Warwick Uni Buddhist Society Meets Again.
A new term has begun and Warwick Uni Buddhist Society met again last Thursday on central campus in room R1.13. This is a better room than we've sometimes used but it made me wonder whether there are any environmentalists at Warwick. By the time we finished on that mild autumnal night the room was like a sauna and the contribution to global warming at WU had been impressive.
Unfortunately for the Buddhist Society some of its previous stalwarts have moved on to higher things so now it's up to Kay, Madam President for this year, to let our presence be known and drum up some fresh interest and new members. And she's made an excellent and enthusiastic beginning, although we may have to wait a bit for the full effect to be realised.
On Thursday Kay had arranged for me to give an introduction to Buddhism and to be questioned by a young lady from the Warwick Boar, a Warwick student rag. The reason for the interview was not so much our presence as the recent formation of another religious society at Warwick, the Atheist Society! The young lady who was to interview me was writing an article about it for the Boar and sensibly talking to other religious groups to get their views and see how they felt about the arrival on the scene of an Atheist Society. I was told that it could have been things written and said lately by Richard Dawkins that had inspired the formation of this new society. I believe the President of the Atheist Society had already suggested to my interviewer that Buddhism was probably an atheist religion and so she wanted to hear what I had to say about it. Well of course we don't recognise or believe in the existence of a creator god and in the Brahmajala Sutta the Buddha warns of the danger of clinging to beliefs that are still influenced by greed and hatred and rooted in delusion. So I felt an immediate sympathy when I saw that Dawkins' book was called The God Delusion and read that he had apparently said in a Channel 4 programme, The Enemies of Reason, in August that: "There are two ways of looking at the world — through faith and superstition, or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence, through reason."
I gather we're meeting in the same room next Thursday from half-past six, when the subject of my discourse is supposed to be The Mind and Meditation and I hope we will also be practising a few minutes of concentrated and clear observation.
Unfortunately for the Buddhist Society some of its previous stalwarts have moved on to higher things so now it's up to Kay, Madam President for this year, to let our presence be known and drum up some fresh interest and new members. And she's made an excellent and enthusiastic beginning, although we may have to wait a bit for the full effect to be realised.
On Thursday Kay had arranged for me to give an introduction to Buddhism and to be questioned by a young lady from the Warwick Boar, a Warwick student rag. The reason for the interview was not so much our presence as the recent formation of another religious society at Warwick, the Atheist Society! The young lady who was to interview me was writing an article about it for the Boar and sensibly talking to other religious groups to get their views and see how they felt about the arrival on the scene of an Atheist Society. I was told that it could have been things written and said lately by Richard Dawkins that had inspired the formation of this new society. I believe the President of the Atheist Society had already suggested to my interviewer that Buddhism was probably an atheist religion and so she wanted to hear what I had to say about it. Well of course we don't recognise or believe in the existence of a creator god and in the Brahmajala Sutta the Buddha warns of the danger of clinging to beliefs that are still influenced by greed and hatred and rooted in delusion. So I felt an immediate sympathy when I saw that Dawkins' book was called The God Delusion and read that he had apparently said in a Channel 4 programme, The Enemies of Reason, in August that: "There are two ways of looking at the world — through faith and superstition, or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence, through reason."
I gather we're meeting in the same room next Thursday from half-past six, when the subject of my discourse is supposed to be The Mind and Meditation and I hope we will also be practising a few minutes of concentrated and clear observation.
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