Do you have a creed? (Buddhists, America, Catholicism, punishment)
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I deviate from mainstream Buddhist thinking in several places, so I wouldn't call it dogma. For example, I remain unconvinced of nibanna and a bit shaky on reincarnation, and certainly don't agree with the idea that there have been multiple Buddhas in the distant past. So I wouldn't say I'm dogmatic.
Right...because it actually goes beyond dogma...and could easily be the foundation for a list of "Commandments".
You make some good points here. This matter of a creed is something that I thought quite a bit about even while I was still a catholic. At each mass we would say the creed, out loud. The problem was that it got to be like anything else that is done by rote memory (or simply reading it). People said it without really thinking about it, not unlike the way at masses people rise or kneel depending on when the bells ring. It's not unlike when children say the Pledge Of Allegiance every morning 2,340 times; no thinking, just rote repetition, thus virtually meaningless. I got to the point in the catholic church that I started leaving certain words or phrases out, or silently changed them in my mind as everyone else said the creed out loud. Of course, once I got to Buddhism, where we are fully allowed to think, it really did become up to me to develop my own creed. But that's the difference between a commandments-based religion and a philosophical-based religion.
it is a fact that you do not know what other people are thinking about when they are reading or reciting anything.
No...I'm serious.
You even have a version of "Thou Shalt Not Steal" as a precept in there.
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