resolve my inner conflict~I believe in so much of Buddhism, yet i cannot accept we don't have a soul...so do I give up Buddhism or practice it but with my own beliefs about the afterlife????

Maintain your own beliefs but continue to practice whatever you find is of benifit to you…never force yourself to try to believe something that you do not feel in your heart. Try not to get lost in complex philosophy and just do what works for you.

i’ve been struggling a lot with this lately. there’s an interesting buddhist sutra that deals with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimaliya_Sutra
The idea being that there is a self principle which is enlightened and eternal at the basis of all things.

Osho has an interesting opinion about this, he believes that Buddha’s goal is to rid yourself of desire so you experience this divinity. He says what makes you seperate yourself is all your desires that keep you feeling like a seperate I. Once you stop desiring these things even God or Soul, you experience what is real whether you call that notself or soul. :)

My opinion is that some of us were meant to hear that all is impermanent and some like myself would be confused by that and therefore need to know that although all forms are impermanent the essence is permanent and unchanging, which is pure potential. Hope this helped :)

that seems pretty happy to incorporate other faiths within it.

I don’t see the big conflict.

I also think that most buddhists in traditional buddhist countries pick and choose what to believe just as much as anyone else. Even the hard-core monks don’t live the same way that the buddha did, and even buddha had things he wasn’t too sure about.

It seems like it is a philosophy designed to help you through life, and reduce suffering, and if it doesn’t work to do that, then it’s not serving it’s purpose and you can tweak it a little. After all, we have brains that are capable of doing such things, why not put them to use instead of taking up a dogma without question?

...and will take what I believe from Buddhism and use it in my own spirituality. Do I consider myself Buddhist?? Absolutely not, but there is still a beautiful message there, just not all of it works for me.

“It should be remembered that the Buddha refused to speak about things such as how the world came about and what life after death is like. This is because he was an agnostic on such matters and believed no-one could ever know for sure how life began and what it would be like at the end. He was more concerned with dealing with the problems of life here and now and as such he considered it pointless to speculate about other things. This is particularly true when speaking about nirvana as this is believed to something beyond our ordinary everyday experiences and because of this is impossible to describe.”

Quoted from Faithnet

Follow your heart Lady of the moon. Do what you think and feel is right. Peace xx.