Question:

Hello, I love the podcast and hope more come out soon. Any way I have a question. Is it legitimate to follow another religion and use buddhism as a philosophy? Thank You and All Blessings Be.

Answer:

Absolutely– People do it all the time. People follow Christianity or Judaism, for example, and still practice all the non-religious aspects of Buddhism as well. Since Buddhism doesn’t generally involve God or prayers, there’s no reason at all that one cannot simply add Buddhism as another “layer” to one’s own foundational belief system.

Many Christians practice Buddhism on the side, and so many Jews do it that they actually came up with a term for it, Ju-Bu (Jewish Buddhist Wikipedia Link). Depending on your specific local church, and how well they understand what Buddhism is really all about, your specific church may or may not support this.

From the wording in your question, however, I suspect you are not coming from a Judeo-Christian background. I suspect it may be even easier to fit Buddhism into one of the less dogmatic religions such as Wicca. If anyone would like to share their personal story on making Buddhism mesh with their pre-existing belief system, I’d love to hear it.