma teaches that there are in fact many gods (they are, however, contingent beings and one of the possible levels of samsara). But that is one of the questions — is there the need for a worship of a God for something to be a religion? The definition I provided above shows that is not the case. But if your definition is “the worship of a God” then you are right, Buddhism isn’t a religion. OF course, as I have said, people also make other definitions, some to suggest Christianity isn’t a religion.

And I have sufficient background in the Buddhadharma; I don’t write upon it here, but I read far more than the Westernized pop-Buddhism you see on the shelves at Borders and Barnes and Noble. I get sanskrit texts from India. There is a reason for this — it’s one of my areas of scholarly study.

Now, what is the Buddhist response to the question: is Buddhism a religion? There is no one response. Some, like Chan Master Sheng Yen, make it clear it is. Others, of course, entirely dismiss the association of religion with the Buddhadharma (because, of course, they are following a Western association of religion with the worship of a god). Indeed, the violent reaction against Buddhism by some missionaries and colonial powers have influenced many Buddhists in some regions to be hostile to the term religion. Those areas which have not faced those problems tend to be the ones more open to the term religion.

In the original sense of re-ligio one could say it’s a religion.

That would depend upon what the meaning of is, is. Wait, I meant religion. It depends upon how one defines religion.

I know of Christians who say “Christianity isn’t a religion, but a relationship.” I know Buddhists who say Buddhism is not a religion. There are a lot of reasons why various people might want to say their religion is not a religion — for religion has gained, in the Western secular culture, a negative connotation.

But if one suggests a religion is an ultimate concern surrounded by various teachings which are used to explain it and ritual practices which brings one into some sort of union with, experience of, or relationship to, that ultimate concern, then yes, Buddhism is a religion. And many Buddhists, of course, recognize this as well.

I think we will have to agree to disagree about the situation and the differences. I think being in the middle of the National Mall on the Fourth of July performing religious services in a special temple built for you is quite different from using a building that 1) either was once yours (the missions) or 2) wasn’t but is not normally a religious building itself.

Just, as I said, I have no problem with this and indeed, I am glad it was done. I just hope, in the future, we can see others there in the future (Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Native Americans, etc). And that this could be used to show that “separation of church and state” isn’t overcome when the state displays religio-cultural symbols.

Interesting. Why?

The more recent papal Mass was also held in a (DC) government owned facility, Nationals Park. Masses are held regularly in the San Antonio missions churches, which are owned by the National Park Service.

On the other hand, you might walk up Massachusetts Avenue whre a Buddhist temple is under construction after being held up for a year by neighbors because it was not a church (NIMBYs using religious bigotry rather than religious bigots would be my guess if I was the type to judge, but I’m not). :)

Where does the US Constitution say “separation of temple and state” or “separation of church and state”?

Only place I know of that even approximates is the First Am. and that one says, “Congress shall make no law as to the establishment of religion.” How hard is that? Er. see first para. above.

Seems certain constitutional principles sprang fully-armed out of some federal judges’ egg-heads. More constitutional modernism.