Thank you for taking the time to reply and thoroughly so.

I think the best differentiation you made between ontology and religion is key. My issue with religious texts is that they (usually but not always) demand a full commitment with other practices and beliefs that I don’t find fitting for me personally, and it seems like an all or nothing approach, so I end up quitting.

Let alone as you mention how these ancient practices have been stripped of their original intentions to be made more palatable to western audiences. Not only that, but now some people have even tried to co-opt them by sticking a western religious approach, further (imo) disrespecting and confounding.

I’m being kinda contradictory, and this is why I haven’t sorted out my internal conflict between the search for inner peace -I wouldn’tbe so pretentious as to call it enlightment-, and my unwillingness to submit to religious dogma (I’ve had enough bad experiences, and not only with one religion).