Introduction

Religion is a broad term that covers many quite different outlooks, practices, and points of view. For people of the West, it is normally associated with belief in and commitment to some kind of personal, conscious, purposive deity seen as separate from nature and as the creator of all that is in nature. This connotation of the term, while commonplace, is too narrow and provincial. It does not work, for example, with Daoism, some forms of Hinduism (such as Advaita Vedanta), or some forms of Buddhism (such as Theravada or Zen) because in none of these traditions is the principal focus on a personal God. But these outlooks are entitled to recognition as religious in their basic stance and character.