What is the criteria for religion- Buddhism to be exact
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before May 28, 2016
Frank 3 years ago
the more and more I dive deep into the teachings of Gautama Siddhartha, the harder I find it to consider Buddhism a "religion" instead of a philosophy.
why do people consider Buddhism a religion?
I thought religion involved faith and an idol of worship and all that good stuff.
from what I understand,
the Buddha never claimed to be any different than anyone else.
so what am I missing here?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Frank,
Your statement that Buddha never claimed to be any different than anyone else is totally untrue.
Please read translations of the Pali cannon which were written just after his demise by his close disciples who held conferences to write down what he said.
Buddha made it clear several times that he was an exceptional being and that in thousands of years no one would be born who would be like him.
It is totally untrue what you are saying and it is because you have not taken the time to read the Pali cannons about Buddha. That is unfortunate for you because it has caused you to be in a bubble of nonsense.
Even if Buddha did not say these things which I claim he said about his exceptionalism, still what he did speak volumes about that.
You cannot in this lifetime, not even achieve 1% of the accomplishment of Buddha. It may be that you do not know of his austerities.
Try to get books of translations of the Pali canon books. This link below is on of the places where you can get such books. First get book which talk about what he did for austerities and how he set up the sanga and listen carefully to what he says about himself in reference to others, about how unique he was and that there was no one in the world like him. He actually made such declarations flat out to people. Please stop this nonsense about him being like everyone else.
Here is a link but this is not the only source of the information:
http://www.wisdompubs.org/pages/c_teachings.lasso
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In addition Buddhism is both a religion and a process.
Buddha is God and so religion applies to him.
Buddha is also the example of how we can access divine nature and so in that way we can see him as a role model, as someone who set an example.
But we cannot follow everything he did because we cannot become God.
Some things he did we cannot do, so we have to know when we can follow him and when we cannot or we will hurt ourselves and frustrate ourselves endlessly.
Buddha is God. If you ever meet him in real life on the subtle plane or spiritual plane, you will know that instantly and will bow down (namaste) to him sincerely.
In the Indian system, he is rated as the Incarnation of Vishnu and Vishnu is not atma or soul but paramatma or Supreme Soul. There is a vast difference between soul and Supreme Soul.
Paul 3 years ago
It may be that the word religion has to do with the word ritual and a practice that is set aside (sacred) and so the confusion stems from this. There is nothing ordinary about Him, from his birth, to his home life, to his departure from a life of luxury and royalty, what to speak of his spiritual accomplishments which manifested in a deep philosophy and map out of Suffering, to enlightenment. There are many new age philosophers today who pretend to be His equal, but this is just silly and when one sits downs seriously with these philosophies, most of them are very thin, without much real substance, but on the other hand, they do sell books and seminars and all sorts of paraphernalia...
No, I agree totally with Michael, that if one actually sits down and reads these texts, one finds someone who is very different than the ordinary human being...
Frank 3 years ago
I apologize for trying to speak of something that wasn't really in my experience. I haven't been reading the right books it seems. Sorry about this question and everything I said, especially if I offended anyone.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
No offence taken but since we took much help from Lord Buddha, we do not tolerate anyone insulting him especially the insult of saying that he is just like anyone else.
If you see a sun in the sky and you think that it is just like any old light bulb which we use, then it is natural that we should make an objection.
It would be worth your while however if you are attracted to the Buddhist philosophy even the warped versions of it, that you should at least check into the original books which tell of what he did. At least in that way you know who you are dealing with and then you can form a value opinion.
Books by recent upstarts and people who want to use Buddha's life to legitimize their claim to divine status will cause you to be attracted to those persons and not necessarily to Buddha who is still in existence, mind you.
So try to get some of those translations from the Pali cannon and read what actually happened and then make up your mind, as to whether he is your ordinary Joe who just happen to become what he was anyway, which is God.
Actually you would do us a great service, if you were to get and read those histories about Buddha and then post some of the information here in your own paraphrased language.
Frank 3 years ago
so are you saying that Buddha never claimed to be a god, just extraordinary with a state of mind that people wouldn't achieve in a thousand years? ....and that people look to him as God because of these things that he did?
I believe it's one thing to consider yourself a God or THE God, Lord, Savior or what have you..
but it's another thing to consider yourself special or extraordinary (with flesh of the man-body, like everyone else) and have believers and followers that are so amazed by that person and their state of mind that they consider them God.
someone said there was nothing about his birth that was godly or unnatural.. so he seems like another human being with normal human traits that was perhaps evolved more spiritually.
so far, that is my thoughts about it in my paraphrased language.
can you spare me the searching and tell me if the Buddha ever considered him to be God himself? or just Godly.
Alfredo 3 years ago
In the Hindu Vishnu Puranas, Buddha is the latest avatar (or incarnation of God) of Vishnu. He was preceded by Krishna and Rama.
He came to represent the possibility of attaining Moksha or Nirvana, by crossing over the subtle or astral realms and into the spiritual ones.
Thus, he is an avatar according to this classification, or a direct incarnation of God. An avatar comes into this material plane for a specific spiritual purpose, but with all the physical limitations, but he is a spiritual giant and he knows he is God incarnate.
What sets apart an avatar like Buddha from the commonality of limited beings? Their afflatus, which continues to live after they leave their material bodies.
Frank 3 years ago
thank you for that alfredo, very informal.
so did he come into this world knowing he was the god incarnation or did he have to go be homeless and all that good stuff in order for it to happen? the stories that I have read, he was born into wealth and everything served to him on a silver platter and yet he was still depressed and didn't know what the point of life was since everything he saw was suffering.
did he just have some Godly realization?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
He said that there was no one else like him in the world at present and that he is the special person for thousands of years to come until Maitreya a future buddha would arise.
He did not use the term God but used the terminology which translated roughly in English as the special fully enlightened one.
He also said that there was a realm, Tushita heaven, where there are other such enlightened beings like himself.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Frank:
The avatar may not know that he is God incarnate until later in life.
In the same Puranas, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki exemplify the last development of human consciousness.
Buddha tried to shoot from mind to Nirvana in the supreme.
However, it is interesting that Buddha is an avatar for the Hindus, but not for the Buddhists. In certain Hindu avatar processions, Buddha is even substituted by Lord Balarama.
Buddha never stated that he was a personal god, or an avatar, but that he was just the Buddha.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Also with Buddha it is not that he did not believe in gods as supernatural controllers because more than once he was visited by a negative demigod, a devil called Mara and he was repeatedly visited by the positive demigod of the Hindu pantheon named Brahma.
In fact the only reason why he began to teach, why he went back to civilization and took disciples was the persistent request of Brahma. If you read his life, you will hear about that.
That itself is an indirect acknowledgement not only of the deities but of the fact that even a person as great as he must abide by the request of the deities.
Buddha also did not tolerate nonsense from anybody, not even from his own disciples, for that matter more than once he abandoned his sanghas by moving away from them and going far away in the forest. This he would do when they slackened in the disciplines he recommended.
It is really worth it for you to read about his life, but don't get something twisted written by a person who plans to use Buddha to support something.
How about beginning with this book which you can get used very cheap on Amazon:
Here is one of the reviews on it.
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This is an excellent book using only material from the earliest accounts provided from the time of the Buddha.
You can make your own mind up about this enigmatic human being rather than relying on hearsay. It includes biographical material by observers, autobiographical accounts from the Buddha and also includes a section on the teaching. All sections are prefaced with opening remarks like the acts of a play in more or less chronological sequence of the Buddha's life.
Nanamoli was one of the best Pali translators and tries to produce as authentic and as lucid an account based on the Pali sources used.
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Get it, read it and post what you are learning about him on this site. That would be great!
Alfredo 3 years ago
I also ordered the book! Thank you, I will participate in the discussion.
Thomer Scheepens 3 years ago
Thanks everyone! I started reading this book. Some connections can be made in regard for example the Sex You! Book, everything comes to one line, understand the reason behind it without actually the translator having to put it out.
For example, Bodhissata entered his Mother's womb, when that happens the mother became very pure. This can be related in regard to the Sex You! book when an embodied soul gets an embryo he already might start having an influence on the Mother even before he becomes an infant. so it makes perfect sense an individual with such high status have made an impact on the mother for the past 10 months until he came out of her womb.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Thomer,
That was the whole idea behind the sex you! book to give hints on how to figure out how reincarnation occurs. I am relieved that at least one person who read the book, got that insight from it.
Anyway, the main thing if you could is to give some paraphrase of what you are understanding as you go through the life of Gautam Buddha.
Thanks!
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Incidentally Bodhissata is from a sanskrit compound word which is Buddhih and Sattva.
It means one who has the purified intellect.
This is interesting because if you read Patanjali he speaks of two stages of kevala (kaivalya) which is when the core-self splits off from the impure intellect and then again when the core-self is re-unified with the purified intellect.
A person who really has an intellect which functions on sattvic energy only, without taking any rajas or tamas energy is an enlightened being.
It is the same intellect in any case, but it functions differently all depending on the kind of energy which sustains it.
