On Sentient Developments there is a nice email exchange about a few questions and answers about buddhism.
For me, buddhism is interesting not as a religion (real buddhism is more of a philosophy) but as guidance for doing and thinking. Important concepts are mindfulness (being aware of the moment) – one could also say self-reflexion – and minimizing of harm.
Self-reflexion is equivalent to being able to take charge of your life, assess what makes you happy or causes you misery and to transcend the moment. Self-reflexion is what makes us different from pure stimulus-reactions agents.
In one thing I disagree with buddhism: buddhists teaching suggests that one can achieve happiness/enlightenment by purely meditative/inner means. I think that external influences also play an equally important part. It would be very difficult to maintain inner harmony and peace if you are constantly aggravated by outside influences.
A good synthesis can be found in this book: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt.
Only beware of the last chapters: he has a too positive outlook on (pure) religion.
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