Exotic names, robes, insignia of office, titles - the trappings of religion - confuse as much as they help. They endorse the assumption of the existence of an elite whose explicit commitment grants them implicit extraordinariness.
Interpretation
The complexities of religious symbols and titles can obscure true understanding and promote elitism.
In this quote, Stephen Batchelor critiques the superficial aspects of religion, such as names, clothing, and titles, arguing that these trappings often confuse rather than clarify the truths of the faith. He points out that they can create a perception of an elite group within the religious context that is deemed extraordinary simply due to their outward displays, which may distract from deeper spiritual teachings and the essence of religion itself.
In practice
During a lecture on the evolution of religious practices, this quote could be used to highlight why we should look beyond symbols.
This deep agnosticism is more than the refusal of conventional agnosticism to take a stand on whether God exists or whether the mind survives bodily death. It is the willingness to embrace the fundamental bewilderment of a finite, fallible creature as the basis for leading a life that no longer clings to the superficial consolations of certainty.
I reject karma and rebirth not only because I find them unintelligible, but because I believe they obscure and distort what the Buddha was trying to say. Rather than offering the balm of consolation, the Buddha encouraged us to peer deep and unflinchingly into the heart of the bewildering and painful experience that life can so often be.
Consciousness is an emergent, contingent, and impermanent phenomenon. It has no magical capacity to break free from the field of events out of which it springs.
A compassionate heart still feels anger, greed, jealousy, and other such emotions. But it accepts them for what they are with equanimity, and cultivates the strength of mind to let them arise and pass without identifying with or acting upon them.
The individuation of dharma practice occurs whenever priority is given to the resolution of a personal existential dilemma over the need to conform to the doctrines of a Buddhist orthodoxy. Individuation is a process of recovering personal authority through freeing ourselves from the constraints of collectively held belief systems.
The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.
Tension is the great integrity.
Spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man, In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins, Cannot but by annihilating die.
Buddha taught kindness towards lower beings; and since then there has not been a sect in India that has not taught charity to all beings, even to animals. This kindness, this mercy, this charity - greater than any doctrine - are what Buddhism left to us.
Modern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms.
History can predict nothing except that great changes in human relationships will never come about in the form in which they have been anticipated.
… people didn't seem to be able to remember what it was like with the elves around. Life was certainly more interesting then, but usually because it was shorter. And it was more colorful, if you liked the color of blood.
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