Buddhism: Dharma is a law of Nature…
Dharma is a law of Nature, not a law of men. That much must be acknowledged, even if the details are a little bit sketchy. After all, it would be much too easy just to call it the ‘law of the Buddha’, since it precedes that event by a thousand years or so, even if the details are still no less sketchy. But the Vedic Brahmanists used the word profusely, as if the meaning were obvious, and so we could probably surmise that the term meant something like Socrates’s ‘good life’ or just ‘living right.’
Project that concept into the future Sanatana Dharma and you’ve got the phrase that traditional natives from India, Bharat(a), use to call the vast field of knowledge and belief that we call Hinduism. But I think that Buddhism refined the concept, even without limiting it, not really, as something analogous to the Middle Way, a path between luxury and lack. Add to that the early Buddhist association of dharma with jati, life, to refer to nature, dharmajati, and the symbiosis is complete.
Dharma is irrevocably connected to nature, without much concern for who gets the credit. And that is the Holy Grail for modern creator-less religion, of course, something nature-based and at the same time rational and open to science. Bingo. That’s Buddhism without the superstition, meditation-based, Vipassana, discipline without all the deities. Now reference the Thai Forest Tradition, or any other forest tradition, and the circle is complete, also. Nature is our temple, and dharma is our practice.
hardie karges and 
streaming consciousness... 
Reply