Buddhism

Unlike other religions, Buddhism requires that a person actually educate and discipline themselves to obtain enlightenment. It does not rely upon ignorance and the promise of fulfilling wants after one is dead to enrich lives. It is the one true religion of peace that cannot be perverted to justify greed, wars, aggression, and all the ills society rationalizes in the name of other religions. It offers freedom by recognizing the world as it is--objective truth--and helping people find their way within reality, does not encourage harmful behaviors, and makes it incumbent on people to perpetually act toward a better world and a better life now today, every day, instead of relying up ritualistic acts of contrition that make people feel better about their unchanged lives.

Buddhism is the only religion that adds to the human condition instead of exacerbating and perpetuating ills.

Yeah, but those ZEN buddhists are a pretty strange lot.


Fact of the day : For my liberal arts degree, I had to take a buddhist art history class. It was...interesting.

KevinKohler said:

Yeah, but those ZEN buddhists are a pretty strange lot.


Fact of the day : For my liberal arts degree, I had to take a buddhist art history class. It was...interesting.

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Strangeness to the mind has utility if it opens a new door. Buddhism does not make allowances for lazy minds the way other religions do. It also does not require others of faith to perform rituals upon which your mortal soul depends. While others are available to help you on your path, you are not enslaved by ritual or walls or being part of a group to obtain enlightenment. It is the only religion in which man alone in the woods can practice in accordance with its dogma and experience a benefit.

Japan has a long history of Buddhist violence. In more modern times we have had several Buddhist terrorist organizations including: Bodu Bala Sena and Aum Shinryko. Furthermore, there is a long history of Buddhist monasteries resorting to violence against each other. There was even an assassination orchestrated by buddhists in Thailand in an attempt to put someone more friendly towards buddhism in power.

I think you have your theology all backwards. Buddhism encourages you to withdraw from the world and dedicate yourself to inner pursuits (whatever variation on meditation that branch practices). Christianity does the opposite; encouraging you to go out and make a difference in the world by caring for the poor, the fatherless, the hungry the downtrodden, etc. The buddhist ideal is a life spent in solitary meditation. The Christian ideal is a life spent doing the good works God prepared for you to do.

KevinKohler said:

Yeah, but those ZEN buddhists are a pretty strange lot.

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The Buddhism of Tibet turned rather nasty and disgusting, and it is thanks to China for putting a stop to the worst of it.

What I find is that most Buddhist have fallen away from the fundamental teaching of the Buddha.

It is very much like Christianity that claims to follow Christ which they do NOT.

So too many Buddhist claim to follow the Buddha when they do not.

Of course those were super great persons and that makes it very hard for normal barbaric humans to follow after such greatness.

JP Cusick said:

The Buddhism of Tibet turned rather nasty and disgusting, and it is thanks to China for putting a stop to the worst of it.

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Would you mind expanding upon that a bit? Can't say I've heard that before.

Goshin said:

Would you mind expanding upon that a bit? Can't say I've heard that before.

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It is hard to find any link because Tibet is under a hot political game by the USA.

Tibet mixed their ancestral religion about animals with the new Buddhism where they viewed animals as being reincarnated people, and of people being reincarnated animals, so they do both animal and human sacrifice and would eat both.

The Dalai Lama is really a reincarnated God-King.

JP Cusick said:

It is hard to find any link because Tibet is under a hot political game by the USA.

Tibet mixed their ancestral religion about animals with the new Buddhism where they viewed animals as being reincarnated people, and of people being reincarnated animals, so they do both animal and human sacrifice and would eat both.

The Dalai Lama is really a reincarnated God-King.

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Human sacrifice? Well dayum... new one on me.

Now this reincarnated Llama thing... that's strictly Tibetan? I don't recall any mention of it when I was studying Japanese Buddhist practices, but I wasn't sure if it was practiced/believed elsewhere.

Goshin said:

Human sacrifice? Well dayum... new one on me.

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The thing that got them into trouble was eating the sacrifice - their cannibalism.

Otherwise human sacrifice was no big deal as that was done all through humanity.

And viewing animals as reincarnated humans has roots in India but Tibet took it to a different level, IMO.

Goshin said:

Now this reincarnated Llama thing... that's strictly Tibetan? I don't recall any mention of it when I was studying Japanese Buddhist practices, but I wasn't sure if it was practiced/believed elsewhere.

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The Japanese made their Emperor into a God, but I do not know of the Japanese Emperor being a reincarnated King-God as in Tibet.

I do say that any two branches of Buddhism can be compared to Christianity's "Catholics and Protestants" as they can be so very different that they are incompatible.

CrabCake said:

Japan has a long history of Buddhist violence. In more modern times we have had several Buddhist terrorist organizations including: Bodu Bala Sena and Aum Shinryko. Furthermore, there is a long history of Buddhist monasteries resorting to violence against each other. There was even an assassination orchestrated by buddhists in Thailand in an attempt to put someone more friendly towards buddhism in power.

I think you have your theology all backwards. Buddhism encourages you to withdraw from the world and dedicate yourself to inner pursuits (whatever variation on meditation that branch practices). Christianity does the opposite; encouraging you to go out and make a difference in the world by caring for the poor, the fatherless, the hungry the downtrodden, etc. The buddhist ideal is a life spent in solitary meditation. The Christian ideal is a life spent doing the good works God prepared for you to do.

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Gosh, I wish they did that during the autodefe and the pogroms. Wouldn't that have been nice. Oh.. we mustn't forget Bosnia.

ya there seems to be a major disconnect between pop/hipster buddhism in western countries an actual buddhism in buddhist countries.

RAMOSS said:

Gosh, I wish they did that during the autodefe and the pogroms. Wouldn't that have been nice. Oh.. we mustn't forget Bosnia.

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I think the point flew right over your head; I didn't think it needed to be spelled out, but I suppose it has to be. The point is that no religion (or indeed, no moral system) is immune to being used by those who seek to legitimize violence. So, your examples do nothing but reinforce the point. There are examples from every religion and from many moral systems having nothing to do with religion (ideals like justice, freedom, equality, etc.). So, digging up other examples doesn't really do anything but provide further illustrations that support the original point.

The second point was that if you study the tenets of both of those religions, it turns out that their tenets are the exact opposite of what the original poster claims. One religion (Christianity) promotes becoming deeply involved in doing good in the world while the other (Buddhism) promotes withdrawing from the world and focusing on yourself.

Declan said:

Buddhism is the only religion that adds to the human condition instead of exacerbating and perpetuating ills.

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I find that the 1st Noble Truth to be the most compelling, in that it is so profound that it defines the physical life.

The way that I understand from my reading is that the 1st Truth is explained like this:

Because of the way that the world has become then physical life consist of pain and sadness and death (of suffering).

The old original text had only one (1) word of "Suffering" so this is an expanded explanation.

That humanity was not originally created to suffer or to die and it HAPPENED that humanity was damaged into a life of suffering (of pain and sadness and death).

The reason for this is included in our physical body, because by being physical then the suffering is attached to this physical reality (reality is truth).

The same physical body that feels our sufferings is also the same physical reality that feels a kiss and feel a touch and feel sex or a hug, so that we can NOT have one without the other - we can not have the pleasure without the suffering.

If we could not feel a physical act of violence then we would not be able to feel a tenderest of kiss.

As such the suffering (of pain and sadness and death) are a reality - it is a human physical truth which is thereby the "1st Noble Truth" as taught by the Buddha.

JP Cusick said:

The way that I understand from my reading is that the 1st Truth is explained like this:

Because of the way that the world has become then physical life consist of pain and sadness and death (of suffering).

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The 2nd Noble Truth is this = The cause of suffering.

The thing that makes Buddhism so cool is that we must dig into each aspect of the truth, so we need to know that the 2nd TRUTH does NOT contradict the 1st.

Since the 1st Truth tells us that physical (and mental) suffering (pain, sorrow, death) is a reality based on our own physical body, then the 2nd Truth is about the cause of internalizing the suffering into our heart and spirit.

The 2nd Noble Truth is more accurately translated and interpreted as this:
The attachment to human suffering comes from worldly desires and passions.

It is not the cause of suffering but the cause of our human attachment to the suffering.

As such humanity has organized and orchestrated the entire world in such a way as to minimize and to avoid the 1st Noble Truth as our widespread resistance to the human suffering, which has thereby created a false reality of ending the suffering by indulging into our desires and our passions which undermines and or destroys our higher purpose in life (the heart and spirit).

People try to soothe the physical suffering (1st Truth) by ruining their heart and spirit.

Declan said:

Unlike other religions, Buddhism requires that a person actually educate and discipline themselves to obtain enlightenment. It does not rely upon ignorance and the promise of fulfilling wants after one is dead to enrich lives. It is the one true religion of peace that cannot be perverted to justify greed, wars, aggression, and all the ills society rationalizes in the name of other religions. It offers freedom by recognizing the world as it is--objective truth--and helping people find their way within reality, does not encourage harmful behaviors, and makes it incumbent on people to perpetually act toward a better world and a better life now today, every day, instead of relying up ritualistic acts of contrition that make people feel better about their unchanged lives.

Buddhism is the only religion that adds to the human condition instead of exacerbating and perpetuating ills.

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Is pure Buddhism even really a religion? There is no adherence to supernatural decrees. It is really more of a self-improvement philosophy than a standard religion, IMO. That's why it translates so well into psychology.

It's true that there are branches of Buddhism that do include deities, even elevating Buddha himself to a deity, but there is little to nothing within Buddhism itself that is supernatural.

CrabCake said:

I think the point flew right over your head; I didn't think it needed to be spelled out, but I suppose it has to be. The point is that no religion (or indeed, no moral system) is immune to being used by those who seek to legitimize violence. So, your examples do nothing but reinforce the point. There are examples from every religion and from many moral systems having nothing to do with religion (ideals like justice, freedom, equality, etc.). So, digging up other examples doesn't really do anything but provide further illustrations that support the original point.

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Buddhism has never claimed to be immune to violence. No religion is immune to violence.

The second point was that if you study the tenets of both of those religions, it turns out that their tenets are the exact opposite of what the original poster claims. One religion (Christianity) promotes becoming deeply involved in doing good in the world while the other (Buddhism) promotes withdrawing from the world and focusing on yourself.

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Could you give us then the basic tenets of both so that we may see the opposites?

foadi said:

ya there seems to be a major disconnect between pop/hipster buddhism in western countries an actual buddhism in buddhist countries.

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Please explain the major disconnect. How prevalent is it?

JP Cusick said:

The Buddhism of Tibet turned rather nasty and disgusting, and it is thanks to China for putting a stop to the worst of it.

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Goshin said:

Would you mind expanding upon that a bit? Can't say I've heard that before.

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Though I would not use the words "nasty" and "disgusting", but Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism in particular have been romanticized alot by liberal elites in the west.

What they choose to ignore is that in contrast to the quiant Tibet protrayed in the movies, Tibet was a feudal society until the 1950s where various monasteries directly controlled the lives of tens of thousands of voluntary and "voluntary" share croppers while exacting not only rent, but additional mandatory tributes.

These mandatory tributes, and taxes in general from other Tibetns then supported a religous hierarchy and religous bueracratic infrastructure that was far larger than needed. Both Catholic and Orthodox Christianity also had similar systems, but the Catholic version ended in say, 1400s, the orthodox a little later. The Tibetan variant was alive and well into the 1950s.

Some monasteries were also affiliated with bandit groups that were used as all around enforcers, and whose depradations were tolerated or even encouraged by abbots though creative citations of buddhist scripture. Likewise, Tibetan buddhism also allowed the death penalty against non conformists and supported a series of Buddhist Jihads against muslim groups (Tibet was once bigger than it is now and there were land disputes with Muslim ethnic groups in western china).

Some Chinese emperors even favored Tibetans specifically to put down problem muslims rebellions because they knew of the Tibetan Muslim rivalry and theTibetan willingness to take uhmm..... "decisive action" against real and imagined muslim rebels.

Cryptic said:

Though I would not use the words "nasty" and "disgusting", but Buddhism in general and Tibetan Buddhism in particular have been romanticized alot by liberal elites in the west.

What they choose to ignore is that in contrast to the quiant Tibet protrayed in the movies, Tibet was a feudal society until the 1950s where various monasteries directly controlled the lives of tens of thousands of voluntary and "voluntary" share croppers while exacting not only rent, but additional mandatory tributes.

These mandatory tributes, and taxes in general from other Tibetns then supported a religous hierarchy and religous bueracratic infrastructure that was far larger than needed. Both Catholic and Orthodox Christianity also had similar systems, but the Catholic version ended in say, 1400s, the orthodox a little later. The Tibetan variant was alive and well into the 1950s.

Some monasteries were also affiliated with bandit groups that were used as all around enforcers, and whose depradations were tolerated or even encouraged by abbots though creative citations of buddhist scripture. Likewise, Tibetan buddhism also allowed the death penalty against non conformists and supported a series of Buddhist Jihads against muslim groups (Tibet was once bigger than it is now and there were land disputes with Muslim ethnic groups in western china).

Some Chinese emperors even favored Tibetans specifically to put down problem muslims rebellions because they knew of the Tibetan Muslim rivalry and theTibetan willingness to take uhmm..... "decisive action" against real and imagined muslim rebels.

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Interesting, thank you. I must say, that's not information that has ever appeared in mainstream media to my knowledge.

Amadeus said:

Is pure Buddhism even really a religion? There is no adherence to supernatural decrees. It is really more of a self-improvement philosophy than a standard religion, IMO. That's why it translates so well into psychology.

It's true that there are branches of Buddhism that do include deities, even elevating Buddha himself to a deity, but there is little to nothing within Buddhism itself that is supernatural.

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Buddha himself is described s being tempted by demons. Though I think Buddha left the specifics of what particular gods did or did not exist to local cultural norms, he taught on the presumption that divine beings of some sort did exist. It might be better to say that unlike the Abrahamic "big three" and Hinduism, individual Buddhists do not need to affirm the existance of divine beings per se.

Goshin said:

Interesting, thank you. I must say, that's not information that has ever appeared in mainstream media to my knowledge.

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You are welcome.

I have never seen references to this in mainstream media either. But, given Hollywood's and the mainsteam media's romanticization of all things Tibetan, I am not surprised. I learned about it though specialty history books on Chinese history.

As a side note, I once visited one museum in LA that was hosting an exhibition of Tibetan Buddhist liturgical items which were smuggled out of Tibet after the Chinese invasion. Some of the items were as "over the top" as anything in Russian Orthodox exhibition that I saw a few years earlier.

The museum included general references to Tibet's monastery / "voluntary" share cropper system which funded the creation of the artifacts only after the Chinese consulate complained and asked for a more balanced presentation.

The Buddha taught that nothing lasts forever. That would include Buddhism. Buddhism as all great religions has seen many changes and that continues. I read not long ago that some schools of Buddhism have been going through period of questioning in regards to perhaps unnecessary ritual and too much rigidity. Thai Buddhism is reported to be questioning itself about the influence of money and power in Thai Buddhism. Certainly Buddhism has evolved.

It is natural for strong and vibrant religions to review themselves, their directions, their distance from the origins of their faiths. As Buddhism has become more of an accepted religion in the West it has changed somewhat. Yes, there was the pop Buddhism we saw 40 plus years ago as Eastern religions were "discovered" by Westerners. For the most part, and in my personal experience, the Buddhism/Eastern religion fad has given way to established mainstream practice in the West.

Naturally Buddhism in the West had to be adapted somewhat to Western culture so that we could grasp it. But to the West's credit it seems that practitioners have sought to maintain focus on the tenets of Buddhism. As most westerners were not raised and acculturated with Buddhism we have had the opportunity to approach Buddhism with a relatively fresh perspective. Westerners thus have and probably do question every detail of Buddhism and probably have assumed little. For the Western mind Buddhism has a steep learning curve at times. We often have to toss Western beliefs out the window in order to approach Buddhists concepts in a way that we can understand them.

Extremist Buddhist monks have recently fought and attacked Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka. Every major religion has extremists and Buddhism is no exception. I know that China has practiced and continues to this moment to practice cultural genocide in Tibet. The Dalai Lama has been asked several times about his position of non-violence vis-a-vis the murder, brutality and cultural genocide practiced by the Chinese in Tibet. He has asked world leaders for intervention to no avail. If armed intervention were offered would the Dalai Lama support it? It is a question that he will likely never have to face, but it is a question to consider.

Here's an excellent book on the subject:

Tears of Blood: A Cry for Tibet ~ Mary Craig

On October 7, 1959, the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded the heartland of Tibet, annexing it as a western province of the newly established People's Republic of China. Since then more than a million Tibetans - 20% of the population - are believed to have perished by starvation, execution, and imprisonment. Many thousands more, including Tibet's spiritual and political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, have been driven into exile.. "This thorough history of Tibet under Chinese occupation is based on extensive research and Craig's numerous interviews with Tibetan refugees. The result is a powerful cry against the political oppression and human rights abuses that have been ignored far too long by the Western world. Tears of Blood is not only an account of the Chinese atrocities, but more importantly a celebration of the Tibetan people and their non-violent struggle to preserve their culture and religion.

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The above review is from Barnes & Noble.

Cryptic said:

Buddha himself is described s being tempted by demons.

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Yes, but Buddha ultimately realized that he was fighting his own demons. It was an internal struggle.

Amadeus said:

Yes, but Buddha ultimately realized that he was fighting his own demons. It was an internal struggle.

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He may well have been. But, I dont think Buddha ever stated that. Rather, his message included mention of a variety of divine beings.

Though I imagine that it is possible that Buddha used these references simply to make his message more palatable for a theistic society, at the end of the day, Buddha never refuted belief in various forms of gods, demons or other divine beings.

Cryptic said:

He may well have been. But, I dont think Buddha ever stated that. Rather, his message included mention of a variety of divine beings.

Though I imagine that it is possible that Buddha used these references simply to make his message more palatable for a theistic society, at the end of the day, Buddha never refuted belief in various forms of gods, demons or other divine beings.

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True, I may have been influenced by the Richard Gere documentary, which kind of indicated that the demons -- or at least the struggle over those demons -- was internal (which would be fitting for a Buddhist seeking enlightenment).

Declan said:

Unlike other religions, Buddhism requires that a person actually educate and discipline themselves to obtain enlightenment. It does not rely upon ignorance and the promise of fulfilling wants after one is dead to enrich lives. It is the one true religion of peace that cannot be perverted to justify greed, wars, aggression, and all the ills society rationalizes in the name of other religions. It offers freedom by recognizing the world as it is--objective truth--and helping people find their way within reality, does not encourage harmful behaviors, and makes it incumbent on people to perpetually act toward a better world and a better life now today, every day, instead of relying up ritualistic acts of contrition that make people feel better about their unchanged lives.

Buddhism is the only religion that adds to the human condition instead of exacerbating and perpetuating ills.

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That's a bit of a dualistic approach you're taking. While I don't really disagree with much, I'm interested in asking why you feel the need to apparently evangelize on behalf Buddhism. Isn't it a beautiful thing that there's no need to convince anyone of the need to practice Buddhism?