My parents were both raised Christians but got so disgusted with it, me and my brother were raised as nothing. Buddhism is the first religion that has appealed to me. It’s not a judgemental religion. It doesn’t evangelize. And you don’t have to believe in God! You just try to be a good person and live your life in a certain way. That’s how Christianity, Judaism, and Islam should be practiced. But leave it to people to screw it up. In Buddhism, you aren’t a good person to avoid hell and you don’t have the big carrot of heaven. I think that’s where Christianity goes wrong. The whole incentive system. It’s not about trying to emulate Jesus, it’s about you getting into heaven no matter how you live your life and telling everyone else that they’re going to hell.
There is no hell.
There is no heaven.
Jesus was Jewish.
That’s my two cents. Rah Buddhism! Go Buddhism! Christianity is so two milennia ago.
Jack Batty has a good point. Let me say, E., that I don’t want to hijack this thread further, but I invite you to start a new thread if you want to pursue this conversation further.
To introduce a more relevant hijack, Lupin, I’d suggest you look into Taoism. I suggest Raymond Smullyan’s The Tao Is Silent. Smullyan can be a little smug at times, but I personally feel that it’s a very good book. It’s been said that Zen is Buddhism with a strong injection of Taoism.
Go and live intimately with people in predominantly Buddhist society like Thailand, and you will see if you are perceptive what I mean. Then also why do Buddhists have to beg for a living? Why not work for a living, like cleaning the streets of Bangkok or better, teaching people there about safe sex?
What is your reaction to the hierocratic pretensions of Buddhist monks from Tibet, specially Dalai Lama? Do you know that he has rivals to his hierocratic primacy among Tibetan Buddhists? and their hiero-political power-play can get drastic as well.
Well, I will say my piece about Buddhist masters with a sense of mission to teach Westerners about enlightenment, who have settled comfortably and with honor to boot from well-heeled American and European disciples, go home to your original peoples, and teach your poor and benighted countrymen enlightenment, to fill up their souls with love of democracy and scientific-technological advancement and aspiration for genuine learning founded upon strict logic and reason. For a starter, to to Burma and talk to the generals who have continued to keep in their self-serving tyranny this poor backward nation of Buddhists.
For dopers who are into Buddhistic enlightenment and working for their arrival at nirvana, give some attention also to our Christian brothers among Catholic bishops and priests who are concerned with the lifting of their Vatican imposed duty of celibacy. Then also see if you can join the anti-war and anti-violence movements of the Western world, which the Eastern world has not yet caught up with except in more recent years.
Touche, with the acute accent on the last vowel. I think we are soulmates. Ha ha ha!
I like your post; nothing like some good humor for us to keep our feet on terra firma.
To all the folks here and elsewhere in these boards, if you read humorous asides from me in my posts, see if you can at least smile through your solemn mien in the quest for enlightenment, nirvana, salvation, heaven, or whatever.
Susma: I am not a Buddhist, but I read a lot, and have talked a lot about the subject with a very dear Buddhist friend of mine. She has brought me to a number of lectures and other programs about Buddhism and about Tibet in particular. What I have heard and read is completely opposite to what you’ve said here:
The Dalai Lama does not represent himself to be anything other than a simple monk. Have you read any of his books or listened to tapes of any of his talks? He has said quite clearly that he has no concern about the secular politics in Tibet. He wishes for the people there to be able to freely maintain their own culture and religion. He does not represent himself as any kind of deity, semi-deity or aspire to be a political ruler.
The “modernization” of Tibet under China’s heel is an atrocity. They have destroyed centuries-old monastaries, and all but wiped out the native Tibetan culture. The horrors that have been committed upon some of the Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns is nauseating.
Yes, China should give the Tibetan people back their liberty. They should also give back the Panchen Lama.
You are asking for assistance in your personal life:
People in quest of assistance that involves my getting up and doing something physical for them, like carrying some piece of furniture with them, or to lend them some money, put me in a stressful situation. But with the kind of assistance you are looking for, I think I will enjoy giving it to you, on the basis of my own life philosophy founded upon my own reasoning, experience, and a lot of mistakes and loss of time and resources, being thereby the wiser.
You have resigned from your church. Don’t! Stay in it but be postgraduate like me in the Catholic Church. Accept and practice everything good and useful and socially rewarding in your church, rejecting everything your sound reason and logic tells you to be unproductive for your own happiness and the good of your neighbors, and don’t take up more time and trouble than your indolent nature allows in being a church member.
You want to take up Buddhism. No need, everything in Buddhism is also found in Christianity. You just have to look up the materials you are seeking for, in Christianity. That’s my conclusion after a lifetime of acquaintance with Christianity and also knowing about other religions here and there in my reading and in my life of observing and thinking over things I have come across. If you are inclined, Vatican Roman Catholicism of the Latin Rite in its duomillennial history and in its cultural and ethnical expanse has something for you whether you are in search of Buddhism, or Taoism, or Hinduism, or Sikhism, or whatever.
Anyway, try Buddhism, then take up readings on the ascetical and mystical traditions of the Catholic Church, and also its monasticism, There is so much in these areas for you to satisfy all your expectations in Buddhism.
The best thing for you is to fashion your own religion, and be disposed to join any group in any worship service that does not consist in killing or hurting other people, except of course the Roman Catholic ritual of the Mass which is a re-enactment of Christ’s crucifixion but in a harmless manner of bread and wine.
Look for yourself. Read books but most of all find a dharma center and a teacher. We are lucky to have many now. Don’t worry about which school yet. Learn and practice in any school and maybe later you will feel comfortable in just one school.
I am a Buddhist and will answer any questions I can. If I may I will recomend a book- What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula.
Oh and to your questions-
You don’t have to sign up. Go listen to the teachings if you find a dharma center.
You can take part in a ceremony if you like, called The Refuge Ceremony in my school. But that is after some study and you are sure you can take refuge in the Three Jewels.
This Saturday is an important day and is celebrated as Lord Buddhas birthday. Maybe there will be some place near you that is having a ceremony you can attend.
I have found that this path has been best for me. It may or may not be for you. May you have a fruitful search.
The problem is that for many people, once they’ve “rejected everything your sound reason and logic tells you to be unproductive for your own happiness and the good of your neighbors”, there’s not much left.
This is false. And even if it were true, for many people what is attractive in Buddhism is what isn’t included.
I’m sorry, this makes no sense whatsoever. Besides, Lupin asked about Buddhism, not Christianity.
Human beings are naturally loathe to change, and herein lies the danger of “fashioning your own religion”. You may find yourself picking and choosing the parts that support your current lifestyle, values and beliefs, thus creating a system that is not conductive to change.
My opposition to the Dalai Lama is principally based on my adherence to the principle that persons who exercise religious leadership should not at the same time exercise political leadership; so that there is no distinction between religious and political authorities. On this same principle I cannot accept the religious civil leadership in Iran. However, I would not sanction any U.S. war on the religious civil leadership of Iran, on the ground of breaking up such a combined leadership. Iranians themselves appear to be more and more vocal against Ayatollahs holding the reins of civil government as they are also in charge of the religious headship.
If the Dalai Lama should first strip himself of his religious leadership, and then agitate for the liberation of Tibet from Communist China, as an ordinary Tibetan Buddhist, and with the end of a Tibet governed by lay Tibetan Buddhists themselves, not monks; then I think he could proceed without any exceptions from me or people like me.
It is also on this principle that I would not be sympathetic to any possible restoration of the so-called Papal States where the Pope was both religious and political head of these states.
False, but that’s not even the point. I could argue that all of the essential ethical teachings of Christianity are found in Buddhism without a lot of the problematic baggage. Does that sound insulting? That’s my point.
“How can you so confidently make such statements when you don’t know jack about Buddhism?”
It is the practice of the Catholic Church to draft its teachings on faith and morals in propositions. Down the years there have been so many propositions which are anathema to deny or even just to question.
In the 12th century, I could be wrong about the date, a scholar by the name of Gratian took the gigantic task of producing a concording reconciliation of all the doctrines of the Church in faith and in morals, more principally on what to do to remain on good terms with the Church and thereby with God. He called his work “Concordantia Discordantium Decretorum”, something like that. At present there are all kinds of enchiridions which collect all the official teachings of the Catholic Church.
Now, if any Buddhist scholar should take the task of putting all the teachings of Buddhism into propositions, and I hope there are English translations of the work, then we might be able to find out what teachings in the Catholic Church corresponds to what in Buddhism, or the other way around.
In the meantime, I think you got me there, I can’t be too confident to say that Buddhism can be found in the duomillennia history of Catholic doctrines and observances in her diverse theologies and philosophies down the ages and over her vast climes.
Any humorous anecdotes?
Try this one: What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Here’s Susma’s answer: like that heard by a mute and deaf guy from birth.
Except that for the n[sup]th[/sup] time: we are not talking about the Roman Catholic Church. Since you have admited that you know jack squat about Buddhist doctrine, if you really want to persue this topic, I encourage you to start another thread: “What do Catholicism and Buddhism have in common?” and stop hijacking this thread.
I drank a beer at diner and God is a stinky urinal.
I guess I misunderstood what this thread was about. Sorry. I did learn things about Buddhism, however. It’s an interesting religion.
Jack, I see the Christian religion as a religion too, not THE religion.
Heaven and hell don’t PHYSICALLY exist, but they do spiritually. I don’t really get it either… “so WHERE are they??!” I don’t know. But believing that they exist is faith.
You’re all going to ask for a cite, so I’ll just tell you now… The Bible. Yes, the Bible takes faith to believe.
Cynic- “Cite?” Bible. There are no statistics for people who “need a saviour”. But it’s fact, and that’s all there is to it. I’m not going to argue about it anymore because it’s pointless.
I just don’t get it about the Buddhist religion.
You guys just don’t get it about the Christian faith.
You need to look the difference between “fact” and “opinion.” The Bible is not a valid cite. I could just as easily cite the Koran to show that you don’t need a “savior.”
Buddhism is older and more diverse than Christianity. All the collected doctrines of Catholicism do not even reflect the diversity of Christianity much less Buddhism. Buddhism is not a monolithic religion with a uniform doctrine.
Actually, Diogenes, I think there is a very important issue that is very central to Buddhism there.
It is taught that there are three types, or levels of knowledge.
First, there is that which you know from word of mouth, or because you read it - you might call this belief.
Second, there is that which you know through deduction and logic - you might call this understanding.
Third, there is that which you know through experience - in Buddhist texts this is somewhat related to “wisdom”.
Buddhism teaches that only the last form is of any value in the end. Not that science isn’t useful or that in many cases “belief” isn’t convenient, but for issues of spiritual nature ultimately only experience will do.
Someone like ElbaliavanU might be entirely content in “believing” that we need a saviour but to many Buddhist the very concept of “saviour” is meaningless until experienced.
Either I failed to communicate what I meant clearly or you have misunderstood me.
What I have read and heard is that the Dalai Lama is NOT agitating for the liberation of Tibet from Communist China. He IS expressing the wish that regardless of the political and secular government, that the Tibetan people be permitted to worship as they please and to maintain their cultural traditions. This is not the same as governing. I fail to see how this contradicts his status as a religious leader.
If the Roman Catholic Pope were to state that he wished for Roman Catholics to be allowed to practice their religion freely in Saudi Arabia, that would not mean that he wished to take over the Saudi government.
Imagine this completely fictitious and impossible situation: Switzerland invades Italy and completely takes it over, including Vatican City. Swiss soldiers smash the Sistine Chapel to bits. They kill large numbers of the Cardinals, bishops and other members of the RC heirarchy. Nuns are tortured and raped. And so on. The Pope and some of the bishops and cardinals flee to safety in Spain. Decades elapse. The Swiss colonize Italy, taking over the Italian culture. “O Sole Mio” is banned, as is the music of the RC church, and it is illegal to own a portrait of the Pope. Anyone caught conducting a mass is tortured and then killed unless he renounces the Pope, at which point he may be released from prison. Would it then be wrong for the exiled Pope to express the heartfelt wish that the pain of the Italian people should be eased, that they be permitted to hold mass and to worship as they wish, that the destruction of the treasures of the church should cease, and that time-honored Italian customs should be allowed? Or would he, in your opinion, have to first “strip himself of his religious leadership?”
Sorry. I did learn things about Buddhism, however. It’s an interesting religion.