Steve K

Tharwyr - I would agree with you personally. But that is not how the Buddhist texts tend to portray it, at least in the Pali canon and the Theravada tradition. In one text, the Buddha even says that people are born poor or disabled because of their past karma. <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjhima/mn135.html" target="_blank">MN 135</a>

In my opinion, it makes for decent (if somewhat cold) pre-scientific mythology, but I don't think karma is the best explanation for those things.

I can't speak towards the Mahayana sutras -- they may see it more as a during life kind of thing. If anybody here is big on Zen, I'd be interested to know the Zen view of karma, if any.

It certainly seems reasonable (to my small, unenlightened mind) to view karma as the good and negative results of actions in this life.

- Steve

Amos

If desire can be eliminated it must be caused by something and this primary cause of desire is the cause of both pleasure and suffering. It is wrong to blame desire in itself because desire is just a reaction aimed to quench the pain of alienation of the ego from the soul (self).

Pseudonymph

Adam...I tend to agree that desire leads to suffering. I remember reading that when we see an object we desire, we magnify only its positive things, or what we want to see. Thus we set up unrealistic expectations, only to be dissapointed.

this goes the other way as well...when we see something we desire, like a new car or home for example, we tend to magnify the NEGATIVE qualities of the car or home we already have.

This distorts our judgement, and our quest for happiness and compassion.

pushabutton

On the subject of practising Buddhism without all the metaphysical mumbo jumbo, the answer is, yes it is very possible. That is how I personally practice Buddhism. I happen to consider myself an atheist who follows the Buddhist philosophy. At its heart Buddhism is a philosophy, not really a religion technically, as the basic teachings don’t deal with a god at all. Specifically, the fact that even if there is a god, you will never know one way or another, so it is useless to waste the time and effort looking for something that can never bee found. Buddhism, like everything else, has had a lot of baggage added over the years, and has fractured into different schools (Tao, Zen etc.) But they all share the basic teachings of the Buddha, which really boil down to, be mindful of yourself and everything around you, treat the world like you would like the world to treat you and, above all, be happy!
Everyone is Buddhist, because everyone is on the path to enlightenment (weather they know it or not). Buddhism, as a philosophy alone, teaches that you must recognize that life has both good and bad aspects, and both must be embraced for life to be lived. It also teaches that weather something is good or bad is merely a matter of your point of view. Example: in order for you to live, something else has to die, weather it is a plant or an animal. From the perspective of the animal or plant, this is BAD. From your perspective, this is GOOD. However, Buddhism recognizes BOTH viewpoints as valid. This is why you are supposed to be mindful. You are supposed to acknowledge the fact that something had to die for you to live and be grateful for its sacrifice. This is also why you are supposed to choose the path that involves the least amount of destruction of ANYTHING (the so-called “middle way”). You will notice that none of this involves anything resembling a god, heaven, hell or magic of any kind, just a change in perspective and thinking. Moreover, science fits hand in hand with Buddhist philosophy. After 2500 years, science has discovered the same thing Buddha did. Everything is related. Every action effects every other action. Parallel universes, quantum physics, chaos theory, Mind body duality, bio-feed back, you name it. The more that science discovers about how the universe works, the more Buddhist philosophy becomes relevant. Reading a book about probability, or chaos theory almost feels like you are reading a book about Buddhism.

And all without chanting
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

AdamWho

From the posts of SteveK, pushabutton, SirenSpeak and others it seems that most people posting are atheist / Buddhists or at least think Buddhism has good ideas worth following.

A question...

It can be seen in many posts the belief that the immoral actions of a religious person (usually Christian) are an indicator of a problem in the religion. It is usually argued that the religious concepts lead the person to abandon responsibility for there actions in this life with immoral results.

Given that I admire Buddhism; cannot a similar argument be used against Buddhism?

Prepare for wild generalizations…

Historically, doesn't Buddhism result in passive, fatalistic people lacking in ambition and a desire to seek out scientific knowledge? The Buddhist peoples of the world are behind in scientific, political, and social innovation compared to western countries. I know that there are periods in China’s history where science flourished but never took root more deeply and was easily cast aside by the next uninterested ruler. Only recently (past century) have eastern countries modernized under the treat of domination by the west.
It would seem that Buddhism is better at making passive sheep willing to be dominated by the ever-present God/Emperor than even Christianity.

Hence, (using the flawed argument against Christianity) Buddhism is bad because, as an "organized" religion it makes people passive, unambitious, and easily dominated by the ruthless.

Just a thought, to stir up things.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: AdamWho ]</p>

DRFseven

Well, the chanting can be used as a mechanical relaxation technique; doesn't have to be spooky.

Eudaimonist

Assuming your assessment of the influence of Buddhism on practitioners is correct, I agree that this is a problem. As a <a href="http://www.kindreason.com/newsletter0202.pdf" target="_blank">Eudaimonist</a>, I'd like to see people flourish, and for people to flourish they need to be pro-active, goal-seeking, and to stand up for themselves against tyrants and bad ideas. Since my standard of the good life differs from that of Buddhism in some respects, naturally I see a problem when Buddhists assign themselves different priorities in life.

That said, I suspect that Buddhists practice what they preach better than Christians do. Christians will say they are for love and brotherhood, but the historical record of deeply Christian cultures is a bloody one. Buddhists at least seem to achieve the goals they set out for themselves. There doesn't seem to be any hypocracy in Buddhists being passive, unambitious, and the like.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonist ]</p>

pushabutton

Buddhism is not all about being passive. It can also be about actively enjoying life too. All meditation and no play makes Buddha a dull boy. Buddhism is about balance. Balance in everything. Always the middle path. The goal is to strive for a balance of active and passive. Not all Buddhists are monks who sit around meditating all day and refuse to become involved in the matters of the world. Samurai were also Buddhist, yet are known to this day as fierce warriors. There are many paths to enlightenment. It is not about being passive all the time. It is about being able to concentrate on each moment and task to (hopefully) inch a little closer to enlightenment. To try to be fully “awake” during every activity. Because Buddhism is so flexible, and personal, it can be adapted to any situation. From monk to solder. People always get confused and think that the goal is to erase the self and not exist at all, when the goal is really the opposite. To “become one” with the universe. To be able to understand and help ease the suffering of everything, and everyone. This is very hard to explain without sounding like a fortune cookie, or rambling on for 10,000 pages. It is very difficult to illustrate. The generic image of Buddhists is very one-sided, and tough to over come. It is a philosophy for living life. Not hiding from it.

Eudaimonist

This image of Buddhism is far more appealing. Thanks for sharing that.

I know a little about Buddhism, though I'm by no means an expert. I can relate to some of its aspects. For instance, the "middle path" sounds appealingly like the Golden Mean (acting with moderation). Also, I like the idea of internal harmony, though I may have a somewhat different view of what that is and how important it is.

I personally think one best lives heroically (courageously) and should be prepared to risk failure and disappointment, but one can bear these reasonably well with emotional maturity. So one should mature emotionally and thereby expand one's "comfort zone" for failure or loss. I don't think one should be totally indifferent to worldly values, but should be adaptive and flexible instead, and accepting of reality when one can't get what one wants. I'm not sure how close Buddhism is to this view, but Buddhism seems to preach a greater degree of indifference than I would prefer.

pushabutton

How So?