Eastern Religions

Hey guys!

I think we're supposed to get clubs back eventually, but for the time being I just thought I'd start a thread. Anyone out there know much about or practice Eastern faiths, let's talk! I love discussing them with people and learning more and more.

I'm a bit tight on time right now since I'm at work so I'll come back and either add a post or edit to put my two cents on everything... It's always good to meet people who share the same perspective.

Namaste,
Suzanne

PS: This is NOT a debate! I'm not wanting to argue the merits of any of them, just get to know and talk with other people who have/had practiced an Eastern religion.

PPS: Eastern religions include, in my book, anything from the Asian area. Confuscionism (sp), Taoism, Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism. Maybe we can discuss what is considered Eastern or not! New age? I dunno.

Boo!

You know Hindi?
Anyway, I'm up for this discussion. ^_^

Ah! I forgot to come back last night and post here. I had a weird work day.

Lava, unfortunately I don't know Hindi. At least not beyond the mantras I have memorized, which may just be in Sanskrit. But I wish I did, or Sanskrit, because from what I hear/read the Vedas are more... educational if read in the original.

Now I was going to say why I am interested in Eastern religions!

Ever since I learned about the Tao, and the Tao te Ching, it has felt like a great philosophy to me. I really don't have any more words for it than that. It's not really a religion too me so much as a perspective on life. For anyone looking for an easy explanation of it, I highly recommend The Tao of Pooh. It's wonderful, adorable, and educational.

I studied Buddhism, but it didn't really fit me. I love the ideals and the way it works, but it doesn't feel "right" for me.

I then studied even more about Hinduism, because Hinduism is where Buddhism and Sihkism came from, so why not study their origin? I was absolutely drawn in by everything I found. Now, it's one of those weird things - Hinduism by its nature does not have proselytizing/conversions so there aren't very many not-by-birth Hindus, so the status of those of us who choose the religion and aren't born into it is very...tentative. I don't like to cal myself a Hindu, because I feel like that would be a lie. I certainly don't practice a lot of the culture aspects, but the religion its self is beautiful, meaningful, and I absolutely am happier having started living my life through the Gita. *does a dance*

I feel like that was half an educational rant and half my explanation of why I started this thread... oh well. I just love speaking with other people of the same mindset and I find that all these Eastern religions are so closely related.

Lava, if we don't find too many others to pop in here, maybe we'll have to PM!

I must say after reading the Dark Heavens series by Kylie Chan, I am quite interested in Eastern, mainly Chinese - Japanese religions including Taoism and such.

Studying Buddhism is something I really enjoy. I hesitate to call myself Buddhist, because that seems rather presumptuous, but I read about it when I can.

Suz is now Emerson!
Also, I'll be back. I'm going out of town now.

AquaMarine, the nice/fun thing about Eastern religions is that, disregarding Hinduism sort-of because it does have a lot of culture to it, and honestly I don't know a whole lot about Shinto or Sikhism, it's really easy to "be" whatever the religion is. It's just a way of life, a way of thinking. A philosophy. That's why Taoism is so cool. You could, probably, although with some effort I would imagine, be a Taoist Christian. Some ideas don't... match, but given that people will manipulate Christianity to fit with anything I'm sure someone could make it work.

That's sort of my take at Hinduism. I apply the philosophy, the beliefs, and some of the traditions (I worship several of the Gods).

Anyway I have to go eat food! I look forward to your return Lava!

Emerson wrote:AquaMarine, the nice/fun thing about Eastern religions is that, disregarding Hinduism sort-of because it does have a lot of culture to it, and honestly I don't know a whole lot about Shinto or Sikhism, it's really easy to "be" whatever the religion is. It's just a way of life, a way of thinking. A philosophy. That's why Taoism is so cool. You could, probably, although with some effort I would imagine, be a Taoist Christian. Some ideas don't... match, but given that people will manipulate Christianity to fit with anything I'm sure someone could make it work.

Ah, see, here I completely disagree with you. In my opinion, you can't just be Buddhist on a whim if you know about some of the main teachings and the general concepts and philosophies. I'm not saying that you have to study everything and then follow it to the letter, but I genuinely believe that you need to study a lot in order to be Buddhist and in order to make it fit with your own life. Until then, I am content to say that I read about Buddhism and try to live my life by what I sort-of understand from it.

(Also, Buddhism does have a culture. If you look at Tibet, for example, it is Buddhism that influences the art and music and festivals, giving it a huge cultural impact.)

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest Buddhism doesn't have a culture by any means! It's just that, in Hinduism, it's really difficult to distinguish the difference between religious practice and cultural practice; it could easily be argued there is no difference I suppose.

And I definitely agree you can't call yourself a Buddhist or an anything on a whim, but you can follow/practice the philosophies. That's why, if I really had to describe myself, I'd say that I practice Sanatana Dharma, or "The Eternal Law", which is the true name of Hinduism. It makes more sense to me to say I practice something, rather than that I AM something, because being a Hindu implies so many things that are not true about me, but I am practicing a lot of things from their faith.

So, philosophy you can applying... being an actual "Buddhist" is much harder. I read a really good, long book about it, and there's a surprising amount of things that go into being a Buddhist. You have your basic precepts but then how those get played out are fairly different depending on the sect your in. One of my favorite things about Buddhism is how intent plays into karmic actions. For example, I believe that Sikhs practice not killing, such to the point that they don't step on bugs, but certain practices of Buddhism believe that it's your intention that matters - did you step on the bug to intend them harm, or did you not see them where you were walking?

But then the next question would be whether we should always be mindful of where we're walking

(I'm already loving this conversation so much)

Oh, don't worry, I agree with you on some aspects of religion and culture. It's similar, in a way, to Christianity and Judaism. Luckily for me, two of my roommates are Christian and one is Jewish, so I get to ask them lots of 'I was bought up in a non-religious household please teach me!' questions! Although Christianity affects the culture in countries, the Jewish culture is so much more integral.

Yes. I practice Buddhism, to an extent, but I wouldn't say I am a Buddhist. Sometimes I hesitate to call myself Buddhist because I never wake up to meditate on Monday morning because I'm too tired, or because sometimes there's no soya milk so I drink dairy. (For me, veganism is an integral part of my practice!) This is where the intention comes in (for me). If I drank dairy accidentally I would feel a lot better than doing it because I am too lazy to buy soya. Other times I think it's because I believe that knowledge is a process, therefore I feel uncomfortable saying that I am something when I am still continually learning ... (Or something less pretentious.)

Emerson wrote:But then the next question would be whether we should always be mindful of where we're walking

Some Buddhists actually practice walking meditation, or mindful walking. Not sure if that takes stray bugs into account though ...

ps. This is completely irrelevant to this conversation, but I really want to talk to you about gender identity at some point - if you find it interesting to talk about? (I do.) I will PM you at some point?

See I feel like what you said, that some days you don't drink soy, you don't wake up to meditate, brings up another question. Are you just sort of practicing Buddhism, or are you a Buddhist who is just starting out? Learning the steps? Something I've experienced and seen in others when coming to new religions is that, the convert feels like they have to do everything right, because otherwise people might look at them and say, "You're not an X! You're just pretending!" where as the Y who was born Y, raised Y, and will die Y can never go to church except on holidays but he's still a Y-ist, you know what I mean?

So I think it's just a matter of what you feel comfortable labeling yourself as, and that's so extremely important (and in gender issues! I'll shoot you a PM). Something I always stressed about was the idea that, if I gave up this religion in the future, it would mean my pursuits in it were less genuine. If I did stick to it (I worship maybe once every two weeks, mostly because my shrine is in an awkward place right now and it's not good to meditate there) it meant that I wasn't serious enough to actually do it, I was just playing. But I kind of had to slap myself around and accept the fact that, that doesn't matter. I've been "in" a few different religions now and each thing that I admired about them, I have found and admire in Hinduism, so it was sort of a chain to get there... I took pieces from each and then I found the thing that actually worked for me - doesn't always work out that it's a religion that actually is wide spread, but sometimes we're lucky. I think remembering that as humans, we change, and it's not bad to one day be Buddhist and one day not be, helps a lot when you're exploring religion seriously.

Hi!

I don't belong to an Eastern religion, but I do have a question about Taoism! When I was reading -- I am not sure what it was called, but it was the poems that were the basis of Taoism -- I was kind of disturbed by its stance on kindness, since it seemed to be anti-kindness in a way. I didn't want to dislike Taoism, because I realize I am very ignorant about Taoism and eastern religions in general, so I justified it by thinking, "Oh, this is just the false kind of kindness, or the pretentious sort by people who seem to mean well, but really don't care." But, I am not sure that my justification was right or anything.

Was it simply a bad translation I was reading of Taoism? If not, why are they so against kindness? I was brought up to believe that kindness was the best thing ever to be, so it was a little jarring!

Also, I don't mean to offend or anything... this was just a question that I was confronted with while reading the literature that I struggled with!