Faithfully Religionless

 Faithfully Religionless. Thank you Timber for the book!

I've just finished reading this great book by Timber Hawkeye about two weeks ago. It is such a fantastic book - both for people who do and don't believe in religion/God. To me this book strikes a chord within me. Whatever I feel about things, religions and God is summarised in the book. And I even learned more things from the book. I truly recommend it to everyone. 

So I'm just going to share with you the thoughts that I have after reading this book.

Personally I believe there are two kinds of "religious" people. The first kind is the one that is ritually religious. They go to the place of worship, chant, pray, and so on and forth, thinking that doing this is enough to make them "religious". The second one is practically religious. They study about the essence of their religion, the teachings and so on, and put them into practice in their lives.

Just to give an example, there are a lot of Buddhists here who diligently go to the temple to pray and chant, but they don't know who the Buddha is. Or why Guan Yin is called Guan Yin. They don't know basic Buddhist teachings (Foue Noble Truths, Eightfold Noble Path etc). Or they don't even know what the Sutras are about. Or the easiest example: They believe that the Buddha will grant their wishes and make them rich and successful. I don't look down on them, because I was one of them.

I've never regarded myself a "good" Buddhist. I've only gotten to know Buddhism better in 2011-2012 ish, when I started reading more about Buddhism. I've only started to dissect Sutras in 2014 or so, reading different interpretations of Sutras. Right now I'm into the Prajnaparamita Sutra.

I could still remember how when I was young (and even till Secondary School, oops), I would go to the temple before major exams to pray for good luck and good results HAHAHA. I'll be like "Dear Buddha please grant me good grades for this upcoming exams". Of course as I get to know this religion better, I know that's not how Buddhism works. Or how a Buddha works.

Which brings me to my next point - as I study Buddhism more and more, I'm kind of convinced that it is not a religion. I can still remember in Sec One history class, our teacher told us how some people are still debating about calling Buddhism a religion or a philosophy. Now that I've learned a bit more about Buddhism, yes, I'm pretty convinced that it's not exactly a religion.

I'm not gonna go into details about this debate. To me I feel that Buddhism is a contemplative religion. It is a religion where our teacher, the Buddha, tells us about the ways of life. We then contemplate on his teachings and put them into practice in our lives. This is why the Buddha himself said that you should never believe in something until you have experienced it for yourself. And this includes his teachings. He didn't say that his teachings is THE way of life. He's just showing us the way.

In Buddhism there is no God. There is no creator and so on. The law of karma is running but karma isn't our God either. I feel karma is the law of the universe. That what you give, you will get in return. And this law doesn't need a power, or someone to be implemented in this life. Get what I mean?

I've always avoided talking about God because it is quite a sensitive issue. My view and perception about God changes in different parts of my life. I used to believe that God is this man up in the sky and he created the earth and animals and so on, and he punishes us for bad behaviour and rewards us for doing good things. Then my view changes after reading about the Big Bang Theory and I don't really quite agree with God as a creator. I still believe in God, but not as a creator.

And as I grow older, my perception of God changes from a man to a formless energy. God is there, but God doesn't have a form. Like some sort of power? Just an unknown power.

My perception changes again after I meet people who misuse God. I'd like to call it - when people play the God card. Just to give an example: You can't do so/be so because God says so. This shouldn't happen because God says so. This and that. And I even meet people who told me that I will go to hell for not believing in God. But I don't even believe in hell! So where do I go?

I remember I once had this conversation with a friend. So back then we just had a difficult test paper and we actually did quite well. So my friend told me something like: 

Friend: "Oh I thank God for giving me this good grades and getting me through this tough test". 

I just chuckled and said to her: "Shouldn't you be thanking our teacher for teaching us well, and even spending more time to teach us after classes?" 

And to that she replied: "Well I thank God for giving her as our teacher."

After that I just kept quiet because I know where this is going.

I know that some people believe that both good and bad things happen because God made it happen. So it's like when good things happen we should thank God, and when bad things happen, it's a test from God. Now... What if we remove God from this equation. If good things happen, lets be grateful for it and when bad things happen, lets be patient and go through it. Nothing is permanent.

To summarise the top scenario, while some people believe that God = life, I'd like to believe that life = God. Lets switch some words over. When bad things happen, it's just life giving us a test. Nowadays however I'd like to take it that the Universe is my god. Because the universe is created out of nothingness, and they are formed for the sake of forming. It's like they exist on its own. Just like life!

Although yes all in all, the concept and idea of God differs from people to people and religion to religion. To me there's no "ultimate truth" in life. So whether you believe in God or not, it's not right or wrong. As I grow older and meet more people, who have their own definitions of God, my mind is opened. And I don't tell them whether they're right or wrong, but I accept the fact that God comes in many forms.

Wait, I just realised that I'm not back to my previous perception - formless God haha.

So yeah. Right now, I don't deny the existence and/or absence of God. I'm learning to see everything in life as it is. And to me this is the essence of the Prajnaparamita sutra. This is why some people regard emptiness as the God of Buddhism. Currently reading the commentaries of the Sutra by the Dalai Lama and I am understanding the concept of emptiness as God better now. 

Before I end of this post, I'd like to share with you some of my favourite quotes from the book:

"Faith is a spiritual practice of continually letting go of certainty, of ego and of the underlying need to know. I'm simply comfortable admitting that I don't know why certain things happen or why they don't. The freedom derived from letting go of that compulsive need to know is pure bliss."

"being faithfully religionless: open heartedly accepting everything under the sun and joyously celebrating all of life's moments without any judgement."

Thank you once again, Timber Hawkeye, for this amazing book!