Andromeda123

When one becomes enlightened in Buddhism-if I understand it correctly-they become fully awake or aware. They-supposedly-see everything as it is and not as it appears to be which therefore eliminates suffering. This to me seems paradoxical simply due to the fact that if you saw everything as it is and not as it appears to be in many instances you would suffer more.

Furthermore, Siddharta Gautama was not "god", he never claimed to be. Yet 2500 years after his life he's got thousands of followers who worship him like "god" especially within the Tibetan and Mayhanan(sp?) sects. It befuddles me why people feel the need to worship, revere, or iconize something or someone. Perhaps homosapiens are just superstitious bastards by nature??

Bree

I am moving this to Non-Abrahamic Religions for a further discussion of Buddha.

I'll point Jekyll in your direction, this is one of her areas .

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Bree ]</p>

Radcliffe Emerson

Of all human-established religions, Buddhism sounds like the better one of the bunch.

Jekyll

Two things, I suppose, although this is quite a topic. On the topic of suffering: perhaps you should think of enlightenment as apathy, although that's not exactly correct. Reasonably, we should think that if we understood everything, we would suffer more, not less. However, the enlightened person does not so much understand everything as detatch from anything. To be truly enlightened in Buddhism (Theravada) is to be without any earthly connections what-so-ever. The point is to be beyond emotion, and to see the world for what it is is to see the world as inconsequential. For the world is not real - remember - not like it is to the unenlightened. It is in effect a state of consciousness, and once you have reappropriated that consciousness and attained Buddha-nature, you do not suffer becuase you are not "in the world" so to speak.

Granted, this is different depending on what branch you study. I agree, Guatama never claimed to be "God." He didn't like ritual, he didn't believe in heaven, he didn't especially like religion. He produced a plan by which to live and be a good person, working for one's own merit on earth (8 fold path, middle way, etc.). That, in basic essence, is Theravada Buddhism. In Theravada, monks (bhiksus and ocassionally bhiksunis) can reach full enlightenment. Merit is made through the interaction of the laity and the clergy. Nirvana is going out of existence, and not to "heaven," or a fluffy eternal nesting ground. This, I think, is the closest to what Guatama Buddha meant in his teachings.

However, it is restrictive (laity cannot reach nirvana, and later, neither can women). And all restrictive movements must adapt in order to survive and spread. Like Protestantism branching out from traditional Catholicism came Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana. Vajrayana developed when indiginious religions of Tibet (specifically Bon or "Pern") met up with religious Buddhism and Right-Handed Tantric Hinduism. Mahayana, which developed earlier, stemmed out of Theravada directly, and was heavily influenced by each area it touched. Since it was a more missionary branch of Buddhism than Theravada, it adapted more - specifically, Confucianism had a huge impact on its concessions.

The reason that Mahayana can respectively change Guatama to "God" is complicated, but there are a few clauses in its dogma that allows for it. First, nirvana is selfishness unless you bring everybody along with you, and so people can no longer reach enlightenment here on earth. Suddenly, only Buddha himself has ever attained true enlightenment. This demotes all the others, and places a stronger distinction between Buddha and mortals. Second, partially due to Confucian influence, Mahayana introduces the idea of heavens. Well, gods have to populate these heavens, so why not bodhisattvas (think Catholic saints). Then, if those bodhis are up there, they must care about us, right? So the whole concept of nirvana as detatchment gets thrown out the window, and merit changes. Now merit is not earned through good works, per se, but dutiful prayer. Merit can be transferred from one person to another, even though Gautama Buddha never liked this idea. Why can they say all of this? Because they've developed the theory of "Expedient Means" - they admit that Buddha never said any of this stuff, but that's because we never would have understood it - it had to be revealed to special certain individuals who could pass it on down to the commoners.

It was bound to happen. Buddhism was bound to change to a "God" based religion, just as Christiainity would have, had there been no God to begin with in that situation. People don't want to live a good, hard life, earn merit, and then either float off into oblivion or be reincarnated and try again. What's the point of being a good person, working for others, and supporting your local congregation if you're not going to get rewarded for it? Furthermore, why earn your own merit through good works if you can develop a "God" who simply gives it to you through belief (as in Pureland Buddhism)? Buddha had some good, non-religious, revolutionary ideas. But whenever such ideas are introduced into an already God-follower type context, those ideas will either have to die out or be reconstituted within that context. Perhaps if Buddhism had not been a missionary religion, it would not have had to absorb the influences around it - it could have waited until it was stronger in its own convictions. However, it spread quickly and wherever it could, and as with Christianity, developed into something wholly different within a century of its inspiration.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Jekyll ]</p>

Jabbersnacky

The perversion of Buddhism is just one more sad chapter in the history of mankind.

How sad to think humans can't find anything worth doing unless they are presented with a tangible reward.

Andromeda123

"Perhaps if Buddhism had not been a missionary religion, it would not have had to absorb the influences around it - it could have waited until it was stronger in its own convictions. However, it spread quickly and wherever it could, and as with Christianity, developed into something wholly different within a century of its inspiration."

Interesting, Buhddisim, like Christianity-in some regards-had their own missionary apostles. Do you have any recommendations on books that provide a good historical documentation of the religion??

universatile

Theres a couple of things I dont like about Buddhism in the form that is presented as a religion.
One is the whole idea of "enlightenment," as if theres this frozen moment in time when one crosses over into enlightenment, and after they cross this moment they can never return, they are enlightened until reincarnation and beyond.

Also, theres a big difference between having knowlege and putting it to use. I have witnessed first hand how Buddhists who were technically enlightened didnt act so. (Many are capitalists.) If enlightened Buddhists are so detatched from the world why do they do such things? I have no doubt that they have been enlightened at one point and are still, but if they dont apply this enlightenment to life, what good is it? Perhaps none since the world doesnt matter anyway.

Also, enlightenment depends on many things besideds spirituality. If one is starving to death, they are not enlightened, how can they be? The world can be a nastybplace where even people who have been enlightened may be tortured. Basically enlightenment is in the brain, it is in the chemistry. When one is feeling enlightened, that means all their neuro chemicals and hormones are working in perfect unison.

Taoism I like better because it doesnt lay claim to some big enlightenment. It is merely a method of thought, a way of using words in order to escape the boundaries that they put on us all.

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: universatile ]</p>

Eudaimonist

Maybe they have also received capitalist enlightenment.

I'm not a Buddhist, but I can think of an answer to this one. I'm reminded of the Zen Buddhist story of the Zen teacher and his pupil who meet a woman on the road. The teacher carries her across a river so she won't get wet. The student is amazed because he thought monks weren't supposed to "carry women with them". He is troubled by this thought for a few hours, and he asks his teacher about it. The teacher replies, "I'm not, but why are you?"

Point being, being "detached" from the world doesn't require that one have nothing to do with the world. You just shouldn't get "obsessed" or overly "attached" to it.

universatile

True true. Being detatched from the world can be taken either way, one can remove oneself, or just not care about it to a point where they do anything they want, like zen warriors who kill because they are detatched from the world and it doesnt matter what they do to others or whether or not they die.

Enlightenment just seems like such a elitist concept to me. It is obviously not the destiny for each and every human being to become enlightened so how can one claim that there is nothing of greater importance than achieving it? In reality good is not better than evil, they are both part of a single whole.

lugotorix

There is quite a lot of misinformation in Jekyll's post of July 8. No flames intended, but I do feel compelled to point out the problems I have with it. Before I start, I should probably tell you that I'm a practicing Chan (Chinese Zen) Buddhist, so you are aware of my own biases.

Actually, in the Pali suttas, they mention a number of emotions that are the fruit of an enlightenment, like joy, rapture, and happiness. The Dhammapada says:
The point is to let go of 'tanha' (thirst or craving) and 'upadana' (clinging).

Not quite. Nirvana isn't 'going out of existence'. In the Yamaka sutta, the monk Sariputta says:
AFAIK, the etymology of nirvana is still being debated. The two definitions I'm familiar with are "cooling off" or "becoming unbound".

The Mahayana does not 'change Gautama to "God"'. True, its depictions get more flowery and poetic, but they are clear to make a distinction between Buddha (who started out a garden-variety human and awakened through his own efforts) and gods, who are beings that are enjoying the results of good karma and will eventually be reborn in a lower state. The belief in a Supreme Creator as in the Abrahamic religions was denied by Mahayana Buddhists repeatedly. (My favorite argument was that belief in a Creator god leads to immorality -- it keeps people from taking responsibility for their own actions, which is the starting point for any spiritual path.)

Incorrect. Even in the earlier Pali scriptures, there were references to a number of Buddhas before Siddhartha that were fully awakened, and at least one who would afterward. The Mahayana added the beliefs that there was an immense number of them before and afterward and that there are currently Buddhas on other planets. The main difference between the Mahayana and Theravada views is this: the latter believe that becoming a Buddha is too hard for the average person and that attaining Nirvana for oneself is the path of choice, whereas Mahayana Buddhists think that since it is possible for everyone to become a Buddha, that is the more preferable goal.

No, even the Theravada has references to heavens in their scriptures. It was from the native Indian cosmology and is common to both branches. They both teach that the next Buddha, Mettaya (Maitreya in Sanskrit), is currently in one of the heavens, awaiting his last rebirth.

Incorrect. There are some sects that believe that salvation is only possible by the power of some Buddha (like the Pure Land sect that worships Amitabha), but other sects (like Chan) believe that it's up to the individual to follow the path to awakening.

Again, Buddhism is not a "God"-based religion. This denigrating attitude toward the later developments in Buddhism is an old one, one that is due partially to the prejudices the early European popularizers of Buddhism held. They were distrusting of religion and were overjoyed to find Theravada Buddhism, a religion which seemed to have very little of the superstition and other religous trappings they detested, and which had a strong philosophical element. They quickly and wrongly dismissed the Mahayana sects as corruptions. Unfortunately, they spread their biases along with their translations, and many people have taken them on uncritically.

If Buddhism (of both branches) had not been a missionary religion, it would not exist. The Muslim invasion of India wiped out the remnants of Buddhism there, including centuries-old universities and monasteries.

Again, this isn't meant as a flame, just pointing out some deficiencies in your argument.

lugotorix (dka, Guo Sheng)

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: lugotorix ]</p>