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| MYTH. From the Greek mythos, meaning “legend”. The term usually refers to narratives that are either not literally true or not known to be true. In the twentieth century when some theologians set out to de-mythologize Christianity, they sought to expunge from it stories of the miraculous and supernatural. NATURAL THEOLOGY. Reflection and argument on the natural world to learn about God’s nature and will. Natural theology differs from revealed theology, which reflects on God and the world on the grounds of what is believed to be divine revelation, e.g., the Bible or the Qur’an. NIHILISM. From the Latin nihil, meaning “nothing.” The denial of values. Advocates of radical orthodoxy claim that the Western, Enlightenment tradition ultimately leads to nihilism. NIRVANA. From the Pali nibbāna, meaning “to blow out” or “extinguish”. According to Buddhism, nirvana, or Enlightenment, is the ultimate goal for which we ought to strive. It is the only way to overcome the suffering (dukkha) of life and end the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). To attain nirvana, one must shed the illusion of selfhood and “blow out” all greed, hatred, and delusion. Nirvana is similar to the Hindu concept of moksha. ORIGINAL SIN. While not affirmed in the Apostle’s or Nicene Creeds, prominent Christian theologians (especially Augustine) developed an account of the implications of the Fall of humanity. Partly based on the teaching about the Edenic disobedience and fall, as well as scripture passages such as Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, theologians held that the descendants of Adam and Eve share in their ancestral guilt. One way to intuitively build a case for original sin is if we imagine one’s ancestors in some way committed a moral violation in the course of procreation. From a moral point of view, their progeny should not exist; their mere existing is, in a sense, the effect (however remote) of something that should not have occurred. Theological reflection on the implications of original sin has been contentious. A prominent argument against original sin is that guilt cannot be transferable. So, even if one’s ancestors committed some punishable, blame-worthy wrong, it does not follow that their children should be punished or blamed for wrong-doing. Some theologians speculated that original sin was transmitted by male semen (hence Jesus did not inherit original sin, due to the virgin birth). Kant speculated that all humans in some sense are united with Adam in the fall through a kind of timeless, radical evil that we all freely elect. Jonathan Edwards speculated that God could treat all of us as united with Adam and Eve by fiat (viz. by God regarding all of us as one being, represented by our ancestors, we actually become organically united in guilt). Some theologians depict the nature of original sin in terms of human depravity, whereas others see original sin as simply marking a tendency among humans toward evil. PACIFISM. From the Latin pax (peace) + facere (to make). A strict pacifist believes all violence even if in self-defense is impermissible. More modest forms of pacifism hold that self-defense and the use of force or violence is not morally required. It has been argued that pacifism involves passive injustice insofar as a pacifist may not prevent wrongful killing. Strong pacifist traditions may be found in Jainism and the Society of Friends (Quakers). The Amish and Mennonites also have strong pacifist histories. PANENTHEISM. From the Greek pan + en + theos, meaning “everything in God” (cf. Acts 17:28). The belief that everything is in God. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism insofar as it allows for the existence of God to extend beyond the world as well; God is in all things yet also beyond them. PERCEPTION. In philosophy of religion, there is attention to what we may perceive (is it possible to perceive God?) and the evidential significance of perceptual claims (e.g., assessing claims to perceive the sacred, miracles, the self). Perception is customarily thought to involve judgments, e.g., for someone to perceive that the Dalai Lama is present, she must judge that she is perceiving the Dalai Lama. By contrast, you may sense the Dalai Lama without knowing you are sensing (seeing) him. PLURALISM. The term is sometimes used descriptively to designate the presence of variety (e.g., the U.S. is a pluralistic society) and sometimes normatively (e.g., salvation or enlightenment may be found in multiple religions). PROPHET. A person inspired directly by the divine or through a messenger, such as an angel, to spread religious teachings about the divine. PROVIDENCE. Synonym for God in Christian theology since the Middle Ages. The derivation of this word from the Latin pro + videntia, meaning “fore-sight,” points to understandings of God as omniscient, or as foreseeing or foreordaining events. Self-identified theists customarily believe God to be provident. QI. Literally air or breath, qi is the matter or material force that, along with li or principle, makes up all existence. The concept of li and qi was developed by the neo-Confucian philosophers Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, and Zhu Xi. They taught that all things have a fundamental principle of form, called li. All li together constitute the limitless Supreme Ultimate, the principle underlying all existence. The Supreme Ultimate, a non-theistic transcendental order, is in all things. Li provides the form, but material existence comes from qi. The central issue of neo-Confucianism applies this scheme to human nature. Confucian orthodoxy held that human nature, the basis of all virtues, is good, but human nature as it really exists is a manifestation of li through qi. Qi can be impure, muddied, or dulled, and humans have an obligation to purify their qi through education and selfcultivation. QUR’AN. Arabic, “the recitation.” The holy book of Islam. Muslims believe that God revealed it through the Angel Jibril (Gabriel) to the Prophet Muhammad over the course of 23 years. It contains 114 suras (chapters) offering divine guidance for human beings. The Qur’an includes many stories and characters from the Jewish and Christian scriptures, claiming that they also come from Allah (Arabic for “God”), but that the Qur’an is Allah’s final and perfect revelation. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the literal word of God and hence prefer to use only the original Arabic version. They treat physical copies of the Qur’an with great respect and take insults of it to be blasphemy. RATIONALITY / REASONABLE. Some philosophers treat the word “rationality” as an instrumental form of thinking, such that it is rational to do X if it is the case that the agent desires to do Y and X is the most efficient means to bring about Y. The term “reasonable” is sometimes used by way of contrast to name the ability to assess the worthiness of the desires themselves. If you desire to go to Rome, it may be rational to go there by such and such means, but one may then ask the question of whether desiring to go to Rome is the most reasonable goal to have in the first place, given all other alternatives. REALISM. The thesis that there are true and false propositions and beliefs about reality and that these are not simply or entirely a matter of social convention. For most realists, truth is not a matter that is essentially linked to language. Hence, most realists think there were truths before language-speaking evolved. REFORMATION, the. A protest movement (hence: Protestants) in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that sought to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Most date its inception to the publication of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses (1517), although others, such as John Wycliffe and Johannes Hus, had been pushing for reform earlier. Among other things, Luther criticized the Church’s practice of selling indulgences and its teachings about purgatory. He was soon joined by other reformers, such as Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. Although their original intention was to reform the Church, the reformers ultimately broke from the Roman Catholic Church and founded the Protestant Church. Disagreements among Protestants led to the formation of a variety of different denominations. Today, the Protestant Church includes Anglicans, Baptists, Calvinists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and many others. REINCARNATION. Reincarnation refers to the belief in the rebirth or return of human souls or persons to life again in some form after death. It is one of the oldest and most widespread beliefs in human cultures, present in the indigenous cultures of Australia, West African, the Pacific Northwest, India, Egypt, and Greece. Reincarnation is often linked to ancestral cults since those who are born are considered to be a return of ancestors (in some cultures the identification is very precise, e.g., a recently deceased relative). While most often considered in tandem with the law of karma (respective fruits of good or evil deeds are generated causally in this life or the next), not all versions of reincarnation are linked to such an ethical component. Reincarnation is also occasionally linked to vegetarianism as in the case of Pythagorean reincarnation, since one ought to remain pure by not eating the flesh of those who may have been human persons in past lives. Reincarnation need not be limited to the human realm, and, indeed, in many of its forms, the human rebirth is just one of many possible realms of rebirth (including plants, insects, ghosts, animals, residents of hell, and gods, depending on the particular theory). Belief in reincarnation (or a continuing cycle of rebirth-death-rebirth) is fundamental in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism even though their respective accounts of how it occurs are quite different. Buddhism is often singled out as a special case since the historical Buddha also aught the doctrine of anatman (no-self, or no enduring substantial soul) which would seem to rule out reincarnation. But Buddhism accepts rebirths by considering succeeding lives (rebirths) to be part of the same causal stream. In Greek thought, along with Pythagoras the philosophers, Empedocles, Plato, and Plotinus all held to some form of reincarnation. Platonic reincarnation in particular is characterized by a dualism of soul /mind and body with the goal of release of the soul / mind from the body. Indian thought also offers various methods of seeking release from the cycle of successive rebirths (samsara), since it is held that these continuous rebirths are characterized by a type of suffering. When ethical considerations are tied to it (e.g., when karma is accepted), reincarnation allows one to extend the frame beyond this life for questions about justice and appropriate rewards and punishments. Unfair advantages or disadvantages in this life might be the fruits of previous good / evil actions one has done in a previous life, and similarly punishments and rewards for actions done in this life might not be realized in this life but in later reincarnations. Reincarnation need not be immediate between lives; some versions of reincarnation assume waiting periods between rebirths of a few days or even many years. See also TRANSMIGRATION. RELIGION. Considerable controversy surrounds the definition of “religion.” Definitions that explicitly identify the belief in a God as an essential feature of religion seem too narrow, as that would exclude some forms of Buddhism. A popular definition of “religion” today is through giving examples, e.g., a religion is a tradition such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, or those traditions like them. An alternative definition which aims at giving greater guidance is as follows: A religion is a body of teachings and prescribed practices about an ultimate, sacred reality or state of being that calls for reverence or awe, that guides its practitioners into what it describes as a saving, illuminating, or emancipatory relationship to this reality through a personally transformative life of prayer, ritualized meditations, and /or moral practices like repentance and moral and personal regeneration. REVELATION. In theology and philosophy of religion, revelation refers to a disclosure of God either through events (ostensible acts of God) or through language (which is special in that it differs from whatever general revelation of God is available through reflection on the cosmos). Paradigmatic cases of revelation are in the form of auditions (heard speech or sounds as when one appears to hear music “in one’s mind” when there are no musicians or recordings being played) or mediated language through a prophet, oracle, or some other human agent. The Qur’an is traditionally understood to be God’s very words, dictated to the Prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. RITUAL / RITES. Religious rites are repeatable symbolic actions involving the sacred. Such rites include prayers involving praise (worship or adoration), petition and confession, vows, commissions such as ordination, rites of passage such as baptism, confirmation, marriage ceremonies, funeral rites and burials, communion or the Eucharist (also called Mass or the Lord’s Supper), feasts, fasts, alms giving, vigils, lamentations, blessings, thanksgiving, grace before meals, and contemplative or meditative prayer. SACRAMENT. Sacraments are liturgical rites that are both sensible signs and means by which divine grace is communicated to humans partaking in those rites. Sacraments were defined by Augustine as the “visible form of invisible grace,” by Thomas of Aquinas as “a sign of a sacred thing inasmuch as it sanctifies humans,” and by Richard Hooker as “outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace.” The word is derived from Latin sacramentum, which is a translation of the Greek mysterion. Christian churches do not agree on the exact number or nature of the sacraments. The Roman Catholic Church acknowledges seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction (a.k.a. “Last Rites”), Orders, and Matrimony. Many Protestant churches name only two, Baptism and Eucharist, following the Augustinian definition of sacraments as visible signs, the others lacking a visible element. Some churches acknowledge no sacraments or do not enumerate them. Sacramental theology raises certain philosophical questions about human nature, the nature of grace, and the means of its communication. Thomas of Aquinas effectively married Aristotelian hylomorphism (i.e., the doctrine that distinguishes the matter and form of a thing) to Christian theology resulting in the doctrine of transubstantiation. Sacraments are closely connected to the mystery of the incarnation, which is often taken to be the basis or example of all other sacraments. Many recent theologies prefer a symbolic, rather than a metaphysical, account of sacraments, in which sacraments are a means of symbolic participation in the mystery of the incarnation. SATAN. The Hebrew word satan (rendered in the Greek New Testament as satanas) means “adversary,” or “one who plots against” another. The word appears only rarely in the earliest Hebrew literature, but appears more frequently in the later wisdom literature, notably Job, where Satan is Job’s invisible tormentor. In the Septuagint, it is usually translated into Greek as diabole, from which our word “devil” is derived. In the New Testament, this sense of Satan as accuser is contrasted with the idea that the Holy Spirit is parakletos or defender of the faithful. In later philosophy and theology “Satan” is synonymous with “Lucifer” and “the Devil.” SCIENCE AND RELIGION. In the West, the relationship between science and religion can be viewed in three ways. Probably most widely represented in popular culture is the conflict thesis, according to which religion has often served to impede scientific progress. The conflict thesis was advanced by John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White in the nineteenth century, who highlighted the church’s resistance to Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin. A second thesis is that religion provides an essential foundation for the practice of science. Acknowledging the regrettable times when the church failed to recognize good science, Alfred North Whitehead and others argued that theism provided early modern scientists a philosophical foundation for expecting the world to have a natural order that was rationally intelligible and explainable. Newton’s claim that as a scientist he sought to think God’s thoughts after him supports this positive stance. A third position may simply be called the complexity thesis, which neither sees science and religion in essential conflict nor sees religion as foundational to science. Such an outlook was articulated by William Whewell in the nineteenth century and Stephen Jay Gould in the twentieth century. Questions that arise in the literature on science and religion include: Does big bang cosmology support a theistic understanding of the cosmos? Does it appear that the emergence of life in the solar system rests on fine-tuning and is this best explained naturalistically or in terms of theism? Is evolutionary biology able to account for the emergence of consciousness, morality, and religion? Is evolutionary biology compatible with traditional Christianity? What impact might contemporary neurology have on the assessment of religious experience? Does contemporary physics support presentism (the idea that all times are equally real) and does this support the thesis that there may be a divine, eternal being for whom all times are present? Does science support or undermine concepts of freedom and responsibility? SEVEN DEADLY SINS. The Seven Deadly Sins are the capital vices in Christianity. They are listed in increasing increments of evil: (1) Lust (luxuria), excessive thoughts and desires of a sexual nature, (2) Gluttony (gula), the over-indulgence in something, especially food, to the point of waste, (3) Greed (avaritia), acquisition of excessive wealth, (4) Sloth (acedia), spiritual or physical apathy by discontent, leading to failure to appreciate and act, (5) Wrath (ira), uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger, (6) Envy (invidia), an insatiable coveting of the goods of others, and the wish to deprive them of their goods, (7) Pride (superbia), an undue idea of one’s own greatness and ability, interfering with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. Pride is considered the sin from which other sins arise. This list of the seven was established by Gregory the Great. The Seven Deadly Sins were promoted through Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which each wicked soul was punished for his sin accordingly by contrapasso (symbolic, poetic justice). SHAME. A feeling or emotion of embarrassment, dishonor, or a sense of regrettable failure. Shame need not be due to a moral failure for which one is personally responsible. So, while one may feel guilt as well as shame, a person can feel shame without feeling guilt. For example, a person may feel shame about being small of stature, but not feel guilty over his or her size. See also GUILT. SHINTOISM. Shintoism or Shinto, from the Sino-Japanese shin (gods) and tō (way or dao) refers to the indigenous religion that existed in Japan before the introduction of Buddhism and has coexisted with Buddhism to the present. It originated as a form of prehistoric animism and polytheism, emcompassing the worship of spirits representing different phenomena of nature and ancestors of clans. Eventually local religious cults were integrated with mythology. The Sun Goddess Amaterasu, as the putative ancestor of the imperial family, emerged as the most important deity for the purposes of political legitimization. Yet Shinto is primarily concerned with nature. All great works of nature—waterfalls, huge trees, unusual rocks, and so on—are kami or sacred beings. Kami does not mean “god” or divinity in the Western sense, but suggests awesomeness and special powers. Emperors themselves came to be regarded as kami, but the distinction between humans and divinities was not clearly drawn. Shinto lacks any clear moral code -that came later with Buddhism. The stress in Shinto is not so much ethics or morality as it is ritual purity, which is tarnished by physical dirtiness, disease, menstruation, childbirth, wounds, and contact with death. Such defilement must be overcome by exorcism and cleansing ceremonies. SIN. The concept of sin is principally found in theistic traditions and refers to a violation of God’s will or commands. In traditions without a Godhead, such as early Buddhism, there is little room for the concept of sin. In theistic traditions, sin can be grounds for punishment or blame by God (even if sin is not a sufficient condition for a civil magistrate to impose punishment) and sins can be removed or covered (no longer constituting a barrier to relationship with God) by divine and human forgiveness and mercy. See also ORIGINAL SIN and SEVEN DEADLY SINS. SOUL. Sometimes used interchangeably with self or selfhood, “soul” is often used informally to refer to someone’s integrity (“he lost his soul by getting an academic post through selective, sycophantish praise of the appointment committee”) or technically, as a nonphysical locus of personal identity (“when he dies, his soul will be with the Lord”). Aristotle used the term we translate as “soul” in a more general sense to refer to the form or principle of life of an organism. On this view, plants have souls. TAWHID. The Islamic belief in God’s oneness. This is often held up in discussions with Christians about Jesus, who Muslims believe to be a prophet and not a “partner with God.” See also MONOTHEISM. THEISM. A term that was introduced in the seventeenth century in English to refer to the belief in a single Creator-God who is omniscient, omnipotent, all good, omnipresent, eternal or everlasting, and a being that does not depend on any other being for its existence. Theists believe that the cosmos exists due to the causal conserving power of God and, if the cosmos had a beginning, it originated by God’s creating it. As opposed to deists, theists believe that God is revealed in human history. Theism is not limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Theistic elements may be found in Hinduism and elsewhere. See also ABRAHAMIC FAITHS and MONOTHEISM. THEODICY. From the Greek theos “god” + dikē “judgment” or “right.” A theodicy is an account of why an all-good, allpowerful, all-loving God allows (or does not prevent) what appears to be the evil of or in creation. TOLERATION. The enduring of that which is deemed wrong or disagreeable. Toleration is distinct from respect. A person may tolerate what he or she respects and deems socially important or a person may tolerate what she does not respect. An example of the former might be a society which tolerates (does not prosecute) pacifists on the grounds that it is good for persons to follow their conscience even if that conflicts with the majority decisions of the society. An example of the second may be “soft pornography” which a society may not respect, but it judges that to prohibit such pornography would create great damage, e.g., giving rise to an even more intolerable underground movement is sex trafficking. Alternatively, someone may respect what they do not tolerate. Someone might admire the determination and love that a Jehovah Witness displays for her child, but not tolerate her religiously motivated refusal to let her child receive a blood transfusion when necessary to save the child’s life. TRINITY, DOCTRINE OF. In Christianity, the belief that God is not a homogenous or undifferentiated being but rather that God is one in substance and three in persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The triune nature of God has been treated in the Western church as involving the Father begetting the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. For the Orthodox in the East, the Holy Spirit is understood as proceeding from the Father and who, together with the Father and the Son, is to be worshiped and glorified. Traditional, canonical views of the trinity in the Church (both East and West) have sought a middle ground, avoiding what are generally seen as unacceptable alternatives. Among the views that traditional Christianity seeks to avoid is modalism, which sees the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three modes or ways in which God is revealed to creation. In some churches, modalism is suggested when a blessing is offered in the name of God, as creator redeemer, and sanctifier. These three titles refer to God as revealed in human history as opposed to referring to the Godhead without reference to modes of divine action in the world. Another unacceptable position is some form of tri-theism in which Christians wind up acknowledging three Gods. A recent project among some Christian philosophers is to defend what is called a social theory of the trinity according to which there are three divine centers of consciousness but not three distinct Gods. UNITARIANISM. The name of an anti-Trinitarian movement with elements going back to the sixteenth century. For much of its history, the movement recognized Jesus as the Messiah, but not as the second member of the trinity. Today, the religious body of Unitarianism is more comprehensive and not committed to Jesus as Messiah or Redeemer. VEDANTA. Sanskrit, “the end of the Veda.” One of the six schools of orthodox Hinduism, Vedanta privileges the Upanishads, which come at the end of the Veda. There are three main schools of thought within Vedanta: Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. VEDAS. Sanskrit, “knowledge” or “sacred love”. The Vedas are the earliest Hindu sacred texts and date back to the Vedic period (c. 1500–700 BCE). Combined, they contain over 10,000 verses in total. Along with the Brahmanas, they are considered shruti, which means “that which is heard,” i.e., revelation, as opposed to other sacred texts, which are smriti (“that which is remembered”). They were originally transmitted orally using elaborate memorization techniques, and there is no scholarly consensus as to when they were first written down. The emergence of curses around the fifth century CE for those who use the written Vedas suggests that there must have been written copies of at least parts of the Vedas by that time. They were codified by at least the eighth century BCE (although whether in written or oral form is debated), so that, remarkably, no textual variants exist today. The Vedas are made up of four main collections: the Rig-Veda (book of hymns and prayers), the Yajur-Veda (book of sacrificial procedures), the Sama-Veda (book of chants to accompany sacrifices), and the Athar-Veda (book of magic and philosophical lore and musings). The Vedas are considered timeless and made up of wisdom that neither God nor humans created. WILL. In philosophy of religion, focus on the will is often in relation to questions of freedom (viz. Do human beings have free will?), value (Is it good that we are creatures with wills of our own?), and the philosophy of God (If God wills that persons do X, is X morally required)? See DIVINE COMMAND THEORY. WISDOM. Wisdom (or sophia) was considered both a practical and theoretical virtue in ancient Greek philosophy. “Philosophy” literally means “the love of wisdom” and was considered by Greco-Roman moralists in ancient philosophy to be an enterprise which took practical life and values seriously. There is also a body of literature called Wisdom literature, a popular genre in ancient Near Eastern cultures. Wisdom (Hebrew: chochmah) is practical and empirical in its focus, addressing everyday issues of life, often from a secular standpoint that seeks to understand the principles of order in the world and organize human life accordingly. It is considered international in scope and thus applicable to all. In the Hebrew Bible, books such as Proverbs, Job, and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) are categorized as wisdom literature. In Jewish-Christian dialogue, wisdom literature is often given prominence, for there is some similarity between the Hebrew Wisdom literature in which wisdom is characterized as a person (in Proverbs, wisdom cries out to the people) and Christian tradition in which the person Jesus Christ is seen as the embodiment of wisdom. YHWH. Also known as the Tetragramaton (Greek, “four letters”). These four Hebrew consonants (Yodh He Waw He) constitute the sacred name of the God of the Israelites as revealed to Moses (Exodus 3:14) and are connected with the verb hayah, “to be.” Jewish tradition prohibits the vocalization of the divine name and observant Jews substitute Adonai (Hebrew for “Lord”) when reading the scriptures aloud. It is usually rendered as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” in English. YIN-YANG. In Chinese philosophy, a concept indicating the interconnected and interdependent nature of ostensibly opposite forces. The characters yin and yang originally meant dark and bright sides of a sunlit bank, but by the time of Confucius they referred to the duality inherent in all things. The yin-yang theory gained prominence toward the end of the Chou Dynasty, resulting in the Yin-Yang School (attributed to Tsou Yen, c. 305–240 BCE). The theory was further developed by philosophers in the Han Dynasty, especially Tung Chung-shu (c. 179–104 BCE). It influenced virtually all aspects of Chinese life (metaphysics, cosmology, government, art, and so on). Yin is characterized as non-being, negative, passive, slow, weak, destructive, earth, dark, female, mother, soft, and wet. Yang is characterized as being, positive, active, fast, strong, constructive, heaven, light, male, father, hard, and bright. Yin and Yang are balanced in a dynamic equilibrium and represent the principle of unity in duality. Their interaction is the cause of all life. ZEN BUDDHISM. A branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in China as Ch’an beginning in the seventh century CE. It later spread to Vietnam (where it is known as Thi_n Buddhism), Korea, and Japan. Zen Buddhism stresses a form of sitting meditation known as zazen and other practices in order to cultivate experiential wisdom, believing that excessive focus on texts and theoretical knowledge can deter one from experientially realizing bodhi (enlightenment or awakening). Chinese and Vietnamese Zen are much gentler compared to the shocking Japanese Rinzai. Within Japanese Zen, the two main schools are Soto and Rinzai. Soto Zen is a calm version of Japanese Zen where practitioners spend most of their time in sitting meditation and wait to realize enlightenment. In Soto Zen, the meditator does not focus on anything, so if a thought arises, they are to acknowledge it and let it fade away. Rinzai Zen, on the other hand, is the school that the West has adopted. Rinzai has a strong focus on the koan (a statement or question-and-answer that does not make any logical sense, such as “What is the Buddha? The rooster crows at daybreak.”) and the awakening stick (a flat wooden rod that is used on meditators as a reminder to stay focused or to encourage “sudden enlightenment”). The Rinzai meditator focuses on breathing and the koan in hopes of attaining satori, or “sudden enlightenment.” Zen, as a whole, is a very individualistic tradition, meaning that it is up to the individual to decide how to practice Zen and there are no set rules on how to practice; the individual or the school can pick and choose which, if any, Buddhist doctrines to accept. Zen does, however, emphasize the importance of questioning everything, otherwise the follower is no better than a parrot who repeats words without knowing the significance. Zen prides itself on being illogical, and the use of the koan and the awakening stick are examples of non- rational ways of reaching enlightenment. ZOROASTRIANISM. The main religion in Persia (now Iran) prior to the advent of Islam, founded by Zarathustra (Greek, Zoroaster). Most scholars believe Zarathustra was born around 570 BCE, although some date his birth as far back as the fifteenth century BCE. His sayings are preserved in the Gāthās, which are part of the Avesta (“Book of the Law”). Zoroastrianism teaches a mixture of monotheism and dualism. Ahura Mazdah is the supreme deity, but he has an evil and slightly less powerful opponent, Aura Mainyu. Zoroastrians interpret the world in terms of a cosmic battle between good and evil at present, but believe that Ahura Mazdah (good) will ultimately triumph over Aura Mainyu (evil). Human beings have free will, and their actions determine their eternal destiny. Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism, Mithraism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism. After the fall of the Sassanid Empire in 651 CE, many Zoroastrians migrated to India. Today, the majority of Zoroastrians live in India, where they are known as Parsis. The small remnant of believers in Iran are known as Garbars. МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования |
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