HelenM

I know this was addressed to David and not me, but I am interested in you explaining a little Dharma here. If possible, please do it while also talking normally, or I probably won't understand.

I will endeavour to throw off all my prejudices and baseless assumptions.

A real thing I know is that my cousin is a Buddhist and she chants before a Gohonzon (sp?)

That's about all I know

I would expect that Buddhism is much misunderstood.

What you say about 'the path' is interesting because my impression, as best as I can tell reading the gospels, is that Jesus strongly focused on the way people lived. My impression was that when he lived and where he lived, belief in One God was assumed. So of course everything would be in reference to this One God. 'The Existence of God', imo, was a non-issue in those days. So, given that, I see the teachings as handed down, strongly focusing on the way people lived, rather than obsessing over who knew the most Torah verses. And in this Jesus was opposed to the traditional religious leaders of his times, who did obsess over who knew the most and prided themselves in it.

And even to say this is to treat the texts as somewhat reliable - I realize that.

If they are propaganda who knows

But I think it's not that hard to know how to live, actually.

Doing it might be quite hard, though!

love
Helen

Answerer

Well, you certainly gave me too much of a credit, there are many, many people in this world that are far better than me, anyway, I will do my best, what are your questions or things that you like to know?
The chantings of mantras or names of Buddhas are orginally used to calm one's mind and causwe one to focus on medition or faith in the Dharma , somehow, there are other buddhists who used them in hope to fulfil their own needs or gain entrance to the 'western paradise', which I don't recommend doing. Anyway, you can ask me any other things and I will talk to you normally.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

HelenM

Originally posted by Answerer:
Well, you certainly gave me too much of a credit

Probably not, but worse things have happened, if I did

, there are many, many people in this world that are far better than me

Perhaps - but that's neither here nor there, anyway

The chantings of mantras or names of Buddhas are orginally used to calm one's mind and causwe one to focus on medition or faith in the Dharma


What is the Dharma and what does it mean to 'have faith' in it?

(Short explanations are fine even though you may feel they could mislead. I endeavor not to jump to conclusions which hopefully should allay your fears a little, about misleading me - if you had any, that is )

love
Helen

GunnerJ

Are your reffering to this?

From: <a href="http://om-ah-hum.com/gus_oil_and_water.html" target="_blank">Oil and Water: Abrahamic Monotheism versus the Buddha’s Dharma</a>

David Mathews

Helllo Answerer,

David: I do not deny that there are atheistic tendencies among Buddhists, nor that the religion may favor atheism. Not all forms of Buddhism are technically atheistic as they do include deities -- transitory deities but deities nonetheless -- and spiritual entities. The concept of the Buddha itself is not commonly associated with philosophical atheism.

The sources which I am appealing to are English translations of the Scriptures of various branches of Buddhism. I suppose that these translations are legitimate and accurate within the skills of the translators.

Answerer, do you consider yourself a Buddhist?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Answerer

I thought I had said that the deities in Buddhism can die and age like humans do, this is unlike polytheism religions in which gods are immortal beings. In the other words, you can treat the gods in Buddhism as another race of 'superior intellect beings' like the human race
, except maybe better in some aspects. I don't think you can called such beings as gods.


Not really, I had seen both the Chinese translation and original English translation
copy of the sutras but some of the sources that you are using are not translations from the sutras
, but from a source book of Indian philosophy and Havards classics. There is only a source that you used is quite close to the original which is the Mahayana texts but even then, you have misunderstood the meanings and replaced its with your own interpretations.


Such a question doesn't bother me, 'buddhist' is just a label for you to define me(if you feel that I am), you can called me a buddhist if you like or an atheist or heretic or whatever.

Answerer

Sorry guys, I forget to explain some of the things that David post, I shall do the explanations now.

quote:
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"This is even for me, O Sariputra, an extremely difficult work that, having obtained the transcendent true knowledge in this world Saha, I taught the Law which all the world is reluctant to accept, during this corruption of mankind, of belief, of passion, of life, and of this present kalpa."
(The Smaller Sukhavati-Vyuha. 19)
"All these beings, O Subhuti, will be endowed with an immeasurable stock of merit, they will be endowed with an incomprehensible, incomparable, immeasurable and unmeasured stock of merit. All these beings, O Subhuti, will be equally remember the Bodhi, will recite it, and understand it. And why? Because it is not possible, O Subhit, that this treatise of the Law should be heard by beings of little faith, by those who believe in self, in beings, in living beings, and in persons. It is impossible that this treatise of the Law should be heard by beings who have not acquired the knowledge of Bodhisattvas, or that it should be learned, remembered, recited, and understood by them. The thing is impossible."
(The Vagrakkhedika. XV)
(Buddhist Mahayana Texts. Edited by E. B. Cowell)


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Well guys, as clearly translated in this Mahayana texts(look above), Buddha called those beings of little faith as those who believe in a 'permanent self' or soul, the existence of being(supreme or not) and idolizing. In this message, Buddha's message to Subhuti is quite as He told him that the Law or Dharma that he preached could not be understood by those of little faith(above) but it could be understood by those who had reached the stage of Bodhisattvas or saints. Therefore, the Law still could be understood except that it is as hard as QM or something like that.


As I had explained, the Law is no mystery at all, it is only incomprehensible to those who don't take Buddha's words seriously or beginners just as general relativity is incomprehensible to beginners in physics( unless you are a genuis).


quote:
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"He whose passions are destroyed, who is indifferent to food, who has perceived the nature of release and unconditioned freedom, his path is difficult to understand like that of birds through the sky.
Even the gods envy him whose senses are subdued like horses well tamed by the charioteer, who is free from pride and from taints.
Such a man who is tolerant like the earth, like a threshold; who does his duty, who is a like a lake free from mud: to a man like that there is no cycle of births and deaths." (VII.4-6)
(A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy)
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Guys, please take note, in Buddhism, only Buddhas , arahats and prakyebuddhas are free from the cycle of life and death, not gods, demons or whatever.


[/QB][/QUOTE]

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

Answerer

Well Dharma means the Law in English translation but most buddhists called it the 'path' or the 'raft'. In Hinayana, the Dharma is often consisted of the Four Noble Truth, noble Eightfold path(right views, right thought, right action, right speech, right living, right effort, right awareness, right concentration). In Mahayana, the Dharma, besides consisting of what I had stated above , have also consisted of the six perfections of bodhisavttas' ways.
What I had stated is just a general scope of two type of Buddhism(there is a third as well), as you had know, different schools have their own unique methods or 'doctrines' in teaching science and the same thing applies in Buddhism.
Actually, faith(not in the Buddha but the Law), itself, is divided into several catergories, from a layman(a person who only go to temple and pray) to the Buddha, Himself, in which all doubts that one had of the Law(Dharma) is removed.
Here is one of the good websites in Buddhism:

<a href="http://www.buddhanet.net/" target="_blank">http://www.buddhanet.net/</a>

Answerer

Well Rim, your post is not exactly what I'm had stated but it carries almost the same meaning as that which I had seen.

David Mathews

Hello Answerer,

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Do you seek to attain nirvana?

Sincerely,

David Mathews