Do Buddhists pray?
Buddhist don’t pray to a Creator God, but they do have devotional
meditation practices which could be compared to praying. Radiating
loving-kindness to all living beings is a practice which is believed to
benefit those beings. The sharing of merit is a practice where one
dedicates the goodness of one’s life to the benefit of all living beings as
well as praying for a particular person.
For further discussion on the nature of Buddhist devotion and faith, see
DEVOTION.ZIP and CRGFAITH.ZIP in BuddhaNet's file library - General section
In Tibet prayer is going on most of the time. Tibetans pray in a special
way. They believe that when certain sounds and words, called mantras, are
said many times they arouse good vibrations within the person. If a mantra
is repeated often enough it can open up the mind to a consciousness which is
beyond words and thoughts.
In Japan millions of Buddhists pray to Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite
Light. They believe that Amida has created a Pure Land in the west and that
those who have faith and repeat Amida’s name in prayer will go there. Yet
they also believe that Amida is really within them.
How do you become a Buddhist?
In one way being a Buddhist means belonging to a particular community of
people and following a path of life taught by the Buddhas (enlightened
beings).
Members of the Buddhist community are formally joined by taking refuge in
the Buddha, the Dharma (the teaching) and the Sangha (the community of
noble disciples).
Why do Buddhists chant?
It reminds one of the Dharma so that it is not forgotten; when meditation
is not possible and when bare mindfulness does not give much consolation,
it can be used to great advantage as an extension of meditation into words to
produce calm, some peace within; and certainly, it expresses one’s strong
confidence in the Dharma. Reciting the same chants day after day also has
an advantage - the making of wholesome repetitive karma which of course will
bear very good fruit.
What about Buddhist shrines and images?
The shrine found in Buddhist homes or temples is a focal point of Buddhist
observances. At the centre of the shrine, there is usually an image of the
Buddha. This image may be made of a variety of materials such as marble,
gold, wood or even clay. The image is a symbol that helps people to recall
the qualities of the Buddha.
The shrine may also have such objects as a volume of Buddhist scriptures to
represent the Dharma. Some shrines may include other items such as
images, pictures or photographs of Buddhist monks and masters to represent
the Sangha. When a Buddhist stands before a shrine, the objects he sees on
it help him to recall the qualities that are found in the Buddha, Dharma and
Sangha. This inspires him to work towards cultivating these qualities in
himself.
Why do Buddhists bow?
In Buddhism, the traditional gesture of reverence to the Triple Gem is to
place the palms of both hands together and raise them high in front,
usually up to the level of the forehead. In order to express deep
veneration, a Buddhist may bow or prostrate before the image of the Buddha,
members of the Sangha and the masters of the Teaching. When a Buddhist
prostrates before an image, he acknowledges the fact that the Buddha has
attained the perfect and supreme Enlightenment. Such an act helps the
Buddhist to overcome egoistic feelings and he becomes more ready to listen
to the Teaching of the Buddha.
Are there Buddhist holy places?
The four holy sites as places of pilgrimage for Buddhists are Lumbini where
the Buddha was born, Bodh Gaya where the Buddha was enlightened under
the Bodhi tree, Sarnath where the Buddha gave his first teaching of the
Dharma and Kusinagara where the Buddha passed away. See "In Search of
the Buddha" on BuddhaNet.
What about Buddhist festivals?
Buddhist festivals are always joyful occasions. Every May, on the night of
the full moon, Buddhists all over the world celebrate Vesak for the birth,
enlightenment and death of the Buddha such a long time ago.
In the Theravada tradition, practices observed by laypeople at Vesak include
the observance of eight precepts (the regular five plus not taking food
after midday and celibacy and not over indulging in sleep). Also the
laypeople may participate in chanting and meditation and listening to sermons.
In Thai villages people get ready during the day. They clean their houses
and hang up garlands of flowers. The men take clean sand from the river
bank and spread it over the temple courtyard, where everyone walks with
bare feet. Statues of the Buddha are brought out of the temple to be washed
and
polished and all the books come out to be dusted. When it is dark, the
villagers gather with candles or small oil lamps. The biggest Buddha statue
is put on a platform outside the temple and lights shine all round it.
Scented water is thrown onto it. Holding their lights, everyone starts to
move round the Buddha statue so that in the end it is encircled with light.
What about Buddhist marriage ceremonies?
Monks are prohibited from being marriage celebrants but they can "bless" the
couple by reciting the Dharma (chanting) after the secular ceremony.
What is a Buddhist funeral like?
A simple ceremony where the good deeds of the departed are remembered, a
Loving-kindness meditation can be done and a sharing of merits.
What is a Stupa?
When the person who has died is a Buddha (enlightened one) or an Arhant
(saint) or an especially great teacher, relics are collected after the
cremation. These may be placed in a stupa or pagoda (burial mound) or in a
Buddha-rupa (image of the Buddha). Whenever the Buddhist sees a stupa in
the countryside or a Buddha-rupa in a shrine room it is a reminder of the
dharma (teaching) and it is honoured because of that.
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from Punnadhammo Bhikkhu
Email: arcc@baynet.net
Arrow River Community Center
I am curious about what Buddhists believe
happens after one dies.
The Buddha most certainly taught that consciousness re-arises after death,
conditioned by karma, in a new body-mind. In fact this endless wheel of
birth and death is seen as the central dilemma of existence. As
Spasemunki has pointed out in another reply to this thread, this must be
taken in the context of another central Buddhist doctrine, no-self
(soul-less-ness) . The paradox to be understood is that rebirth happens,
but there is nothing at all which re-incarnates.
There is only one mind moment conditioned another in a stream unbroken
for countless eons until final complete enlightenment.
Transference of merit.
What is the basis in the Pali cannon for transference
of merit by sponsoring prayer or sutta recitation?
I practise in the Tibetan tradition and sponsor prayer
for the dead, living, and sick people but am wondering
where this custom/practice started.
In one of the minor books of the Khuddaka Nikaya there is passage
concerning this. The story, partly commentorial, is that King Bimbisara
gave a meal for the monks and was subsequently troubled at night by the
wailing of ghosts. The Buddha explained that this was because he failed
to offer any of the merit to his deceased relatives. He gave another meal
and transferred merit thereby pacifying the ghosts.
This has caused some difficulty in the exegesis, because according to
strict theory karmas cannot be made for another. The explanation arrived
at is that when one transfers merit the beings in the ghost realm rejoice
and rejoicing in the wholesome is itself a good karma.
Another explaination about rebirth from :-
Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh
from his book "No Death, No Fear", page 125-126:
Ask yourself, 'Where shall I go after this?' Our actions and our
words, which are being produced at this moment, take us in a linear
direction. But they also take us in a lateral direction as they flow
into and influence the world around us. They can make the world more
beautiful and bright. that beauty and brightness can go in to the
future. We should not look for our real selves in just one vertical
direction.
When I make a pot of oolong tea, I put tea leaves into the pot and pour
boiling water on them. Five minutes later there is tea to drink. When
I drink it, oolong tea is going into me. If I put in more hot water,
making a second pot of tea, the tea from those leaves continues to go
into me. After I have poured out all the tea, what will be left in the
pot is just the spent tea leaves. The leaves that remain are only a
very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much bigger
part of the tea. It is the richest part.
We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends,
and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions
and not in the spent tea leaves. I invite you to see yourself reborn in
forms that you say are not yourself. You have to see your body in what
is not your body. This is called your body outside of your body.
You do not have to wait until the flame has gone out to be reborn. I am
reborn many times every day. Every moment is a moment of rebirth.
My practice is to be reborn in such a way that my new forms of
manifestation will bring light, freedom, and happiness into the world.
My practice is to not allow wrong actions to be reborn. If I have a
cruel thought or if my words carry hatred in them, then those thoughts
and words will be reborn. It will be difficult to catch them and pull
them back. They are like a runaway horse. We should try not to allow
our actions of body, speech, and mind to take us in the direction of
wrong action, wrong speech, and wrong thinking.
If you look for yourself like that, you will be able to see your
continuation into the future. You will not be caught in the idea that
you will be annihilated. You will not be caught in the notion that you
will not exist anymore when you die. The truth is that you are not
permanent, but neither are you annihilated. When the flame of the
candle reaches the end of the wick and goes out, it is still there.
You cannot find it by looking in a linear direction.
You have to find it also in the horizontal direction.
Another explaination from
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from Norbu Tragri
Email: norbu_tragri@yahoo.com
Date 29 December 2006
Past and future lives are so much speculative thought....
But we can see more immediate versions of them moment to moment:
Life is just all this stuff we go...that's sort of a passive point of
view...*reactions*...
"meanings" are given to us from outside....Everyone has their own story
and often we are cast as nothing more than bit players in their
dramas...they might see us as friends or enemies of various types...we
can dance to a hundred different peoples ideas of who we are and try to
fit in into their various stories, spend all our time trying to
communicate with them by trying to be who the want and expect us to
be...
Or we could be "reactive" to our own views, ...Then we run the risk of
using others as puzzle-pieces of our own sense of "meaning".
The Buddha saw all this - how we get caught-up in struggle - dramas -
how we try to secure ourselves - and he simplified it to three
principles:
Everything composite/conditional/created/put-together is
temporary/transitory....
Everything transitory is going to fall apart, hence is frustrating,
without resolution...
Everything without resolution is without a core principle, without an
"identity" - it's
just composite ideas, beliefs, etc clung to due to some belief about
who we are and
how we need to prop up this thing-self with thing-others - there's no
real self/resolution/
etc in that drama - it's just clinging to fleeting shadows, passing
ideas.
so
Everything put together falls apart
Everything that falls apart is frustrating
Everything that is frustrating clinging to a false sense of resolution,
some lame idea we have of ourselves and others, so to speak....
There was a sort of fouth principle the Buddha also taught, that
getting unstuck is "bliss"...
Dropping all the self imposed drama...
But of course there's a catch....
If we try to drop the b.s. struggle we're just creating a new b.s.
struggle and avoiding the intuitive guts of what is actually happening
in our everyday life - our heart, rather than all this figuring it out
stuff...
So we cut the struggle at home instead of hoping for some ideal world
out there.
We accept ourselves just as we are, without judgement, we just watch
ourselves - this is done by meditation and mindfulness
practice....meditation can be done by many different means - just
sitting - watching - or by chanting...etc....Some folks can also use
sitting and/or chanting to avoid letting-go of the bs, to impose rigid
suit of armor so that they don't have to come down to earth. People of
either sort might appear relaxed or stiff....so you might want to
ignore trying to evaluate them and just see what works for you....the
break-through is not some heavenly light but when you accept the
afraid/smelliest/angriest parts of yourself as ok, sane, workable -
then some sort of honest awareness is happening beyond the mere
contents of awareness or thought....
we can get beyond the conceptual meaning of some limited being reacting
to 'the outside' into the meaningfullness of an openheart/mind
intentionally engaged with a living world...
There are good and lame teachers in every tradition. Find the honesty
in your own heart and you will be able to recognize them.
- n.
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from Thomas Reale a.k.a Theravad
Email: theravad@earthlink.net
Buddha means enlightened one. It is a title given by the
people to Prince Sidhartha Gautama some 25 centuries ago in India.
The Buddha was neither a god or God but a man. The Buddha preferred the
title, Tathagata which means "one who came and went". Others came
before him,were Supremely Enlightened and went and others will come
after him.
Dhamma is a complex term. Capitalized, Dhamma, it means the Unborn, the
Uncreated about which nothing can be said but it must be experienced
directly. It can also mean the Buddha's teachings concerning the Dhamma
which lead to direct experience of it. Uncapitalized dhamma, refers to
the things in our environment and the rules which seem to govern them.
Sangha is the fraternity of monks dedicated to the teaching of Dhamma and
self perfection for the good of all. In some schools it refers to the
community of believers.
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from Tang Huyen
Email: thuyen@bu.edu
Stream Entry ( First Stage of Arahantship )
Indeed, there is much more to Stream Entry than swearing allegiance to
the Buddha, for it involves a firm though still perfectible
understanding the no-self -- the abandoning of the view of the own-body
(sva-kaya-drsti). Blind faith doesn't do a thing here. What it means is
that one has started really and truly on the way to detachment,
dispassion and letting-go, and first of all regarding one's sense of
self. One has made a serious commitment to detaching oneself from any
sense of self, to becoming dispassionate with regard to it, and to
letting it go. By extension, one has also started to detach oneself from
any invested essence or substance in words and concepts, especially in
transcendent entities like God or the Absolute, with or without
attributes.
That's what Stream Entry is all about. And I don't think that's that
lame at all -- it is serious work and serious attainment. And it is not
specifically oriented toward the Buddha in person (or anybody else in
person, for that matter), it is rather a commitment to the Law as
discovered and taught by him.
One no longer has doubt with regard to it, and one no longer indulges in
rites and rituals for good luck from outside sources. One has unshakable
conviction in its truth, and not in contrary teachings, like those of
theism, Brahmanism/Hinduism, shamanism, animism, materialism, scepticism
(eel-wriggling), or any doctrine or practice other than detachment,
dispassion and letting-go.
One knows ahead of time that at the end, one will also let go of the Law
because it is only like a raft to cross over to the other side, though
in the meantime one will abide with it to go to the point where one will
... drop it.
The Law takes delight in being ultimately self-defeating, otherwise it
wouldn't be the Law. It is for crossing over, not for clinging to.
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Question from Kok Chee Chiong
Email: kcc@np.edu.sg
Answers are from Jaran Olsen
Email: jarano@online.no
QUESTION
From the sutras we know that even amongst arahants there were different levels of attainment. From the suttras we also know that Buddha's have certain attainments that arahants do not have, including all the siddhis. This suggests to me that arahants, though free, have not reached the pinnacle of their spiritual attainment.
Can an arahant then continue their cultivation in some "pure abodes"(terms taken from sutras) to reach Buddhahood or do they need to take on human rebirth to continue their cultivation ?
ANSWER
There are four noble individuals (ariya-puggala):
-the Stream-winner (Sotapanna )this one has a maximum of 7 rebirths before the attainment of Nibbana. He/she has cut of the three first fetters:
(1) personality-belief (sakkaya-ditthi),
(2) skeptical doubt (vicikiccha) and
(3) attachment to mere rules and rituals (silabbata-paramasa).
-the Once-returner (Sakadagami ) this one will be reborn once again as human before reaching Nibbana. He/she is free from the first three fetters, and nearly free from the 4th and 5th, sensous craving (kama-cchanda) and
ill-will (vyapada ).
-the Non-returner (Anagami ) this one will be reborn in one of the Deva planes and reach Nibbana. He/she is free from all the five first fetters (mentioned above).
-the Holy One (Arahat) this one has reached Nibbana, and realised it in this life. He/she is also free from the five higher fetters:
(6) craving for fine material existence (rupa-raga),
(7) craving for immaterial existence (arupa-raga),
(8) conceit (mana),
(9) restlessness (uddhacca) and lastly
(10) ignorance (avijja).
The threefold classification of enlightenment:
1. The Noble disciple (savaka-bodhi) i.e. an Arahant.
2. The Independently Enlightened One (pacceka-bodhi)*
3. The Perfect Enlightened One (samma-sambodhi)
*This one is someone who has discovered the Dhamma, but do not teach, is
unable to teach.
This threefold division, however, is of later origin. Neither in the canonical texts nor in the old commentaries is it stated that a follower of the Buddha may choose between the three kinds of enlightenment and aspire
either to become a Buddha, a Pacceka-Buddha or an Arahant-disciple.
Note that the Buddha called himself an arahant in the statement in the Mahavagga of Vinaya Pitaka, "There are now six arahants in the world", i.e., the five first disciples and the Buddha.
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Zaphod wrote:
I have just started to look into buddism, I have recently seen things on
quantum physics that say everything in the universe is connected at the
smallest level through time, distance everything. My knowledge on these
things is severely limited to basically observing and small opinions which
are forming. A thought is that what buddism is in enabling that level of
consciousness in self, the real reality is that everything is one, on a level
I peer through dark glasses and distorted lenses but thats ok because
weather or not I find it in this body I will in the passing on of this life
back to the all consciousness. Any comments or flames welcome
John
Answer is from Mubul
The motivation of the scientist is quite different from the
motivation of the Buddha. For the scientist, discovering reality is an
end in itself. The discovery of reality is to be carried out without
any regard for practical utility, morality, commercial interest, the
common good or patriotic concerns. For the Buddha, discovering reality
was a means to an end, namely, the elimination of dukkha.
Thankfully, the Buddha was not a scientist at all. He was a man intent
on finding a way to help people eliminate unnecessary and avoidable
pain. Towards this end he was far more interested in perceptions and
subjective realities than in objective reality. He was more interested
in adjusting attitudes than in discovering external realities. He was a
poet, a philosopher, and a psychotherapist, not a physicist. My guess
is that he would have found physics rather pointless.
The four noble truths were perfectly clear before quantum physics came
on the scene. Quantum physics has not shed any light whatsoever on such
matters as siila, samaadhi and pa~n~naa, nor on any one of the four
noble truths. It has no connection at all with the qualities that make
up a buddha. It has no connection at all with nirvana, the dharma to
which Buddhists go for refuge. And it has no connection at all with the
community of noble persons who have broken through the barriers of
belief in a self, attachment to rites and vows, and the malaise of
despair. In short, quantum physics has nothing to say about going for
refuge or about the actual practice of changing one's attitudes from
counterproductive to productive ways of viewing external or internal
events.
The Buddha said nothing at all about modern physics, just as modern
physicists have nothing to say about going for refuge. The two domains
are quite distinct. It is true that Buddhists can interpret
Oppenheimer's words to suit their own ends; they can use his words as a
kind of upaaya (though not a very effective one, I think). But it
hardly follows from this that he was speaking in the Buddhist idiom. He
was speaking the idiom of science. Some Buddhists have translated that
idiom into their own way of speaking, although I can't see why they
have bothered.
A Buddhist's efforts might better be spent trying to grasp the
practical implications of what various Buddhist traditions have taught
than diverting their attention to irrelevant topics such as quantum
physics. Examining technical details of quantum mechanics will not do
much to shed light on practical details of following the path to
nirvana. But that consideration may not suffice to keep Pietzsche from
muddying the clear waters of the Dharma by the discussion of such
irrelevant matters as quantum mechanics.
Mubul
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from SRyuei
Email: sryuei@aol.com
What is Nichiren Buddhism?
What are the main teaching of this sect ?
The major contribution of Nichiren Shonin (the 13th century Japanese founder of
Nichiren Buddhism) is the Three Great Secret Dharmas which clarify the faith,
teaching and practice of Nichiren Buddhism and also clarify the Nichiren
Buddhist understanding of the threefold training and the three treasures. These
are:
1. The Gohonzon (Supreme Focus of Devotion) which is the Eternal Shakyamuni
Buddha of the Essential Section of the Lotus Sutra in the act of transmitting
the Wonderful Dharma to his original disciples, the Bodhisattvas of the Earth.
This defines the proper focus of meditation and the proper understanding of the
Buddha.
2. The Daimoku (Sacred Title) which is Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. This is the Sino
Japanese phrase which means "I devote myself to the Wonderful Dharma of the
Lotus Flower Teaching." This phrase is our expression of faith in the Wonderful
Dharma, and it is also the seed of Buddhahood in that it manifests the
interaction between our latent Buddha nature and the actualized Buddha nature
of the Unborn and Undying Shakyamuni Buddha. The Daimoku defines the source and
fruition of wisdom and is the correct Dharma for this age.
3. The Kaidan (Precept Platform) which is no longer a government sponsored
ordination platform to recieve monastic precepts but it now anywhere where the
true spirit of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra is upheld. This defines
the real meaning of precept practice in this age and it also teaches that the
Sangha is composed of those who uphold the Wonderful Dharma by practicing Namu
Myoho Renge Kyo.
What are the main differences from other Buddhist sects ?
Nichiren Buddhism is a Mahayana school that specifically teaches that the
highest truth of the Buddha was taught in the Lotus Sutra, and that in this age
the way to practice the Lotus Sutra is by confidentally rejoicing in its
teaching that the Buddha is still present in our lives and through the Daimoku
enables us to actualize our own Buddhahood.
Some Buddhists believe they can attain Buddhahood through self-power, others
stress the Other-power of the Buddha. In the Nichiren school, we teach that
Buddhahood is achieved through the synergy of the Buddha's presence, our
receptivity through faith and rejoicing, and the power of the Daimoku which is
the Wonderful Dharma.
One way of thinking of this is that our Buddha nature is like a fallow field,
the Buddha is like the farmer who sows the field, and the Daimoku is the seed
which is sown on the field. The resulting crop is the actualization of
Buddhahood in our own lives.
Buddhist Retreat
Why I gave up on finding my religion.
By John Horgan
Posted Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 12:54 PM PT
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
For a 2,500-year-old religion, Buddhism seems remarkably compatible
with our scientifically oriented culture, which may explain its
surging popularity here in America. Over the last 15 years the number
of Buddhist centers in the United States has more than doubled, to
well over 1,000. As many as 4 million Americans now practice Buddhism,
surpassing the total of Episcopalians. Of these Buddhists, half have
post-graduate degrees, according to one survey. Recently, convergences
between science and Buddhism have been explored in a slew of
books-including Zen and the Brain and The Psychology of Awakening-and
scholarly meetings. Next fall Harvard will host a colloquium titled
"Investigating the Mind ," where
leading cognitive scientists will swap theories with the Dalai Lama.
Just the other week the New York Times hailed
the "rapprochement between modern science and ancient [Buddhist] wisdom.
Four years ago, I joined a Buddhist meditation class and began talking
to (and reading books by) intellectuals sympathetic to Buddhism.
Eventually, and regretfully, I concluded that Buddhism is not much
more rational than the Catholicism I lapsed from in my youth;
Buddhism's moral and metaphysical worldview cannot easily be
reconciled with science-or, more generally, with modern humanistic
values.
For many, a chief selling point of Buddhism is its supposed
de-emphasis of supernatural notions such as immortal souls and God.
Buddhism "rejects the theological impulse," the philosopher Owen
Flanagan declares approvingly in The Problem of the Soul. Actually,
Buddhism is functionally theistic, even if it avoids the "G" word.
Like its parent religion Hinduism, Buddhism espouses reincarnation,
which holds that after death our souls are re-instantiated in new
bodies, and karma, the law of moral cause and effect. Together, these
tenets imply the existence of some cosmic judge who, like Santa Claus,
tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with
rebirth as a cockroach or as a saintly lama.
Western Buddhists usually downplay these supernatural elements,
insisting that Buddhism isn't so much a religion as a practical method
for achieving happiness. They depict Buddha as a pragmatist who
eschewed metaphysical speculation and focused on reducing human
suffering. As the Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman put it, Buddhism is
an "inner science," an empirical discipline for fulfilling our minds'
potential. The ultimate goal is the state of preternatural bliss,
wisdom, and moral grace sometimes called enlightenment-Buddhism's
version of heaven, except that you don't have to die to get there.
The major vehicle for achieving enlightenment is meditation, touted by
both Buddhists and alternative-medicine gurus as a potent way to calm
and comprehend our minds. The trouble is, decades of research have
shown meditation's effects to be highly unreliable, as James Austin, a
neurologist and Zen Buddhist, points out in Zen and Brain. Yes, it can
reduce stress, but, as it turns out, no more so than simply sitting
still does. Meditation can even exacerbate depression, anxiety, and
other negative emotions in certain people.
The insights imputed to meditation are questionable, too. Meditation,
the brain researcher Francisco Varela told me before he died in 2001,
confirms the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, which holds that the self is
an illusion. Varela contended that anatta has also been corroborated
by cognitive science, which has discovered that our perception of our
minds as discrete, unified entities is an illusion foisted upon us by
our clever brains. In fact, all that cognitive science has revealed is
that the mind is an emergent phenomenon, which is difficult to explain
or predict in terms of its parts; few scientists would equate the
property of emergence with non-existence, as anatta does.
Much more dubious is Buddhism's claim that perceiving yourself as in
some sense unreal will make you happier and more compassionate.
Ideally, as the British psychologist and Zen practitioner Susan
Blackmore writes in The Meme Machine, when you embrace your essential
selflessness, "guilt, shame, embarrassment, self-doubt, and fear of
failure ebb away and you become, contrary to expectation, a better
neighbor." But most people are distressed by sensations of unreality,
which are quite common and can be induced by drugs, fatigue, trauma,
and mental illness as well as by meditation.
Even if you achieve a blissful acceptance of the illusory nature of
your self, this perspective may not transform you into a saintly
bodhisattva, brimming with love and compassion for all other
creatures. Far from it-and this is where the distance between certain
humanistic values and Buddhism becomes most apparent. To someone who
sees himself and others as unreal, human suffering and death may
appear laughably trivial. This may explain why some Buddhist masters
have behaved more like nihilists than saints. Chogyam Trungpa, who
helped introduce Tibetan Buddhism to the United States in the 1970s,
was a promiscuous drunk and bully, and he died of alcohol-related
illness in 1987. Zen lore celebrates the sadistic or masochistic
behavior of sages such as Bodhidharma, who is said to have sat in
meditation for so long that his legs became gangrenous.
What's worse, Buddhism holds that enlightenment makes you morally
infallible-like the pope, but more so. Even the otherwise sensible
James Austin perpetuates this insidious notion. " 'Wrong' actions
won't arise," he writes, "when a brain continues truly to express the
self-nature intrinsic to its [transcendent] experiences." Buddhists
infected with this belief can easily excuse their teachers' abusive
acts as hallmarks of a "crazy wisdom" that the unenlightened cannot
fathom.
But what troubles me most about Buddhism is its implication that
detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation.
Buddha's first step toward enlightenment was his abandonment of his
wife and child, and Buddhism (like Catholicism) still exalts male
monasticism as the epitome of spirituality. It seems legitimate to ask
whether a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as
sexuality and parenthood is truly spiritual. From this perspective,
the very concept of enlightenment begins to look anti-spiritual: It
suggests that life is a problem that can be solved, a cul-de-sac that
can be, and should be, escaped.
Some Western Buddhists have argued that principles such as
reincarnation, anatta, and enlightenment are not essential to
Buddhism. In Buddhism Without Beliefs and The Faith To Doubt, the
British teacher Stephen Batchelor eloquently describes his practice as
a method for confronting-rather than transcending-the often painful
mystery of life. But Batchelor seems to have arrived at what he calls
an "agnostic" perspective in spite of his Buddhist training-not
because of it. When I asked him why he didn't just call himself an
agnostic, Batchelor shrugged and said he sometimes wondered himself.
All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to
believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for
our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are
incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d'être of the
universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish
in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science,
unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel.
Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality,
but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science's
disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of
spirituality can.
*Footnote: See Theory of Meditation (or The Key to Happiness), produced and promoted by Colin Hankin
Taken from : http://www.accesstoinsight.org/bfaq.html
Are Buddhists vegetarian?
Some are, some aren't. I know of no evidence in the Pali Canon to
suggest that the Buddha discouraged his lay followers from eating meat.
Although some people may point to the first of the five precepts as
evidence that the Buddha asked his followers to be vegetarian, this
precept only concerns the intentional act of depriving a living being of
life, and says nothing about consuming the flesh of an animal that is
already dead. Many Buddhists (and, of course, non-Buddhists) do
eventually lose their appetite for meat out of compassion for other
living creatures, but from the strict Theravada Buddhist perspective,
the choice of whether or not to eat meat is purely a matter of personal
preference.
Theravada monks are forbidden to eat certain kinds of meat,[1] but
because their food is provided by the generosity of lay supporters,[2]
who may or may not themselves be vegetarian,[3] they are not required to
practice strict vegetarianism. Nor are Theravada monks required to eat
everything that is placed in their alms-bowl; a monk intent on pursuing
vegetarianism may therefore simply ignore the meat in his bowl. In parts
of Asia where vegetarianism is unheard of, however, vegetarian monks
face a clear choice: eat meat or starve.
Taking part in killing for food (hunting, fishing, trapping, butchering,
etc.) is definitely incompatible with the first precept, and should be
avoided.
But what if I eat -- or just purchase -- meat: aren't I simply
encouraging someone else to do the killing for me? How can letting
someone else do the "dirty work" possibly be consistent with the
Buddhist principle of non-harming, that cornerstone of Right Resolve?
This is tricky. Although the suttas are silent on this question, I
personally believe it would be wrong to order someone, "Please kill that
chicken for me," since it incites that person to break the first
precept.[4] Surely this is unskillful kamma. (Consider this whenever
you're tempted to order, say, a fresh-killed lobster at a restaurant; by
placing your order you are, in fact, ordering its death.) But purchasing
a piece of dead animal meat is another matter. Although my purchase may
indeed help keep the butcher or restaurateur in business, I am not
asking him to kill on my behalf. Whether he kills another cow tomorrow
is his choice, not mine. This is a difficult but important point, one
that reveals the fundamental distinction between personal choices
(choices aimed at altering my own behavior) and political ones (those
aimed at altering others' behavior). Each of us must discover for
ourselves where lies the boundary between the two. It is crucial to
remember that the Buddha's teachings are, first and foremost, tools to
help us learn to make good personal choices (kamma); they are not
prescriptions for political action.
We could not survive long in this world without bringing harm of one
sort or another to other creatures. No matter how carefully we trod,
countless insects, mites, and other creatures inadvertently perish under
our feet with every step. Where, then, do we even begin to draw the line
between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" harm? The Buddha's answer was
very clear and very practical: the five precepts. He didn't ask his
followers to become vegetarian; he simply asked us to observe the
precepts. For many of us, this is challenge enough. This is where we
begin.
Notes:
1. Theravada monks are forbidden to eat the flesh of humans, elephants,
horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, hyenas, and
panthers. A monk is also forbidden to eat raw fish or meat, or any fish
or meat that he sees, hears, or suspects was killed specifically for him
(see the description of "staple foods" in The Buddhist Monastic Code). A
monk who eats any of those kinds of meat commits an offense that he must
then confess to his fellow monks. These rules do not imply that a monk
must not eat meat -- only that a monk must be careful as to which kinds
of meat he does eat. [Go back]
2. See "The Economy of Gifts" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. [Go back]
3. Monastics within some schools of Mahayana Buddhism do practice
vegetarianism. See The Buddhist Religion: A Historical Introduction
(fourth edition) by R.H. Robinson & W.L. Johnson (Belmont, California:
Wadsworth, 1997), pp. 213-14. [Go back]
4. This is in keeping with the monks' rule about not eating meat that he
sees, hears, or suspects was killed specifically for him. See The
Buddhist Monastic Code [Go back]
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tang_huyen@yahoo.com
Subject: Rejoicing in finitude
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Date: Sunday, December 21, 2003 12:18 AM
naked ape wrote:
Only Self can say that Self doesn't exist. Why is that?
I have written many times on this topic, but here it is.
As to the self and its absence: Buddhist discourse gets complicated because
Buddhism pushes critique far past what is normally taken for granted, what is
usually taken to be the case. It suspends all the tacit assumptions that we
humans no longer think about (or *never* think about) when we go about our daily
routine, and therefore what it says (or doesn't say) depends on how far back it
stands in that critique.
In modern critical philosophy, there is the widespread idea that ancient
metaphysics was built on false problems, problems that were based on language in
general and on grammar in particular, and that were created by taking words and
concepts seriously and for real, namely as things, essences, substances,
especially such words as "I", "self", "soul", God", etc., and making them exist
independently, each on its own side (that is, apart from the words and concepts
that stand for them, and even apart from our daily world altogether). In modern
philosophy of science there is the widespread idea that if you ask a wrong
question, you won't even get a wrong answer.
In modern critical philosophy, there is the widespread idea that even physical
objects of our daily life, like tables and chairs, are logical constructs, which
don't exist as such in sensation but are constructed from bits and pieces of the
sense-field. All the more so for non-physical entities or non-entities that we
construct on a much more abstract level, by much more complicated constructions,
like "I", "self", "soul", God", etc.
The Buddha twenty-four centuries ago in India had understood such ideas and even
pushed them to their logical end. To him, our basic problem is that we follow
speech to chase realities, and the most basic errors that we commit in that
direction and inflict as problems on ourselves are "I", "mine", "self", "soul",
"God", etc., not to mention concrete physical objects, like tables and chairs,
which we logically construct from bits and pieces of the sense-field. We build
our lives on such words and concepts, stabilise and congeal the flowing reality
around them, and thereby offer resistance to the flowing reality. Suffering
comes from such resistance, and the ending of suffering comes from no longer
putting up such resistance.
So the Buddhist method (dharma) comes down to dissolving such resistance to the
flowing reality. One part consists in paying attention to what happens and
therefore to reverse the usual scattering of thought in memories of the past and
expectations of the future, memories and expectations that converge on "I",
"mine", "self", "soul", "God", etc. Another part consists in examining whether
there is anything that corresponds to such words and concepts, or whether they
are mere ideas without referent.
The referents in total are admitted only in so far as they are received into
some sense-fields, and all that surpasses the sense-fields altogether is
banished as outside of range, without object, and mere figments of the
imagination. Thus the referents are admitted as they fall into the five classes
of experience called the five aggregates, except for those constructions (those
compositions, belonging to the fourth aggregate) that surpass the sense-fields,
like "I", "mine", "self", "soul", "God", etc.
As one advances on the fore-mentioned practice, one learns to undo the patterns
that create suffering and substitute other ones that don't. In meditation, one
even calms down all mental activites other than mere cognition of raw sensation,
and thus quiesces all mentation altogether. In such state, even the ideas of
"I", "mine", "self", "soul", "God", etc. don't arise. One doesn't create a self
for oneself to carry around, doesn't inflict the problem (a false problem, built
on language) of "I", "self" on oneself. Thus one has no problem to solve, for
one doesn't create problems for oneself.
"'The self, the self (aatmaa aatmeti),' monks, [thinks] the foolish common
person who follows speech (prajñaptim anupatito). But there is no self and what
belongs to self there (na caatraasty aatmaa naatmiiya.m vaa). This suffering,
arising, arises, this suffering, ceasing, ceases (du.hkham ida.m bhik.saaava.h
utpadyamaanam utpadyate, duhkha.m ida.m niruddhyamaana.m niruddhyate).
Compositions, arising, arise, ceasing, cease (sa.mskaraa
utpadyamaanaa utpadyante, nirudhyamaanaa nirudhyante)." MA, 62, 498b,
Sangha-bheda-vastu, I, 158, Waldschmidt, Catusparisatsutra, 354-356.
"If the recluses and brahmans see the self, all see it in relation to the five
aggregates of grasping. The recluses and brahmans see form [and the other
aggregates] as the self, form as different from self, self in form, form in
self." SA, 45, 11b.
"The foolish common person sees form [and the other aggregates] as self. This
seeing is a composition (yaa kho pana saa samanupassanaa sa.nkhaaro so, Skt. yaa
saa samanupa'syanaa sa.mskaaraas te)." SA, 57, 14a14, SN, III, 96 (22, 81),
Dietz, Dharma-skandha, 53.
To the Buddha the alleged self/soul is not a thing, not a substance, not an
essence existing on its own side, but merely a composition, a product of the
compositions (the fourth aggregate), and in Nirvana, which is nothing more than
the calming of all compositions (sabba-sankhara-samatho), one does not compose a
self for oneself, and that is the truth of the absence of self. This absence of
the self is not the absence of a thing, a substance, an essence existing on its
own side, but merely the absence of a composition, the composition of the self
(sorry for the pleonasm), and when one calms one's compositions all the way, one
does not compose a self for oneself to carry around.
Even less does one chase one's past lives and future lives and attempt to figure
out one's past deeds and their returns and future deeds and theirs, and so on
and so forth.
All those issues, along with all else (the self included), have been laid to
rest, when one calms one's compositions all the way. The only thing self-evident
then is raw sensation, shorn of all mentation. There is no truth separate from
that, even less dogmas.
In that state, all has been settled, and yet one flows right on with reality.
One doesn't try to bend reality one's way (and the self is the centre of
convergence of such bending), but merely flows along with it.
But to return to your question, why is it that only Self can say that Self
doesn't exist?
In the awakened state, the awakened is not aware that he has no self, and if he
doesn't teach, he won't need to know that fact. But if he teaches others, he has
to activate thinking and reflection, and then he is aware that he has no self
and can tell his students that fact. So, in the normal awakened state, there is
no thought of the absence of self. It is unreflected spontaneity. There is no
mentation in such a state, even less naming and labelling.
So in the awakened state, the awakened does not mentate the absence of self, and
only when he reflects on such a state does he arrive at the idea of the absence
of self. When he compares said state to the normal deluded state, he sees that
the latter is made up of compositions, is packed chokeful with compositions --
compositions that converge and culminate in the self, which itself is also a
composition -- and that compared to that deluded state, the awakened state is
free of the compositions in general and of the self in particular. So when all
the compositions are quiesced whilst one still is fully aware of what happens,
they no longer are around to build up a self.
The absence of self is a fact (if we were to process it in language and
thought), but such a fact needs not be mentated.
So, Jim, your question is a wrong question in the first place, as it poses a
Self (in capital, too) in order to deny it. The state of the absence of all the
compositions -- Nirvana -- simply cognises sensation unmodified but does not
pose such a self just to deny it.
The denial is in view of deludeds who create such a self and carry it around,
and when they know how *not* to create it and carry it around, they also no
longer need "the absence of self" as a burden to carry around.
Remember, the Buddha says that even the Law (Dharma) has to be dropped, how much
more so the Non-Law (a-dharma), like the self. That is in the early canon and
reproduced verbatim in the Diamond Scripture.
The right question is along the line of: I have a self, I have an idea of self,
where does that self come from? Is it for real or is it only fictitious, made
up, composed, unreal and untrue? Does the good that it does me outweigh the
harm, or is it a burden that I create for myself and that inflicts suffering on
me for nothing, quite literally?
Buddhist practice attempts to verify the Buddha's discovery, that there is no
self as a real and true object, but that such a self is only a fiction, composed
and put together by the compositions (the fourth aggregate).
In raw sensation there is no self (there is no table and chair, either), but it
takes thinking to cognise the fact that there is no self, just as in deludeds it
takes thinking to construct the self, though the deludeds then go on to take
that self seriously whilst the awakened merely cognises the absence of self and
teaches that fact to others as a mere means to arrive at the same awakened state
but does not cling to it as if it were a thing, a substance, an essence existing
on its own side.
The awakened goes back past our normal assumptions of concrete concept-delimited
things like tables and chairs, and even past abstract constructions like "I",
"mine", "self", "soul", "God", etc., to just raw sensation, and he experiences a
wholesome sense-field (though to say so is already to trespass into his
unmentated experience), which is fully differentiated, but he simply receives it
intact and does not proceed to cut it up and label the parts (like tables and
chairs, which are already not in sensation) and build up fancy ideas like "I",
"mine", "self", "soul", "God", etc. at quite some removes from raw sensation.
Tang Huyen
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tanghuyen@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 6:36 AM
Subject: Prayer
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Derek Wray wrote:
Prayer - pleading for favours?
Prayer - an essential religious experience?
Prayer - does its have any value?
Tang Huyen replied....
Einstein says that from the general laws of physics
"it should be possible to attain by pure deduction
the description, that is to say, the theory of every
natural process, including those of life, if such
process of deduction were not far beyond the
capacity of human thinking. To these elementary
laws there leads no logical path, but only intuition,
supported by being sympathetically in touch with
experience [Einfühlung in die Erfahrung]." Gerard
Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought:
Kepler to Einstein, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1973, 377.
Plotinus, Enneads, IV, 4, 40, tr. Armstrong: "But
how do magic spells work? By sympathy and by
the fact that there is a natural concord of things
that are alike and opposition of things that are
different, and by the rich variety of the many
powers which go to make up the life of the one
living creature. For many things are drawn and
enchanted without anyone else's magical
contrivance: and the true magic is the 'Love' and
also the 'Strife' in the All. And this is the primary
wizard and enchanter, from observing whom men
came to use his philtres and spells on each other....
They use as well figures with power in them, and
by putting themselves into the right postures they
quietly bring powers upon themselves, since they
are within one universe and work upon one
universe." IV, 32: "This one universe is all bound
together in shared experience (sumpathes) and is
like one living creature, and that which is far is
really near."
Less literally, this last sentence can be understood
thus: the universe is a sympathic whole, and parts
that are far apart can still co-vibrate in sympathy.
My view of Buddhist cultivation is that it centres
on the empathy that one can muster with oneself
primarily, with others secondarily. Mindfulness is
based on the ability to connect with oneself, relink
with the alienised parts of oneself, bring them into
consciousness and reconcile with them, so that
one becomes a sympathic whole, whose parts that
are far apart can still co-vibrate in sympathy and
never in antipathy. One is sympathetically in touch
with experience (Einfühlung in die Erfahrung),
primarily one's own, secondarily others', that of the
universe included, so that one is within one universe
and works upon one universe.
It matters little whether there are beings out there,
God or the gods, who can see one's thought and
feeling and react to them, perhaps to carry out one's
wishes for one on one's behalf. It matters a great
deal that when one prays, one gathers in one's
faculties (instead of letting them get dispersed) and
puts them in harmony with one another, so that one
becomes more and more whole and not divided or
fragmented, surely not divided against oneself.
Ultimately, this inner co-vibrating with oneself
ushers in the total action in which one acts as a
whole, so that one's actions is of a single piece, not
fragmented, not divided, surely not divided against
oneself. When one brings harmony with oneself to
fruition, one is so harmonious that one can safely
get over oneself, drop oneself and go free of one's
self, and in that case action becomes non-action,
because there is no self around to act.
Even if one prays for the benefit of another or some
others, live or dead, the primary recipient of the
benefit is still oneself. Whether they get any benefit
or not, one benefits oneself by praying, or rather by
one's *prayerful attitude*, which brings about peace
and harmony to oneself. And the less self one carries
around, the more benefit one heaps up on oneself,
though there is accordingly less self around to
receive it.
Tang Huyen
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tanghuyen@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 10:23 AM
Subject: To whom do Buddhists pray?
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Scot Kamins wrote:
Folks,
I have never had this question answered to my
satisfaction although I've asked it many times
over the years. (I once asked it in a Zen newsgroup,
and all I got back was a bunch of koans. 8-D )
If Buddhism is a "supreme being"-free religion, to
whom do Buddhists pray?
(This is a serious question, by the way.)
Thanks,
- Scot
Tang Huyen replied
Praying is a set-up, the way a stage is set up to
entertain the audience, and it matters little whether
the objects in that set-up, like the content of the
prayer, the object which is prayed to (a Buddha or
the gods or whatever) and the intended recipients
(like some departed people dear to the person
doing the praying) exist or not and do what they are
supposed to do in the prayer (like bestowing some
benefit or receiving it) or not.
What matters is the attitude of the person doing the
praying, and this attitude tends to be concentrated
and receptive. That is, the person doing the praying
concentrates his mind on the act of praying, gathers
his faculties in the act of praying, and this gathering
in is calming (samatha), as contrasted with the
normal scattering which tends to be, if not perturbing,
at least not calming. On top of that calming, the act
of praying tends to put the person doing the praying
in a receptive, communicative mood, which can lead
to the penetration of normal blocks. This is insight
(vipassana). Both calming and insight work best when
the person doing the praying inserts as little of his
self as possible into his act of praying and effaces
himself as much as possible from the act of praying.
As the praying advances, the act of praying takes
more and more precedence, and the self doing the
praying recedes more and more. After a while there
is only the act of praying, and even it can disappear
in favour of just quiescence, more precisely
quiescence of all mentation, which is awakening.
If such lofty state cannot be attained, at least the
person doing the praying gathers himself in,
harmonises his faculties with each other, accords
himself with himself. That is what the set-up is for. It
is a stage prop to help the person doing the praying help
himself end his suffering, or at least alleviate it. The
person doing the praying benefits himself. The set-up
helps him fool himself into helping himself, more
precisely into helping himself get himself together, and
perhaps even drop himself. Whether anything happens
outside of him or not is inconsequential. Whether the
object he prays to (a Buddha, a Bodhisattva, some gods
or whatever) exists or not and can deliver any benefit or
not matters little. Etc. They're all props. Perfectly
fungible.
You can test the above hypothesis by skipping the props
and going directly into harmonising your faculties with
each other and according yourself with yourself, without
mediation. The benefit is exactly the same. The
rigmarole is just a roundabout way to protect the
innocent.
Tang Huyen
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tang_huyen@yahoo.com
Subject: Rejoicing in finitude
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Date: 2002-01-30 16:49:12 PST
Question: Aeholling <aehollingus@yahoo.com wrote :-
In addition, what you have presented is only half the picture. It is
the observation that finite existence is impermanent, the stuff of pain,
and insubstantial (anatta). On the positive side, there is the attâ
(soul) which is beyond the ken of the senses (not to mention the
Tathagata), which we, as Buddhists take refuge in ("The soul is refuge
with no other as refuge [attasaranam anannasaranam])." - DN.2.100).
If modern Buddhists wish to linger of the shore of their finitude, which
is little more than nihilism in some respects (at least Hindu
nihilism/nastika), I can well see that their future is not going to have
a good outcome. And they will miss entirely the 'other shore'. At
least for me, modern Buddhists are excessive in their one-sidedness,
viz., to see all is finite, with no hope of a beyond. The positive side
of Buddhism they wish not to hear of or even study. They selectively
read the canon declaring afterwards that all is conditioned-even the
Buddha's enlightenment. What they don't read, nor seem to understand,
is that the Buddha spoke of the absolute (sammâ) and separated it from
the finite. Moreover, nibbana provided the unfolding process to that
absolute. >
Answer:-
Ardie sweetie, You're into unverifiable metaphysical fantasmagoria
worthy of our resident Hinduist monk Punnie, who is a firm
comrade-in-arms of yours all these years.
The Buddha says: "There are four stations for consciousness. What are
the four? Approaching form, consciousness, standing, stands,
takes-as-its-object form, with form as platform, delights in it, waters
it and grows it; approaching feeling, consciousness, standing, stands,
takes-as-its-object feeling, with feeling as platform, with notion,
compositions as platform, delights in them, waters them, and grows them.
Monks! In them consciousness comes, goes, dies, gets born and grows. If
one was to declare consciousness' coming, going, dying, getting born,
and growing apart from them, that would only be speech (Skt.
vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to answer, it would
increase one's stupidity (Skt. sammoham apadyeta), for it would be
beyond one's sense-field (Skt. avisayatvat).
When passion with regard to the modality of form is done away with, the contact occasioned by mind
getting entangled with form is cut, and when the contact occasioned by
mind getting entangled with form is cut, the taking-as-object ends, when
the taking-as-object ends, consciousness has no place to stand on, and
will no longer grow.
When passion with regard to the modalities of feeling, notion, and compositions is done away with, the contact
occasioned by mind getting entangled with them is cut, and when the
contact occasioned by mind getting entangled with them is cut, the
taking-as-object ends, when the taking-as-object ends, consciousness has
no place to stand on, and, unestablished (apatitthita), will no longer
grow. As it no longer grows, it no longer composes (na abhisankharoti),
when it no longer composes, it is stable (thita), when it is stable, it
knows that it has enough (thitatta santusito), when it knows that it has
enough, it is liberated (santusitatta [vimutto]), when it is liberated,
with regard to the world it has nothing to grasp ([vimuttam] na kiñci
loke upadiyati, Skt. na kiñcil loka upadatte), not grasping he is
unperturbed, unperturbed, internally he fully blows out (aparitassam
paccattaññeva parinibbayati, Skt. aparitasya atmaiva parinirvati).
Birth is ended, the chaste life has been lived, what has to be done is done,
one knows for oneself that there is no further becoming. I say that that
consciousness will not go east, west, south, north, the zenith or nadir,
the intermediaries, or any other direction (nanyatra), in the present
things it is shadowless (nischaya), blown-out (parinirvvati or
parinirvrta), cooled, become pure (brahmi-bhuta)." SA, 39, 9a, 64, 17a,
SN, III, 54-55 (22, 54), 58 (22, 55), Vyakhya, 271-272, 668.
The important part, which survives in the Chinese _Conjoined Agama_
(Samyukta-Agama) and in Sanskrit fragments, says very clearly that
anything outside of the six sense-spheres (or the five aggregates) is
"only a thing of speech (Skt. vag-vastu-matram)", or more completely:
"If one was to declare consciousness' coming, going, dying, getting
born, and growing apart from them [the four stations for consciousness,
which are the four aggregates outside of consciousness], that would only
be speech (Skt. vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to
answer, it would increase one's stupidity (Skt. sammoham apadyeta), for
it would be beyond one's sense-field (Skt. avisayatvat)."
Again, if you do not take that to be explicit enough about the "all",
the Buddha makes the famous declaration: "All (sarva), that is the
twelve places (dvadasayatanani), from the eye and forms to the mind and
objects-of-mind, that is how the Tathagata makes known the all (sarvam
ca prajñapayati) and the concept of the all (sarva-prajñaptim ceti). If
any recluse and brahman was to declare: 'this is not the all, I shall
revoke it and declare another all,' that would only be speech
(vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to answer, it would
increase one's stupidity (sammoham apadyeta), for it would be beyond his
sense-field (a-visayatvat)." SA, 319, 91a, Zitate, 507, SN, IV, 15 (35,
23), Maha-vibhasa, T, 27, 1545, 378b-c.
So, Ardie luv, that is the "all" (sarva) and the "concept of the all"
(sarva-prajñapti), according to the Buddha, back twenty-four centuries
ago. That would make him very "modern" and sadly bounded by "finitude"
and "nihilism", going by your terminology, eh, dearie?
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tang_huyen@yahoo.com
Subject: Inside or outside of the aggregates
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Date: 2002-08-05 16:42:39 PST
Question : - kojizen wrote:
Answer:-
Ardie luvvie, The Buddha thinks and talks about the discursive mind (de
intellectu), you and your comrade-in-arms Punnie think and talk about
things (de re).
When the Buddha talks about "detachment from", he means purely mental
(intellective, affective, etc.) detachment, whilst the material world is
fully unchanged. Only one's *attitude to* the object of detachment has
changed, whilst the object of detachment and the rest of the world are
intact.
But you and your comrade-in-arms Punnie with your realist and literalist
bent charge in and take in a realist and literalist manner what the
Buddha says, and thoroughly misunderstand him.
Punnie this morning talks of "his [the arhat's] experience of the
transcendental". Usually he talks of nibbana which is "outside the
aggregates", blessed with "the inneffable, trans-logical nature of
nibbana", which "being outside the conditioned realm is completely
inexpressible in logical discourse".
He simply and crudely takes the detachment in a spatial, material sense,
so that by detachment from the aggregates one floats away in a
"transcendental" world "outside the aggregates", etc. & etc.
He and you think and talk in a blatant physical "quid pro quo" manner
(what is outside of the aggregates, be it nibbana or the soul, in
exchange for what is inside), though he likes to throw the curse of
"materialism" at those who disagree with him.
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tang_huyen@yahoo.com
Subject: Inside or outside of the aggregates
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 9:49 AM
Jonathan Jennings :< Well, if you want to cling to the idea that 'dhamma' does not exceed 'sankhara' in range, thereby leaving room for a 'soul',
you should definitely cling very tightly to that 'Dh-A'>
Ludwig: < Well he could cling very tightly to that proposition I agree, there is just about room for a soul within those very narrow parameters.
But there is no real evidence to suggest that the Buddha intended his teaching to be understood in this way.>
Tang Huyen :
Both of you, Jonathan and Ludwig, are mistaken on the Buddha's position on the
various classes in question here.
Dhamma does exceed the sankhara in range, in that the former includes all (for
us humans: all thinkables) whereas the latter includes the compositions (which
is what sankhara means), more specifically the compositions of mind, the fourth
aggregate, and excludes what is outside of the compositions, for instance the
state of mind in which the compositions (the fourth aggregate) are quiesced
whilst one still is fully conscious, and this state is Nibbana, which is defined
as the calming of all compositions (sabba-sa.nkhaara-samatho), or as Yawwn
translated a few days ago: the stilling of all formations.
The uncomposed dhamma is just that state, the quiescence of all the
compositions, and the composed dhamma-s are the compositions themselves.
Nibbana is then only one special state of the five aggregates, in which the
second aggregate (feeling) and fifth aggregate (consciousness) are active whilst
the third aggregate (notion, idea) and the fourth (the compositions) are
quiesced and do not proceed. It is merely an aspect of the same world as we
deludeds live in, only there is no mental activities other than pure cognition
(the fifth aggregate) of raw sensation (the second aggregate). In both Samsara
and Nibbana, the first aggregate (form) is the same, and so are the second and
fifth aggregates.
Samsara and Nibbana are merely two aspects of that same world, two ways of
looking at it, with the compositions and without. There is no other difference.
Ludwig commits the same error as Jonathan and Ardie and Kenny, in that he
charges right in and takes the self/soul (atta) as a something, a thing, a
substance, something that exists on its own side, but the Buddha never made that
error. The Buddha exercised critique, more specifically a critique of our habits
of thinking and talking, and he found that the self is only a composition
(sankhara), that it is a product of the delusory habit of deludeds in following
speech to chase realities.
Thus he said:
"'The self, the self (aatmaa aatmeti),' monks, [thinks] the foolish common
person who follows speech (prajñaptim anupatito). But there is no self and what
belongs to self there (na caatraasty aatmaa naatmiiya.m vaa). This suffering,
arising, arises, this suffering, ceasing, ceases (du.hkham ida.m bhik.saaava.h
utpadyamaanam utpadyate, duhkha.m ida.m niruddhyamaana.m niruddhyate).
Compositions, arising, arise, ceasing, cease (sa.mskaraa utpadyamaanaa
utpadyante, nirudhyamaanaa nirudhyante)." MA, 62, 498b, Sangha-bheda-vastu, I,
158, Waldschmidt, Catusparisatsutra, 354-356.
"If the recluses and brahmans see the self, all see it in relation to the five
aggregates of grasping. The recluses and brahmans see form [and the other
aggregates] as the self, form as different from self, self in form, form in
self." SA, 45, 11b.
"The foolish common person sees form [and the other aggregates] as self. This
seeing is a composition (yaa kho pana saa samanupassanaa sa.nkhaaro so, Skt. yaa
saa samanupa'syanaa sa.mskaaraas te)." SA, 57, 14a14, SN, III, 96 (22, 81),
Dietz, Dharma-skandha, 53.
Thus to the Buddha the alleged self/soul is not a thing, not a substance, not an
essence existing on its own side, but merely a composition, a product of the
compositions (the fourth aggregate), and in Nibbana, which is nothing more than
the calming of all compositions, one does not compose a self for oneself, and
that is the truth of the absence of self. This absence of the self is not the
absence of a thing, a substance, an essence existing on its own side, but merely
the absence of a composition, the composition of the self (sorry for the
pleonasm), and when one calms one's compositions all the way, one does not
compose a self for oneself to carry around.
When one has reached that state, which is Nibbana, one realises that the self
that one has previously created for oneself is a mere figment of the mind, a
figment of the mind that one created for oneself on the basis of speech
(prajñaptim anupatito), and the whole time, one took seriously a mere product of
the compositions (the fourth aggregate).
Other than Nibbana, the other dhamma that is usually taken to exist outside of
the compositions is Dependent Arisal, and it is usually taken to be the bulwark
of all thing-events, but after quiesceing one's compositions, one no longer pays
attention to it, it has been released, along with all the compositions. Whether
it exists or not, what its status is (for example, whether it is a thought-up
relation or a real relation, whether it exists or only holds [besteht]), all
those issues are moot, for one mentates neither Dependent Arisal nor those
issues about it.
All those issues, along with all else (the self included), have been laid to
rest, when one calms one's compositions all the way. Which is what the ending of
suffering is all about. There is no more to Buddhism than that.
Tang Huyen
From: Robert McDonald
Emal: bobmcdonld@worldnet.att.net
Date: 19 October 2006
Subject: Prayer in Buddhism
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answer from: Tang Huyen
Email: tang_huyen@yahoo.com
Robert McDonald wrote:
I have recently seen two references to prayer and Buddhism, which I really
do not understand. It was my understanding that the idea of praying was
antithetical to Buddhism.
Elucidation would be appreciated.
B
________________________
Reply
In the Buddha's Buddhism thee is no prayer directed
to some specific entity or non-entity, like God or
some god(s). However one can meditate on the Four
Divine Abodes -- friendliness, compassion,
sympathetic joy, equanimity -- and extend them to
the whole universe. One can also meditate on them
and beam them to some specific people as intended
beneficiaries, and whether they benefit or not, one
makes oneself better in the process. One can well be
the only beneficiary of it (perhaps all prayers and
ceremonies are for the benefit of only the people
performing them), though at least one's intention is
good. One can't control the world, including whether
one's meditation or prayer does anything for one's
intended beneficiary, but one can control oneself in
simply meditating or praying in sincerity.
That said, it is permissible to pray for the benefit of
some specific person(s), live or dead, but address the
prayer to no specific entity or non-entity. One doesn't
know whether one's prayer does anything for one's
intended beneficiary, but one simply prays. It is even
better to pray for no specific person and address the
prayer to no specific entity or non-entity. The less
one binds one's mind to anything, like the intended
beneficiary or the intended benefit or the entity or
non-entity to which one addresses one's prayer, the
freer one becomes by one's absence of mooring. Thus
the best kind of prayer is prayer addressed to no entity
or non-entity, with no content to the praying, such as
the intended benefit for some intended beneficiary. It's
just a free-floating prayer in which one stops at nothing,
stands on nothing, settles down into nothing. The
prayerful attitude does wonders to one's mind, and the
less one moors it down to anything, like the intended
benefit or the intended beneficiary or the recipient to
which one addresses one's prayer, the more fruitful it is
to oneself. One simply prays in the void, as it were.
In other words, just the prayerful attitude alone without
any mark or sign associated with it (i. e., with an empty
mind) is best of all. Discard everything -- all marks and
signs -- and simply enter a prayerful attitude unmoored
to anything. That's a mighty meditation. The best
Buddhist masters can't do anything better than that.
Tang Huyen
Subject: How To Tell A Buddhist
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
By Rev. Brian Robertson"
Email: Rev. Brian Robertson
From the blog TheBuddhaMind.com
One is a Buddhist not by the books or sutras one reads, not by the
personal choice in a Buddha statue or the design of an altar, not by how
straight one sits up in meditation or how well one can chant. The
Buddhist is not known by his or her choice of clothing, or length (or
absence) of hair, by a particular necklace or by a ring of mala beads.
The follower of the Buddha is not seen walking a foot off the ground,
not standing on the street corner pounding a book, finger raised in the
air, and is not recognized by the particular fragrance of incense that
wafts through their house.
One is a Buddhist, a student of Buddhism, in moments where she, quite
naturally, is herself. When the rain falls on the roof and the sound and
the smell are simply what there is and all there is. When it's perfect
that the rain falls on the wicked and the just, permeating all things
without regard to good or bad, gay or straight, here or there.
When, for a moment, the world is simply what it is, not what we wish it
to be or how we would bend it to be, at that moment we are Buddhists.
When we see another person and we give aid and support, spontaneously,
in the form of taking some of their load or, perhaps, offering a smile
and the briefest of nods, we are Buddhist.
When the Buddha speaks to the Buddha there is only the Buddha. By the
time we think that, it is over.
Gassho,
Rev. Brian Robertson
TheBuddhaMind.com
Subject: Fundamentalist Buddhist
Taken from the Buddhist newsgroup.
Answers are from David Yeung
Email: Amitabh_Bachchan_Buddha@hotmail.com
Evelyn:< We have had other examples around here of the same thing in the past, so he (Presectarian Buddhism) is not unique. I have
no idea how anyone can study this same stuff and get something completely different out of it, eliminating some concepts and
inventing the rest.>
I have a good idea how someone can study Buddhism and end up being a triumphalist sectarian. It's a matter of
not having been exposed to (or being unwilling to be exposed to) Buddhism as it is practised in real life.
While a lot of non-Buddhists tend to think of Buddhists as lonely monk/nun types, actual Buddhist practice is
very communal. After all, our third jewel is Sangha -- a community. Unlike revealed religions with fixed texts,
our canonical tradition is not fixed and immutable for all time, but must be constantly evaluated by each
person in the context of his or her experiences, as well as in the collective experience of the community.
The sorts of remarks made by this so-called "Presectarian Buddhism" is exactly the types of things you hear from
the fundamentalists of the revealed (i.e. text-based) religions. Substitute "the Bible" or "the Qur'an" for
"the Sutras" ("God" or "Allah" for "the Buddha", etc.) in what he says and you'll get -- exactly -- a Christian
or Islamic fundamentalist clone. (Try it and you'll see.)
There's no sense in attempting to have a discussion with this kind of person, because he's already convinced that
he alone possesses the revealed Truth. Anything that calls his dogma into question is automatically dismissed
as an effort to "debate" him, and furthermore, he has already decided that the "debate" has been won -- by him.
His answer to every attempt to present a point of view that is different from his is "The Sutras say so-and-so,
and therefore I win and you lose!" Anyone who has had the experience of "discussing" religion with a fundamentalist
Christian or Muslim will recognize this type of response. For such a person, the text says exactly what he interprets
the text to say, and the possibility that others can read a text differently, or that he is imposing a context upon
the text that isn't inherently a part of the text itself, does not occur to him. Even his language is borrowed from
fundamentalist Christianity, e.g. in dismissing Theravadin Buddhism as a kind of "Buddhist Satanism".
(Attempting to cut a discussion short by painting alternative views with "evil" is a common tactic amongst religious
fundamentalists. Rather than discuss the merits or demerits of granting equal civil rights to homosexuals, or making
abortion accessible, it's far easier to just chant "God hates fags" and "Abortion is murder". This sort of thing has even
crept into the political discourse, e.g. repeatedly calling some countries "the Axis of Evil" rather than actually
evaluating the good and bad actions of the governments in relation to the actions of other governments.)
Unfortunately, there's likely no way to have any kind of actual discussion with this "Presectarian Buddhism" person,
any more than you are likely to be able to convince the Jehovah's Witnesses at your front porch to consider that the
Bible might just be a record of a people's mythology rather than the actual Word of God. (But it's fun to try though...
any JW who comes to my place is going to get a lecture on what archeology has actually taught us about the Middle East,
as opposed to what the Bible claims.) Human nature being what it is, there will always be people who are attached to
the idea that they have "the Truth", and whose attachment is so strong that they cannot even begin to consider the
possibility that things might be otherwise. Unless he opens himself to the possibility of other points of view, anything
you say to this "Presectarian Buddhism" fellow is just going to feed his delusion that he's the sole possessor of the
Truth. If you disagree with him, then in his mind you've lost a debate to him, and this in turn re-inforces his
delusion that he possesses the Truth which he is defending against heretics.
While this sort of behaviour is relatively uncommon amongst Buddhists (relative to believers in revealed religions), it
is not unknown. There are many examples in history of Buddhists who held a triumphalist view of their own brand
of Buddhism while dismissing others as heretical. Of course there continue to be such triumphalist Buddhist sects even
in our own time, and "Presectarian Buddhism" is just adding one more to the mix. He's just not as unique or as special
as he believes himself to be. But on the positive side, this sort of attitude can change over time. I've participated
on Buddhist forums where I've seen people who were raised in or were first introduced to a particular tradition bring
with them stereotypes or strong opinions about other traditions, but changed their minds when they learned about
how Buddhism and Buddhist practice have evolved in history in relation to different social conditions.
Even some of the famous Buddhist teachers in history have passed through a phase when attachment to scriptures was a
"stumbling block" (to borrow a Christian phrase) to them. Anyone who's read the biography of Zen Master Hakuin will
remember that his teacher berated him for being "a poor devil attached to the scriptures". But at least Hakuin
realized that his attachment to scriptures was a problem and worked hard to realize Buddhism in actual practice.
Similar stories exist in other Buddhist traditions. This "Presectarian Buddhism" isn't going to make any progress
while he has such strong attachment to his dogma, and remains unwilling to practise actual Buddhism, in the context of a
community of other practitioners.
One of the major differences between Buddhism, and sectarian dogmas such as those espoused by the self-
proclaimed "Presectarian Buddhism", is that people who actually practise Buddhism always do so in the context of
a community of other Buddhists. Every actual Buddhist that I know has one or more Dharma teachers, and have some
practices (meditation, chanting, puja) that are performed as a part of a group. (Even "individual" practices such
as meditation must first be learned from a teacher, and usually initially in the presence of other students.)
Talk to any Buddhist, and he or she will tell you about his or her teacher(s) and practices. The primary way that
any practising Buddhist relates to Buddhism is always in the context of their life experience, and the influences
that their practices have had on it. We ask questions such as "How can I manage my anger?" or "How should I
react to the war?", and then look at our canonical and historical traditions to supply ideas that we then apply
to our current situation. It's not that Buddhists are not capable of debating about the canon or have no tradition
of doing so (the meaning of the Buddhist canon has certainly been debated to death by Buddhist scholastics),
it's just that in Buddhism, the canonical tradition is not the primary focal point of our experience, unlike the
case with revealed text-based religions.
In contrast to actual Buddhism, all this "Presectarian Buddhism" fellow talks about -- in page after page after
page of posts (I just came back to the group and had to scroll past like three screenfuls of post titles that
essentially said the same thing: "My Buddhism is right and you're a bunch of idiots") -- is what he thinks is
in the Buddhist canon, and why all Buddhists are wrong. In literally hundreds of posts, he has shared nothing
about his teachers, or his practice, or his community, but only page after page of why some grammatical ending
in Pali should be read differently than it has traditionally been read by scholars. He may very well
believe that he's discovered "original" Buddhism, but if he has, the Buddhist canon would be full of stories
about the Buddha correcting other people's grammar -- rather than the stories about the Buddha creating a
community, instituting practices, and changing people's lives by teaching them to see and interact with the
world differently, that the canon actually contains.
So, to answer your question as to "how anyone can study this same stuff and get something completely different
out of it, eliminating some concepts and inventing the rest", it's very simple. Unlike the Buddha, who created
the community called the Sangha who would help each other understand his teachings, and unlike Buddhists, who
study and practise the Buddha's teachings within a community whose members guide one another and each
other's errors, "Presectarian Buddhism" is an army of one who has already decided what the Buddha's teachings
should be, and whose attachment to his own dogmas are so strong that he is unable to consider other points of
view except in the context of a "debate" that he has already won. In other words, he is behaving exactly as
a fundamentalist believer in a revealed religion would. He lives in his own little world where he alone possesses
the Truth (along, perhaps, with a few followers who believe in the same dogmas), and nothing you or I can
say will persuade him otherwise. Regardless of what he believes about his discovering "original" Buddhism, he's
actually very much attached to the ideas and modes of behaviour of revealed religion, and he's filtering
Buddhism through that lens. Until he understands this for himself, there's nothing anyone can do for him.
(And besides, who has that much time to attempt to have some kind of discussion with him anyways? You already
know that he's just going to post that you're wrong, and repeat the same thing 100 times.)
Evelyn: < But it happens..... and it is sad, because they can actually study the truth, and still get some incorrect message.
Something in their perception is broken and no matter what sort of truth is presented to them they won't get it right.>
Be very careful that you don't start down the same road! When someone comes at you with something that you disagree
with, which they call "the Truth", it's very tempting to counter (even subconsciously) with "truth" of your
own. But "truth" is an abstract concept. When we say "the truth", what we really mean to say is "the truth
about some particular thing". Even religious fundamentalists who say "the Truth" really mean "the Truth about reality",
or "the Truth about God", etc. The danger in using this kind of language, from a Buddhist point of view, is the
ease with which we can deceive ourselves into thinking that "the truth" applies not just to some things which
are true, but that it applies to everything. Religious fundamentalists don't see people of other religions or
no religion merely as people with different opinions, but as "enemies of God". What you said above about
people who "actually study the truth" and "still get some incorrect message" sounds too much like what I have
heard some Christians and Muslims say about people who have read their holy books and still decide not to
convert to their religion.
Certainly, "Presectarian Buddhism" has been presented with the facts concerning how Buddhists traditionally
understand the statements found in the Buddhist canon -- whether those statements are "the truth" or not. But
for whatever reason, he is unable or unwilling to accept that the Buddhist understanding of the canon
is different than his interpretation of it, and he continues to insist that Buddhists must come around to
his views. That he disagrees with the traditional Buddhist views (i.e. what you or I might call "the
truth") is no reason to dismiss him. We should never dismiss people who disagree with or bring into question
what we consider "the truth", because closing ourselves off to alternate viewpoints is the surest way to trap
ourselves in error. Having considered what he has to say, however, we can also see that he has nothing new
to add. Every message subsequent to the first has been a recycling of the same thing. No progression in
dialogue -- in fact, no dialogue -- is possible, because he's stuck on one thing, and nothing can shake him.
Thus, while we don't dismiss him merely because he disagrees with us (i.e. merely because what he calls
"the Truth" is different than we think or consider to be true), we can safely ignore him, because he has nothing
new to say that we haven't already heard. :)
Evelyn: < I killfiled the guy last time around when he was here spewing profanity at people. There is no way that is part of buddhism. It is incorrect
speech, plain and simple. If someone uses incorrect speech, there is probably a good chance there is incorrect thought behind it. And
incorrect thought is a disease that isn't easily set straight.>
Profanity is to be expected on unmoderated newsgroups and isn't, in itself, a reason to killfile someone. I remember
a few posters such as Richard Hayes and DharmaTroll who used the occasional profanity to get a point across.
A lot of incorrect speech has to do with intent. In this case, though, from what I've seen, the poster is just
using profanities to belittle others, which is surely not in the spirit of proper speech.
Zeno wrote to Pastor Frank
Pastor Frank wrote:
Personally I can't see any REAL conflict between Christ and Buddha.
However Jesus supercedes Gautama in that both knew their teaching was
unattainable, and served only as a Koan, yet Christ's death on the cross
rend the curtain dividing us from the holy of holies in the temple of
God and instant illumination / the kingdom of God came into the reach
of common man. The key to this in my view is how one reaches
self-lessness.I would agree with your view that the Buddha and Christ
were essentiallythe same. However, I would view the real meaning of
Christ's death as metaphorical, in that the death on the cross signified
the need to die to the bondage of self (a constant wheel of revenge,
hatred and greed) so that one may live in the kingdom of God, an arisen
state of being beyond the confines of self and culture. The way to the
kingdom of God is through true forgiveness of the heart, awareness of
the moment and gratitude to all of Being. When one is all this, the
old self is no more. Every word you say is absolutely true, and at the
same time absolutely unattainable, therefore useless. Buddha knew that,
yet he sent people, including myself on this journey of the Noble
Eightfold Path etc.My Deer cart quickly turned into a goat cart, and
eventually into a snail cart. Nevertheless I owe Buddha my understanding
of Christ and I am eternally grateful to Him for His guidance. For
Christ means instant illumination.
Zeno replied
I disagree, Pastor Frank. Uselessness indicates that something is
without value. I did not mean "without value", quite the opposite I
think Buddha's teachings are of immeasurable value while nevertheless
being quite unattainable, as one has no leverage against oneself. I
strongly believe the key is not obvious, nor can it be in order to
function. However I feel pretty certain that in Buddha's case his
adjective of "compassionate" holds all the answers, completely and
in all its glory, much as it did with Christ.
The teachings are still relevant and priceless even though one may
never become "totally enlightened." The insight and knowledge gained
from studying and meditating on dhamma has great value, as you admit in
the latter part of your paragraph. And yes, we all fail and forget the
teachings during our lives but overall, we're still the better from
being acquainted with it.The Buddha knew enlightenment was the most
difficult thing to realize, yet he did come to realize, after initial
doubt, that it was possible for all sentient beings to eventually
realize dhamma.
Pastor Frank wrote
I admire your faith and steadfastness greatly, and I'm certain you
will find what you seek.
"I thank thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
babes."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rev. Donald Spitz wrote
Buddha is a false teacher and anyone who follows him will end up in
eternal hell fire. Buddha didn't do a think but flap his lips. Jesus
died on the cross for your sins, and then rose from the dead. When you
die, you will not be standing before Buddha, but before the LORD Jesus
Christ. Anyone who would break the first commandment and follow a false
prophet like Buddha will get what they deserve. The Lake of Fire.
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him
which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Pastor Frank replied
Are you God, or do you just think you are? Didn't Jesus say: "Judge
not, that ye be not judged" (Jesus in Matt 7:1). You obviously
consider Jesus to be just "flapping his lips" when He said the above,
don't you?
Like Socrates, Buddha DID NOT considered himself other but a humble
teacher, friend and philosopher and NEVER divine or an object of
veneration.You judge and condemn the compassionate and the wise the
Lord God sent to us, at the risk of you own salvation "Reverend".
Besides, why do you call yourself "Reverend"? Show where that is a
Biblical designation.
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise
men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some
of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from
city to city:
(Jesus in Matt. 23:34)
How little the Pope knows about Buddhism
Taken from : http://www.zip.com.au/~lyallg/PopeKnows.htm
The Pope, who managed to get the United Nations "International Year for
Tolerance" off to a good start with the launch of his book, 'Crossing
the Threshold of Hope' - Johnathan Cape, London, has demonstrated his
abysmal ignorance and lack of understanding of Buddhism. Although he,
with reservations, expresses guarded approval of Judaism, Hinduism and
Islam, he considers Buddhism beyond the pale. He trots out the usual
cliches about Buddhism being "negative" and pessimistic. What really
worries him is the appeal Buddhism has to the 'Western' mind,
especially to Catholics who see in Buddhist meditation techniques
something that has been lost from the contemplative tradition of early
Christianity. He provides no logical arguments against Buddhism but
resorts to dogma to prove his point.
He is not happy with the impact that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is
having on the "Christian West", obviously feeling that it is solely a
Christian right to convert others. The Christians have been trying to
impose Christianity on "Buddhist" countries for centuries with little
impact. Buddhists do not set out to convert Christians, but, if certain
aspects of Buddhism appeal to Christians, such as its emphasis on
non-violence and allowing investigation by its followers of its
teachings, this is more a criticism of the Christian attitude than of
Buddhism. Buddhism does not condemn those who follow other traditions.
The Buddha never suggested that all people must follow his teaching but
he invited them with the words "Ehi passiko" - come and see, to
investigate and understand the nature of life. When referring to the
Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, he places the word 'patriarch' in
parenthesis, which infers that Buddhists are not entitled to use such a
title. The words 'patriarch' and 'pope' come from the same root
'pater', meaning 'father', so he infers that others who use this title
are usurping his position. How does he feel about the Patriach of
Constantinople or the Patriarch of Russia who are both within the
Christian tradition? Would he put their titles in parenthesis too or is
his belittling attitude reserved for non-Christian traditions? He
expresses distaste for the fact that the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand
was surrounded by monks, several of whom were from the United States.
At times, he is surrounded by Cardinals, several of whom, such as
Cardinal Simon Pimenta from India, Cardinal Michael Meechai Kitboonchu
from Thailand and Cardinal Sin from the Phillipines, come from Asian
countries. It would be hoped that his Cardinal from the Phillipines
does not perform any miracles for this would necessitate the Pope
beatifying Sin - how unthinkable?
He claims that "the 'enlightenment' experienced by the Buddha comes
down to the conviction that the world is bad, that it is the source of
evil and suffering for man". The Buddha never claimed that the world is
bad and a source of evil and suffering. The emphasis in the Buddha's
teaching is on the mind not the world. The world is neutral - it is
only the mind of man which creates difficulties in the world. The
source of suffering, taught the Buddha, is due to greed, anger and a
deluded mind. These are not properties of the world but of man,
himself. It could be suggested that another source of suffering for
many, especially in the poorer countries, is the Pope, himself. He
opposes population control and liberation theologians who promote
better living conditions for the poor. Overpopulation is a source of
misery but he denounces the very idea of contraception. Very little is
said in the Buddhist scriptures about enlightenment other than it being
the overcoming of greed, anger and a deluded mind. It entails the
perfection of Karuna - compassion - and Maitri - boundless altruistic
love - qualities which certainly do not demonstrate 'indifference' to
the world. Like so many of us who are bound by greed, anger and a
deluded mind, the Pope, who demonstrates such ignorance of the basic
teachings of Buddhism is hardly one who should be entrusted with
"infallible" pronouncements.
His main objection to Buddhism seems to be that 'it is in large measure
an "atheistic" system'. The Oxford Dictionary defines 'atheism' as
'Disbelief in the existence of a God'. The Buddha is described as the
'teacher of gods and men', so how can Buddhism be an atheistic system?
Religious arguments often come down to the use of religious language.
We must ascertain to what we are referring when we use the term "God".
He uses the terms 'personal god' and 'living god' and 'god the
creator'. What does he mean by 'personal god'. Many Buddhists believe
that devas or 'gods' protect them. Would this be the same as 'personal
gods', if so, we have no argument with him on that score. What is a
'living god'? Anything that is living is subject to death and decay, so
why should we place ourselves in the hands of something which, like
ourselves, is impermanent? If he is referring to the old man with a
white beard who sits in the sky taking notes in his little black book
ready for the day of judgement, then he is out of step with modern
theological thinking and most other theologians.
Fortunately, Christianity has come a long way since this simplistic way
of thinking. Modern theologians, such as Paul Tillich, suggest that the
term 'God' refers to the 'ground of being' - the very fact of
existence. No Buddhist would argue with this but they may be reluctant
to use the term 'god' to describe it. In the Itivuttaka, one of the
books of the Buddhist canon, it says: "Monks, there is an unborn, a
not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn,
not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be apparent
no escape from this that here is born, become, made, compounded. But
monks, since there is an unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded,
therefore the escape from this that here is born, become, made and
compounded is apparent." In Indonesia, where it is illegal not to
believe in God, this definition from the Itivuttaka is accepted by the
government as the definition of God. Buddhists would call it 'Nirvana'
- the ultimate reality - whilst others may call it 'God'. It is not the
words that we use which are important but what those words refer to.
When referring the ultimate reality or truth, worldly words become
inadequate. That is why the Buddha did not elaborate on the meaning of
Nirvana, but it is certainly not "indifference to the world". Buddhism
accepts that 'karma' is our creator. Again, if we prefer to use the
term 'god' instead of 'karma' then Buddhists cannot be accused of not
believing in a creator. The Pope seems to be promoting a literal
approach to the Christian teaching, something that most Christians
condemn as being the province of the fundamentalists. If this is so,
then I accept the comment made to me recently by a Jesuit when he said
that this present Pope is setting the church back by three hundred
years.
Mysticism, according to W.L.Reese in his "Dictionary of Philosophy and
Religion", 'can be understood as a spiritual and non-discursive
approach with whatever is taken to be the central reality of the
universe. When this is thought to be a transcendent God, one typical
path is inward, away from the world, towards union with the
transcendent One. ... Finally, there is the use of meditative
techniques, mystical in tone, to achieve an enlightened state of being,
apart from any concept of the divine. Each of these approaches has been
developed in both East and West. The early Christian movement of
monasticism stressed meditative and ascetic practices with personal
purification as the goal'. The Pope cites several Christian mystics and
decries the comparison, sometimes, made between their mystical
experiences and those of Eastern asceticism. One of these, Meister
Eckhart, a Dominican was summoned before the Inquisition in 1327 and
forced to recant some of his writings. Meister Eckhart wrote that God
is pure being, the final ultimate reality and "All things are a mere
nothing" (Buddhists would say "All things are void of substance -
sunyata), also "One must annihilate self interest, and empty oneself
out; when one comes to be a desert, empty of things, he will be full of
God". He mentions "the mysticism of marvellous men of action like
Vincent de Paul, John Bosco and Maximillian Kolbe". Marvellous men they
may have been but mystics they certainly were not.
Finally, the Vicar of Rome warns Catholics who may be attracted to
Buddhism - "First one should know one's own spiritual heritage well and
consider whether it is right to set it aside lightly". Well may these
wise words be heeded by Buddhists who, knowing little of what Buddhism
has to offer, find Christianity attractive.
By Graeme Lyall.
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