What makes younota Buddhist?: a preliminary mapping of values

Abstract

This study sets out to establish which Buddhist values contrasted with or were shared by adolescents from a non-Buddhist population. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Buddhist values was fielded in a sample of 352 non-Buddhist schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Buddhist values where attitudes were least positive concerned the worth of being a monk/nun or meditating, offering candles & incense on the Buddhist shrine, friendship on Sangha Day, avoiding drinking alcohol, seeing the world as empty or impermanent and Nirvana as the ultimate peace. Buddhist values most closely shared by nonBuddhists concerned the Law of Karma, calming the mind, respecting those deserving of respect, subjectivity of happiness, welfare work, looking after parents in old age and compassion to cuddly animals. Further significant differences of attitude toward Buddhism were found in partial correlations with the independent variables of sex, age and religious affiliation. Correlation patterns paralleled those previously described in theistic religions. Findings are applied to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and for the teaching of religious to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends that quantitative psychometrics employed to conceptualize Buddhist values by discriminant validity in this study could be extended usefully to other aspects of the study of Buddhism, particularly in quest of validity in the conceptualization of Buddhist identity within specifically Buddhist populations.

What Makes You Not a Sikh?

“…Value statements where the Abrahamic religions tended to empathize less than the Dharmic religions or the non-religious concerned the wearing of the shorts [kachh] and the dagger [kirpan] and reincarnation -however, those of Abrahamic religions were less likely to think Sikh scriptures out of date. There were no cases of those of 'no religion' having value statements they empathized with more than those who were religious as has previously been found in this sample for Buddhist value statements (Thanissaro 2012b).…”

Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development

“…In Tibetan Buddhism studies, uncertainty and the closely related terms 'impermanence', 'emptiness', and 'mid-way' are widely explored (Thanissaro, 2012;Todd, 2015). I got the opportunity to visit a Geshe (དགེ ་བཤེ ས། 格西, the title given to a Tibetan Bhuddist scholar) from Saga in his cave-like quarters on a lovely summer afternoon in August 2019.…”