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> Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God Unlike the Christian G-d, the

> Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God Unlike the Christian G-d, the Buddha does not judge, does not punish, does not forgive and has not died in tortures for your sins, this way enabling priests demand you feel guilty. AFAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment. > Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth. > There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion. Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick. I know a monk would probably laugh at this and tell I don't understand the point and I believe I know why, nevertheless I won't deny such an idea visits me occasionally.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"Unlike the Christian G-d, the Buddha does not judge, does not punish, does not forgive and has not died in tortures for your sins, this way enabling priests demand you feel guilty." The gods are not the same, but the faith seems very similar to me. What is the difference between a Pure Land Buddhist believing chanting the nenbutsu[1] ("I take refuge in the Buddha of Inconceivable Light!") in order to get in to ensure rebirth in to Amitabha's pure land and a Christian saying they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to get in to heaven? Not much, from what I can see. Even in the more secular forms of Buddhism, Buddhists regularly follow the precepts, take refuge in the dharma, Buddha, and Sangha because they believe it'll get them to enlightenment. And some believe "just sitting" for 20 years or whatever will make them enlightened. Interestingly, some forms of Buddhism preach that one should not be so goal-oriented and should "just sit" without reason or expectation. That also sounds not very different from blind faith to me, where the believer is encouraged to throw reason out the window and "just believe" or "just do" (whatever the religious authorities tell them to). "FAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment." Well, the "punishment" in the case of Buddhism is supposedly just the iron law of karma and rebirth in to the world of suffering. It's not meted out by a god in Buddhism's case, but it still serves as a very effective stick on the Buddhist faithful. "Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick." Is secular Buddhism the highest kind? Just as in any major religion, there is great disagreement among the various Buddhist traditions as to which is the truer Buddhism. Many of these branches don't accept each other's most sacred texts as being as authentic or as important as their own, which preach radically different understandings of the Buddha's teachings. One of them really might be more authentic, and everybody's got their own opinion on that, but ultimately who's to say? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nianfo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nianfo
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Did Buddha teach rebirth from life to life, or from moment to moment? Given the context of the Teaching, the latter seems a better fit.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Buddha didn't teach rebirth. He didn't teach any metaphysics at all. Karma and rebirth were simply the sea in which The Buddha and his followers were swimming. Having said that, it's hard to make sense of a lot of Buddhist teaching without karma and rebirth. In the tradition that I followed, they said that experience was momentary (like, atomic); and the moments were separated by 'gaps'. Realisation was to be found in these gaps. In a way, that is like dying after every moment. This was a tradition that venerated Padmasambhava, the composer of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; which highlights the opportunities for realisation in the gap between two lives. Interestingly, these gaps also contain extreme terror, which you experience without the stabilising influence of a body. The TBOTD describes these terrors in a lot of detail. The Dream Yoga is another way of exploring these gaps.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Unlike the Christian G-d, the Buddha does not judge, does not punish, does not forgive and has not died in tortures for your sins, this way enabling priests demand you feel guilty." The gods are not the same, but the faith seems very similar to me. What is the difference between a Pure Land Buddhist believing chanting the nenbutsu[1] ("I take refuge in the Buddha of Inconceivable Light!") in order to get in to ensure rebirth in to Amitabha's pure land and a Christian saying they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to get in to heaven? Not much, from what I can see. Even in the more secular forms of Buddhism, Buddhists regularly follow the precepts, take refuge in the dharma, Buddha, and Sangha because they believe it'll get them to enlightenment. And some believe "just sitting" for 20 years or whatever will make them enlightened. Interestingly, some forms of Buddhism preach that one should not be so goal-oriented and should "just sit" without reason or expectation. That also sounds not very different from blind faith to me, where the believer is encouraged to throw reason out the window and "just believe" or "just do" (whatever the religious authorities tell them to). "FAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment." Well, the "punishment" in the case of Buddhism is supposedly just the iron law of karma and rebirth in to the world of suffering. It's not meted out by a god in Buddhism's case, but it still serves as a very effective stick on the Buddhist faithful. "Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick." Is secular Buddhism the highest kind? Just as in any major religion, there is great disagreement among the various Buddhist traditions as to which is the truer Buddhism. Many of these branches don't accept each other's most sacred texts as being as authentic or as important as their own, which preach radically different understandings of the Buddha's teachings. One of them really might be more authentic, and everybody's got their own opinion on that, but ultimately who's to say? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nianfo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nianfo

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Did Buddha teach rebirth from life to life, or from moment to moment? Given the context of the Teaching, the latter seems a better fit.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Buddha didn't teach rebirth. He didn't teach any metaphysics at all. Karma and rebirth were simply the sea in which The Buddha and his followers were swimming. Having said that, it's hard to make sense of a lot of Buddhist teaching without karma and rebirth. In the tradition that I followed, they said that experience was momentary (like, atomic); and the moments were separated by 'gaps'. Realisation was to be found in these gaps. In a way, that is like dying after every moment. This was a tradition that venerated Padmasambhava, the composer of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; which highlights the opportunities for realisation in the gap between two lives. Interestingly, these gaps also contain extreme terror, which you experience without the stabilising influence of a body. The TBOTD describes these terrors in a lot of detail. The Dream Yoga is another way of exploring these gaps.