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I'm not a Buddhist, but I find meditation to be an incredibly useful skill.

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How important do you think traditions of Buddhism are outside of meditation?

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I've sort of answered this question.

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I don't know, in various places, probably not clearly.

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They're not intrinsically important.

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I would categorize them as beneficial, potentially beneficial, let's even say that.

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They can be potentially deleterious if used in the wrong way, if misunderstood.

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If you believe that the rites and rituals that Buddhists perform are intrinsically valuable, then you start to have a problem.

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If you think that any Buddhist practice, even giving charity or even practicing meditation, let's go so far.

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morality, meditation, if you think any of these things are intrinsically valuable, then you've got a problem.

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This is, I think, not widely understood.

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Certainly not in cultural Buddhism.

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Cultural Buddhists are generally under the misunderstanding that these things are intrinsically beneficial.

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People in general in the world are, whatever religion they belong to, or even people who are not, more especially people who are not religious, tend to think that things that are not intrinsically valuable are intrinsically valuable.

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There's a sutta, the...

16
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Saropa Masutta.

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I can't remember the Maha Saropa Masutta or the Chula Saropa Masutta in the Majjhima Nikaya.

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Anyway, one of them talks about this exact issue.

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What is and what is not truly of benefit.

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So,

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This isn't exactly answering your question, but I think it's important in terms of providing a context for the answer that even keeping, you might say giving gifts or the idea of charity,

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morality, concentration, tranquility, even vipassana insight, the Buddha said these are not the core, these are not truly, these are not the heartwood, they're not the sara, the true essence of Buddhism.

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So if we want to talk about traditions, we can tentatively place them, you might say, below the charity rung on the ladder.

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So you have this rung below charity and that's tradition, traditional practices.

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Because traditional practices or rituals can serve to be a framework within which you can develop charity.

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So you have these Buddhist holidays, for example.

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This helps develop the idea of charity.

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It also helps to develop respect and humility and gratitude towards the Buddha, I'm thinking, no?

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It helps to develop morality.

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It's an opportunity for people to cultivate morality, to try to keep the eight precepts.

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If they can't keep them every day, then they try to keep them on the Buddhist holiday.

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This is a good thing about a Buddhist holiday, for example.

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It's a good chance to calm their minds, it's a good chance to develop insight, and it's even a good chance to develop that which is of true benefit.

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It's even possible that on a Buddhist holiday, it can help you to develop insight that leads to enlightenment.

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So I would place all traditions on this tentative lowest rung on the beneficial ladder.

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And so I just want to finish the explanation that none of these things are intrinsically valuable.

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So more so Buddhist traditions.

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When you say that morality and so on, none of these things are actually intrinsically beneficial.

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They're all only for the purpose of bringing out that which is of true benefit, which is enlightenment or nibbana.

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So the problem comes when you have these traditions that, well the biggest problem comes when you have traditions that don't do anything, that don't help you develop morality or concentration or wisdom or even charity.

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So therefore, don't lean too close to the goal.

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Some traditions can actually lead people farther from the goal.

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Traditions of horoscopes and there are many, you might say, useless traditions.

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So we, for example, we have a new well that we dug and they put these lamps up around the well.

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I'm not sure why, but it's some kind of tradition and it must have to do with angels and so on.

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Which, just a silly example, you may be able to twist it and you may actually be able to find something beneficial, but I would say in many cases these sorts of traditions, especially when they come to be thought of as Buddhist traditions, can actually be deleterious.

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They lead to wrong views and wrong practices.

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But even practices, even traditions that encourage the development of charity, morality, concentration, even wisdom, if they are reinforcing the idea that these things have

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intrinsic value, then they can be somewhat problematic.

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I mean, they're not evil, they're not something that you have to scold people about, but it's something that you might want to politely remind people that this isn't the goal.

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So what I'm thinking of especially is charity.

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So people will have these traditions of giving charity and thinking that this is my Buddhist practice, it's this practice of charity, and they never think of what is charity for.

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The farthest they might get is that charity leads me to go to heaven and so on.

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And so they never get to get closer or they don't get much closer anyway to the actual goal, to that which is of real benefit.

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So in short, as I said in the beginning, I don't think that you could think of them as being important, but beneficial.

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And I think there's a difference because there are many beneficial things, things that you could do that could benefit your practice that I don't think you would go so far as to say they're important.

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The only things that are truly important are morality, concentration and wisdom, because those are the things that lead you to release and knowledge of release, knowledge of freedom.

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Apart from that, there are beneficial things that you can engage in and you don't have to engage in.

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For some people they're beneficial, for some people they're useless, for some people they're even deleterious.

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So for some people traditions just get in their way.

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For some people it's the only opportunity they have.

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For the ordinary Sri Lankan villager it's sometimes the only excuse that they have to come and practice meditation.

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So they have here a day off and they're not expected to work, they're not expected to do anything.

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So now finally they have a chance to practice and cultivate good deeds.

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And I would say there are various traditions that are like this, that are a reminder for people, just like having a schedule, having these things that when, for example, before you eat to offer food to the Buddha, it's a reminder for the person of the Buddha's teaching and of the Buddha's greatness and so on, and can potentially lead people closer to the practice.

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So I wouldn't say important in the sense that you're missing something, but beneficial in the sense that they may possibly help you or encourage you in your practice.

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Having a Buddha image, bowing down to the Buddha image once in a while, these can be beneficial things.

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Can be.

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I've talked about the Buddha image before and how I'm ambivalent about it or I have two different takes on the Buddha image that it can actually be dangerous.

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It can certainly be beneficial.

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I know for me the Buddha image was a very important support when I was first learning about Buddhism, when I was first practicing meditation because my mind was quite in chaos.

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And just seeing the Buddha image at one point in my meditation course really brought me back and gave me the confidence.

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And I needed to continue my practice.

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Was the Buddha image important?

75
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Actually, I would say for me it was quite important.

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If I hadn't have seen the Buddha image, I probably would have still finished the course.

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But it was an important beneficial experience for me that did change my practice.

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just psychologically gave me the support, reminded me about, you know, this is not something simple that I'm doing, and encouraged me.

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And I gave myself up to the Buddha and it made me think, I don't have to worry anymore.

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It can be as much pain as

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As much pain as there will be, I don't have to cling to it.

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It's not me.

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It's not mine.

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It's now the Buddha's.

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It belongs to him now.

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I felt freed from my feelings of guilt and of all the things that I had done which were immoral and improper.

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I think they can be useful.