Name: Is Buddhism an Atheistic Religion?
Uploaded: 2024-10-30T20:35:26.000Z
Duration: 27 min 32 s
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According to Buddhist tradition, around 2,500 years ago in India, two young priests were debating the most direct path to union with Brahma, the Hindu creator god.

Reaching an impasse, they decided to get a third opinion.

A third opinion from the Awakened One himself, the Buddha.

After listening carefully to their arguments, the Buddha asked,

Well, has anyone back to the seventh generation of teachers seen Brahma with their own eyes?

Since apparently no one had met Brahma face to face, the Buddha declared their goal laughable, vain, and empty.

This story is recorded in the Tevijja Sutta, an early Buddhist text from around the 2nd century BCE.

As in, the Buddha is rejecting the notion of a creator god with a capital G.

There's a widespread assumption that Buddhism is fundamentally an atheistic religion, or maybe not a religion at all, but a way of life, or a set of practices that you could do without any appeal to the supernatural.

Even big-name atheists like Sam Harris have found a lot of value in Buddhist ideas and practices, even while at the same time rejecting its supernatural claims.

As we saw in the Tevijja Sutta, the Buddha rejected the notion of a supreme creator god, and taught there was no ultimate beginning to the universe.

But he did not reject the existence of gods in general, and other supernatural beings.

In these early centuries, the Buddhist pantheon included many Indian supernatural figures, and as it spread to other cultures and regions, the veneration of local deities and spirits was often integrated into Buddhism.

But the importance or role of these supernatural beings can differ a lot depending on the form of Buddhism.

The two major branches of Buddhism are Theravada and Mahayana.

Theravada, meaning the teaching of the elders, is the oldest surviving Buddhist school, and is primarily practiced in Southeast Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Cambodia.

It emphasizes the teachings of the Buddha found in the Pali Canon, and generally maintains a more reserved approach to the role of deities and supernatural beings in the pursuit of enlightenment.

Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, which means the great vehicle, emerged around the 1st century BCE, and is widely practiced across East Asian countries like China, Japan, and Korea.

Mahayana introduced new scriptures and concepts, including the idea of bodhisattvas, compassionate beings who postponed their enlightenment to help all sentient beings.

In Mahayana traditions, these bodhisattvas, along with various Buddhas and other divine beings, play a more active role in the spiritual lives of practitioners.

Devotional practices directed toward these beings are an integral part of the path to enlightenment.

People often venerate or pray to them for guidance and protection, which can make them appear more god-like in their attributes and functions.

In recent years, there's also been a growing interest in what's called secular Buddhism, especially in Western countries.

Secular Buddhists identify as Buddhist and engage in Buddhist practices, but may themselves be metaphysical naturalists, meaning they don't believe in any supernatural phenomena.

This approach to Buddhism focuses on the practical and philosophical aspects of the Buddha's teachings, while downplaying or reinterpreting the supernatural elements found in traditional Buddhist cosmology.

So, acknowledging this diversity, let's start by exploring how Buddhist scriptures describe the universe and the gods within it.

According to Buddhist cosmology, the universe is populated by mortal gods called devas, a Sanskrit and Pali word literally meaning radiant one or shining one.

The word is distantly related to the English word divinity, as part of the Indo-European language family.

But these devas are not all-knowing, they are not all-powerful, and they are not eternal.

They're more like the universe's fancy VIPs, but they're stuck in the cycle of rebirth along with humans, animals, and ghosts.

And it's possible for a human to be reborn as a deva as a result of their virtuous actions.

Now, this gets complicated, so buckle up.

From lowest to highest, we first have Kamadhatu, the realm of desire.

Then there's Rupadhatu, the realm of subtle materiality, also known as the realm of form.

And then there's Arupadhatu, the immaterial or formless realm.

These realms are located on and above the center of the Buddhist universe, Mount Meru.

This is the vertical axis of the entire universe in Buddhist cosmology.

Stretching up from the summit of Mount Meru and in the sky above it are layers of heavens.

31 realms stacked upon each other, 26 of which are devalokas, realms of existence where devas live.

Each layer has its own unique characteristics and is occupied by specific devas.

At the bottom of this cosmic layer cake are the six heavens of the lowest realm, the desire realm.

There's the heaven of the four heavenly kings, located on the upper slopes of Mount Meru.

On its summit is the heaven of the 33 devas, Trayastrimsa, which is ruled by the deva chakra, also known as Indra.

You might recognize him as a prominent Vedic god in the Rig Veda.

There's also the heaven of the contented, or Tushta, where the future Buddha Maitreya is believed to live.

And at the highest level of the realm of desire, you have the home to the malignant celestial king Mara.

So, yeah, there are a lot of devas, and we've only covered the entry-level heavens.

In the middle realm, Rupadhatu, or the form realm, you start running into the big leagues, the Brahma gods.

These devas have longer lifespans, bigger celestial bodies, and generally just more splendor.

While the devas of the lower heavens might live for a few hundred or thousand years, the devas of the higher heavens live for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

In fact, years aren't even a useful unit of time when measuring the lifespan of these devas.

The gods of the lower heavens eat food and have sex, while the gods of the upper realms don't eat and procreate simply by embracing, holding hands, or smiling at each other.

In fact, in one heaven, they procreate with a single glance.

So, watch your eye contact if you ever get reborn there. Things could get awkward.

And don't get me started with the devas residing in the highest realm, the immaterial realm.

Well, they don't even have bodies. Their existence is entirely mental.

They've transcended the physical world entirely, living in such a refined state that it's impossible to even say where they exist.

It's like trying to point to a thought or a dream. Where exactly is it?

But even these devas, devas at the highest pinnacle of immaterial existence, whose lives appear to be infinite, they cannot escape one fundamental truth of Buddhism.

No matter how long they live, no matter how splendid their bodies are, they don't possess a permanent essence.

According to various sutras, there are five warning signs when a deva of the realm of desire is about to die.

Their garland of flowers begins to fade, their clothes and palace become dusty, they begin to sweat, their body becomes opaque and loses its shine, and their throne becomes uncomfortable.

Then before they die, they witness their next rebirth.

This alone is said to be absolutely excruciating.

Imagine you're a deva, you're living in absolute splendor, and now you're witnessing your next lifetime that will almost certainly be dramatically worse.

It's quite literally all downhill from here, down the slopes of Mount Meru.

Of course, unless they can hear the teachings of the Buddha and attain nirvana.

This is why the Buddha himself is often described as a teacher of gods and men.

So yes, Buddhism definitely acknowledges the existence of countless gods.

The question is, can humans interact with these beings?

And more importantly, can they assist us toward full liberation?

This is where regional differences matter.

From the Theravada perspective, the answer is not really.

While gods do exist, they can't do much to save us.

This is partly because the higher gods of the plane of formlessness are way beyond our reach.

Simply because these beings have no physical form or location.

Even the gods that occupy the 16 or so heavens of the form realm are also out of our league for the most part.

Sure, the Buddha and a few of his most talented students are said to have contacted them.

But for the rest of us mortals, not so much.

But even if we could somehow contact these higher gods, they can't really help us toward awakening.

Since, as we've said, they're also trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth.

In fact, the heavenly realms lack the proper conditions for awakening.

These gods are said to be compassionate, but they're prone to delusion.

For example, they might end up thinking that they are the eternal creator.

For example, consider a story found in the Kavata Sutta, a text from the Pali Canon.

In this text, the Buddha tells a story about a monk who ascends into the heavens, stopping at different heavens along the way, and asking the devas living there to answer his question about the ultimate nature of reality.

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Is Buddhism an Atheistic Religion?

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