Atheism and devotion in Buddhism

If atheism is the absence of belief in a god or god, then many Buddhists are, in fact, atheists.

Buddhism is not about believing or not believing in God or gods. Rather, the historical Buddha taught that believing in the gods was not helpful for those who sought to achieve enlightenment. In other words, God is not necessary in Buddhism, as this is a practical religion and philosophy that emphasizes practical results on belief in beliefs or gods. For this reason, Buddhism is more precisely called non-theistic rather than atheist.

The Buddha also clearly stated that he was not a god, but was simply "awakened" to the ultimate reality. Yet throughout Asia, it is common to find people praying to the Buddha or the many clearly mythical figures that populate Buddhist iconography. Pilgrims pour into stupas that are said to hold Buddha's relics. Some Buddhism schools are deeply devotional. Even in non-emotional schools, such as Theravada or Zen, there are rituals that involve bowing and offering food, flowers and incense to a Buddha figure on an altar.

Philosophy or Religion?
Some in the West reject these devotional and worshipful aspects of Buddhism as corrupting the Buddha's original teachings. For example, Sam Harris, an identified atheist who expressed admiration for Buddhism, said that Buddhism should be taken away by Buddhists. Buddhism would be much better, Harris wrote, if it could be completely cleared of the "naive, petitive and superstitious" traps of religion.

I addressed the question of whether Buddhism is a philosophy or religion elsewhere, arguing that it is both philosophy and religion and that the whole "philosophy versus religion" argument is not necessary. But what about the "naive, petitive and superstitious" symbols Harris spoke of? Are they corruptions of the Buddha's teachings? Understanding the difference requires looking deeply under the surface of Buddhist teaching and practice.

Don't believe in beliefs
It is not only the belief in the gods that is irrelevant to Buddhism. Beliefs of any kind play a different role in Buddhism than many other religions.

Buddhism is a path to "wake up" or become enlightened, towards a reality that is not consciously perceived by most of us. In most schools of Buddhism, it is understood that enlightenment and nirvana cannot be conceptualized or explained in words. They must be lived intimately to be understood. Simply "believing in enlightenment" and nirvana is futile.

In Buddhism, all doctrines are temporary and are judged by their ability. The Sanskrit word for this is upaya, or "skillful means". Any doctrine or practice that allows realization is an upaya. Whether the doctrine is real or not is not the point.

The role of devotion
No god, no belief, yet Buddhism encourages devotion. How can it be?

The Buddha taught that the greatest barrier to realization is the idea that "I" am a permanent, integral, autonomous entity. It is by seeing through the illusion of the ego that realization flourishes. Devotion is an upaya to break the bonds of the ego.

For this reason, the Buddha taught his disciples to cultivate devotional and reverent mental habits. Therefore, devotion is not a "corruption" of Buddhism, but an expression of it. Of course, devotion requires an object. What is the Buddhist dedicated to? This is a question that can be clarified, clarified and answered in different ways at different times as the understanding of the teachings deepens.

If Buddha was not a god, why bow to Buddha figures? One could only bow to show gratitude for the life and practice of the Buddha. But the Buddha figure also represents enlightenment itself and the true unconditional nature of all things.

In the Zen monastery where I first learned of Buddhism, the monks liked to indicate the representation of the Buddha on the altar and say: “You are up there. When you bow down, you bow down to yourself. " What did they mean? How do you understand that? Who are you? Where do you find the ego? Working with these questions is not a corruption of Buddhism; it is Buddhism. For further discussion of this type of devotion, see the essay "Devotion in Buddhism" by Nyanaponika Thera.

All mythological creatures, large and small
The many mythological creatures and beings that populate the art and literature of Mahayana Buddhism are often called "gods" or "gods". But once again, believing in them is not the point. More often than not, it is more accurate for Westerners to think of iconographic devas and bodhisattvas as archetypes rather than supernatural beings. For example, a Buddhist might summon the Bodhisattva of compassion to become more compassionate.

Do Buddhists believe these creatures exist? Of course, Buddhism in practice has many of the same "literal versus allegorical" issues found in other religions. But the nature of existence is something that Buddhism looks at in depth and differently from the way people normally understand "existence".

To be or not to be?
Usually, when we ask if something exists, we ask if it is "real" rather than being a fantasy. But Buddhism begins with the premise that the way we understand the phenomenal world is delusional to begin with. The research is to realize or perceive the disappointments as the disappointments that they are.

So what is "real"? What is "fantasy"? What "exists"? Libraries have been filled with answers to these questions.

In Mahayana Buddhism, which is the dominant form of Buddhism in China, Tibet, Nepal, Japan and Korea, all phenomena have no intrinsic existence. A Buddhist school of philosophy, Madhyamika, states that phenomena exist only in relation to other phenomena. Another, called Yogachara, teaches that things exist only as processes of knowledge and have no intrinsic reality.

One could say that in Buddhism the big question is not whether gods exist, but what is the nature of existence? And what is the self?

Some medieval Christian mystics, such as the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, have argued that it is incorrect to claim that God exists because existence is equivalent to taking a particular form in a space of time. Since God does not have a particular form and is outside of time, God cannot be said to exist. However, God is. This is a topic that many of us Buddhist atheists can appreciate.