Seven Dimensions of Religion in Buddhism

Buddhism can be indirectly defined by using Ninian Smart’s Seven Dimensions of Religion. Ninian Smart pioneered the idea of secular religious study (Ninian Smart). In 1968, he tried to define religion by defining the shared “dimensions,” or properties, rather than creating a dictionary definition of the word. Initially, there was six dimensions, but in 1998, he updated the list to seven (Smart, Blackboard, Religion 100). The first dimension is ritual and practical, which are the practices directly involving a religion, such as prayer and weekly worship services. The second is an experiential and emotional dimension, which are the emotional experiences of the central figures or the feelings a practitioner gets, such as the mystical feeling of “being born again.” The third is a narrative or mythic dimension, which is the stories within a religion about the events surrounding the creation or important events, such as the stories in the Christian Bible or Islamic Qur’an. The fourth dimension is a doctrinal and philosophical, are the texts or philosophies, which bind its practitioners to a particular view of life, such as the certain actions that lead to a path of salvation. The fifth dimension is ethical and legal, which is a set of ways a practitioner should live their life, which is influenced by the narrative and doctrinal dimensions, such as the several hundred rules within the Judaism or Shari'ah law in Islamism. The sixth is social and institutional, which is the dimension that seeks to capture how a religion is organized by, and interacts with, its practitioners, such as the vast interconnected churches of the Roman Catholics, as well as individual members, such as priests and prophets. The seventh and final dimension material,...

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