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8 - Religious Experience in Buddhism

from Part III - Religious Experience Outside Traditional Monotheism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2020

By
David Burton
Edited by
Paul K. Moser  and
Chad Meister
Paul K. Moser
Affiliation:
Loyola University, Chicago
Chad Meister
Affiliation:
Bethel University, Indiana
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Summary

Burton highlights the complexity of Buddhist attitudes to religious experience, thus challenging a western overemphasis on the role of personal experience and subjective factors in Buddhist religious experience, to the neglect of such social factors as rituals and scriptural components. He considers whether the Buddhist doctrine of no enduring, unchanging self can be justified by introspective experience, and he observes that this is a matter of controversy among Buddhist scholars.

Keywords

Religious experienceBuddhismEnlightenmentBuddhist doctrineSelfIntrospectionRitualScripture
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Religious Experience , pp. 187 - 207
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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