HHDL Quote about Religion vs. Spirituality

starstuff

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
From "The Pocket Dalai Lama," edited by Mary Craig, 2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

Any thoughts? I think it's great quote--I got it in my email from Beliefnet's "Daily Buddhist Wisdom." And I thought it was good for this forum because I appreciate it as much as an atheist as I do as a Buddhist.

Simonthepilgrim

starstuff wrote: »

Any thoughts? I think it's great quote--I got it in my email from Beliefnet's "Daily Buddhist Wisdom." And I thought it was good for this forum because I appreciate it as much as an atheist as I do as a Buddhist.

Indeed, StarStuff. It is this sort of clarity that encourages me to believe that there is no contradiction in an atheist approach to spirituality..

srivijaya

Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on.

The Dali Lama is describing elements much cultivated in his schools of Buddhism. It is interesting to see him contrast all that stuff with spirituality.
He's in good company though.
The Buddha himself was never too keen:

"Vaccha, the position that 'the cosmos is eternal' is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by suffering, distress, despair, & fever, and it does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening, Unbinding.

&

"A 'position,' Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: 'Such is form, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is perception... such are mental fabrications... such is consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance.' Because of this, I say, a Tathagata — with the ending, fading out, cessation, renunciation, & relinquishment of all construings, all excogitations, all I-making & mine-making & obsession with conceit — is, through lack of clinging/sustenance, released."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html

Religions seem to attract people like Vacchagotta;)

OneSunTemple

I think of religion as the instructions .. prodedures ect. to follow in order to have during ones life a spiritual experience of the highest order .. which could be attained even without a religion as long as one comes in tune with the wonder of it all and their place in the infinite universe.

Cheers ....