The Dalai Lama spirituality and religion

For anyone who has been to an event where the Dalai Lama is the main speaker, just looking around at the audience, it soon becomes obvious that he draws people from all religions, including even atheists. Young and old, it doesnt matter. So what is going on?

My hunch is that Tibetan Buddhism has come to represent spirituality, not religion. The modern world is starting to become keenly interested in spirituality. By comparison, it understands religion to be inadequate which its sees as being often too creedal (= I believe), sectarian (e.g., fundamentalism), dogmatic and superficial. This is not so with spirituality which asks us to look within, for example, by first being aware of our internal dialogue.

If spirituality can be represented by just a few words they are look within. But this looking within is not about finding silence within us or coming to know God. Far from it. This looking is about what is most primordial in us trying to recognize itself and in so doing awaken to the basis or substance of all phenomena which then renders phenomena to be illusory and unreal so that we are no longer bewitched by it. Short of this, we doom ourselves to wander (samsara) passing from one false existence to another having believed this was truth or the best of all possible worlds.

For those who are somewhat familiar with Tibetan Buddhism its higher teachings are certainly spiritual but to get to a point where one can proficiently look within the individual has to be gradually weaned off of religion the practice of which can easily become perfunctory and ritualistic. The weaning process is by no means an easy one. While there are many people who yearn to practice a genuine spiritual path there are perhaps many more who are content with the perfunctory and the ritualistic as in the example of Soto Zens just sitting which is a function of ritual (J., gyoji).

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