{"id":8622,"date":"2008-06-24T10:35:38","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T14:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=8622"},"modified":"2008-06-24T10:40:43","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T14:40:43","slug":"amazing-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=8622","title":{"rendered":"AMAZING GRACE"},"content":{"rendered":"

This fortnight’s assignment<\/a> is to choose a (new) religion that you could abide. Da Rules include: <\/p>\n

You can not pick any religion that you have been part of in your past, and you can not pick none of the above. You can be as serious or as fanciful about this as you want. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, I’d love to say that I’d choose Pastafarianism<\/a>, but I look really bad in puffy shirts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, Christianity is out (Been there. Done that.) I don’t think I could handle Judaism or Islam (No more Italian sausage?! Never!). In fact, I don’t think I could accept any religion that meets this definition<\/a>:<\/p>\n

1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.<\/p>\n

2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Magical thinking<\/a> is just beyond my abilities at this point in my life.<\/p>\n

Of the major world religions<\/a>, only a few would seem to fall outside the definition above. Buddhism looks intriguing. Zen<\/a>, especially, with its emphasis on personal enlightenment through meditation and its lack of regard lack for “scriptures.” From the Ultimate Answer to the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Zen asserts, as do other schools in Mahayana Buddhism, that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, the universal nature of inherent wisdom (Sanskrit prajna) and virtue, and emphasizes that Buddha-nature is nothing other than the nature of the mind itself. The aim of Zen practice is to discover this Buddha-nature within each person, through meditation and mindfulness of daily experiences. Zen practitioners believe that this provides new perspectives and insights on existence, which ultimately lead to enlightenment.<\/p>\n

In distinction to many other Buddhist sects, Zen de-emphasizes reliance on religious texts and verbal discourse on metaphysical questions. Zen holds that these things lead the practitioner to seek external answers, rather than searching within their own minds for the direct intuitive apperception of Buddha-nature. This search within goes under various terms such as \u201cintrospection,\u201d \u201ca backward step,\u201d \u201cturning-about,\u201d or \u201cturning the eye inward.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, there you have it. If I have to choose a new religion, I’ll take the one that seems to be least like one: No God. No scriptures. No getting dressed up early on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This fortnight’s assignment is to choose a (new) religion that you could abide. Da Rules include: You can not pick any religion that you have been part of in your past, and you can not pick none of the above. You can be as serious or as fanciful about this as you want. Well, I’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}