I’ve learnt that every religion is a framework (school of philosophy) and even as an atheist I have benefitted from learning some mental models a few religions offer.
I would never brand myself or be a part of the cult though (claiming that one is better than the other or that everything said is holy). Even though one of things religions are good at is to also be to give people a sense of belonging to a community with similar virtues.
One of the mental models that has been particularly beneficial for me is the EightFold Path (also called Dharma Chakra or Dharma Wheel) that comes from Buddhism.
It basically says have the right view, thoughts, words, concentration, effort and action. Practising this keeps me in a virtuous cycle and makes feeling good feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I received a blessing from his holiness the Dalai Lama in the mid 90s when I paid $80 a ticket with 2000 other fools to listen to an hour long, nearly incoherent speech about being nice to people.
$160,000 in revenue for an hour of work for the pious Dalai Lama.
It really was a blessing though to realize in that movement what complete fools and suckers we are for authority in this area.
There is really nothing more than one Linji Yixuan/Rinzai Gigen quote to read and "learn".
"There is no Dharma outside the heart, nor anything to find inside. So what are you looking for?"
Of course, that doesn't really work when trying to build your Buddhist brand and get bunch of "followers".
Existence is a funny term in Buddhism. The end goal of development stage practice is the recognition that the deity is inseparable from one’s self because the nature of any given deity is equal to our own in an absolute sense. After all, everything is empty of inherent existence and are all self arisen manifestations from a primordial ground of being, hence no you and no I as separate.
So some people do see them as external things to ask things of but others see them as mind created and used as supports for meditation to realize our own true nature. Depends on lineage and teacher.
I would never brand myself or be a part of the cult though (claiming that one is better than the other or that everything said is holy). Even though one of things religions are good at is to also be to give people a sense of belonging to a community with similar virtues.
One of the mental models that has been particularly beneficial for me is the EightFold Path (also called Dharma Chakra or Dharma Wheel) that comes from Buddhism.
It basically says have the right view, thoughts, words, concentration, effort and action. Practising this keeps me in a virtuous cycle and makes feeling good feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.