Buddhism: Religion or Spirituality?
This is the third and final talk in this series of lectures given by Traleg Rinpoche at the 2010 Annual Buddhist Summer School at the Maitrepa Contemplative Centre, Healesville.
Iam going to continue with the earlier discussion of how to relate to the notion of religiosity and spirituality from the Buddhist perspective. As I have mentioned quite a few times already, religion has the potential for abuse in some ways, but spirituality in its true essence cannot be subject to abuse, because spirituality is something that occurs inside the person, the living human being. Whereas, many aspects of religious practices and so forth can be abused because you can think what you’re doing is the end, and you’re not using that as a means to anything. So chanting becomes an end in itself, reciting certain passages from the sacred scriptures becomes an end in itself, praying becomes an end in itself, circumambulation of stupas and reliquaries and whatnot becomes an end in itself. You think of all of those things as ends in themselves, instead of thinking they are the vehicles for you to go higher in your own spiritual development.
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