Tiger Woods & Buddhism

As the Year of the Tiger unfolds ...

Today, Tiger Woods gave a press conference to apologise for his marital infidelity. As part of his statement, he specifically referred to having been raised as a Buddhist by his Thai mother, and how he sees Buddhism as part of his path towards becoming a "better person."

"I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught."

There are several good articles exploring Tiger's statement in more detail, as well as discussing the controversial criticism from the conservative Christian commentator Brit Hume on Fox News, who suggested that Tiger should convert from Buddhism to Christianity, as in Hume's opinion Buddhism doesn't provide "the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith".

• "Tiger Woods Apology: Golfer promises a return to Buddhism" (Christian Science Monitor)
• "Woods apology: Buddhist, biblical and Bill Clinton-esque" (USA Today: Faith and Reason)
• "Tiger Woods on Buddhism, craving, impulse control and our search for security" (BeliefNet)
• "Tiger's Buddhism" (Washington Post)
• "Tiger Woods, Buddhism and redemption" (David Nichtern, senior Shambala teacher)
• "Tiger Woods, Buddhism and the Eight-Fold Way" (SBNation)
• "Tiger Woods' 12-Step Classic" (Salon.com)