I haven’t heard of any Buddhists waging war in the name of their religion. Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.
charlienoble92001 said in October 27th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Niezstche said Christianity was a religion of the poor, and Buddhism was a religion of the middle class.
Buddhism:
In China, the Buddhists and the Taoists were at each others throats and waged many a religious war.
acting freak said in October 27th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
i considered being buddist for a while. i appreciate buddism because it seems like tehy have their very own, unique way of looking at life and they are so different. i believe a lot of their beliefs. people tend to critisize buddists or even statues of buddah saying it looks weird but tthat makes what buddists think budah looks like even more real. even more human.
im not an exppert and im only 12 so i dont know too much.
Gentleman said in October 30th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Buddhism is a religion just like any other religion. However just recently I spent some time in Bali where Buddhism is being practise . I have never seen so many people with so much peace in their life . Although they have no materialism , and they are smiling no matter what . The people that practise Buddhism are very strong in their faith . It was very nice to see them in their temple praying to their God . As well Buddhist are very peaceful people .
neuralzen said in November 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I am a Buddhist and I became one for a few core reasons:
1) Buddhism has always prompted its practitioners to investigate and question every aspect of it so that it can be understood from a 1st person basis and internalized. If it doesn’t make sense, then don’t accept it as truth. What other religion tells you not to believe it until you too can trace the path of cause and effect that led to its conclusion?
2) Buddhism understands that religion is a system of symbolism from which you relate yourself to the world, and it teaches with the truth of an observer as its mold for understanding. In other words, it understands that all events and phenomena that we experience are concepts, or symbols, in your mind. There is never something you experience that ISN’T in the mind. That is why it teaches people to be compassionate, kind and forgiving, as you are being compassionate, kind, and forgiving not only to the people external to yourself, but to the concepts that model them in your mind. These concepts are what receive the focus of anger, or compassion, and thus you are effected by it. Think about it for a second. If you get angry at someone, that person and what they did are modeled in you mind, and the concepts that model them are made of of abstractions, of fragments, of other concepts that make up your identity. When you get angry, you are directing your anger to *that* person in your perception, which is directing anger at yourself! Not only are you piling negative emotions onto parts of your identity by this (to be drudged up again later, more anger) but you are experiencing anger in that moment instead of finding contentment. Lasting happiness is made up of discreet moments of contentment. So you wonder why angry people are never happy? Because they are too busy being angry! It’s that simple. The truth of what has made you angry exists regardless of how you feel about it, so detach from the anger and find something, anything, to be contented with, as that is all you will get anyway. When you fill your mental life with virtue, happiness, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness, then this is the soil from which your personal experiences seed, grow, and fruit (see mirror neurons bellow for a more neurophilosophical perspective on this).
3) Meditation is healthy for the mind and body in many, many aspects. It lowers blood pressure, increases memory and recall, increases Glial cell count in the neocortex (the brain cell that Einstein had an abnormally high count of, recently it was discovered that these brain cells are actually a parallel chemical computational network that listens to neural chatter), and you are simply happier, calmer, and more rational.
4) The jhanas, or states of bliss that emerge from deep insight meditation (the only meditation that build Glial cells), add some heavy weight to the Buddhist argument. They are deep states of super-concentration that emerge from concentrating first on the breath and then on the warm fuzzy feeling of compassion inside yourself. Eventually the doer side of you falls silent and only the knower remains, and you experience bliss for hours without the ability to awaken from the state. This state is said to produce insights (I haven’t gotten into one myself….yet, but they are definitely real, and they are part of the main purpose of Buddhism).
Check out Ajahn Brahm’s talks on. Brahm is a theoretical physics Ph.D from Cambridge University (you know, where Stephen Hawking hangs out?) that became a Theravada Buddhist monk (Theravada is said to concentrate more on meditation then others). It’s smart and funny, and worth at least hearing out once.
In short, Buddhism bends the faith to fit the facts, not the other way around. Ultimately true practitioners are only interested in clearly perceiving reality with as few delusions as possible.
EDIT: I saw someone referring to Buddhists praying to their God. This is not true, as the Buddha was not a god but a man. He is revered, bowed to, and respected with chants and such to say thanks, basically. He was a great teacher who penetrated the veil of delusion and pointed the path to liberation from suffering. Even the Tibetan gods and their pantheon are regarded by the monks as aspects of the psyche and mind; symbols from which to understand.
Diana P said in November 4th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
To me, Buddhism is the most down-to-earth religion. I see non-attachment as a goal that I’ll never reach (and, to be honest, don’t really want to — I’ll take life’s suffering as long as life’s glory comes with it), but a good goal to aim for.
What really grabbed me was the Heart Sutra, which explains the idea that we’re all connected by inter-dependence. One book that explains it clearly starts out by saying that a Buddhist looking at that page would see clouds, rain, earth, etc. because all that allowed a tree to grow; a lumberjack, his parents, and a million things that allowed that child to grow up and become a lumberjack who cut down the tree so it could be made into paper; and how you go on forever.
Sometimes I feel that I can almost touch the edge of that truth.
Some of Buddhism is too extreme for me to comprehend, but, again, they’re good goals to aim for. Like ‘Love your enemies.’ I’ll probably never achieve that kind of love, but I’ll keep reaching for it.
ed c said in November 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
mmmmmmzzzzzzzzzmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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I haven’t heard of any Buddhists waging war in the name of their religion. Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.
Niezstche said Christianity was a religion of the poor, and Buddhism was a religion of the middle class.
Buddhism:
In China, the Buddhists and the Taoists were at each others throats and waged many a religious war.
i considered being buddist for a while. i appreciate buddism because it seems like tehy have their very own, unique way of looking at life and they are so different. i believe a lot of their beliefs. people tend to critisize buddists or even statues of buddah saying it looks weird but tthat makes what buddists think budah looks like even more real. even more human.
im not an exppert and im only 12 so i dont know too much.
Buddhism is a religion just like any other religion. However just recently I spent some time in Bali where Buddhism is being practise . I have never seen so many people with so much peace in their life . Although they have no materialism , and they are smiling no matter what . The people that practise Buddhism are very strong in their faith . It was very nice to see them in their temple praying to their God . As well Buddhist are very peaceful people .
I am a Buddhist and I became one for a few core reasons:
1) Buddhism has always prompted its practitioners to investigate and question every aspect of it so that it can be understood from a 1st person basis and internalized. If it doesn’t make sense, then don’t accept it as truth. What other religion tells you not to believe it until you too can trace the path of cause and effect that led to its conclusion?
2) Buddhism understands that religion is a system of symbolism from which you relate yourself to the world, and it teaches with the truth of an observer as its mold for understanding. In other words, it understands that all events and phenomena that we experience are concepts, or symbols, in your mind. There is never something you experience that ISN’T in the mind. That is why it teaches people to be compassionate, kind and forgiving, as you are being compassionate, kind, and forgiving not only to the people external to yourself, but to the concepts that model them in your mind. These concepts are what receive the focus of anger, or compassion, and thus you are effected by it. Think about it for a second. If you get angry at someone, that person and what they did are modeled in you mind, and the concepts that model them are made of of abstractions, of fragments, of other concepts that make up your identity. When you get angry, you are directing your anger to *that* person in your perception, which is directing anger at yourself! Not only are you piling negative emotions onto parts of your identity by this (to be drudged up again later, more anger) but you are experiencing anger in that moment instead of finding contentment. Lasting happiness is made up of discreet moments of contentment. So you wonder why angry people are never happy? Because they are too busy being angry! It’s that simple. The truth of what has made you angry exists regardless of how you feel about it, so detach from the anger and find something, anything, to be contented with, as that is all you will get anyway. When you fill your mental life with virtue, happiness, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness, then this is the soil from which your personal experiences seed, grow, and fruit (see mirror neurons bellow for a more neurophilosophical perspective on this).
3) Meditation is healthy for the mind and body in many, many aspects. It lowers blood pressure, increases memory and recall, increases Glial cell count in the neocortex (the brain cell that Einstein had an abnormally high count of, recently it was discovered that these brain cells are actually a parallel chemical computational network that listens to neural chatter), and you are simply happier, calmer, and more rational.
4) The jhanas, or states of bliss that emerge from deep insight meditation (the only meditation that build Glial cells), add some heavy weight to the Buddhist argument. They are deep states of super-concentration that emerge from concentrating first on the breath and then on the warm fuzzy feeling of compassion inside yourself. Eventually the doer side of you falls silent and only the knower remains, and you experience bliss for hours without the ability to awaken from the state. This state is said to produce insights (I haven’t gotten into one myself….yet, but they are definitely real, and they are part of the main purpose of Buddhism).
Check out Ajahn Brahm’s talks on. Brahm is a theoretical physics Ph.D from Cambridge University (you know, where Stephen Hawking hangs out?) that became a Theravada Buddhist monk (Theravada is said to concentrate more on meditation then others). It’s smart and funny, and worth at least hearing out once.
In short, Buddhism bends the faith to fit the facts, not the other way around. Ultimately true practitioners are only interested in clearly perceiving reality with as few delusions as possible.
EDIT: I saw someone referring to Buddhists praying to their God. This is not true, as the Buddha was not a god but a man. He is revered, bowed to, and respected with chants and such to say thanks, basically. He was a great teacher who penetrated the veil of delusion and pointed the path to liberation from suffering. Even the Tibetan gods and their pantheon are regarded by the monks as aspects of the psyche and mind; symbols from which to understand.
To me, Buddhism is the most down-to-earth religion. I see non-attachment as a goal that I’ll never reach (and, to be honest, don’t really want to — I’ll take life’s suffering as long as life’s glory comes with it), but a good goal to aim for.
What really grabbed me was the Heart Sutra, which explains the idea that we’re all connected by inter-dependence. One book that explains it clearly starts out by saying that a Buddhist looking at that page would see clouds, rain, earth, etc. because all that allowed a tree to grow; a lumberjack, his parents, and a million things that allowed that child to grow up and become a lumberjack who cut down the tree so it could be made into paper; and how you go on forever.
Sometimes I feel that I can almost touch the edge of that truth.
Some of Buddhism is too extreme for me to comprehend, but, again, they’re good goals to aim for. Like ‘Love your enemies.’ I’ll probably never achieve that kind of love, but I’ll keep reaching for it.
mmmmmmzzzzzzzzzmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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