Topic: Spiritual but not religious (SBNR)

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It even has a wiki!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_but_not_religious

Spiritual but not religious (SBNR) is a popular phrase and initialism[1] used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that rejects traditional organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth.[2] The term is used world-wide, but is most prominent in the United States where one study reports that as many as 33% of people identify as spiritual but not religious.[3] Other surveys report lower percentages ranging from 24%[4] to 10%[5]

SBNR is commonly used[6][7] to describe the demographic also known as unchurched, none of the above, more spiritual than religious, spiritually eclectic, unaffiliated, freethinkers, or spiritual seekers. In 2013, Rabbi Rami Shapiro introduced the phrase "Spiritually Independent" as a new term to replace "SBNR" with a more positive statement which looks to the "politically independent" as a role model.[8] Younger people are more likely to identify as SBNR than older people. In April 2010, the front page of USA Today claimed that 72% percent of Generation Y agree they are "more spiritual than religious".[6]

Those who identify as SBNR vary in their individual spiritual philosophies and practices and theological references, referencing some higher power or transcendent nature of reality, without belonging to a religious affiliation.[citation needed] In the USA, most "nones", people without a religious affiliation, believe in God.[9]
The term has been called cliché by popular religious writers such as Robert Wright,[10] but is gaining in popularity. The SBNR lifestyle is most studied in the population of the United States.

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A little from Beliefnet:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Books/2002/07/Spiritual-But-Not-Religious.aspx

From "Spiritual, But Not Religious," by Robert C. Fuller. Used with permission from Oxford University Press.

A large number of Americans identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious." It is likely that perhaps one in every five persons (roughly half of all the unchurched) could describe themselves in this way. This phrase probably means different things to different people. The confusion stems from the fact that the words "spiritual" and "religious" are really synonyms. Both connote belief in a Higher Power of some kind. Both also imply a desire to connect, or enter into a more intense relationship, with this Higher Power. And, finally, both connote interest in rituals, practices, and daily moral behaviors that foster such a connection or relationship.

Before the 20th century the terms religious and spiritual were used more or less interchangeably. But a number of modern intellectual and cultural forces have accentuated differences between the "private" and "public" spheres of life. The increasing prestige of the sciences, the insights of modern biblical scholarship, and greater awareness of cultural relativism all made it more difficult for educated American to sustain unqualified loyalty to religious institutions. Many began to associate genuine faith with the "private" realm of personal experience rather than with the "public" realm of institutions, creeds, and rituals. The word

spiritual
gradually came to be associated with a private realm of thought and experience while the word

religious
came to be connected with the public realm of membership in religious institutions, participation in formal rituals, and adherence to official denominational doctrines.

A group of social scientists studied 346 people representing a wide range of religious backgrounds in an attempt to clarify what is implied when individuals describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." Religiousness, they found, was associated with higher levels of interest in church attendance and commitment to orthodox beliefs. Spirituality, in contrast, was associated with higher levels of interest in mysticism, experimentation with unorthodox beliefs and practices, and negative feelings toward both clergy and churches. Most respondents in the study tried to integrate elements of religiousness and spirituality. Yet 19 percent of their sample constituted a separate category best described as "spiritual, not religious." Compared with those who connected interest in private spirituality with membership in a public religious group, the "spiritual, but not religious" group was

less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and nonoverlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences.
Those who see themselves as "spiritual, but not religious" reject traditional organized religion as the sole-or even the most valuable-means of furthering their spiritual growth. Many have had negative experiences with churches or church leaders. For example, they may have perceived church leaders as more concerned with building an organization than promoting spirituality, as hypocritical, or as narrow-minded. Some may have experienced various forms of emotional or even sexual abuse.

Rest at article. Pop ups on site are annoying...

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The other day I asked Michael, "Can we get a spirituality folder that I can mod?" He said he'd think about it.

So basically in three years, you should see this special folder, with me as the mod. Anticipate this with bated breath! For those who are 'spiritual but not religious" we will have a folder of our own!

One of the things I am big on is shunning labels. One of these reasons is because of the toltec teaching, to not be pinned down. I've seen it this way, say I go Christian, then Im not accepting of other religions or people who may be able to go to a heaven. So I delve into Buddhism. But I believe in God. God is irrelevant to the Buddhist, but God is not only relavant to me, but my best buddy. Hinduism, becoming one with brahma, does that mean I cease to exist? Scientology, fergettit! LOL. Toltec - I see more as practice than a religion. So per my own path, some might go so far to label me 'spiritual but not religious.' However here are the connotations with this.

Some know I ventured into internet dating. One of the labels you could give yourself for spiritual affiliation was 'spiritual but not religious.' I met a lot of atheists who claimed this label. Yet many, I would not call 'spiritual.' To myself, I believe they called themselves this, to not eliminate the good Christian girl next door, who believed in God, and so forth. I would talk to them and they didnt practice anything. Just claimed to be spiritual - but not religous. But no practice. No-thing. So how do they become 'spiritual' by doing nothing?

I was reading the other day how many young people who are spiritual but not religious, this camp is the biggest who gets arrested. The atheists even are at a low camp. So even those who believe in God get arrested more! The christians however, not so much. Yes believe it or not per their magnitude of being so many, they are arrested less than the 'spiritual but not religious' young people. I believe per the ramifications of sin, they actually behave more, than the spiritual but not religious young people. But I cannot say for sure.

Yet maybe I am worthy of the label. For example how I approach spirituality is like in a buffet line. You know, when you go into an all  you can eat restaurant? Funny thought, took me years to learn how to spell 'restaurant.' And I am a good speller most of the time. I take a little here from this offering, a little from there, and so forth. Until I have a plate of goodies. This has been the approach to my spiritual path. Like Bruce Lee said, absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, integrate that which is your own. I found this a useful teaching by the master of martial arts and mind, and incorporated said teaching into my path. I find useful many things from religions, but have yet to find my 'exact fit' in the world.

For example, I like a religion which is accepting of all paths. Like I see it, there is many ways to the goal. Most people are good people and should be able to go into the light. Sure, we're messed up folks, but we should, after a long hard life, be able to enter a peaceful realm and be one with Spirit in some way.

I am however saying 'should,' so I cannot say for certain if this is so. So I keep delving into other paths, and reading wise folks, hanging out here. But for the most part, this seems not only logical, but one where a God of Love would make so. So I cross my fingers and say a little prayer.

Another reason is acceptance. For example, many religions teach homosexuality bad, a sin. Even Buddhism has something to say on it. Like I remember the Dalai Lama had a say, and the gay community got very upset, cause there is a lot of Buddhists in the gay community. The Dalai Lama retracted a bit, to not lose followers or eliminate them. Christianity, still many say no, but then some churches are marrying homsexuals. I even was watching Oprah interview Joel Osteen, who is huge right now in the states. A very big and popular televangelist. Oprah asked him point blank, "can homosexuals go to heaven?" I braced myself knowing how many followers he has, and some are gay. He said "Yes" without hesitation, which probably will upset some fundamentalists. But I thought "refreshing! The biggest televangelist in America said they can go to heaven!" No condemnation. He may or may not agree with the act, I dont know. But he did not condemn them.

My approach on this is it is not right to ostracize people. We need to love others and be accepting. This, for example, is looking like something people are born with. If they are born that way, God made them that way. So this is a reason as well for me and religion, where we may not mix so well. Accept others, homosexuals can be spiritual too.

I should find some more articles on this. But very interesting this is growing. However, its a double edged sword. Like being spiritual but not religious, can be a cop-out for practicing and work. Like how hard do they work on the path? Or devotion. I believe Spirit wants our devotion. Like with myself, I think of the Long Island Medium how she describes her job. "This is not just my job. This is my life." I see my spiritual path this way too.

"This is not just my job. This is my life.'

The spiritual path is my second job. The one I work on daily in some way. It could be meditating, or reading something, to try to crack the code and solve a new mystery. To work on self by being extremely honest about my own weaknesses and garbage I need to work on. And it could be as simple to sit in front of the computer and really dig into self, to write a post. To me, it is part of the job, to use this mind of mine, to really educate myself on the spiritual.

But I dont know if I agree with the spiritual but not religious camp. With practice, yes. With just, believing in a God, but basically living in the world like any ordinary atheist, but belief is the only difference, no. I think we need devotion, true Devotion, to make Spriitual gains. Spirit - devotion. And work - devotion. This is the only way to truly grow on the path.

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Spiritual but Not Religious
The vital interplay between submission and freedom.
Amy Hollywood

http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news-events/harvard-divinity-bulletin/articles/spiritual-but-not-religious

MOST OF US who write, think, and talk about religion are by now used to hearing people say that they are spiritual, but not religious. With the phrase generally comes the presumption that religion has to do with doctrines, dogmas, and ritual practices, whereas spirituality has to do with the heart, feeling, and experience. The spiritual person has an immediate and spontaneous experience of the divine or of some higher power. She does not subscribe to beliefs handed to her by existing religious traditions, nor does she engage in the ritual life of any particular institution. At the heart of the distinction between religion and spirituality, then, lies the presumption that to think and act within an existing tradition—to practice religion—risks making one less spiritual. To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere.1

You hear this kind of criticism of religious belief and practice not only among those who call themselves spiritual, but also within religious traditions. For centuries now, Christians have fought over the interplay between authority and tradition, on the one hand, and feeling, enthusiasm, and experience on the other. They have also fought over what kind of experience is properly spiritual or religious. What all sides in these debates share, and what they share with those who understand themselves as spiritual rather than religious, is the presumption that authority and tradition will kill—or, if you are on the other side of the debate, reign in or properly temper—experience. Whereas some American Protestants, for example, insist that one can best know, love, and be saved by God without extraordinary experiences of God's presence—or with inward experiences rather than with those marked by bodily signs such as tears, shouts, convulsions, outcries, or visions—various revivalist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements argue that without an intensely felt experience of God, one knows and feels nothing of the divine and so cannot be saved.2

Modern theologians and scholars of religion from Friedrich Schleiermacher and Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William James and his many followers have understood religion itself in terms of experience—and they have also wrestled with the question of what precisely we mean when we talk about religious experience. Yet Wayne Proudfoot and others critical of the emphasis on religious experience in contemporary theology and religious studies argue that what is at stake for Schleiermacher, James, and their heirs is an attempt to identify an independent realm of experience that is irreducible to other forms of experience. This can serve either as a protectionist strategy, whereby the religious person is able to safeguard her religious experience from naturalistic explanations, or as an academic strategy, whereby a realm is posited over which only specialists in religious studies can claim authority.3

Running like a thread throughout all these debates—theological, antitheological, historical, philosophical, and those pursued in the interdisciplinary study of religion—lies the attempt to distinguish true from false, sincere from insincere, supernaturally from naturally caused religious or spiritual experience (the terms may differ, but the general point remains the same). With these distinctions comes the recurrent presumption that genuine religious experience is immediate, spontaneous, personal, and affective and, as such, potentially at odds with religious institutions and their texts, beliefs, and rituals. As a number of scholars of religion—as well as Christian theologians—have recently shown, the danger in these discussions is that they miss the ways in which, for many religious traditions, ancient texts, beliefs, and rituals do not replace experience as the vital center of spiritual life, but instead provide the means for engendering it. At the same time, human experience is the realm within which truth can best be epistemologically and affectively (if we can even separate the two) demonstrated.4

Here I will focus on Christianity, the tradition I know best, and in particular on Christianity in early and medieval Western Europe. Some of the most sophisticated writing about experience in the early and medieval Christian West occurs in works describing and prescribing the best way to live the life of Christian perfection.5 The various forms of monastic life that emerge in the third and fourth centuries of the Common Era all claim to provide the space in which such perfection might be—if not fully attained—most effectively pursued. The monks and nuns who became the self-described spiritual elite of Christianity through at least the high Middle Ages lived under rules that told them what, when, why, where, and how to act. The most successful of these rules in Western Christianity, the sixth-century Rule of Benedict, is often praised for its flexibility and moderation, yet within it the daily lives of the monks are carefully ordered. Written by Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480–550) for his own community, the rule, and variants of it written for the use of women, became the centerpiece of monastic life in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. If ritual is the repeated and formalized practice of particular actions within carefully determined times and places, the moment in which what we believe ought to be the case and what is the case in the messy realm of everyday action come together, then the Benedictine's life is one in which the monk or nun strives to make every action a ritual action.6

Benedict described the monastery as a "school for the Lord's service"; the Latin schola is a governing metaphor throughout the rule and was initially used with reference to military schools, ones in which the student is trained in the methods of battle.7 Similarly, Benedict describes the monastery as a training ground for eternal life; the battle to be waged is against the weaknesses of the body and of the spirit. Victory lies in love. For Benedict, through obedience, stability, poverty, and humility—and through the fear, dread, sorrow, and compunction that accompany them—the monk will "quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear (1 John 4:18)." Transformed in and into love, "all that [the monk] performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, with habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue."8

Central to the ritual life of the Benedictine are communal prayer, private reading and devotion, and physical labor. I want to focus here on the first pole of the monastic life, as it is the one that might seem most antithetical to contemporary conceptions of vital and living religious or spiritual experience. Benedict, following John Cassian (ca. 360–430) and other writers on early monasticism, argues that the monk seeks to attain a state of unceasing prayer. Benedict cites Psalm 119: "Seven times a day have I praised you" (verse 164) and "At midnight I arose to give you praise" (verse 62). He therefore calls on his monks to come together eight times a day for the communal recitation of the Psalms and other prayers and readings. Each of the Psalms was recited once a week, with many repeated once or more a day. Benedict provides a detailed schedule for his monks, one in which the biblical injunction always to have a prayer on one's lips is enacted through the division of the day into the canonical hours.

To many modern ears the repetition of the Psalms—ancient Israelite prayers handed down by the Christian tradition in the context of particular, often Christological, interpretations—will likely sound rote and deadening. What of the immediacy of the monk's relationship to God? What of his feelings in the face of the divine? What spontaneity can exist in the monk's engagement with God within the context of such a regimented and uniform prayer life? If the monk is reciting another's words rather than his own, how can the feelings engendered by these words be his own and so be sincere?

Yet, for Benedict, as for Cassian on whose work he liberally drew, the intensity and authenticity of one's feeling for God is enabled through communal, ritualized prayer, as well as through private reading and devotion (itself carefully regulated).9 Proper performance of "God's work" in the liturgy requires that the monk not simply recite the Psalms. Instead, the monk was called on to feel what the psalmist felt, to learn to fear, desire, and love God in and through the words of the Psalms themselves. For Cassian, we know God, love God, and experience God when our experience and that of the Psalmist come together:

For divine Scripture is clearer and its inmost organs, so to speak, are revealed to us when our experience not only perceives but even anticipates its thought, and the meaning of the words are disclosed to us not by exegesis but by proof. When we have the same disposition in our heart with which each psalm was sung or written down, then we shall become like its author, grasping the significance beforehand rather than afterward. That is, we first take in the power of what is said, rather than the knowledge of it, recalling what has taken place or what does take place in us in daily assaults whenever we reflect on them.10

When the monk can anticipate what words will follow in a Psalm, not because he has memorized them, but because his heart is so at one with the Psalmist that these words spontaneously come to his mind, then he knows and experiences God.11

The word translated here as "disposition" is derived from the Latin affectus, from the verb afficio, to do something to someone, to exert an influence on another body or another person, to bring another into a particular state of mind. Affectus carries a range of meanings, from a state of mind or disposition produced in one by the influence of another, to that affection or mood itself. In many instances, affectus simply means love. At the center of ancient and medieval usages is the notion that love is brought into being in one person by the actions of another. Hence, for Cassian, as later for Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), our love for God is always engendered by God's love for us. God acts (affico); humans are the recipients of God's actions (so affectus, the noun, is derived from the passive participle of afficio). Hence the acquisition of proper spiritual dispositions through habit is itself the operation of the freely given grace that is God's love. There is no distinction here between mediation (through the words of scripture) and immediacy (that of God's presence), between habit and spontaneity, or between feeling and knowledge.

Of course, the affects, moods, or dispositions engendered by God are not only those of love and desire. Fear, dread, shame, and sorrow, gratitude, joy, triumph, and ecstasy are all expressed in the Psalms and in the other songs found within scripture. According to Cassian, the Psalms lay out the full realm of human emotion, and by coming to know God in and through these affects, the monk comes to know both himself and the divine:

or we find all of these dispositions expressed in the psalms, so that we may see whatever occurs as in a very clear mirror and recognize it more effectively. Having been instructed in this way, with our dispositions for our teachers, we shall grasp this as something seen rather than heard, and from the inner disposition of the heart we shall bring forth not what has been committed to memory but what is inborn in the very nature of things. Thus we shall penetrate its meaning not through the written text but with experience leading the way.

Here, experience is physical, mental, and emotional: the monk is said both to have passed beyond the body and to let forth in his spirit "unutterable groans and sighs," to feel "an unspeakable ecstasy of heart," and "an insatiable gladness of spirit."12 The entire body and soul of the monk is affected; he is transformed by the words of the Psalms so that he lives them, and through this experience he comes to know, with heart and body and mind, that God is great and good.

For Cassian, Christians attain the height of prayer and of the Christian life itself when

every love, every desire, every effort, every undertaking, every thought of ours, everything that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, and when that unity which the Father now has with the Son and which the Son has with the Father will be carried over into our understanding and our mind, so that, just as he loves us with a sincere and pure and indissoluble love, we too may be joined to him with a perpetual and inseparable love and so united with him that whatever we breathe, whatever we understand, whatever we speak, may be God.13

Although the fullness of fruition in God will never occur in this life, the monk daily trains himself, through obedience, chastity, poverty, and most importantly prayer, to attain it.

Cassian's understanding of the role of the Psalms in the monastic life lays the foundation for monastic thought and practice throughout the Middle Ages. Many of the most elegant and emotionally nuanced accounts of experience and its centrality to the religious life can be found in the commentary tradition, in which monks (and occasionally nuns) meditatively reflect on the multiple meanings of scriptural texts.14 Among the masterworks of medieval commentary, Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, opens with reference to the centrality of scriptural songs to monastic experience—not only the Psalms, but also the songs of Deborah (Judges 5:1), Judith (Judith 16:1), Samuel's mother (1 Samuel 2:1), the authors of Lamentations and Job, and all of the other songs found throughout scripture. "If you consider your own experience," Bernard writes, "surely it is in the victory by which your faith overcomes the world (1 John 5:4) and ‘in your leaving the lake of wretchedness and the filth of the marsh' (Psalm 39:3) that you sing to the Lord himself a new song because he has done marvelous works (Psalm 97:1)?"15 Using the language of the Psalms and other biblical texts, writings with which Bernard's mind and heart is entirely imbued, he describes the path of the soul as sung with and in the words of scripture.

The Song of Songs is the preeminent of songs, the one through which one attains to the highest knowledge of God. "This sort of song," Bernard explains, "only the touch of the Holy Spirit teaches (1 John 2:27), and it is learned by experience alone."16 He thereby calls on his listeners and readers to "read the book of experience" as they interpret the Song of Songs.

Today we read the book of experience. Let us turn to ourselves and let each of us search his own conscience about what is said. I want to investigate whether it has been given to any of you to say, "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth" (Song of Songs 1:1).

Here Bernard suggests that it is through attention to "the book of experience" that the monk can determine what he has of God and what he lacks. Again, the goal is to see the gap between one's experience of God's love and one's love for God and then to meditate on, chew over, and digest the words of the Song so that one might come more fully to inhabit them. The soul should strive, Bernard insists, to be able to sing with the Bride of the Song, "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth." "Few," Bernard goes on to write, "can say this wholeheartedly." His sermons are an attempt to bring about in himself and his readers precisely this desire. Only in this way can the soul ever hope to experience the kiss itself and hence to speak with the Bride in her experience of union with the Bridegroom.17

For Bernard, such experiences of union with the divine are only ever fleeting in this life. Moreover, he is interested in interior experience rather than in any outward expression of God's presence. Claims to more extended experiences of the divine presence and of the marking of that presence on the mind and body of the believer—in visions, verbal outcries, trances, convulsions, and other extraordinary experiences—will shortly follow (and will be particularly important in texts by and about women). They will spread, moreover, outside of the monastery and convent, into the world of the new religious orders, the semireligious, and the laity. The questions asked in North America about what constitutes true religious experience and what is false or misleading, generated not by God but by the devil or by natural causes, has its origins in similar deliberations generated by such experiences as they came to prominence in the later Middle Ages.

Most important for our discussion is the way in which ritual engagement with ancient texts leads to, articulates, and enriches the spiritual experience of the practitioner. "Mere ritual," within this context, would be ritual badly performed. True engagement in ritual and devotional practice, on the other hand, is the very condition for spiritual experience. There is a full recognition of the work involved in transforming one's experience in this way.18 Yet, at the same time, medieval monastic writers insist that this transformation can occur only through grace. As I suggested above, there is no more contradiction here than there is in the claim that spiritual experience is both mediated and immediate, ritualized and spontaneous. If God acts through scripture, then in reading, reciting, and meditating on scripture one allows oneself to be acted on by God. Work and grace are here thoroughly entwined through love.

To many contemporary readers, however, there might still seem to be something profoundly different between medieval conceptions of spiritual experience and their own. Even among the growing number of Americans who understand certain kinds of practice—meditation, prayer, and devotional reading among them—as essential to their spiritual experience, there is a suspicion of the particular form such practices take within Christianity and other religious traditions. I suspect that what is at issue here is the association of experience itself, and spiritual experience in particular, with what, for lack of a better word, I will call individualism.

A series of common questions seem to underlie many people's conception of spiritual experience. How am I to have my own experience of the divine? How can I experience the divine personally, and isn't such a desire rendered impossible within the framework of institutions that direct my understanding and experience of God? What happens to that aspect of my experience that is irreducible to anyone else's? On the one hand, many who consider themselves spiritual understand their spirituality in terms of an attunement with nature or spirit—something that is bigger than and lies beyond the boundaries of themselves. Yet, on the other hand, there is a keen desire for this experience to be one's own. What the medieval monk or nun whose ritual performances I have described here strives to attain is an experience of God that is in conformity with that of the Psalmist and other scriptural authors. The experience must become one's own, and Bernard insists on the continued specificity of the individual soul. Yet, at the same time, to be a true Christian is to share in a common experience of God.

Or perhaps the concern that many have with the rich spirituality of Christian monasticism may be understood in a slightly different way. Perhaps the concern is with the extent to which Christian monastic life—and the forms of devotional life that stem from it—demands a radical submission to something external to oneself. What happens, then, to individual freedom? What happens to the individual responsibility—religious, ethical, and political—that is concomitant with that freedom? Perhaps we can read the contemporary spiritual seeker less as one who makes seemingly solipsistic demands for an experience particular to herself than as one concerned with handing herself over to another—be it the abbot or abbess to whom one promises absolute obedience, the Psalmist whose words one understands as that of God, or divine love itself—that monastic practice demands.19

From this perspective, the debate between the "spiritual" and the "religious" (or between "true" and "false" religious experience) is less about their relative authenticity, sincerity, and spontaneity than about the conceptions of the person, God, and their relationship that underlie competing conceptions of spiritual or religious life. Must we hand ourselves completely over to God—and to the texts, institutions, and practices through which God putatively speaks—in order to experience God? Is this what established religious traditions or their "mainline" instantiations demand? How, if this is the case, are these injunctions best understood in relationship to claims to individual autonomy and responsibility? On the other hand, can we ever claim to be fully autonomous and free? Isn't the desire to constitute oneself as a spiritual person outside of the framework of larger communities illusory, in that we are always constituted in and through our interactions with others and their texts, practices, and traditions? If, as many contemporary philosophers and theorists argue, we are always born into sets of practices, beliefs, and affective relationships that are essential to who we are and who we become, can we ever claim the kind of radical freedom that some contemporary spiritual seekers seem to demand? How might we reconceive our experience—spiritual or religious, whichever term one prefers—in ways that demand neither absolute submission nor resolute autonomy?

In a way, this is precisely what the medieval Christian monastic texts to which I attend here require. Submission must always be submission freely given. Without the will to submit, one's practices are meaningless and empty. (And if one is forced, by external means, to submit, that too undermines the potential sacrality of one's practices.) Yet, paradoxically, one's freely given submission is engendered by God's love, just as one receives God's love—and the ever-deepening experience of that love—through engagement in human practices. Whether one accepts the theological claims of medieval Christian monastic writing, it opens up the vital interplay between practice and gift, submission and freedom, the experience of loving and being loved, that plays a continuing role in Western spirituality. Following Cassian, Benedict, and Bernard, I would suggest that it is only when we understand the way in which we are constituted as subjects through practice—all of us, spiritual, religious, and those who make claims to be neither—that we can begin to understand the real nature of our differences.

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Are there dangers in being 'spiritual but not religious'?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/personal/06/03/spiritual.but.not.religious/

By John Blake, CNN
June 9, 2010 11:47 a.m. EDT

Being "spiritual but not religious" means you do not need a church or a community, some say. A beach will do.Being "spiritual but not religious" means you do not need a church or a community, some say. A beach will do.

In survey, more "millennials" identify themselves as spiritual rather than religious
Jesuit author says spirituality without structure can "lead to self-centeredness"
Spiritual blogger argues organized religion inevitably leads to tussles over power
Being a spiritual Lone Ranger fits the tenor of our times, a philosophy professor says
(CNN) -- "I'm spiritual but not religious."

It's a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don't need organized religion to live a life of faith.

But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: egotism.
"Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness," says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. "If it's just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?"

Religious debates erupt over everything from doctrine to fashion. Martin has jumped into a running debate over the "I'm spiritual but not religious" phrase.

The "I'm spiritual but not religious" community is growing so much that one pastor compared it to a movement. In a 2009 survey by the research firm LifeWay Christian Resources, 72 percent of millennials (18- to 29-year-olds) said they're "more spiritual than religious." The phrase is now so commonplace that it's spawned its own acronym ("I'm SBNR") and Facebook page: SBNR.org.

But what exactly does being "spiritual but not religious" mean, and could there be hidden dangers in living such a life?

Did you choose "Burger King Spirituality"?
Heather Cariou, a New York City-based author who calls herself spiritual instead of religious, doesn't think so. She's adopted a spirituality that blends Buddhism, Judaism and other beliefs.

"I don't need to define myself to any community by putting myself in a box labeled Baptist, or Catholic, or Muslim," she says. "When I die, I believe all my accounting will be done to God, and that when I enter the eternal realm, I will not walk though a door with a label on it."

People seem not to have the time nor the energy or interest to delve deeply into any one faith or religious tradition.

--June-Ann Greeley, theology professor

BJ Gallagher, a Huffington Post blogger who writes about spirituality, says she's SBNR because organized religion inevitably degenerates into tussles over power, ego and money.
Gallagher tells a parable to illustrate her point:

"God and the devil were walking down a path one day when God spotted something sparkling by the side of the path. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand.

"Ah, Truth," he said.

"Here, give it to me," the devil said. "I'll organize it."

Gallagher says there's nothing wrong with people blending insights from different faith traditions to create what she calls a "Burger King Spirituality -- have it your way."

She disputes the notion that spiritual people shun being accountable to a community.
"Twelve-step people have a brilliant spiritual community that avoids all the pitfalls of organized religion," says Gallagher, author of "The Best Way Out is Always Through."

"Each recovering addict has a 'god of our own understanding,' and there are no priests or intermediaries between you and your god. It's a spiritual community that works.''

Nazli Ekim, who works in public relations in New York City, says calling herself spiritual instead of religious is her way of taking responsibility for herself.

Ekim was born in a Muslim family and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. She prayed to Allah every night, until she was 13 and had to take religion classes in high school.Then one day, she says she had to take charge of her own beliefs.

"I had this revelation that I bow to no one, and I've been spiritually a much happier person," says Ekim, who describers herself now as a Taoist, a religious practice from ancient China that emphasizes the unity of humanity and the universe.

"I make my own mistakes and take responsibility for them. I've lied, cheated, hurt people -- sometimes on purpose. Did I ever think I will burn in hell for all eternity? I didn't. Did I feel bad and made up for my mistakes? I certainly did, but not out of fear of God."

Going on a spiritual walkabout

The debate over being spiritual rather than religious is not just about semantics. It's about survival.
Numerous surveys show the number of Americans who do not identify themselves as religious has been increasing and likely will continue to grow.

A 2008 survey conducted by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, dubbed these Americans who don't identify with any religion as "Nones."

"I don't need to define myself in a box labeled Baptist, or Catholic, or Muslim."
--Heather Cariou, a spiritual but not religious seeker

Seminaries, churches, mosques and other institutions will struggle for survival if they don't somehow convince future generations that being religious isn't so bad after all, religion scholars warn.

Jennifer Walters, dean of religious life at Smith College in Massachusetts, says there's a lot of good in old-time religion.

Religious communities excel at caring for members in difficult times, encouraging members to serve others and teaching religious practices that have been tested and wrestled with for centuries, Walters says.
"Hymn-singing, forms of prayer and worship, teachings about social justice and forgiveness -- all these things are valuable elements of religious wisdom," Walters says. "Piecing it together by yourself can be done, but with great difficulty."

Being a spiritual Lone Ranger fits the tenor of our times, says June-Ann Greeley, a theology and philosophy professor.

"Religion demands that we accord to human existence some absolutes and eternal truths, and in a post-modern culture, that becomes all but impossible," says Greeley, who teaches at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.
It's much easier for "spiritual" people to go on "spiritual walkabouts," Greeley says.

"People seem not to have the time nor the energy or interest to delve deeply into any one faith or religious tradition," Greeley says. "So they move through, collecting ideas and practices and tenets that most appeal to the self, but making no connections to groups or communities."

Being spiritual instead of religious may sound sophisticated, but the choice may ultimately come down to egotism, says Martin, the Jesuit priest, who writes about the phrase in his book, "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost Everything)."

"Religion is hard," he says. "Sometimes it's just too much work. People don't feel like it. I have better things to do with my time. It's plain old laziness."

[Firestarter]

Viewpoint: The Limitations of Being ‘Spiritual but Not Religious’

Only organized religion can mobilize communities and lead to real action

By Rabbi David Wolpe @RabbiWolpeMarch 21, 2013303 Comments
     

Do you like feeling good without having to act on your feeling? Boosting your self-esteem no matter your competence or behavior? Then I’ve got the religious program for you.

According to the latest Pew report, almost 1 in 5 Americans identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” In other words, they have some feeling, some intuition of something greater, but feel allergic to institutions. Yet as we approach Passover and Easter, it’s important to remember that it is institutions and not abstract feelings that tie a community together and lead to meaningful change.

(MORE: Empty Pews: Everyone Is Misreading the New Numbers of Religiously ‘Unaffiliated’)

All of us can understand institutional disenchantment. Institutions can be slow, plodding, dictatorial; they can both enable and shield wrongdoers. They frustrate our desires by asking us to submit to the will of others.

But institutions are also the only mechanism human beings know to perpetuate ideologies and actions. If books were enough, why have universities? If guns enough, why have a military? If self-governance enough, let’s get rid of Washington. The point is that if you want to do something lasting in this world, you will recall the wise words of French Catholic writer Charles Péguy: “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” Got a vision? Get a blueprint.

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

(MORE: Have We Evolved to Be Religious?)

Aid organizations involve institutions as well, and bureaucracies, and — yes — committee meetings. There is something profoundly, well, spiritual about a committee meeting. It involves individuals trying together to sort out priorities, to listen and learn from one another, to make a difference. I have found too often that when people say, “I stay away from the synagogue — too much politics,” what they mean is that they did not get their way. Institutions enable but they also frustrate, as do families and every other organized sector of human life. If you want frictionless, do it alone.

To be spiritual but not religious confines your devotional life to feeling good. If we have learned one thing about human nature, however, it is that people’s internal sense of goodness does not always match their behavior. To know whether your actions are good, a window is a more effective tool than a mirror. Ask others. Be part of a community. In short, join. Being religious does not mean you have to agree with all the positions and practices of your own group; I don’t even hold with everything done in my own synagogue, and I’m the Rabbi. But it does mean testing yourself in the arena of others.

(MORE: Rabbi Wolpe: Why I’m a One-Issue Voter)

No one expects those without faith to obligate themselves to a religious community. But for one who has an intuition of something greater than ourselves to hold that this is a purely personal truth, that it demands no communal searching and struggle, no organization to realize its potential in this world, straddles the line between narcissistic and solipsistic. If the spirit moves you to goodness, that is wonderful. For too many, though, spirituality is a VIP card allowing them to breeze past all those wretched souls waiting in line or doing the work. Join in; together is harder, but together is better.

Rabbi David Wolpe
Rabbi David Wolpe @RabbiWolpe
Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of seven books. The views expressed are solely his own.



Read more: The Problem With Being 'Spiritual but Not Religious' | TIME.com http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/#ixzz2qPKKBEPI

[Firestarter]

I can see a little what the rabbi is saying. I feel for him he has his views and finds his religion important. Like I said of me

"This is not just my job. This is my life."

I see however relevance in what he says. Christians, for all folks may think of them, do start numerous organizations to help the poor and needy all over the world. To feed them, clothe them, and other things. Throw up a homeless shelter, people start ministries. All sorts of good actually has come from this.

Buddhism is growing and spreading to free the mind and enlighten people. This has given numerous people peace in a world where they have a difficult time finding that. So religions can and do help people in various ways. Hey there is power in numbers. So I do see its relevance.

That was even one of the things Jesus taught, was to take up a ministry. Not just to follow God, but help the poor out in any way they could. I know it is not always logical to give up all material possessions and go aid the needy. But it is a noble cause for those who have done so.

So I really did think of what the rabbi said. Like what am I doing to benefit humanity? I mean I help my family, try to be a good friend, good person. But I really dont have any kind of ministry of my own. I mean granted I will write on line, hoping other folks may be able to free their minds in some way. But I wonder too if I should take up some cause.

I have done readings for free for people online. Its a little ministry. Obviously some people charge so I have gone online and offered them for free. Main reasons, not just to give some answers or guidance, but some validation of Spirit. I believe Spirit, does like to be validated, so others know they are not alone. So I have done that for people in my life.

But should I be doing more, I wonder? I really have to think about that. And perhaps if more spiritual but not religious folks banded together to do so, it would make things easier for others. Definitely something to consider.

[Firestarter]

This is an interesting article where the Buddhists are saying. to the Spiritual but not religious folks, "Hey check me out!"

Are You Spiritual But Not Religious?
10 Reasons Why Buddhism Will Enrich Your Path

by Melvin McLeod

http://shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4110&Itemid=0



Six non-Buddhists on how Buddhism has benefited them
It wasn’t so long ago that most Americans took their religion for granted. You were born into a religion, you lived in it, and you died in it.

Except for a few daring freethinkers, that’s the way it was as recently as the 1950s, and that’s still the way it is in most of the world today. It’s the way we’ve related to religion for thousands of years. Until now. Today, a significant and growing number of Americans do not identify themselves as members of any religion.

According to a Pew Research Report, 20 percent of Americans — one-fifth of the adult population — describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. That’s up from 15 percent just five years ago, and the percentage goes higher the younger you are — up to 72 percent for Generation Y.

There are many different reasons why people become disenchanted with organized religion — the litany is long and depressing — but most continue to yearn for something more than a life of materialism, for something that gives deeper meaning and happiness, for something they describe as “spiritual.”

About a third of the religiously unaffiliated describe themselves as atheists. But the rest — some thirty million Americans — maintain some type of spiritual belief and practice, even though they no longer feel at home in a church, synagogue, or mosque. These are the famous “spiritual but not religious,” philosophically the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. Generally, they’re educated, liberal, and open-minded, with a deep sense of connection to the Earth and a belief that there’s more to life than what appears on the surface.

Perhaps this describes you. Perhaps, as a reader of the Shambhala Sun, you’re one of the many people who has discovered that Buddhism has a lot to offer your life and spiritual practice, without some of the downsides of institutionalized religion.

To put it another way: Is Buddhism the religion for people who don’t like religion?

Buddhism is unique among the world’s major world religions. (In a few pages we’ll debate whether Buddhism is in fact a religion, but for now let’s assume it is.) Buddhism is the one world religion that has no God. It is the nontheistic religion.

That changes everything. Yes, like other religions Buddhism describes a nonmaterial, spiritual reality (perhaps the realer reality) and addresses what happens after we die. But at the same time, it is down-to-earth and practical: it is about us, our minds, and our suffering. It’s about being fully and deeply human, and it has something to offer everyone: Buddhists of course; but also the spiritual but not religious, members of other religions, and even those who don’t think they’re spiritual at all. Because who doesn’t know the value of being present and aware?

First, a couple of cautions. Like other religions, Buddhism is practiced at different levels of subtlety, and sometimes it can be just as theistic as any other religion. Buddhism is practiced by people, so there’s good and bad. We come to Buddhism as we are, so there’s definitely going to be ego involved. That’s no problem — it’s the working basis of the path. The key is where we go from there.

Also, much of what I’m saying about Buddhism also applies to the contemplative traditions of other religions. In fact, contemplatives of different faiths often have more in common with each other than they do with practitioners of their own religion. It comes down to how much we personify or solidify the absolute —whether it’s a supreme being who passes judgment on us or an open expanse of love and awareness. In their experience of God, Thomas Merton, Rumi, and Martin Buber had more in common with the Buddha (and each other) than with most practitioners of their own faith.

The difference is that meditation is the very essence of Buddhism, not just the practice of a rarified elite of mystics. It’s fair to say that Buddhism is the most contemplative of the world’s major religions, which is a reflection of its basic nontheism.

Buddhism is about realization and experience, not institutions or divine authority. This makes it especially suited to those who consider themselves spiritual but not religious. Here are ten reasons why:

1. There is no Buddhist God.

Different schools of Buddhism have different views about who the Buddha was. Some say he was an ordinary human being who discovered the path to awakening; others say he was already enlightened but followed the path to show us how it’s done. But one thing is certain: he was not a God, deity, or divine being. His faculties were purely human, any of us can follow his path, and our enlightenment will be exactly the same as his. Ultimately, we are no different from him, and vice versa.

Admittedly, there are lots of Buddhist images that look like gods and deities, all kinds of colorful and exotic beings. The Buddhist cosmos is a vast one, containing infinite beings of different minds, bodies, faculties, and realms. Some are more subtle and awakened, and others are grosser and more confused. Yet these are just the endless variations on the reality we experience right now. It may be infinitely vast and profoundly deep, it may be mysterious beyond concept, it may be far different than we think it is, but whatever reality is, this is it. There is nothing and nobody fundamentally different from or outside of it.


2. It’s about your basic goodness.

Buddhism is not about salvation or original sin. It’s not about becoming somebody different or going somewhere else. Because both you and your world are basically good. With all its ups and downs, this world of ours works. It warms us; it feeds us; it offers us color, sound, and touch. We don’t have to struggle against our world. It is neither for us nor against us. It is a simple, vivid world of direct experience we can investigate, care for, enjoy, make love to.

We are basically good as well, confused as we may be. In Buddhism, our true nature has many names, such as buddhanature, ordinary mind, sugatagarbha, Vajradhara, or just plain buddha —  fundamental awakeness. The thing is, we can’t solidify, identify, or conceptualize it in any way. Then it’s just the same old game we’re stuck in now. We do not own this basic goodness. It is not inside of us, it is not outside of us, it is beyond the reach of conventional mind. It is empty of all form, yet everything we experience is its manifestation. It is nothing and the source of everything — how do you wrap your mind around that? All you can do is look directly, relax, and let go.


3. The problem is suffering. The answer is waking up.

Buddhism exists to address one problem: suffering. The Buddha called the truth of suffering “noble,” because recognizing our suffering is the starting place and inspiration of the spiritual path.

His second noble truth was the cause of suffering. In the West, Buddhists call this “ego.” It’s a small word that encompasses pretty much everything that’s wrong with the world. Because according to the Buddha, all suffering, large and small, starts with our false belief in a solid, separate, and continuous “I,” whose survival we devote our lives to.

It feels like we’re hopelessly caught in this bad dream of “me and them” we’ve created, but we can wake up from it. This is the third noble truth, the cessation of suffering. We do this by recognizing our ignorance, the falseness of our belief in this “I.” Finally, the Buddha told us that there is a concrete way we can get there, which basically consists of discipline, effort, meditation, and wisdom. This is the fourth noble truth, the truth of the path.



4. The way to do that is by working with your mind.

So, according to the Buddha, the problem is suffering, the cause is ignorance, the remedy is waking up, and the path is living mindfully, meditating, and cultivating our wisdom. There’s really only one place all that happens: in our minds. The mind is the source of both our suffering and our joy. Meditation — taming the mind — is what gets us from one to the other. Meditation is Buddhism’s basic remedy for the human condition, and its special genius.

The Buddhist path of meditation begins with practices to calm our wild mind. Once the mind is focused enough to look undistractedly into reality, we develop insight into the nature of our experience, which is marked by impermanence, suffering, nonego, and emptiness. We naturally develop compassion for ourselves and all beings who suffer, and our insight allows us to help them skillfully. Finally, we experience ourselves and our world for what they have been since beginningless time, are right now, and always will be — nothing but enlightenment itself, great perfection in every way.


5. No one can do it for you. But you can do it.

In Buddhism, there is no savior. There’s no one who’s going to do it for us, no place we can hide out for safety. We have to face reality squarely, and we have to do it alone. Even when Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha, what they’re really taking refuge in is the truth that there’s no refuge. Not seeking protection is the only real protection.

So that’s the bad news — we have to do it alone. The good news is, we can do it. As human beings, we have the resources we need: intelligence, strength, loving hearts, and proven, effective methods. Because of that, we can rouse our confidence and renounce our depression and resentment.

But while no one can do that for us, help and guidance is available. There are teachers — women and men who are further along the path — who offer us instruction and inspiration. They prove to us it can be done. Our fellow practitioners support our path, while never allowing us to use them as crutches. The Buddhist teachings offer us wisdom that goes back 2,600 years to the Buddha himself. We can go right to the source, because the lineage that started with Gautama Buddha is unbroken to this day.


6. There is a spiritual, nonmaterial reality.

Some people describe Buddhism as the rational, “scientific” religion, helping us lead better and more caring lives without contradicting our modern worldview. It is certainly true that many Buddhist practices work very nicely in the modern world, don’t require any exotic beliefs, and bring demonstrable benefit to people’s lives. But that’s only part of the story.

Buddhism definitely asserts there is a reality that is not material. Other religions say that too; the difference is that in Buddhism this spiritual reality is not God. It is mind.

This is something you can investigate for yourself: Is my mind made of matter or is it something else?

Does my mind have characteristics, like thoughts, feelings, and identity, or is it the space within which these things arise?

Does my mind change constantly or is it continuous? Is it one thing or many?

Where is the boundary of my mind? Is it large or small? Is it inside me looking at the material world outside? Or are my perceptions and my experience of them both mind? (And if so, perhaps it’s the material world we should be questioning the reality of.)


7. But you don’t have to take anything on faith.

There is no received wisdom in Buddhism, nothing we must accept purely on the basis of somebody else’s spiritual authority. The Dalai Lama has said that Buddhism must give up any belief that modern science disproves. The Buddha himself famously said, “Be a lamp unto yourselves,” and told his students they must test everything he said against their own experience. But it is easy to misinterpret this advice. Our modern egos are keen to take advantage of it. While we shouldn’t accept what others say at face value, this doesn’t mean we should just accept what we tell ourselves. We have to test the teachings of Buddhism against our direct life experience, not against our opinions.

And while modern science can prove or disprove old beliefs about astronomy or human physiology, it cannot measure or test the nonmaterial. Buddhism values the rational mind and seeks not to contradict it in its own sphere. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Finally, it is the rare person who can navigate the spiritual path alone. While retaining our self-respect and judgment, we must be willing to accept the guidance, even leadership, of those who are further along the path. In a society that exalts the individual and questions the hierarchy of the teacher-student relationship, it is a challenge to find a middle way between too much self and not enough.


8. Buddhism offers a wealth of skillful means for different people’s needs.

Buddhism is not a one-path-fits-all religion. It’s highly pragmatic, because it’s about whatever helps reduce suffering.

Beings are infinite. So are their problems and states of mind. Buddhism offers a wealth of skillful means to meet their different needs. If people are not ready for the final truth, but a partial truth will help, that’s no problem — as long as it actually helps. The problem is that things that feel helpful — like going along with our usual tricks — can sometimes make things worse. So the Buddhist teachings are gentle, but they can also be tough. We need to face the ways we cause ourselves and others suffering.

Buddhist meditators have been studying the mind for thousand of years. In that time, they’ve tested and proven many techniques to tame the mind, lessen our suffering, and discover who we are and what is real (and not). There are meditations to calm and focus the mind, contemplations to open the heart, and ways to bring ease and grace to the body. It’s fair to say, as many people have, that Buddhism is the world’s most developed science of mind.

Today, people who want to explore Buddhism have many resources at their disposal. For the first time in history, all the schools and traditions of Buddhism are gathered in one place. There are fine books, excellent teachers (many of them now American), practice centers, communities, and indeed, magazines.

These are all available for you to explore according to your own needs and path. You can practice meditation at home or go to a local center and practice with others. You can read a book, attend classes, or hear a lecture by a Buddhist teacher. Whatever works for you — no pressure.


9. It’s open, progressive, and not institutional.

While Buddhism in its Asian homelands can be conservative, convert Buddhists in the West are generally liberal, both socially and politically. Whether this is an accident of history or a natural reflection of the Buddhist teachings, Buddhist communities embrace diversity and work against sexism and racism.

Identities of all sorts, including gender, nationality, ethnicity, and even religion, are not seen as fixed and ultimately true. Yet they are not denied; differences are acknowledged, celebrated, and enjoyed. Of course, Buddhists are still people and still part of a society, so it’s a work in progress. But they’re trying.

Many Americans have turned away from organized religion because it feels like just another bureaucracy, rigid and self-serving. Buddhism has been described as disorganized religion. There’s no Buddhist pope. (No, the Dalai Lama is not the head of world Buddhism. He’s not even the head of all Tibetan Buddhism, just of one sect.) There is no overarching church, just a loose collection of different schools and communities. As you’ll quickly discover if you go to your local Buddhist center, things may run smoothly (or not), but the atmosphere is likely to be open and relaxed. It probably won’t feel institutional.


10. And it works.

We can’t see or measure subjective experience, so we can’t judge directly the effect Buddhism is having on someone else’s mind and heart. But we can see how they act and treat other people. We can hear what they say about what they’re experiencing inside.

What we find is that Buddhism works. For millennia, Buddhism has been making people more aware, caring, and skillful. All you have to do is meet someone who’s been practicing meditation a lot to know that. In our own time, hundreds of thousands of Americans are reporting that even a modest Buddhist practice has made their life better — they’re calmer, happier, and not as carried away when strong emotions arise. They’re kinder to themselves and others.

But it’s really important not to burden ourselves with unrealistic expectations. Change comes very slowly. You’ll also see that when you meet a Buddhist meditator, even one who’s been at it for a long time. Don’t expect perfection. We’re working with patterns of ignorance, greed, and anger that have developed over a lifetime — if not much longer. Change comes slowly for most of us. But it does come. If you stick with it, that’s guaranteed. Buddhism works.


This is not an attempt to convert anyone to Buddhism. There is no need for that. But those who think of themselves as spiritual but not religious can find a lot in Buddhism to help them on their personal path, however they define it.

When I first encountered Buddhism, what struck me was its absolute integrity. I saw that it was not trying to manipulate me by telling me what I wanted to hear. It always tells the truth. Sometimes that truth is gentle, softening our hearts and bringing tears to our eyes. Sometimes it is tough, forcing us to face our problems and cutting through our comfortable illusions. But always it is skillful. Always it offers us what we need. We are free to take what we wish.


Melvin McLeod is editor-in-chief of the Shambhala Sun.
Painting(s) by Michael Newhall.