These Buddhists might be onto something…

My trips to Big Buddha and the A-Ma Temple got me thinking about this Buddhist teaching I came across a few years ago. It’s the only one I know, but to me it makes perfect sense.

Don’t believe anything simply because you have heard it.
Don’t believe anything simply because it’s spoken by many.
Don’t believe anything simply because it’s found written in your religious books.
Don’t believe anything merely on the authority of your teachers & elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they’ve been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

– Gautama Buddha

Most organised religions (that I know of) seem reluctant to move with the times or update their thinking, and for me that throws their credibility out the window. They stubbornly stick to their Iron Age scriptures until the likes if Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin force them to wake up (and even then it’s usually a couple hundred years too late).

The Buddhists on the other hand seem a lot more open-minded. They question stuff and find their own way. I like that, it appeals to my scientific mind… I’m not the religious type, but if I was, Buddhism might be a runner.