Exploring Seven Dimensions of Religion

Okay, so now let's talk about the seven dimensions of religion suggested by Nguyen Smart in 1992. In fact, in this video clip, we will try to cover three or four dimensions of religion first. So I will try to divide this lecture about the seven dimensions of religion into two video clips. So let's see how it works. So anyway, there are these are the seven dimensions of religion he categorized. The experiential and emotional dimension, the narrative or mythic dimension, the practical and ritual dimension, the doctrinal and philosophical dimension, the ethical and legal dimension, and the social and institutional dimension, and the last, the material dimension. Yeah, so let's... first talk about the experiential and emotional dimension. So, I mean, people experience an emotional reaction to something which they encounter as life-changing, profound, inspiring, and beautiful. I mean, think about all the starting point of different religions, like Buddhism, right? Prince of Gautama, he He experienced enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and became the first Buddha. There was some inner subjective experience of enlightenment. All of a sudden he came to realize and be awakened to the point he came to see the truth and encounter the truth of human being and suffering and liberation from this suffering, something like that. This is emotional experience. This is his peace. experience of religion and initiate this kind of religious experience, this kind of experience of some being something profound, something inspiring, something life-changing. This kind of stuff initiated these mainstream religions nowadays. How about Islam? Like the Muhammad, the founder of this Islamic religion. He experienced liberation from Allah. And how about Judaism? Abraham, the ancestor of the belief in this Judaism tradition, Abraham received contact and liberation from God. So, all these religions are based on the religious experience of the founder. who came to encounter something extraordinary, something transcendent, something divine, something inspiring, something life-changing. They come to be enlightened, they come to be awakened, and then they come to spread their messages and their words that they got from their God. So, I mean, all of these subjective and emotional religious experiences, they initiated particular religious traditions, as I already said. And they charged with, these religious experiences are charged with strong desire, emotional desire for something profound, something inspiring, and something beyond the ordinary life. So the focus is on the subjective experience and the emotional experience. So what goes on inside a person, inside a person. So others might not see what's going on inside that person. So it's a very intimate and kind of secret experience of divine being, experience of secretive experience, intimate and personal experience of transcendent being. But this is so essential to religious communities. They share this religious experience, even though that might be a personal experience at first. So for instance, in the evangelical Christian community, there is this idea of being born again. You have to have this... It's religious experience of being born again. Born again in the guidance and in the light of God. You have to born again, not just physically, not just biologically. You have to born again spiritually. You have to be awakened. You have to be enlightened. You have to be having a new desire for God. This is called being born again. in the protestant tradition and this is certainly an emotional and religious experience that is highlighted in this religious tradition not just in protestant tradition but also in Buddhism we also highlight the importance of enlightenment you have to be awakened you have to be enlightened by the teachings of Buddhism so as you see from this visual images on the right side They are captured by some kind of religious experience that others might not be able to see and touch. This is very subjective and emotional experience. But they are kind of the foundation of religious communities. They share this kind of emotions and experience, even though there might be slight differences in between these individuals. They kind of, in general, they share this kind of religious experience. In the evangelical protestant communities, being born again, born again experience is so crucial and essential to the shaping of their bonding and their belonging in this evangelical community. So, smart, Nguyen is smart, he says, and it is obvious that It is obvious that emotions and experiences of men and women are the food on which the other dimensions of religion feed. A ritual without feeling is called, doctrines without awe or compassion are dry, and myths which do not move hearers are false. It is important in understanding a tradition to try to enter into the feelings which it generates. So we come to encounter religion not just as rational thinking, but more as feelings. We come to feel, we don't just think of religion, we just come to more feel religion. with our bodily senses. So to feel the sacred awe, the calm peace, the rousing inner dynamism, the perception of a brilliant emptiness within, the outpouring of love, the sensations of hope, the gratitude for favors which have been received. And one of the main reasons why music is so potent in religion is that it has mysterious power. to express and engender emotion. So, I mean, if you look at different traditions of religion, you can see that they are all using art, paintings, they're using music because this kind of artwork, this kind of music expresses and engender our emotions, our feeling in that way, the divine being. The transcendent being comes to our bodily senses by the mediation of religion. So, experience and emotion is so grounded and so influential, so embedded into religious tradition, religious community. So, that's the one dimension that we could look at, the experience and emotions that they have in their religious experience. We could look at, we could study those experiences and emotions as a scholarly object. The second dimension we could talk about is the narrative and myth that a particular religion conveys and has. So religious experience is always charged with meaning and is understood within the sacred narrative or myth of religion. So, I mean, We are always surrounded by a web of meanings to help us understand our experience, our cultural experience, our religious experience. So for instance, being born again, this religious experience, comes to be understood in the narrative of Christianity, in the narrative of Protestantism. Because there is a narrative that you have to be born again to be saved, to be liberated from this sinful world, and you got this last chance. you got this saving from God and this liberation and this saving is more like a born again, you get a new life. This kind of understanding, this kind of meaning making is already underlying the Protestant tradition. And then you come to identify a particular religious experience. of being shocked or being inspired, being awakened as being born again. You come to name that experience as being born again because that's the meaning that was conveyed, transmitted, and given by that religious tradition. And you come to imagine yourself as virtually being born again. So, The narrative of religion is so much embedded into and in-togon with our religious experience. We always try to understand what's the meaning of what we have been experiencing in that religious tradition. So let's say you come to encounter some imaginary or some imagery during the meditation. And then you will likely want to understand what was the meaning of that. that image that the imaginary that imaginary sorry so that imagery and the imaginary during the meditation you you will want to understand and there must be some religious meaning that you can find out from your religious tradition right so um so yeah so please keep in mind that uh this narrative and this kind of myth in religion kind of feed See your religious experience so that you can understand, you can make meaning out of that religious experience. So myths are sacred stories passed along orally and commonly tell of the origins of humans and the world. For instance, in the Protestant tradition, they have this narrative, like the Christian narrative, like the God created the world by his words. For instance, like saying that be the world, then the world comes to be created. The soul needs to be here, something like that. Then if he says, then the soul literally comes to be on the ground. In this way, in the Christian narrative, it is said that God created the world, the earth. So in principle, they don't believe in evolution. They believe in the creation of the earth by the God, by the Christian God. So the world created and emerged. the earth, this human beings world, they come to be kind of falling. They came to be falling because of their sin, because human beings are sinful. And there's also a story of like the temptation. They got kind of, they got deceived by snake and then they touched the fruit that God has told that never touched. There's kind of forbidden fruit. You shouldn't touch it. But Hawa and Adam, the first two human beings, they kind of disobey the rules of God and then they touch it. And then they got kicked out of the heaven, the utopia, the Adam thing, something like that. And then they come to earth and then they kind of... make sins again, again, again, and then the world is continuously collapsing, has been collapsing, and then God can send them a lot of messengers who can convey the God's message, messengers, but still people don't obey, don't follow the rules, don't listen to God's words, and then all of a sudden, God, Christian God, comes into the earth by putting on human beings' flesh. And that's Jesus Christ, human being, both simultaneously human being and God, the Son of God. His name is Jesus. And Jesus got crucified. Crucified, that was the most severe penalty and punishment given to the criminals by the Roman law. Roman law and then Jesus crucified as the sacrifice for the human, all the human beings. So he got killed but he kind of born again, he's born again, he's kind of revived, he gets his revival and then he come to encounter other human beings, his disciples. And then he said there will be a spirit, Holy Spirit, that will help you survive and help your project of building this Christian world, the kingdom of God. And then Jesus goes to heaven. And then these Christian believers believe that Jesus Christ will come again to save the world. Finally, the second coming to the earth. So in this way, the Christian Bible gives you some story of the creation of the world, the falling of the world, the saving of the world, and the second resurrection of the world by Jesus Christ coming to the earth, something like that. This is the narrative given by the... Protestantism by Christianity. And this kind of narrative and myth are important because they help guide human behavior within a religious community. So even though you think that, oh, they are not scientific truth, there's no way you can check if this kind of narrative, this kind of myth is truth or not. Yes, you are right. Even though they are not historical, Even though they are not rational, they are still powerful because these kind of stories will be guiding these Christian believers' behavior in everyday life. So myths are powerful and meaningful to the life of these Protestant believers, Protestant practitioners. I can give you the example of American Dream. Like the idea that if you really work hard in America, then you will get success. Because every opportunity will be given to individuals if you work hard equally. The opportunities will be equally given to the individuals who are working hard. This is the American dream, the story of success, immigrant success. So they all work hard to be successful, to raise their life at the level of success and being wealthy. I mean, getting out of their first born countries and they come to the United States and they work hard to climb up this ladder of the class, this ladder of economic class and then they got survive. I mean some of them really get successful by working hard. This is called American dream. Nowadays many people kind of abandon this American dream, this myth, because they cannot explain the contemporary inequalities of opportunities, inequality of kind of wealth nowadays. But up until 1990s, Most Americans believe in this American dream. And this was one of the most powerful secular myths that was being shared among Americans. Even though this is not religious myth, even though this is a sacred myth, you can see that how much powerful the stories about human beings, about the world can be because they all believe in this American dream and I mean this myth of American dream and they all try to They fit into, they want to make this story their story. This is not just other story. They want to make this American dream as their own story. So they try to shape their lives to fit into this American dream. That's how powerful this kind of myth, this kind of sacred narrative is. Because that's... that gives meanings to your life and people guide their life trajectory, their choices, their behavior following the narrative. So, Smart says it is typical of all faces to hand down some vital stories, some historical, some about the mysterious. primordial time when the world was in its time is down some of our things to come at the end of time like the the end of the world some of some of our great heroes and some saints and some of about great founders such as moses the buddha jesus and muhammad some about some about authors by the evil one i mean so religion is full of stories you just don't get doctrine you also You mostly get stories. You come to understand human beings and the world within that religious narrative, within that religious myth. So the narrative or myth might be non-historical. It might not be the fact, historical facts. It might not be rational. But they are still the sources of the sacred truth because myths are... Because they convey myths, even though they are perceived as false, they still convey important truths in a religious context. So they might not be historical facts, but they still can reveal the truths about human condition, the conditions of human suffering, and some truths about human beings, some truths about their essence, some truths about the world. So if you're asking this kind of question whether the myths are historical facts, but that's not the point. Even though those myths are not historical facts, still they have some power to guide the behaviors and the desires and the values of the, for instance, Christian believers or Buddhist believers. So that's the power of the narrative. The stories We likely guide and discipline our behavior and our imagination about the world, our values, and our desires. So that's how narrative and myth within the religious tradition are important. Stay kind. our understanding of the world, they guide our behavior within that world, something like that. I think the practical and the ritual dimension would be the last one we could cover in this video clip and then the last will be covered in the next video clip. Yeah so practice rituals, I already highlighted how it is, how important it is, how important they are especially in time. As in the case of Thai Buddhism, religion is not simply about ideas or faith or belief. It can be more about practice and ritual, what we literally do in the way of these religious meanings that have been transmitted, that have been conveyed in a particular religious tradition. So when you come into the worship of Christian worship, like you come to stand up and you sing along together. You read the Bible, all these are practices. that you repeatedly do in the every Sunday worship. So religious tradition have practices to which they adhere. And then this includes regular worship, preaching, singing, praying, reading quiz, reading the bible, reading religious texts, and listening to the sermons, listening to the preachings, and visiting temples, and offering medes, and more. There are a variety of practices which constitute religious landscape. I can give you the example of Catholicism. Catholicism is all about rituals and practice. If you look at how they make their worship, you can see that they come up with so many different rituals. For instance, in the Holy Communion ritual, the ritual that is called Holy Communion, Holy Communion. Drinking a holy cup of red wine symbolically means that you drink Jesus Christ's blood. The red wine symbolizes Jesus' blood. So you literally drink Jesus Christ's blood. And in that way, you believe that you become one. You reach communion with the divine being, the Christian God. You become one with the divine being of Jesus Christ by practicing the ritual of Holy Communion. That's why it is called Holy Communion. You achieve the communion between you as a human being and God. You come to meet and become one with the transcendent being in this ritual of Holy Communion by drinking the red wine which symbolizes Jesus Christ's earth. blunt. So as you can see here, religious meanings are experienced and understood and felt and fulfilled in the bodily rituals of the Holy Communion ceremony in this Catholic context and in Catholic worship. I can give you also the examples of how Thai Buddhism are so much embedded into practices and rituals in the everyday life of a person. of Thai society, right? So I said religious emotions, religious experiences, and religious meanings are always inscribed into our body and felt our body in and through particularly embodied and bodily practices by practicing some kind of our vitriol that we make when we feel the emotion. think of that meaning. So when we pray, we don't simply think and imagine and wish. All our thoughts, all our imaginaries, and all our wishes in the prayer, they are made in and with particular bodily practice of kneeling down, bowing, and putting your hands together slowly, calmly, and politely. All the bodily movements that you make, the bodily gestures you make, bodily postures you make during the prayer, during praying, they are the practices you make. So the wishes, the imaginaries, the ideas you come to have during the prayer, they are not just coming out of nowhere. They are always made and held with the practice you make. kneeling down, putting your hands together, bowing, something like that. And when we listen to the Buddhist monks preaching, we don't simply listen to the monks, right? We make and maintain particular gestures, particular postures, to make ourselves a docile listener of good Buddhism. So there's a cultural work on our bodies and our practices. to make ourselves to be a good listener to the Buddhist teaching. So usually you just sit down, you never stand when you listen to the Buddhist teaching, right? And then you try to sit up and try to directly make your body toward, I mean face toward the preacher, the monk. So you will try to do your best. to make your posture more attractive. In this way, you come up with a particular gesture, a particular posture to make your body attentive to and polite to the preaching that is given to you. And when you offer a merit, there are particular gendered practices that you should follow. That's what I know. I mean, if you are a female... I mean if you're a female you never directly touch the stuff that the monk is touching right now at the time, right? So you just can hand down, hand in something but you never You need to be very careful so that you never touch the body's, sorry the monk's body part Indirectly or directly anyway these are gendered practice because i mean for men that's okay as you know right this is gendered practice and you can see that even in in within this buddhist tradition buddhist practices there are underlying underlying ideology about gender particular ideas about gender like the idea that moms they are very very sacred being so that you should never touch them indirectly or directly, especially if you are a woman. So women are considered and imagined as a second-class citizen in these religious communities. Men, you're okay. But women, you need to be very careful not to touch these sacred beings, not to touch the sacred bodies of the monk. So anyway, so as you can see that there are the practical and big ritual dimension that is so much important to religion like Catholicism and Thai Buddhism. Yeah so I will stop here and then I will come back to talk about the doctrinal and classical dimension in the next video clip. Thank you guys.

So anyway, there are these are the seven dimensions of religion he categorized. The experiential and emotional dimension, the narrative or mythic dimension, the practical and ritual dimension, the doctrinal and philosophical dimension, the ethical and legal dimension, and the social and institutional dimension, and the last, the material dimension. Yeah, so let's...

first talk about the experiential and emotional dimension. So, I mean, people experience an emotional reaction to something which they encounter as life-changing, profound, inspiring, and beautiful. I mean, think about all the starting point of different religions, like Buddhism, right? Prince of Gautama, he He experienced enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and became the first Buddha.

There was some inner subjective experience of enlightenment. All of a sudden he came to realize and be awakened to the point he came to see the truth and encounter the truth of human being and suffering and liberation from this suffering, something like that. This is emotional experience.

This is his peace. experience of religion and initiate this kind of religious experience, this kind of experience of some being something profound, something inspiring, something life-changing. This kind of stuff initiated these mainstream religions nowadays.

How about Islam? Like the Muhammad, the founder of this Islamic religion. He experienced liberation from Allah.

And how about Judaism? Abraham, the ancestor of the belief in this Judaism tradition, Abraham received contact and liberation from God. So, all these religions are based on the religious experience of the founder. who came to encounter something extraordinary, something transcendent, something divine, something inspiring, something life-changing.

They come to be enlightened, they come to be awakened, and then they come to spread their messages and their words that they got from their God. So, I mean, all of these subjective and emotional religious experiences, they initiated particular religious traditions, as I already said. And they charged with, these religious experiences are charged with strong desire, emotional desire for something profound, something inspiring, and something beyond the ordinary life. So the focus is on the subjective experience and the emotional experience.

So what goes on inside a person, inside a person. So others might not see what's going on inside that person. So it's a very intimate and kind of secret experience of divine being, experience of secretive experience, intimate and personal experience of transcendent being.

But this is so essential to religious communities. They share this religious experience, even though that might be a personal experience at first. So for instance, in the evangelical Christian community, there is this idea of being born again. You have to have this... It's religious experience of being born again.

Born again in the guidance and in the light of God. You have to born again, not just physically, not just biologically. You have to born again spiritually.

You have to be awakened. You have to be enlightened. You have to be having a new desire for God. This is called being born again.

in the protestant tradition and this is certainly an emotional and religious experience that is highlighted in this religious tradition not just in protestant tradition but also in Buddhism we also highlight the importance of enlightenment you have to be awakened you have to be enlightened by the teachings of Buddhism so as you see from this visual images on the right side They are captured by some kind of religious experience that others might not be able to see and touch. This is very subjective and emotional experience. But they are kind of the foundation of religious communities.

They share this kind of emotions and experience, even though there might be slight differences in between these individuals. They kind of, in general, they share this kind of religious experience. In the evangelical protestant communities, being born again, born again experience is so crucial and essential to the shaping of their bonding and their belonging in this evangelical community.

So, smart, Nguyen is smart, he says, and it is obvious that It is obvious that emotions and experiences of men and women are the food on which the other dimensions of religion feed. A ritual without feeling is called, doctrines without awe or compassion are dry, and myths which do not move hearers are false. It is important in understanding a tradition to try to enter into the feelings which it generates. So we come to encounter religion not just as rational thinking, but more as feelings.

We come to feel, we don't just think of religion, we just come to more feel religion. with our bodily senses. So to feel the sacred awe, the calm peace, the rousing inner dynamism, the perception of a brilliant emptiness within, the outpouring of love, the sensations of hope, the gratitude for favors which have been received.

And one of the main reasons why music is so potent in religion is that it has mysterious power. to express and engender emotion. So, I mean, if you look at different traditions of religion, you can see that they are all using art, paintings, they're using music because this kind of artwork, this kind of music expresses and engender our emotions, our feeling in that way, the divine being.

The transcendent being comes to our bodily senses by the mediation of religion. So, experience and emotion is so grounded and so influential, so embedded into religious tradition, religious community. So, that's the one dimension that we could look at, the experience and emotions that they have in their religious experience. We could look at, we could study those experiences and emotions as a scholarly object.

The second dimension we could talk about is the narrative and myth that a particular religion conveys and has. So religious experience is always charged with meaning and is understood within the sacred narrative or myth of religion. So, I mean, We are always surrounded by a web of meanings to help us understand our experience, our cultural experience, our religious experience. So for instance, being born again, this religious experience, comes to be understood in the narrative of Christianity, in the narrative of Protestantism.

Because there is a narrative that you have to be born again to be saved, to be liberated from this sinful world, and you got this last chance. you got this saving from God and this liberation and this saving is more like a born again, you get a new life. This kind of understanding, this kind of meaning making is already underlying the Protestant tradition. And then you come to identify a particular religious experience.

of being shocked or being inspired, being awakened as being born again. You come to name that experience as being born again because that's the meaning that was conveyed, transmitted, and given by that religious tradition. And you come to imagine yourself as virtually being born again.

So, The narrative of religion is so much embedded into and in-togon with our religious experience. We always try to understand what's the meaning of what we have been experiencing in that religious tradition. So let's say you come to encounter some imaginary or some imagery during the meditation. And then you will likely want to understand what was the meaning of that. that image that the imaginary that imaginary sorry so that imagery and the imaginary during the meditation you you will want to understand and there must be some religious meaning that you can find out from your religious tradition right so um so yeah so please keep in mind that uh this narrative and this kind of myth in religion kind of feed See your religious experience so that you can understand, you can make meaning out of that religious experience.

So myths are sacred stories passed along orally and commonly tell of the origins of humans and the world. For instance, in the Protestant tradition, they have this narrative, like the Christian narrative, like the God created the world by his words. For instance, like saying that be the world, then the world comes to be created. The soul needs to be here, something like that. Then if he says, then the soul literally comes to be on the ground.

In this way, in the Christian narrative, it is said that God created the world, the earth. So in principle, they don't believe in evolution. They believe in the creation of the earth by the God, by the Christian God. So the world created and emerged.

the earth, this human beings world, they come to be kind of falling. They came to be falling because of their sin, because human beings are sinful. And there's also a story of like the temptation. They got kind of, they got deceived by snake and then they touched the fruit that God has told that never touched. There's kind of forbidden fruit.

You shouldn't touch it. But Hawa and Adam, the first two human beings, they kind of disobey the rules of God and then they touch it. And then they got kicked out of the heaven, the utopia, the Adam thing, something like that. And then they come to earth and then they kind of...

make sins again, again, again, and then the world is continuously collapsing, has been collapsing, and then God can send them a lot of messengers who can convey the God's message, messengers, but still people don't obey, don't follow the rules, don't listen to God's words, and then all of a sudden, God, Christian God, comes into the earth by putting on human beings' flesh. And that's Jesus Christ, human being, both simultaneously human being and God, the Son of God. His name is Jesus.

And Jesus got crucified. Crucified, that was the most severe penalty and punishment given to the criminals by the Roman law. Roman law and then Jesus crucified as the sacrifice for the human, all the human beings.

So he got killed but he kind of born again, he's born again, he's kind of revived, he gets his revival and then he come to encounter other human beings, his disciples. And then he said there will be a spirit, Holy Spirit, that will help you survive and help your project of building this Christian world, the kingdom of God. And then Jesus goes to heaven. And then these Christian believers believe that Jesus Christ will come again to save the world. Finally, the second coming to the earth.

So in this way, the Christian Bible gives you some story of the creation of the world, the falling of the world, the saving of the world, and the second resurrection of the world by Jesus Christ coming to the earth, something like that. This is the narrative given by the... Protestantism by Christianity.

And this kind of narrative and myth are important because they help guide human behavior within a religious community. So even though you think that, oh, they are not scientific truth, there's no way you can check if this kind of narrative, this kind of myth is truth or not. Yes, you are right. Even though they are not historical, Even though they are not rational, they are still powerful because these kind of stories will be guiding these Christian believers' behavior in everyday life. So myths are powerful and meaningful to the life of these Protestant believers, Protestant practitioners.

I can give you the example of American Dream. Like the idea that if you really work hard in America, then you will get success. Because every opportunity will be given to individuals if you work hard equally. The opportunities will be equally given to the individuals who are working hard.

This is the American dream, the story of success, immigrant success. So they all work hard to be successful, to raise their life at the level of success and being wealthy. I mean, getting out of their first born countries and they come to the United States and they work hard to climb up this ladder of the class, this ladder of economic class and then they got survive. I mean some of them really get successful by working hard.

This is called American dream. Nowadays many people kind of abandon this American dream, this myth, because they cannot explain the contemporary inequalities of opportunities, inequality of kind of wealth nowadays. But up until 1990s, Most Americans believe in this American dream.

And this was one of the most powerful secular myths that was being shared among Americans. Even though this is not religious myth, even though this is a sacred myth, you can see that how much powerful the stories about human beings, about the world can be because they all believe in this American dream and I mean this myth of American dream and they all try to They fit into, they want to make this story their story. This is not just other story. They want to make this American dream as their own story.

So they try to shape their lives to fit into this American dream. That's how powerful this kind of myth, this kind of sacred narrative is. Because that's...

that gives meanings to your life and people guide their life trajectory, their choices, their behavior following the narrative. So, Smart says it is typical of all faces to hand down some vital stories, some historical, some about the mysterious. primordial time when the world was in its time is down some of our things to come at the end of time like the the end of the world some of some of our great heroes and some saints and some of about great founders such as moses the buddha jesus and muhammad some about some about authors by the evil one i mean so religion is full of stories you just don't get doctrine you also You mostly get stories. You come to understand human beings and the world within that religious narrative, within that religious myth. So the narrative or myth might be non-historical.

It might not be the fact, historical facts. It might not be rational. But they are still the sources of the sacred truth because myths are... Because they convey myths, even though they are perceived as false, they still convey important truths in a religious context.

So they might not be historical facts, but they still can reveal the truths about human condition, the conditions of human suffering, and some truths about human beings, some truths about their essence, some truths about the world. So if you're asking this kind of question whether the myths are historical facts, but that's not the point. Even though those myths are not historical facts, still they have some power to guide the behaviors and the desires and the values of the, for instance, Christian believers or Buddhist believers.

So that's the power of the narrative. The stories We likely guide and discipline our behavior and our imagination about the world, our values, and our desires. So that's how narrative and myth within the religious tradition are important. Stay kind. our understanding of the world, they guide our behavior within that world, something like that.

I think the practical and the ritual dimension would be the last one we could cover in this video clip and then the last will be covered in the next video clip. Yeah so practice rituals, I already highlighted how it is, how important it is, how important they are especially in time. As in the case of Thai Buddhism, religion is not simply about ideas or faith or belief.

It can be more about practice and ritual, what we literally do in the way of these religious meanings that have been transmitted, that have been conveyed in a particular religious tradition. So when you come into the worship of Christian worship, like you come to stand up and you sing along together. You read the Bible, all these are practices.

that you repeatedly do in the every Sunday worship. So religious tradition have practices to which they adhere. And then this includes regular worship, preaching, singing, praying, reading quiz, reading the bible, reading religious texts, and listening to the sermons, listening to the preachings, and visiting temples, and offering medes, and more. There are a variety of practices which constitute religious landscape. I can give you the example of Catholicism.

Catholicism is all about rituals and practice. If you look at how they make their worship, you can see that they come up with so many different rituals. For instance, in the Holy Communion ritual, the ritual that is called Holy Communion, Holy Communion.

Drinking a holy cup of red wine symbolically means that you drink Jesus Christ's blood. The red wine symbolizes Jesus' blood. So you literally drink Jesus Christ's blood.

And in that way, you believe that you become one. You reach communion with the divine being, the Christian God. You become one with the divine being of Jesus Christ by practicing the ritual of Holy Communion.

That's why it is called Holy Communion. You achieve the communion between you as a human being and God. You come to meet and become one with the transcendent being in this ritual of Holy Communion by drinking the red wine which symbolizes Jesus Christ's earth.

blunt. So as you can see here, religious meanings are experienced and understood and felt and fulfilled in the bodily rituals of the Holy Communion ceremony in this Catholic context and in Catholic worship. I can give you also the examples of how Thai Buddhism are so much embedded into practices and rituals in the everyday life of a person. of Thai society, right? So I said religious emotions, religious experiences, and religious meanings are always inscribed into our body and felt our body in and through particularly embodied and bodily practices by practicing some kind of our vitriol that we make when we feel the emotion.

think of that meaning. So when we pray, we don't simply think and imagine and wish. All our thoughts, all our imaginaries, and all our wishes in the prayer, they are made in and with particular bodily practice of kneeling down, bowing, and putting your hands together slowly, calmly, and politely. All the bodily movements that you make, the bodily gestures you make, bodily postures you make during the prayer, during praying, they are the practices you make. So the wishes, the imaginaries, the ideas you come to have during the prayer, they are not just coming out of nowhere.

They are always made and held with the practice you make. kneeling down, putting your hands together, bowing, something like that. And when we listen to the Buddhist monks preaching, we don't simply listen to the monks, right?

We make and maintain particular gestures, particular postures, to make ourselves a docile listener of good Buddhism. So there's a cultural work on our bodies and our practices. to make ourselves to be a good listener to the Buddhist teaching. So usually you just sit down, you never stand when you listen to the Buddhist teaching, right?

And then you try to sit up and try to directly make your body toward, I mean face toward the preacher, the monk. So you will try to do your best. to make your posture more attractive.

In this way, you come up with a particular gesture, a particular posture to make your body attentive to and polite to the preaching that is given to you. And when you offer a merit, there are particular gendered practices that you should follow. That's what I know.

I mean, if you are a female... I mean if you're a female you never directly touch the stuff that the monk is touching right now at the time, right? So you just can hand down, hand in something but you never You need to be very careful so that you never touch the body's, sorry the monk's body part Indirectly or directly anyway these are gendered practice because i mean for men that's okay as you know right this is gendered practice and you can see that even in in within this buddhist tradition buddhist practices there are underlying underlying ideology about gender particular ideas about gender like the idea that moms they are very very sacred being so that you should never touch them indirectly or directly, especially if you are a woman. So women are considered and imagined as a second-class citizen in these religious communities.

Men, you're okay. But women, you need to be very careful not to touch these sacred beings, not to touch the sacred bodies of the monk. So anyway, so as you can see that there are the practical and big ritual dimension that is so much important to religion like Catholicism and Thai Buddhism.

Yeah so I will stop here and then I will come back to talk about the doctrinal and classical dimension in the next video clip. Thank you guys.

Transcript for:Exploring Seven Dimensions of Religion

Transcript for:
Exploring Seven Dimensions of Religion