(Ir)religiosity

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I’ve decided to alternate my “Weekend Link Blast” series with “Friday is for Quotes.” This way I can concentrate on compiling a better, longer list of links. So, every other week I’ll post a quote that I find to be blogworthy. With school and everything else I don’t really have time to post full blown book reviews, though I’d like to. I’ll try to post quotes from things I’m currently reading and I promise I won’t just throw up one-liner clichés. If I have time I may even post some commentary to hopefully spark the conversation.

So here we go. The following is an exerpt from the Dalai Lama’s Ethics for the New Millennium. Not exactly a new book, but a good book nonetheless. Here he discusses the difference between “religion” and “spirituality;” an important distinction I think we too often overlook. However, he differentiates the two in a manner we (Westerners) often don’t.

“I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality. . .Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayer, and so on.

Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which bring happiness to both self and others. . .There is no reason why the individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.

. . .Each of the qualities notes is defined be any implicit concern for others’ well-being. . .Thus spiritual practice according to this description involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern of others’ well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.”

It has been my experience that this distinction between religion and spirituality is usually made like this: religion is often described as an institution interested in spreading particular set of beliefs or dogma in order to further perpetuate itself. People will often describe this as “organized religion” making the connotation even more negative. This isn’t all that different from the Dalai Lama’s characterization.

The difference lies in his description of spirituality. It seems to me that many people now like to describe themselves as “spiritual,” but not “religious.” Most of them, at least in my experience are still using the word spiritual in a metaphysical sense (not that that is bad) and are rejecting the dogmatic, legalistic confines of organized religion. These persons still feel a connection with God, or ultimate reality, or some other metaphysical reality just without the rigidity.

Now, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that per se, in fact, I suppose I would fit into that category. But I think I can still be “spiritual” and miss the larger point the Dalai Lama is making—the emphasis on compassion, responsibility, reconciliation and so on—and in that sense I’m still holding on to “the religious.”

And to do that, I believe, is to deny the humanity that unites us all.

~bh ><>