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If the Buddha is real, what have you lost?
Translate from a Chinese internet article
"If the Buddha is real, what have you lost?"
By Wonderful Wisdom Bihksuni
Many years ago there was a scholar in China.
One day, during a big gathering he stood up to tell the people there Buddha could not possible exist.
When people are starting to become convinced by his argument, he raised a chanllenge to the Buddha in a loud voice:"Ole Buddha! If you really exist, please come down here and kill me infront of these people! Then we will believe your existance!"
He purposely waited for a few minutes. Of course the Buddha did not come and kill him.
He turned to the left and right to the audience and said: "There you see, the Buddha doesn't exist!"
A woman with a towel covering her head stood up (Many women in the farming land in China wears towel like this) and spoke to the Scholar: "Sir, your argument is very compelling, and you are a very learnt person. I am just a farming woman, hence I can't debate with you. But could you please answer a question I've been pondering? After practicing Buddhism for many years, my heart is filled with compassion and gratefulness just like the Buddha, hence I am always joyful. I am heart is fulled with the peacefulness and equality of the Dharma. Because of believing in Buddhism, life have obtained great joy. Now please tell me, If I discover during my death that Buddha does not exist. Have I lost anything because I believed in Buddhism all these years?"
The scholar pondered for a long time, the whole gathering became completely silent, many people agreed with the woman's argument.
Even the scholar is suprised by the woman's simple logic, he quietly said to the woman:"ma'am, I believe you haven't lost anything."
The woman said to the scholar:"Thank you for your answer. However, I still have another question on my mind. If, during your death, you discover that the Buddha is absolutely real, heaven and hell also exists, may I please ask, what have you lost?"
The scholar thought for a long time, but could not answer.
"If the Buddha is real, what have you lost?"
By Wonderful Wisdom Bihksuni
Many years ago there was a scholar in China.
One day, during a big gathering he stood up to tell the people there Buddha could not possible exist.
When people are starting to become convinced by his argument, he raised a chanllenge to the Buddha in a loud voice:"Ole Buddha! If you really exist, please come down here and kill me infront of these people! Then we will believe your existance!"
He purposely waited for a few minutes. Of course the Buddha did not come and kill him.
He turned to the left and right to the audience and said: "There you see, the Buddha doesn't exist!"
A woman with a towel covering her head stood up (Many women in the farming land in China wears towel like this) and spoke to the Scholar: "Sir, your argument is very compelling, and you are a very learnt person. I am just a farming woman, hence I can't debate with you. But could you please answer a question I've been pondering? After practicing Buddhism for many years, my heart is filled with compassion and gratefulness just like the Buddha, hence I am always joyful. I am heart is fulled with the peacefulness and equality of the Dharma. Because of believing in Buddhism, life have obtained great joy. Now please tell me, If I discover during my death that Buddha does not exist. Have I lost anything because I believed in Buddhism all these years?"
The scholar pondered for a long time, the whole gathering became completely silent, many people agreed with the woman's argument.
Even the scholar is suprised by the woman's simple logic, he quietly said to the woman:"ma'am, I believe you haven't lost anything."
The woman said to the scholar:"Thank you for your answer. However, I still have another question on my mind. If, during your death, you discover that the Buddha is absolutely real, heaven and hell also exists, may I please ask, what have you lost?"
The scholar thought for a long time, but could not answer.
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Comments
This has been thought of in western society also by an ingenius thinker, Blaise Pascal, called Pascal's wager.
discovering the Buddha's teachings are accurate indeed!
and somehow surviving to practice yet another day
in this world where both heaven and hell do indeed exist
because we ourselves build them
brick by brick
I liked that a lot. I came to a similar understanding of religious practice a few years ago, and it's how I learned to stop scorning members of "theistic" religions for their belief in divine beings or "supernatural" phenomena. The fundamental transformation of the person's view, their life, their day to day reality is much more important to me than the literal reality/non-reality of their beloved deities and saints or the absolute historical accuracy of their religious narrative.
But to get to the story, there are some obvious flaws in it. Firstly, the Buddha is not a god, so he can't be addressed with challenges the way Christians have sometimes addressed their God. But the tradition in Asia apparently is different from the Western understanding...? Secondly, even if he were some sort of deity or eternally-dwelling being, he wouldn't kill someone on request. That's a very odd and inappropriate thing to ask of the Buddha. So it doesn't prove he doesn't exist (as a god, or whatever), it only "proves" that he takes the first precept seriously. I guess I'm spoiling the story, but I can't get past the inherent illogic here.
But I like the fact that a simple, pious peasant woman was able to outsmart the know-it-all show-off scholar. And the story shows that it's not really about "belief" in the Buddha. It's about faith that the principles of the Dharma will make a positive difference in one's life if practiced sincerely and consistently. Who needs the Buddha when you have people like that peasant woman, who provide proof that the Dharma delivers, so to speak?
Thanks for sharing the Chinese article, Gangsta.
there still is need for a "western" boddhisattva...
2555 years is a long time.
After all, no one is "liberated" by the Buddha. Just like the basic precepts, no one can force someone to change their mind.
The moral of that story is that, Buddhism can only be practiced by purifying the mind. Not by intellectual analysis. Sure we need scholarly study of Buddhism, but that does not lead us toward the "way". Just because we read about "emptiness" doesn't mean it's gonna stop our bad habits.
I say this because the proof is supposed to be discovered at the moment of death, when according the the three Pure Land Sutras, Amida greets the faithful at the moment of death.
Secondly it is extremely likely that the primary or only Buddhist practice of a farming woman in China would be reciting the nienfo. She was not a nun in a monastery, but a hard working uneducated labourer...this has Pure Land written all over it.