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and yes the quote is from the beginners page, i thought it was obvious as it was the first post ..sorry bout that
Celebrin...This is why we ask people to reference where they obtained the said quotation....the piece you quoted comes from a linked site, not directly from a poster or contributor to this thread....
And as I have stated, everything is open to examination, and rightly so, as it should be....But this is the following paragraph....
"Man must choose a rational and meaningful religion according to his conviction without depending on mere beliefs, traditions, customs and theories. No one has the right to force him to accept any religion. No one should exploit poverty, illiteracy or arouse human emotional feelings to induce him to accept a religion. Religion should be a free choice."
It is easy, when attempting to put forward a point of discussion, to be selective and perhaps omit something which would appear to be contradictory....
But I think this second paragraph makes it clear that nobody should do anything blindly....
Buddhism is about seeing things clearly, exactly As They Are...
yeah i know buddhism is the most balanced and reasoned religion, and i respect it more than any of the others, i believe that most religions just breed ignorance and i've found that buddhism is much more balanced and open minded than anything else.
I do love magic monkey, although a lot of the buddhist quotes are strictly linked to episodes andi'm sure many are made up, a lot of them are proper quotes from proper sources and actually do give u a little bit od wisdom
For those who, like me, have never heard of Magic Monkey, or Monkey, it's a television show (it never aired in the U.S.)
Here's the link to Wikipedia.
Very quickly, Wikipedia has this to say: "Many episodes also feature some moral lesson, usually based upon Buddhist and/or Taoist philosophies."
yea its a 70's japanese cult tv show, based around a chinese legend about
a travelling priest going to india to get the holy scriptures to 'save the world' ..buddha allocates 3 misfits who have been kicked from heaven to go with him
monkey,pigsy,sandy and the holy priest tripitaka
its kinda like v gd pantomine with some action,morals put in.. I do find it great
watch or rent an episode 'the missing 13 episodes are the best'
thanks, it's really good to see that there are useful sites on the internet.......especialy for people like me.....hey, aing, whoever you are, thanks, that thing was helpful.
by Kevin DeYoe, Washington Square News, Feb 13, 2008
New York, USA -- If I say "Christian," perhaps a nicely-dressed churchgoer or a jeans-clad youth comes to mind. If I say "Muslim," chances are, no one thinks about an imam. But for some reason, when I say "Buddhist," most people picture a monk.
Just as in other religions, monks are somewhat of a misrepresentation of what Buddhism entails. Most Buddhists are normal, everyday people - just like you and me.
Something Christianity and Islam have in common, along with most religions of the world, is the belief in a "God" or other supreme being. Buddhism is not inherently theological in this sense.
Many people think that when there is a statue of Buddha present, people are there to worship him, with Buddha being a sort of God. In reality, these people are paying respect to the "Great Buddha."
The Great Buddha was a man who sat down to meditate, stayed there for 49 days and came to a few conclusions.
The first was that life is filled with discontent. Secondly, the root of this discontent is desire. Third, there is a way to stop discontent. His fourth point, a set of ideas that he referred to as the "Noble Eightfold Path." These four points are the foundation of Buddhist thought.
The Noble Eightfold Path is somewhat like the Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity; it is a sort of moral code and set of ideas on how a person should behave in order to reach "nirvana." Anyone who reaches nirvana can be called a "Buddha," which literally means "Enlightened One." This is the goal for a Buddhist.
If you've read up to this point and still want to know more, stop by a Buddhist Student Association meeting sometime. You do not have to be Buddhist or know anything about meditation to attend a meeting. In fact, I don't even consider myself to be completely committed to Buddhism.
My grandparents are strongly Methodist, but my parents were not big on religion or church. I kept having problems with Christianity - particularly with the idea of God. Eventually, it occurred to me that the purpose of studying the teachings of any religion is to learn a way of life. The different religions simply disagree on why you want to act a certain way.
When I stumbled across Buddhism, it seemed to hold everything I wanted in a moral code and prescription for how to live life without any specific supernatural ideas. So I'm still spending my time learning about Buddhism and studying its practices before I decide to commit myself to it.
But I'm definitely leaning in that direction. Having a community like the student association to share my thoughts with has definitely helped me in my exploration of spirituality.
Kevin DeYoe is a Steinhardt freshman and a member of the Buddhist Student Association.
Hey every one. I was wondering if anyone new any begginer buddhist meditations or just and begginer meditations. What I realy want is some Theravada meditations. I'm also looking for Theravada Buddhism, the basics. Thanks for your time.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
There is also a great deal on this website, (which should keep you busy!!)
And the best person to ask about anything Theravadan, in my opinion, on this forum, is Elohim.
Send him a PM, he's very very helpful indeed. He'll point you in the 'right' direction!
Hey thanks darkstar! I was just going to ask the same question. And thanks federica for the links. I'm at accesstoinsight. I think I'll be there for a while. Theres so much to sniff out. Wags tail.
Hey every one. I was wondering if anyone new any begginer buddhist meditations or just and begginer meditations. What I realy want is some Theravada meditations. I'm also looking for Theravada Buddhism, the basics. Thanks for your time.
You can also try the Buddhist Society of Western Australia: http://www.bswa.org/
If you click on Articles on the left-hand menu, there's a folder for beginners. Also from the left-hand menu on the start page, you can try clicking on Dhamma Talks and following the link to Guided Meditations.
Hopefully that can get you started with Theravada meditation.
Well now that I'm safe on KW's lap, I should introduce myself. My name is Cheryl, I'm 49, born in New Jersey, USA. I love dogs, all kinds of dogs, Chocolate, and pizza. Weight-NOYB obviously after all that chocolate and pizza. I came to buddhism after a tragedy in my family. I wouldn't go to church or pray anymore. Everything I had believed about myself and my family became a lie and I was angry, bitter, and depressed. I went to therapy, got prozac, but I was still bitter. Then my daughter told me about a friend of hers in high school who was buddhist, we looked it up on the internet. When I read The Four Noble Truths, I was stunned, it felt like I had found my home and I have been reading books and meditating since. Sometimes I become doubtful, but I always come back. Its been six years since then and 14 since the tragedy. Thank You Buddha!!!
A bump for my favorite thread. I still thoroughly enjoy reading that "So You Wanna" article on Buddhism.
Thank you for having posted that link, Matt, but more as a warning than as a resource, I fear. Although I am always on the lookout for sources of information for both ‘new’ and more informed Buddhist seekers, and enquirers, I shall be advising them against this article. It is, however, only fair that I share some of my reservations with you as I do with them.
1. Don’t compare and don’t contrast:
As with so many introductions written by ‘converts’, there is a tendency for the author to compare Buddhism with another spiritual discipline. It is unfortunate that the author remains anonymous so that we cannot be certain of his/her context. It may be possible to infer male gender from some of the gender-specific language, and a post-Christian background, but we have no certainty, nor can we be sure of the author’s credentials to describe the ‘basics’ of Buddhism.
The tendency to compare and contrast Buddhism with Christianity has a number of unfortunate results:
First, a certain caricature of the other discipline: in this case, as so often on the Net, it is Christianity which is used in this way. The contrasting begins in the second paragraph where the author asserts:
Buddhists are a light-hearted, peace-loving group who haven't gone around burning astronomers, drowning weird old women, or drinking Kool-Aid (at least, not in the last 2000 years). Our point: understand that our use of humor in this SYW is not intended to insult anyone. If you are insulted, chug yourself a glass of Kool-Aid and get over it.
It is surely unnecessary to demonstrate the alleged light-heartedness of Buddhists by reference to atrocities by church authorities or a cult. Perhaps, if the writer were even-handed, the Shoa or the Gulags could have been quoted. Why stop at little horrors when our own generation has witnessed much worse in the name of improving the lot of humanity?
This, of course, brings up the next problem with comparing. In this article, Christianity is the only other spiritual discipline mocked in this way. Although Christianity is one form or another may currently have a predominant influence in the USA, this is far from the case everywhere. And even in the USA, such an article may be addressing Jews, Muslims, pagans and, dare I whisper it?, humanist/atheists. This latter group interest me greatly as we, in Europe, must address what Masao Abe so rightly terms post-Nietzschean nihilism. This article would turn off any secular humanist from the first paragraph, with its assumptions about Buddhism as a “quest for spiritual enlightenment”. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the link on those two words is to the Tibetan Government in Exile’s website, which may suggest other agenda to the reader. Buddhism has a great deal to say and offer to a generation which has come to regard the universe as meaningless, chaotic and subject to chance, random events. This article makes no real allusion to this, and yet it is at the heart of much modern distress.
In reflecting on this aspect of singling Christianity out in this way, I am led to wonder why the writer appears to avoid other faiths. Is he wary of a charge of anti-Semitism or a fatwa if he criticises the absolutist monotheism of Judaism or Islam?
Although I enjoy the article and would not want to 'diss' it in its entirety, I must admit that I am very tired of the habit of defining Buddhism in contra-distinction with Christianity. Each time I come across such comparisons and differences, I find myself distracted from the truths of the Dharma. It is as if one were being told that the Buddha's message is true because Xtianity is different.
Reading through the article, I have noted a number of places where ‘spin’ and opinion are presented as fact but the bottom line is that, in comparing Buddhism with a religion, the underlying assumption is that they are both in the same category, which can be argued but is better avoided.
2. Get your facts right:
Perhaps it is the real drawback of this sort of pre-digested summary of so complex a subject as Buddhism that simplification is necessary and simplification leads, almost inevitably, to serious omissions, even errors. As a group of Buddhists and ‘fellow-travellers’, we know from our own experience how hard it is to encapsulate the Dharma in a few words in a way that is acceptable to all, irrespective of tradition. One or two Buddhist teachers have managed to appeal across the traditions but even they disagree on some pretty basic points.
One simple example is the matter of the First and Second Noble Truths. If you care to refer to Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (particularly chapter 5), he writes:
It is true that the Buddha taught the truth of suffering, but he also taught the truth of “dwelling happily in things as they are” (drishta dharma sukha viharin). To succeed in the practice, we must stop trying to prove that everything is suffering.
Compare this with the summary of the First Noble Truth in the article:
Life is characterized by suffering, pain, and dissatisfaction.
And, again, Thay writes
Another common misunderstanding of the Buddha’s teaching is that all our suffering is caused by craving
But, surely, that is is precisely what is being said here?
The origin of suffering is the craving for pleasure, existence, and non-existence
Back to TNH:
If we use our intelligence, we can see that craving can be a cause of pain, but other afflictions such as anger, ignorance, suspicion, arrogance, and wrong views can also cause pain and suffering. Ignorance, which gives rise to wrong perceptions, is responsible for much of our pain.
3. What has been left out?
So much! So much that is crucial, although a couple of aspects are alluded to, in passing:
The body needs sustenance, but it's the self that craves pleasure, existence and non-existence, and it's the self that must be seen as insubstantial.
A hint at non-self but no further explanation.
Karma is mentioned only once, again without elaboration.
So, you tell me: what is Buddhism which only focuses on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path and omits ‘non-self’ and impermanence? As TNH says (loc. Cit.)
I hope scholars and practitioners will begin to accept the teaching that all things are marked by impermanence, nonself, and nirvana, and not make too great an effort to prove that everything is suffering.
In addition, the Net article omits any mention of engagement with others.
If you have read all this, many thanks. It is important, I believe, to ensure that information about Buddhism be well-grounded and accurate. Don’t you agree?
But you're quite right, Simon. This article exemplifies the problem with glib, superficial descriptions of Buddhism, i.e., they really miss the essential points and often misrepresent the ones they do talk about. Like suffering, for example. The Buddha never said that all life is suffering. Obviously it isn't. He did say, however, that there is no permanent happiness to be found in samsara (OK, he probably didn't use those exact words, Jason, but that's the meaning). And there are different kinds of suffering. The suffering that you feel when you cut your finger, for example, is quite different than the "suffering of suffering". One is a physical reaction to pain, and the other is a mental affliction based on desire and craving.
Anyway, won't belabor the point. The horse is dead, so beating it won't help...
I believe that critique misses the article's point and audience. A site called "So You Wanna" is clearly addressing an American audience. That they would use Christianity as its basis for comparison therefore stands to reason. Even non-Christians have many Christian assumptions they don't even recognize, and those assumptions are pertinent to the topic at hand ("wait, Buddha isn't a god?").
Just as clearly, the point of the article is to serve as first contact and to do so briefly and compellingly. As an ambassador, the article does a great job. It may not be representative of its complexities, but it does not attempt to be such.
Would you expect a 5-page article called "So You Wanna be a Barber?" to make you a competent barber by the end and substitute for years of experience exploring and practicing the trade? Certainly not.
You'd hope that it would accessibly present some basic ideas and compel you to investigate them further, which is precisely what the article does (and did for me).
If I remember correctly, on some occasions in the sutta pitaka, the Buddha termed things dukkha (suffering) on account that they are changing and impermanent. What is impermanent is dukkha, that is the five clinging-aggregates and therefore virtually everything except nirvana (and some might say the self although this self is not a mainstream buddhist view of today but is found in the Tathagatagarbha doctrine especially the Nirvana Sutra)
dukkha is best left untranslated because its notion is much more complex that merely suffering or stress.
A man failing to observe religious principles becomes a danger to society
Sorry, probably a horrible first post, but I was a bit shocked (and dismayed) by that line.
Thankfully, a little farther in, it has
an ethico-philosophical system and a religion of freedom and reason
which is more in line with my very limited understanding of Buddhism.
I guess I'm a lot more comfortable with 'ethico-philosophical system' than I am with 'religion'.
Anyway, for a long time I've had an interest in Buddhism, and I finally decided to really look into it. Thanks for the site and the info.
Comments
Celebrin...This is why we ask people to reference where they obtained the said quotation....the piece you quoted comes from a linked site, not directly from a poster or contributor to this thread....
And as I have stated, everything is open to examination, and rightly so, as it should be....But this is the following paragraph....
"Man must choose a rational and meaningful religion according to his conviction without depending on mere beliefs, traditions, customs and theories. No one has the right to force him to accept any religion. No one should exploit poverty, illiteracy or arouse human emotional feelings to induce him to accept a religion. Religion should be a free choice."
It is easy, when attempting to put forward a point of discussion, to be selective and perhaps omit something which would appear to be contradictory....
But I think this second paragraph makes it clear that nobody should do anything blindly....
Buddhism is about seeing things clearly, exactly As They Are...
I do love magic monkey, although a lot of the buddhist quotes are strictly linked to episodes andi'm sure many are made up, a lot of them are proper quotes from proper sources and actually do give u a little bit od wisdom
Here's the link to Wikipedia.
Very quickly, Wikipedia has this to say: "Many episodes also feature some moral lesson, usually based upon Buddhist and/or Taoist philosophies."
Brigid
a travelling priest going to india to get the holy scriptures to 'save the world' ..buddha allocates 3 misfits who have been kicked from heaven to go with him
monkey,pigsy,sandy and the holy priest tripitaka
its kinda like v gd pantomine with some action,morals put in.. I do find it great
watch or rent an episode 'the missing 13 episodes are the best'
metta
http://www.dharmas.net
" My religion is kindness "
metta
http://www.dharmas.net
by Kevin DeYoe, Washington Square News, Feb 13, 2008
New York, USA -- If I say "Christian," perhaps a nicely-dressed churchgoer or a jeans-clad youth comes to mind. If I say "Muslim," chances are, no one thinks about an imam. But for some reason, when I say "Buddhist," most people picture a monk.
Something Christianity and Islam have in common, along with most religions of the world, is the belief in a "God" or other supreme being. Buddhism is not inherently theological in this sense.
Many people think that when there is a statue of Buddha present, people are there to worship him, with Buddha being a sort of God. In reality, these people are paying respect to the "Great Buddha."
The Great Buddha was a man who sat down to meditate, stayed there for 49 days and came to a few conclusions.
The first was that life is filled with discontent. Secondly, the root of this discontent is desire. Third, there is a way to stop discontent. His fourth point, a set of ideas that he referred to as the "Noble Eightfold Path." These four points are the foundation of Buddhist thought.
The Noble Eightfold Path is somewhat like the Ten Commandments in Judaism and Christianity; it is a sort of moral code and set of ideas on how a person should behave in order to reach "nirvana." Anyone who reaches nirvana can be called a "Buddha," which literally means "Enlightened One." This is the goal for a Buddhist.
If you've read up to this point and still want to know more, stop by a Buddhist Student Association meeting sometime. You do not have to be Buddhist or know anything about meditation to attend a meeting. In fact, I don't even consider myself to be completely committed to Buddhism.
My grandparents are strongly Methodist, but my parents were not big on religion or church. I kept having problems with Christianity - particularly with the idea of God. Eventually, it occurred to me that the purpose of studying the teachings of any religion is to learn a way of life. The different religions simply disagree on why you want to act a certain way.
When I stumbled across Buddhism, it seemed to hold everything I wanted in a moral code and prescription for how to live life without any specific supernatural ideas. So I'm still spending my time learning about Buddhism and studying its practices before I decide to commit myself to it.
But I'm definitely leaning in that direction. Having a community like the student association to share my thoughts with has definitely helped me in my exploration of spirituality.
Kevin DeYoe is a Steinhardt freshman and a member of the Buddhist Student Association.
Palzang
Is that Theravadin?
There is also a great deal on this website, (which should keep you busy!!)
And the best person to ask about anything Theravadan, in my opinion, on this forum, is Elohim.
Send him a PM, he's very very helpful indeed. He'll point you in the 'right' direction!
You can also try the Buddhist Society of Western Australia: http://www.bswa.org/
If you click on Articles on the left-hand menu, there's a folder for beginners. Also from the left-hand menu on the start page, you can try clicking on Dhamma Talks and following the link to Guided Meditations.
Hopefully that can get you started with Theravada meditation.
Just can't resist - picks Kisa up and puts on lap, giving big wubblies to ears and looking for a biscuit
Love your avatar. Me too into dogs - have three big fellers myself.
I'm feeling a bit un-anchored at the moment... drifting a bit...... *sigh*....:wtf:
I'll be fine...... :rolleyes:
1. Don’t compare and don’t contrast:
As with so many introductions written by ‘converts’, there is a tendency for the author to compare Buddhism with another spiritual discipline. It is unfortunate that the author remains anonymous so that we cannot be certain of his/her context. It may be possible to infer male gender from some of the gender-specific language, and a post-Christian background, but we have no certainty, nor can we be sure of the author’s credentials to describe the ‘basics’ of Buddhism.
The tendency to compare and contrast Buddhism with Christianity has a number of unfortunate results:
First, a certain caricature of the other discipline: in this case, as so often on the Net, it is Christianity which is used in this way. The contrasting begins in the second paragraph where the author asserts: It is surely unnecessary to demonstrate the alleged light-heartedness of Buddhists by reference to atrocities by church authorities or a cult. Perhaps, if the writer were even-handed, the Shoa or the Gulags could have been quoted. Why stop at little horrors when our own generation has witnessed much worse in the name of improving the lot of humanity?
This, of course, brings up the next problem with comparing. In this article, Christianity is the only other spiritual discipline mocked in this way. Although Christianity is one form or another may currently have a predominant influence in the USA, this is far from the case everywhere. And even in the USA, such an article may be addressing Jews, Muslims, pagans and, dare I whisper it?, humanist/atheists. This latter group interest me greatly as we, in Europe, must address what Masao Abe so rightly terms post-Nietzschean nihilism. This article would turn off any secular humanist from the first paragraph, with its assumptions about Buddhism as a “quest for spiritual enlightenment”. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the link on those two words is to the Tibetan Government in Exile’s website, which may suggest other agenda to the reader. Buddhism has a great deal to say and offer to a generation which has come to regard the universe as meaningless, chaotic and subject to chance, random events. This article makes no real allusion to this, and yet it is at the heart of much modern distress.
In reflecting on this aspect of singling Christianity out in this way, I am led to wonder why the writer appears to avoid other faiths. Is he wary of a charge of anti-Semitism or a fatwa if he criticises the absolutist monotheism of Judaism or Islam?
Although I enjoy the article and would not want to 'diss' it in its entirety, I must admit that I am very tired of the habit of defining Buddhism in contra-distinction with Christianity. Each time I come across such comparisons and differences, I find myself distracted from the truths of the Dharma. It is as if one were being told that the Buddha's message is true because Xtianity is different.
Reading through the article, I have noted a number of places where ‘spin’ and opinion are presented as fact but the bottom line is that, in comparing Buddhism with a religion, the underlying assumption is that they are both in the same category, which can be argued but is better avoided.
2. Get your facts right:
Perhaps it is the real drawback of this sort of pre-digested summary of so complex a subject as Buddhism that simplification is necessary and simplification leads, almost inevitably, to serious omissions, even errors. As a group of Buddhists and ‘fellow-travellers’, we know from our own experience how hard it is to encapsulate the Dharma in a few words in a way that is acceptable to all, irrespective of tradition. One or two Buddhist teachers have managed to appeal across the traditions but even they disagree on some pretty basic points.
One simple example is the matter of the First and Second Noble Truths. If you care to refer to Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (particularly chapter 5), he writes: Compare this with the summary of the First Noble Truth in the article: And, again, Thay writes But, surely, that is is precisely what is being said here? Back to TNH: 3. What has been left out?
So much! So much that is crucial, although a couple of aspects are alluded to, in passing: A hint at non-self but no further explanation.
Karma is mentioned only once, again without elaboration.
So, you tell me: what is Buddhism which only focuses on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path and omits ‘non-self’ and impermanence? As TNH says (loc. Cit.) In addition, the Net article omits any mention of engagement with others.
If you have read all this, many thanks. It is important, I believe, to ensure that information about Buddhism be well-grounded and accurate. Don’t you agree?
But you're quite right, Simon. This article exemplifies the problem with glib, superficial descriptions of Buddhism, i.e., they really miss the essential points and often misrepresent the ones they do talk about. Like suffering, for example. The Buddha never said that all life is suffering. Obviously it isn't. He did say, however, that there is no permanent happiness to be found in samsara (OK, he probably didn't use those exact words, Jason, but that's the meaning). And there are different kinds of suffering. The suffering that you feel when you cut your finger, for example, is quite different than the "suffering of suffering". One is a physical reaction to pain, and the other is a mental affliction based on desire and craving.
Anyway, won't belabor the point. The horse is dead, so beating it won't help...
Palzang
Just as clearly, the point of the article is to serve as first contact and to do so briefly and compellingly. As an ambassador, the article does a great job. It may not be representative of its complexities, but it does not attempt to be such.
Would you expect a 5-page article called "So You Wanna be a Barber?" to make you a competent barber by the end and substitute for years of experience exploring and practicing the trade? Certainly not.
You'd hope that it would accessibly present some basic ideas and compel you to investigate them further, which is precisely what the article does (and did for me).
dukkha is best left untranslated because its notion is much more complex that merely suffering or stress.
Thankfully, a little farther in, it has which is more in line with my very limited understanding of Buddhism.
I guess I'm a lot more comfortable with 'ethico-philosophical system' than I am with 'religion'.
Anyway, for a long time I've had an interest in Buddhism, and I finally decided to really look into it. Thanks for the site and the info.