The question of whether Buddhism is a religion, philosophy, or way of life is widely debated. For the many scholars and practitioners who agree it’s a religion (or a family of religions), “secular Buddhism” or “secular dharma” sounds like oxymoron. Is it? We must take a look at the word “secular,” which has three overlapping meanings:

• Contrasted with or seen as being in opposition to “religious”;
• From the Latin word saeculum, originally meaning a human lifespan but later understood as a century, it refers to worldly concerns about the quality of our personal, social, and environmental experience on Earth;
• In Western countries, it describes the profound cultural transformation in which metaphysical beliefs and religious truth claims are no longer of central importance, and in which even some traditional religious bodies emphasize belonging and ethical practices instead.

Secular dharma, or Secular Buddhism, is “secular” in the sense of the second and third definitions of the word. The emergence of secular dharma is just one instance of the secularization that has been developing in the West since before the European Enlightenment. Seen historically, secularity consists of a centuries-long religious development rather than a victory of science over religion. Today’s secularity is marked by a cultural decline of truth claims, particularly those that involve supernatural beings or phenomena.

DJK Commentary: If the secularity is divisional, with a predispositon for duality, then the state of duality would be the grounds for understanding, not the understanding itself.

Not two, not one, but two and one at the same time. A wise way so they say.

View the rest of the article below:

Why “secular”? Isn’t Buddhism a religion?

From Tricycle.org