[potatote]

I grew up in Myanmar until 23 and know what you're talking about. Those 'sayalays' follow a less stricter rules/precepts than a fully-ordained monk. That's why they are expected to pay respect to the male monks. Of course, there is no denying that it's a male-dominant religion, but it is no worse than Catholicism. Buddha, according to the Buddhist legends, appointed his step-mom to be in charge of female monks and they have established their own structure, which follows closely to the one established by male monk's structure (but with slightly less strict rules).

As an atheist, I am not going to defend Buddhism (be it Mahayana, Theravada or Tibetan) because they all have major flaws, and aren't very practical--in my opinion--for the modern society. As with most religions, there are good and bad parts in Buddhism and a lot of original teachings by Buddha have been 'tainted' by cultural reasoning (not to mention that even Buddha himself likely got a lot of influence in his philosophy from Hinduism and other mainstream religions in his time). Overall though, I have to say that Buddhism at its core is fairly benign (no eliminate-those-who-don't-believe-in-our-god's-teachings that can be found in old testament or Koran).

[movedx]

Interesting comment.

I consider my self an atheist too. I've done some reading on Buddhism (online and offline, and at my local temple) to learn more about it. I found that a secular approach to Buddhism ("Secular Buddhism"?) is what works best for me.

I don't believe in myth or fairy tales. Nor do I believe in sky Gods or the after life. To me Buddhism, when stripped of all of this, becomes The Four Noble Truths, The Eight Fold Path, and meditation. Or put another way: a simple guide to understanding the mind, our attachment to worldly possessions, life, how to do well by others, and so on.

What's your take on this?

[cko]

I was all in on Theravada Buddhism for a while. Until I realized I only believed in a small subset of it - cherry-picking, if you will. Anything that my western sensibilities don’t find appealing, like nagas and devas and stuff I just conveniently filtered away.

Cherry picking gets a bad rap in religion as being arbitrary, but in the Kalama Sutta, which to me is an epistemological treatise, Gotama (or some other guru, who really knows?) says:

> "So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, "This contemplative is our teacher." When you know for yourselves that, "These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness" — then you should enter & remain in them.' Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.

Cherry-picking.

[potatote]

This! The Kalama Sutta was broadcast on national TV every night (around 8-9pm) when the military junta was in power. It is their way of saying, "Don't believe in what you heard about our evil doings from outsiders--such as the western propaganda". So almost everyone in the country is aware of that. Ironically speaking, that Sutta really became my go-to philosophy for life. Never believing everything taught by anyone/any being UNTIL it fits my experience/goals. That Sutta, if it was really said by Buddha, is one of the most powerful and most empowering statement he made of all his teachings (in my humble opinion).

[tombh]

I assume you've come across Stephen Batchelor? He has a lot of positive things to about the secular approach.

[movedx]

Never have! Thanks for the tip.I'm going to check out his work :-)

[potatote]

I really like your take on Buddhism and I share a similar sentiment toward it. I don't think a lot of educated Buddhists in Myanmar take Nagas, sky gods, seriously at all. Uneducated (meaning they are not well-read) Buddhists probably don't even know most of these myths let alone The Four Nobel Truths, The Eight Fold Path, and the difference between Vipassana & Tha-ma-hta meditation techniques, etc. I, as an atheist, found those myths and fairy tales amusing/entertaining/awe-inspiring when I was young.

When I became old enough (like 8-9th grade), I realized they are mostly folklores. But I still believed that there is some essence/truth in Buddha's teaching like Four Nobel Truths, and so on. I tried Vipassana meditation (nowadays, it's become quite popular in the western side as mindfulness meditation--an alleged antidote to alleviate stress in life). Unfortunately, I never found myself to be able to consistently practice meditation to keep my mind in calm most of the time. I'm too lazy to put in serious effort at meditation and stick to it.

BUT I found that being aware of the fact that mindfulness is great when we are in tough situations is good enough for me. For example, when I'm having a stressful day/moment, I just try to look at myself from a third person p.o.v and realize quickly that 'this too shall pass' and no negative event in life is big enough to overcome/forget. I just need to do the best that I can for the items that are in my control to minimize the impact and move on. Plus, Buddha's teaching of lessening attachment to worldly possessions (nowadays, it's popular as 'minimalism' in the west) is quite useful. So I try to live life minimally (not to an extreme because Buddha's philosophy is to walk the middle path). That helps me qualm a lot of desires and the consequence of chasing after those desires.

Meditation or becoming a monk to seek Four Noble Truth is too 'costly' for me and I do not plan to give up my worldly possession and family to go seek for the 'Truth'/Nirvana (whatever that means; maybe there's not a set of truth for everyone and Truth could very well be different for different people). I feel okay (that is, I don't feel guilty) about reaching to this conclusion as well. If everyone were to become a monk/nun and seek for Truth via meditation, the society will grind to a halt (because somebody's gotta grow the food), right? All in all, I am happy with the way I have been managing my life's stresses in a kind of Stoic way that I mentioned above.

P.S. Please read the comment below by 'cko' about Kalama Sutta. If you already know about this, that's awesome! If not, I hope you'll find it somewhat interesting/useful. :)