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A Secular Buddhist

Secular Buddhism is something to do, not something to believe in.Stephen Batchelor

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Secular BuddhistI am a secular Buddhist. It has taken me years to fully “come out,” and I still feel a nagging tug of insecurity, a faint aura of betrayal in declaring myself in these terms. My practice as a secular Buddhist is concerned with responding as sincerely and urgently as possible to the suffering of life in our saeculum—this world, this age in which we find ourselves now and future generations will find themselves later. I see the aim of Buddhist practice to be not the attainment of a final nirvana but rather the moment-to-moment flourishing of human life within the ethical framework of the Eightfold Path here on earth.

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