#religiousliteracy

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Dakini

Hey everyone! Now that the Christmas season is over, it’s back to Buddhism! Today I wanted to talk about a concept that I don’t think is super well known about in Buddhism: the Dakini. Dakini are complex creatures to talk about, but they are a sort of supernatural term that is pretty close to the English idea of a witch, or maybe even a fairy in some sense. They aren’t like a widespread Buddhist idea, but only find themselves in tantric traditions like the Vajrayana Buddhists. In these traditions, sex, whether it be literal or metaphorical, is a pathway to enlightenment, and it requires male and female sexual energy to accomplish that. I’m not an expert so please correct me if I am wrong, but my readings on the subject seem to imply that the Dakini is the source of the female sexual energy needed for the rituals, that she, whether she is a low class woman brought in for the job or an actual supernatural creature summoned for the task.

This term is super vague and flexible, so I have a hard time pinning it down, but a great example of a dakin would be Ma-gcig Lab-sgron, a figure of Tantric Buddhism born in 1055. She is complicated to pin down, as she is a real figure, but also a supernatural one, a person who has many titles and attributes that would take a while to look into, but she might be a good starting place for anyone curious about what a dakini means. But for now, that’s all I have to share. I hope you’re all safe and have a wonderful day.

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Theravada

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Hey everybody! Today I wanted to share some stuff about the potlatch. Have a great day everyone! #religiousstudies #religiousliteracy #nativeamericanreligions #nativeamericanreligioustraditions #potlatch #northwestcoast https://www.instagram.com/p/CqHy-PcgUBZ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Singh

Hey everyone. Happy Saturday. Today I wanted to look at the last name “Singh” and it’s spiritual importance to the Sikh people. Singh is an Indian last name best translated as “Lion.” Many people in India or of Indian inherit this last name from their parents. Sikhs, a religion originally from the Punjab region of India, will have this last name more than any other group because they attach spiritual significance to the last name. In fact, typically, any male child born into the Sikh faith will be given the last name Singh. This was a tradition that Guru Gobind Singh, who called forward the panj piare, the Lovely Five, and started the Khalsa with many new distinctive factors, including changing his own name and the names of the panj piare to Singh. This was to emphasize their loyalty to the guru and their willingness to fight as lions to protect him, or it as the current Guru stands. The implies that faith is so important to the Sikh people, so much so that it is their identity through and through, but of course individual tastes may vary in this communal tradition. Anyway, I hope that you all are safe out there and have a great day.

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Yoni

Hey everyone. So, to close off my Hinduism talks (for now) I wanted to talk about the yoni. Yoni is the female genital organ, what we would call a vagina in English. I know that some people talk about “pussy worship,” but like the Hindus have had religious significance of the Yoni for a long time. Like, I’ve been to a religious ritual where they have a linga, which represents Shiva’s genitalia, but it is always paired with a Yoni. In fact, people even worship the goddess at a temple in Kamarupa where her Yoni is depicted in a cave. The yoni is a common motif in Hinduism, although mostly with Shiva’s linga. (By the way, cool ritual, I will say. It was wonderful to watch at my local temple). But the point of it is not to literally worship vaginas. It’s meant to point to the ability to create life, the ability for a woman to create a living creature inside her body is seen as a divine power, even if, sadly, the male vitality is more appreciated and the bigger focus. But seriously, I recommend checking out your local Hindu temple to see the idol of Shiva’s linga and the goddess’s yoni and getting to see how much these faithful people care for it. But I am just one man who knows a very surface level knowledge about yoni, so I’m open to more viewpoints. But for now, I hope you’re all staying safe and having a great day.

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Bodhisattva

Hey everyone. So today I wanted to talk about Bodhisattvas. To do that, I need to talk about arhatship again. In Theravada Buddhism, the goal of the Buddha’s teachings are to get people to become enlightened, to become arhats, where they no longer feel desire, aversion, or ignorance. However, eventually a tradition comes along in Buddhism claiming to be better than Theravada, the Mahayana Buddhists. These new thinkers thought that individual enlightenment is great and all, but they had a problem with what they saw as the core philosophy. A great illustration I heard in college is that of an apartment building on fire.

Now, imagine that you live in an apartment building and it’s suddenly caught on fire. Most people would want to get out of it. That’s natural. That’s why so many people have religions at all, to escape the suffering of life. The Mahayana Buddhist might go as far as to say that the Theravada Buddhist would try to tell everyone, or at least everyone on the way out, about the fire and make sure they knew to escape but then let them save themselves as they escape as soon as possible. The Mahayana Buddhist would then suggest that a better man would be the person who, after figuring out how to escape, doesn’t do it, but stays inside to ensure that every person can escape, to quite literally save everyone. Heck, with the ideas of samsara in mind, they might actually stick around to save every dog, cat, fish, cockroach, and rat too while they’re at it.

Thus, the idea of the Bodhisattva was born. Sure, find enlightenment, but what you should do is swear to not find nirvana until every living soul finds nirvana first. That’s pretty incredible, not unlike the idea of martyrdom that’s glorified in faiths like Christianity. Thus, Buddhism changed drastically in this denomination. No longer did monks and nuns see themselves as people who sit under trees and meditate, but now they were active in communities, seeing the purpose of their lives as requiring two extra steps on top of the Eightfold Path, trying to do whatever they could for the betterment of all.

Even the idea of reincarnation changed. Now it was not just a system of wanting to go up and not down, or getting it just right at the human level, but an acknowledgment that every reincarnation could land the Bodhisattva anywhere. They could be a monk who has to save a tiger cub from its hungry mother, a wealthy prince who has the power to give anything to anyone, a quail with malformed wings, a warthog who has to deal with the abuse of a monkey, or a monkey who has to deal with the sexual advances of a rock demon, and all are aware of their vows and their purpose. All beings need enlightenment, and so the Bodhisattva goes wherever he is needed. There are so many stories about these figures and I highly recommend finding them out because they are quite cool tales to read and reflect upon.

Anyway, I’d love to learn more about the Bodhisattvas if anyone has more information. I hope that you all are having a good day and staying safe out there.

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Bhikku (Pali), Bhikshu (Sanskrit)

Hey everyone. So, yesterday, I talked about arhants, the enlightened beings in life. Today I wanted to talk about what comes before that. If you speak Pali, you’re going to pronounce it bhikku, but if you speak Sanskrit, you’d pronounce it bhikshu. What we would say in English, however, is just “Buddhist monk.” So yeah, if you want to be an arhant, to gain enlightenment, you’re going to have a better time of that if you’re a monk first. And in this case, monk is a good title because we have to clarify that this language is masculine in their respective cultures.

The monks are so important to Buddhism that, according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the Buddha himself supposedly said that he would not pass away until he had not just monks, but monks that know and live out his teachings so perfectly that they will increase both the number of Buddhists and the depth of Buddhist teachings. Of course, he also said this about women and lay people, a sort of entire spectrum of people, but, nonetheless, he does specify that monks will be a part of this picture.

To show just how strongly this holds today, look at the controversial case of Voramai Kabilsingh, a Thai woman who sought to become a monk. She had to fight so hard to gain any sort of religious or legal grounds just to wear robes that look similar to monk robes, all because the nuns were not considered truly ordained clergy. I would highly look into her story if you haven’t heard of her before because, trust me, it is rad. Otherwise, I hope you all are doing well and staying safe out there.

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Religious Studies Term Of The Day: Keshdhari Sikh