religion, a means to an end, or an end in itself?

citizenzen said:
Garden variety Zen Buddhism. While in the past I've spent time with the Zen Center of Los Angeles, I now practice alone (just like the Buddha did).

Coming here and knocking heads with you folks helps too. I get plenty of practice exercising patience.
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When you meditate, is it with eyes closed?
 
I like that way of looking at it as being both a means to an end and an end in itself....nonduality, interesting take.
Religion as I see it is at best a tool which facilitates a greater end, yet in my experience, I see in all the religions , that so many don't get that it is a thing to be graduated from.
It has a quality to it (broad brush strokes....painting all religions) which seems to promote the idea (note...not ideology) that the religion is the ticket (in this life) for its adherents to acquire a Greater Reward from Someone Else in a Better Place, and so while it is an end in this life, in itself, it is a means to this Pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die carrot which is ever so artfully dangled.
 
citizenzen said:
...the practice is itself the expression of enlightenment and there is nothing to be achieved from it....It is both the means and the end.
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I can see where a practice can be both the means and the end. But the OP was about religion, not about practice.

"Enlightenment practice" might be an example of a combined means/end approach. But even enlightenment could be a means to something beyond itself.

Quick comment on meditation technique here:
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/types-of-meditation-11079-7.html#post194441
 
Netti-Netti said:
I can see where a practice can be both the means and the end. But the OP was about religion, not about practice.
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Picky, picky, picky.

You're one of the verse police aren't you?

I see you've joined the word squad, special tactics division.
 
shawn said:
Religion of any and all stripe and kind seems to be for very many people, an end in itself and occupies their minds constantly.
For others, it is seen as a means to an end.
What is it for you and why?
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From my personal experiences of God over the last 30 years, from all the visions and revelations I have received in mystical communion, I have accumulated more than enough material to start a new religion. The traditional path would be for me to start a new organized church like Joe Smith or Mary Baker Eddy. But God holds me to the Gnostic Solitary Path which precludes forming any organized religion. The idea being once a religious vision becomes organized into a social body the old human behavioral traits of fighting for territorial control take over and the Spirit and spiritual knowledge is lost in that process.

While I might pine away for the lack of temples and thousands of adoring acolytes and hundreds of Rolls-Royces given to me as representing God on earth I bask in the knowledge that at last God has seen the Problem with all these farooking organized ways of worshiping God that almost always seem to turn into battles for control of territory--physical and spiritual territory. So I have no Church organization to sell but I do have a new way of seeing God to share and this is all that matters as far as "religion" goes: Sharing knowledge of God. When I work in the world doing God's will I don't talk about God very much or the Spirit of Christ and I don't direct people to church or mosque or temple. If asked I would tell them if they want to follow the will of God to put their time and energy into their community social aid programs or environmental protection activism because this is "religion" to me, the best kind of religion, paying attention to the needs of the here and now without metaphysical concerns distracting one from the mudane work at hand that needs doing.
 
holysmoke said:
I bask in the knowledge that at last God has seen the Problem with all these farooking organized ways of worshiping God that almost always seem to turn into battles for control of territory--physical and spiritual territory..
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... :rolleyes:
 
I bask in the knowledge that at last God has seen the Problem with all these farooking organized ways of worshiping God that almost always seem to turn into battles for control of territory--physical and spiritual territory..
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The turf battles actually may not be a problem with religions per se. It's something about human nature. I think it's known as "Attachment to Existence" in Buddhism.
 
"Enlightenment practice" might be an example of a combined means/end approach. But even enlightenment could be a means to something beyond itself.
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As has been noted more than once (and not by me) that in Mahayana Buddhism, our own enlightenment is essentially a means to others' enlightenment. It is not an end in itself. The Bodhisattva vows is "May I attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings."

The Bodhisattva is someone who undertakes to practice the perfections (the Paramita) out of a motivation to be of help. I have found that this motivation itself can be an obstacle unless it's pure. So here purification becomes a means to an end as well.

At any rate, a Bodhisattva is anyone who generates bodhichitta in their commitment to the vow and who is motivated to perfect this Dharma lifestyle. The Zen version of it is a little more elaborate:
Sentient beings are numberless. We vow to save them all.

Delusions are endless. We vow to cut through them all.

The teachings are infinite. We vow to learn them all.

The Buddha Way is inconceivable. We vow to attain it.
​
Zen Meditation, Buddhism, Seattle, Bellevue, Zen Master, Seung Sahn
 
shawn said:
Religion of any and all stripe and kind seems to be for very many people, an end in itself and occupies their minds constantly.
For others, it is seen as a means to an end.
What is it for you and why?
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someone once said to mee , i like you but i dont like your religion, i answered by saying i am my religion :)
 
That sounds good until you think about it and then it sounds like "I am my ideology".
A religion is an idea system which one buys into by believing in its tenets.
The Abrahamic religions are just ideas.
The Hindu religions are just ideas.
Buddhism is just ideas.
Even atheism is just ideas.
All religions are just ideas which are then clotted together to form ideologies.
These in turn, have the effect of altering the subscribers behavior (in any number of ways).
So it is not really much different than philosophy which is just another bunch of ideas.
The one major distinguishing characteristic of religions, is that it causes people to bunch up into segregated herds who then say: I am a Hindu, I am an atheist, I am a Jew, I am a Christian, I am...I am....I am.
Which really reminds me of the people who are crazy for sports and who personally/emotionally identify with their favorite team.
 
shawn said:
The one major distinguishing characteristic of religions, is that it causes people to bunch up into segregated herds who then say: I am a Hindu, I am an atheist, I am a Jew, I am a Christian, I am...I am....I am.
quote]
For Jehovahs witnesses its more like


YOU are my witnesses,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “even my servant whom I have chosen, in order that YOU may know and have faith in me, and that YOU may understand that I am the same One. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there continued to be none.

isaiah 43;10



they are his witnesses:)
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they are his witnesses
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That's funny actually, as none of the "witnesses" has ever witnessed a thing.
They just take a hundredth hand story and run with it.
They also clump together like peas in a pew.
 
shawn said:
The one major distinguishing characteristic of religions, is that it causes people to bunch up into segregated herds who then say: I am a Hindu, I am an atheist, I am a Jew, I am a Christian, I am...I am....I am.
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Today, as we try to find ways to co-exist, it's not the "I am" that causes as much conflict as the "you are..."
 
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