Opening to Religious Conventions

OPENING 
TO 
RELIGIOUS CONVENTIONS

Ajahn Sumedho

The Mind and the Way (Chapter 1)

People of other religions sometimes feel uncomfortable with the Buddhist symbols. It’s not necessarily a case of pride or stubbornness, but of being unfarmiliar with their use. In some cases, people feel that by using Buddhist symbols, they are betraying their own, perhaps Christian, symbols. But I hope that the way I’ve presented the three refuges offers a means of looking at any religious tradition. With this understanding, one knows how to use the Buddhist or Christian tradition. I see the oneness, the wholeness, of it all. I don’t see that Buddhism, as an outward form, is the only way. I see that truth and openness to truth is what religion is all about – or should be about. It gets very confused because people forget that, and get stuck in the tradition as if it were an end in itself. Rather than using the tradition and the ceremonies for opening themselves, they use them to hold on.

When we start attaching to Buddhism, then you’re no longer open. Then you become a sectarian Buddhist. In Buddhist there are different schools, so you can become a Mahayana Buddhist as opposed to a Hinayana Buddhist, or Vajrayana Buddhist, or Zen Buddhist. There are all kinds of variations in Buddhism. In Britain we’re got everything: Christian Buddhists, Buddhist Christians, Jewish Buddhists, Buddhist Jews, modern scientific Buddhists, British Buddhists, and so on. Then there are Buddhists who aren’t Buddhists because they’ve rejected Buddha and Sangha and just uphold the Dhamma – they’re Dhammaists.

So attachment breeds these separations; it’s divisive. Whatever you attach to becomes a sect or cult. The sectarian tendency is one of humanity’s great problems, whether it’s religious or political or whatever. When people say, “My way is right and all the rest are inferior,” that’s attachment. Even if what you have might be the finest, if you’re attached to the finest, you’re still an ignorant, unenlightened person. So you can have the finest and best of everything and still be unenlightened.

I don’t ever want to give the impression that Theravadan Buddhism is the best or the only way. Because “best” and “only” are qualities that we attach to. Theravadan Buddhism provides a convention, something that you open to, contemplate, and learn how to use. Whether you like it, don’t like it, resent it, are irritated by it, really love it, or are indifferent toward it – note the condition of mind, rather than take sides for or against it. Then you can reflect on it. It offers you something to observe in yourself. And it offers you the opportunity to direct your attention to truth.