World Religions journal #5

Still, I (we) am bombarded with many new and complicated terms across religions. Today is about Buddhism.

Let me first recap of what I have learnt in the previous lessons, indeed lazy me is still wrapping up stuff for lecture 1 only...... the very important concepts of "religionist" and "reductionist" approaches to study world religion.

The former one sees religious study as a sui generis disciplinary that has to be view from the insider's perspective while the later one claims religious study as to be reduced under other subjects, and look into it from an outsider's angle. No doubt, the insider-outsider challenge is hard to overcome. To me, subjectivity is difficult to attain for any human with ability to interpret and criticize, no exception to outsiders. Yet, the key factor to maximize objectivity is to be open so that can acquire as much as possible and have a relatively clear mind to give criticism.

But it is very difficult for a religionist insider to study diverse religions as if oneself claims to be a loyal believer of one religion, it is impossible for him/her to still use a insider's pov to look into other religions. However, I do think religion is a sui generis domain that mustn't be put under other fields. It makes itself unique because of the unique experience of transcendence. This spiritual, personal and internal experience can hardly be stucturalized according to Reductionists' pov.

Back to today's lecture -- Buddhism. Though I am a "little faith" Catholic, I am very inspired by the holy doctrines brought by Buddha. About the 4 Great Faith and 8 Enlightments. It's quite similar to Tao's philosophy, or the new term I learnt today, "Nihilism". If we can suppress our cravings, our desires, we can overcome all sufferings, or put in other words, we can't even see the presence "suffering". Familiar to all, doctrines or dogmas of any religions depict similar things, all are good, virtuous, easy to be understood, yet difficult to put in practice. That leads to the tragedy of religious wars, which against the good deeds, concluded by tutorial discussion.

I have to speed up my progress in wrapping up the learning materials....