Buddhism, anyone?

[melvin]

I got a glimpse in the mid`80s what Buddhism

philosophy is all about after I saw the mo-

vie, The Last Emperor of China. Puyi who was

China`s last Emperor saw his rule disinte-

grate when Mao`s communist party took over his administration when Mao`s Red Army de-

feated the Emperor`s warriors. The communists

couldn`t have possibly succeeded in over-

throwing the Emperor from his throne if

not for the support of the disillusioned

masses, fed-up by Puyi`s mismanagement

of his kingdom. If you recall, all the Em-

perors of China are supposed to live inside

China`s forbidden city and conduct their

affairs in ruling the masses without having

to leave the forbidden city`s walls- a rule

Lord Buddha had implemented on Himself by

just being where you are. Because one need

not travel outside his home or community if

he wishes to make his dreams come true. It

means if you want something accomplished all

one has to do is use his mind to do the work

for him, not his material body whose loca-

tion is nailed to his home, family, communi-

ty and country.

The problem of Emperor Puyi was he broke the

cardinal rule by going out of the forbidden

city to places strictly restricted for him

to be and embraced a culture(western) Lord

Buddha has disallowed to Emperor`s of China

like Puyi. When China became a communist

nation, the Emperor realized that what has

taken place was actually his own fault by

revealing to the western world the secret

and mystery of the forbidden city. When he

left the city, Lord Buddha also left like

the genie inside Alladin`s lamp never to go

back again to that empty shell.

Buddhism, anyone?

[animesh]

I was checking if there is some old post that I will find interesting. I saw this one.

Melvin ji,

still interested in talking on Buddhism? Let's do that.

[animesh]

When Gautam buddha was born, he was named "Siddhartha". This word means "every wish fulfilled".

[animesh]

Four noble truths in buddhism:

1)There is suffering

2)There is cause to suffering

3)There is end to suffering

4)There is way (eight-fold path) out of suffering.

[animesh]

Eigth fold path:

 

1)Right view 2)Right thought 3)Right speech 4)Right action 5)Right living 6)Right effort 7)Right mindfulness 8)Right concentration

[shvu]

Hi Animesh,

 

Do you know that Buddhism and it's teachings evolved a lot after his death? Now we actually have different schools of Buddhism. A few hundred years after his death, peope actually started worshipping his idol!

 

But the basic teaching fortunately remains the same.

 

Cheers

[animesh]

May be you will find this interesting:--

 

I have a younger sister who is a Sri Lankan. She is Sinhalese. A few months back, I was using chat room. I do this very-very rarely. But I was doing it that day. Suddenly she started chatting to me. She was doing computer courses. After that she used to send me emails regarding her doubts in computer programming and I used to reply to them. One day, suddenly she became my sister. As I mentioned above, she is a Sinhalese. We used to talk about Buddhism. I was already interested in knowing about life and teachings of Buddha. But after that I got even more interested. She has asked me many times that I should tell her about hinduism. But I do not know what to tell her, because I am myself not having good knowledge of hinduism.

Any suggestions?

[animesh]

Hi shvu,

Yes, it is true that there are different versions of Buddhism, theravada etc. I have read the teachings of all these versions and also the history behind them. The worshipping of 'idol' part is really interesting because Gautam Buddha himself never encouraged idol worshipping. But I personally think that is OK. The followers of Buddha show their love and respect towards him by worshipping his idol.

[shvu]

Hi Animesh,

 

That is true. Worshipping his idol is a much simpler way of showing respect than by following his teachings. That would be very painful. As for hinduism, you can try a search on what is hinduism. That should get you articles which give a brief introductory idea about Hinduism.

 

Cheers

[shvu]

 

The Buddha said that man was responsible for his own destiny. He maintained silence about the existence of a God. According to him, man was unhappy and had to work his way towards Niravana. That was all that a person had to do.

 

When asked about how the world was created his answer was, "When your house is on fire, will you concentrate on putting out the fire or will you sit back and analyze about how the fire started?"

 

He used to discourage all such questions, and never answered them.

 

Cheers

 

[animesh]

JayasriRadhey ji,

Have you read a poem by Sri Maithili Sharan Gupt in which he describes the feelings of Yashodhara after Siddhartha had left her? I read it in my school days. I liked it so much that I memorised it. Of Course, nobody can say exactly what Yashodhara must be feeling. But the poem explains very nicely her possible feelings. Please read that if you can. You will like it.

[viji_53]

Though the life story of Buddha evokes peace & compassion, somehow an impression has gained that Busshism stood for atheism.India had accepted Buddha & not Buddhism. His directives were" Be good & talk good". There is truth in our heart. Do not put off the tasks required of life. Avoid doing all wicked actions, practice the most perfect virtue& thoroughly subdue your mind. Desire is the root cause of all the miseries.

HariBhol!

[animesh]

One of the teachings of Buddha was unconditional love towards all. This is clear from many incidents in his life. But the one incident that immediately comes to mind is his encounter with Angulimaal. Buddha did not hesitate in initiating a person who was hated upon by everybody. I am not going to write that story here because it is very well known.

[shvu]

 

The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas. He actually rebelled against the Vedic system which at that time was extreme Brahminism, full of Rituals and it was the Upanishad era. Since he also never spoke about a God, Buddhism was branded as atheism by the theists.

 

Due to Buddhism the Vedic religion of Yajnas and formless Brahman died out and the new Puranic style Hinduism was born where the primary focus was on Bhakti.

 

Cheers

[animesh]

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

- Gautam Buddha

[shvu]

 

That is right. Without thinking, one doesn't even exist.

 

Cheers

[shvu]

 

I think some people here may not understand that. Let me make it more clear.

 

Without thinking, one doesn't even exist for oneself, let alone the world. The whole world including oneself is born alongwith thought and dies alongwith thought.

 

Cheers

[animesh]

In Savatthi there was a scavenger named Sunit. As a road-sweeper he received barely enough to support himself. He slept on the roadside for he did not have a house to go to. He saw other people enjoying themselves but he could not mix with them because these people called him an outcaste. Whenever a higher caste person went on the road Sunita had to run and hide so his shadow did not fall on them. If he was not quick enough he would be scolded and beaten. Poor Sunit lived a miserable life.

 

One day as he was sweeping a dirty dusty road, Sunit saw the Buddha with thousands of followers coming towards him. His heart was filled with joy and fear and finding no place to hide he stood, joining his palms in respect. The Buddha stopped and spoke to him in a sweet gentle voice saying, "My dear friend, would you like to leave this work and follow me?"

 

Nobody had ever spoken to Sunit like this before. His heart was filled with joy and his eyes with tears. "O most venerable Sir, I have always received orders but never a kind word. If you accept a dirty and miserable scavenger like me I will follow you."

 

So the Buddha ordained Sunit and took him along with the other monks. And from that day forth no one knew what Sunit's caste was and everybody - kings, ministers commanders - respected him.

 

[animesh]

One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others.", he shouted, "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."

 

Buddha was not upset by these insults.

Instead, he asked the young man, "tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong ?" The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "it would belong to me because I bought the gift."

 

Buddha smiled and said " that is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself. "If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy."

[Dasha]

Dear Animeshji,

 

Thank you for your stories on Buddha, they are very enlivening, and you can go on posting more.

 

Buddha may not have preach love of God but his loving, tolerant and compassionate behavior toward other living entities is to be followed by everybody, including devotees who have sometime the tendency to disregard those who are "not in the line".

All the different philosophies complement each other.

 

Namaste

[animesh]

Hi Jaya ji (earlier I used to refer to you as Jayasriradhey ji, but since that requires lots of key strokes, I have shortened it)

 

I do believe that telepathy is possible, though I do not know of anyone who knows how to do this. I mean I believe that it is theoretically possible. I will tell you something very interesting mentioned in Quantum Physics. It has been experimentally confirmed that if two particles are produced from a single particle (e.g. if a neutrino and an antineutrino are produced from a single photon), then they are inter-related even if they are kept very far from each other. The moment you change any property of one (e.g. spin), the other is immediately affected. Now we know that the no. of particles in the universe in the past must have been far less than that at present. So, a large no. of particles at present are inter-connected. If anything happens to particles in your brain, it is highly possible that the particles in my brain will be affected.

Hope I did not bore you much. :-)

[animesh]

I respect Gautam Buddha a lot because his love towards all beings was completely genuine and without any selfish motive.

 

Now a days, very often one may hear the following statements: -

 

1)He is in need. He is in my relation. If I do not help him, then what will society say?

 

2)Why should I help him? He is nobody to me.

 

These statements prove that very often we do something good for others to SHOW to society that we are helpful. Because of this we keep lots of pride in our heart after helping someone. We start thinking that we have done some big favour on the person whom we have helped and that he is lower than us in some respects. Our behaviour towards him changes. We do not give him the same respect as we used to give him earlier. We start telling everybody that we helped this person. We start boasting that without our help, he was going to be in extremely big trouble.

 

If we do good for others without any ulterior motive, we will not be considered as social. But if we meet people, say things like "Hi, hello", PRETEND that we are very much concerned over some problem of somebody known to us, then we will be considered very social and praises will be showered on us.

[Chathurika]

Hi

Namaste to all of you from a Sri Lankan buddhist currently studying in Australia.

 

I know one of you. My deep regards to him.

 

Nice to see so many people who like Buddha. I will try to share whatever knowledge I have on this subject. I have classes now. Got to go. Will write latter.

 

Theruvan Saranai.

[Chathurika]

Namaste,

I am not sure if Buddha was an incarnation of God. The Jataka stories which talk about Buddha's previous lives say entirely different things.

 

[Love]

I have been trying hard to get hold of

"Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism" by

Ananda Coomaraswamy. It is supposed to be the most authoritative work on Buddhism in modern times. Besides, I am sure an intellectual like Ananda Coomaraswamy would have written nothing less. Does anyone know how to get hold of this book?