If Zen temples don’t accept the basic teaching of the Buddha, then they are not Buddhists by any meaningful definition.
I know they say that. I spent 10 days meditating at a silent Theravada buddhist retreat and the instructor said that all the time. It’s just that you have to ignore the core purpose of all the meditating, which I was fine to play along with.
Exactly right. Yoga without the spiritual component is just an exercise class. However, it doesn’t follow that “yoga doesn’t require a spiritual component either”. I would say in that case you are just aping the exercises, like you are doing with Buddhism.
Bricker, Dio’s posts have so far been pretty on the mark. The only thing I would slightly disagree with is that he interchanges the words reincarnation and rebirth but when he defines them by distinguishing the Hindu from the Buddhist concepts, he is absolutely correct. He is also correct that precise definitions of rebirth and karma and not important in many Buddhist sects. Beyond the 4 Noble Truths, dogma in general is not important for Zen and Western Theravadan schools. In fact, AFAIK, most Buddhist schools focus mostly on practice which will stress either meditation and/or chants/rituals along with just being compassionate.
I studied Soto Zen Buddhism with an expert for a couple of years. The one thing I remember the most is that dogma is highly frowned upon and practice is of utmost importance. For zen, practice is mindfullness and meditation. Period. It’s right in the title, Zen. This is true for both Soto and Rinzai schools of Zen. In fact, any intellectualization is highly frowned upon and the practices are designed to get rid of useless thought processes and beliefs. For Soto zen, you just sit. For Rinzai, you usual meditate on a koan. All the zen legends and koans include silly contradictory and nonsensical stories to get you to stop thinking. For example, I remember a great koan where a student asked a monk what happens to him after death so the monk cuts off his arm. It’s what my daughter would call, “totally random.”
I also used to go to a sangha for Thich Nhat Hanh. He is Vietnamese Zen which is a combination of Rinzai and Theravadan. He is a school all by himself, IMO. Nevertheless, he stresses the same things I learned from Soto Zen; meditation and practice, not dogma is of utmost importance. The Theravadan schools focus on insight meditation which the Soto’s like to claim is very different and inferior from their practices. I found they were pretty similar in the end.
One more thing about Stephen Batchelor. Some may say he’s not real Buddhist but the guy studied both Tibetan in Dharmsala and Korean Zen Buddhism in Korea intensely. I’ve read two of his books and started a third about his life and I can say that what he says is not too different than what I was taught in the Soto Zen and Thich Nhat Hanh schools. So even though he is somehow radical for his book “Buddhism Without Beliefs”, his teachings were very similar to what I already knew.
Wrong about what? That his buddhist practice doesn’t require belief in the supernatural? Because it’s pretty clear to me that he’s trucking along just fine. Why is it so important to you that he admit you must believe in the supernatural to be a buddhist? (And I disagree that you can follow the 10 commandments without belief in god. That first commandment seems really difficult to follow otherwise.)
Why are you so willing to defend his Buddhist practice when he himself says he’s only “sort of” a Buddhist?
The teachings of the Buddha don’t require any supernatural beliefs.
Am I? If Dio were bitching at Bricker that he wasn’t really a catholic I would say the same thing at Dio.
Of course they do. How can you believe in the lecture I quoted without accepting the concept of samsara?
I mean that in the way that someone who only goes to church on Christmas and easter is “sort of a Christian.”
I still practice Zen meditation, but not as often or as intensely as I used to. I don’t have a temple. I don’t really see it as religious, but my point in the thread that led to this was only that it might make my daughter feel better to tell her (without lying) that I did at least have something which could be called a “religious” identity, at least insofar as an 11 year old could understand it.
Why Bricker felt the need to threadshit about that, I still don’t understand. It wasn’t a debate thread about religion, it was an MPSIMS thread about a family issue.
You don’t have to believe in samsara, but if you do believe in samsara, the Buddha says the Path will work. It doesn’t matter if you don’t, though. It doesn’t make you a heretic. Belief in samsara karma, rebirth, gods, etc. is all optional, and ultimately irrelevant, an the teachers will oftn tell you that getting hung up on that stuff is a waste of time and part of the problem.
Buddha said that asking those questions was akin to a man who has been shot with an arrow asking a bunch of questions about what the arrow looks like instead of just pulling it out. There is no dogma. Thinking that shit matters is just part of the problem. As long as you “believe” shit, you aren’t getting anywhere.
I don’t make any claims whatsoever about Zen practice.
Everything you’ve said above relates to “many Buddhist sects.”
That may well be true, which is why I focused this discussion precisely and narrowly on the one Buddhist sect I was familiar with, Theravada Buddhism.
Perhaps you apply the same analysis above to Dio’s comments as applied to Theravada Buddhism.
I have no interest in your family issue. You made a sweeping statement about Buddhism that I knew to be false as applied to Theravada Buddhism. I asked you about it.
You did not say, “Well, this applies to Zen practice.”
You did not do anything except insist that your broad, general statement was true. Undoubtedly it is, in the Zen world, although given your track record I wouldn’t trust you to spell Zen, but enough othert people have said it that I believe it.
But it’s not so for the Theravada school.
No, that’s a ridiculous interpretation. The Buddha says things like:
Each of us has been “wandering for a long long time”
Each of us has shed more water through tears than there is in the 4 oceans.
Each of us has repeatedly experienced the death of our mothers, fathers, and other loved ones.
There is absolutely no doubt and no room for interpretation. Buddha is speaking about the concept of Samsara, and the entire point of his teaching is to stop that cycle. If you don’t accept that, you simply are not following the teachings of the Buddha, and are not a Buddhist by any reasonable definition.
Here, you’re debating about things without acknowledging that fact the meanings themselves are up for interpretation. People who actually practice Buddhism are taught that the meanings have fluidity. Anyone can read a couple of things about Buddhism online but unless you actually practice it and listen to a Zen Buddhist priest or Theravadan monk, you can’t grasp the complexity of concepts. Sometimes, after years of study, you can’t grasp the concepts. But you’re not supposed to get insight by reading scriptures. You get it through practice. If you are really interested in Buddhism, check out some online Zen lectures from Thich Nhat Hanh or I can give you the name of the guy I studied with. He has an online Sangha. For Theravadan, Ajahn Brahm has tons of online lectures. Some of these guys may believe in some supernatural things (I know Ajahn Brahm’s concept of mind is goofy, IMO) but all of them stress that it’s not important. Practice is the only thing that is important.
Frylock explains it quite well here:
He just described dependent origination in relation to samsara. Samsara just means continuous stream. In fact streams and rivers are constant allegories in Buddhist teachings. Rebirth can be thought of as literal reincarnation but can also be rebirth or cycling of phenomenon/perception/consciousness in a microsecond. Every moment is impermanent. In the very next moment, a new cycle of suffering can arise. That’s what I was taught. But I was also taught to quit thinking and just be in the moment.
These are things that Westerners, especially Christians, have difficulty grasping. Christians want to study the scriptures and try to take them literally. However, the Pali Canon or the Shobogenzo are not the Bible. There’s no God with ultimate authority. Buddha is really just a role model. If you read a koan and tried to take that literally, yu’d think that Japanese monks were insane.
:rolleyes:
The same logic applies. “You shall not have any strange gods before me.” Well, I don’t have any gods at all, so no problem there!
And what’s this about “why is it so important?” This is a factual assertion; it’s important as a matter of the board’s supposed purpose.
Finally, not once have I ever said that he has to believe or disbelieve in anything. As I repeatedly said, he make take whatever he pleases from the practice.
But there’s a big difference between “As I practice Buddism…” and “As Buddhism is practiced…”
You do see that, don’t you?
There is no doubt that there is 2000 years of deviation, reevaluation, modification, elaboration, or whichever term you like on the Buddha’s teaching. The point is that at some point when you cease to follow the basic teachings of Buddha that you can’t be reasonably called a Buddhist. That doesn’t mean your beliefs are not valid, or less correct than the Buddha’s teachings. It simply means that you are practicing another belief system, distinct from Buddhism.
If this statement is intended to suggest that the extent of my exposure to Theravada Buddhism is “reading a couple of things online,” then you are mistaken. I studied Theravada Buddhism for several years; I followed the teachings of Ven. Henepola Gunaratana through a student of his who got a “thank you” credit on his book “Mindfulness in Plain English,” which is a guide to Vipassana meditation practice.
Of course, I’ll admit that Bhante Gunaratana’s lessons never took, or this ignorance wouldn’t piss me off.
Remember, I said that Vietnamese Zen is a combination of Rinzai Zen and Theravadan. They will read from the Pali Canon. Doesn’t matter. Studying Theravadan history or the Pali Canon in a class is not practicing Theravadan. It’s really missing the point of Buddhist practice. Metta practice, which is used in theravadan schools, is stressed in Vietnamese Zen. They also use visualization practices and body scanning as part of insight meditation. My sangha was more loose and let you meditate any way you wanted for 30 minutes. They also chanted right before to get you in the mood.
My incorrect understanding, supported by multiple cites to multiple sources, one of which was another section of the single citation you provided.
Why, if you’re so right, is it so dofficult for you to cite sources showing how right you are?
And get off the Zen – I don’t know enough about Zen to make any points about it. I initially thought you might, but based on your track record here, I’d barely trust you to count the letters in the word ‘Zen,’ much less provide some factual information on the practice.
While I studied Theravada extensively, I agree I never practiced it.
I disagree that this leaves me unqualified to make basic statements about factual elements of the Buddha’s teachings as understood by Theravada Buiddhism.