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There is more than ONE way to skin a cat.
wondering
Veteran
There are many sects/schools of Buddhism. They all have something in common. Would that be the cessation of suffering? I know some schools teach that one can even heal physical pain, but most of the different schools teach the way to cease psychological ( self induced ) suffering. Each school has a different way to do this. The difference might be small or big, but that is why they are a different school, and possibly have come into being because of a different culture that Buddhism has entered.
Are not all religions teaching the same thing? The cessation of self induced suffering? So in the final analysis Buddhism is not a better way than say Christianity, or Hinduism to find peace and stop the self induced suffering. So basically this Buddhist forum and other Buddhist forums are discussing the fine points of the Buddhist religion. Some of these discussions end up in arguments about the best way to achieve "the goal." My question is do people here believe that Buddhism is the only way, and that the kind of Buddhism they practice is superior to other schools of Buddhism? I keep getting that impression when I read the different threads here.
Some people quote ancient Buddhist texts to "prove" the point they are making. Some people say that Zen is the way to go and then some of the Zen practitioners say you have to have a teacher, and others say you do not. Then some people follow the Varjra path like Trungpa brought over from Tibet, and the Dali Lama teaches, all with the belief in reincarnation. How does this help relieve the self induced suffering that was the original intent?
Are not all religions teaching the same thing? The cessation of self induced suffering? So in the final analysis Buddhism is not a better way than say Christianity, or Hinduism to find peace and stop the self induced suffering. So basically this Buddhist forum and other Buddhist forums are discussing the fine points of the Buddhist religion. Some of these discussions end up in arguments about the best way to achieve "the goal." My question is do people here believe that Buddhism is the only way, and that the kind of Buddhism they practice is superior to other schools of Buddhism? I keep getting that impression when I read the different threads here.
Some people quote ancient Buddhist texts to "prove" the point they are making. Some people say that Zen is the way to go and then some of the Zen practitioners say you have to have a teacher, and others say you do not. Then some people follow the Varjra path like Trungpa brought over from Tibet, and the Dali Lama teaches, all with the belief in reincarnation. How does this help relieve the self induced suffering that was the original intent?
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Comments
a method is just that a method.
different methods work for different people.
Even Buddha used the parable of a raft to describe
his teachings.
If the method you choose can give you the desired results,
go for it.
The quote from "riverflow" is from a famous ancient Mahayana text. Again it says "one Buddha vehicle". What is this one Buddha vehicle? The cessation of suffering? Enlightenment? It sounds again like Buddhism is the only way for humans to reach their highest potential in this life, when it is estimated that only 6% of the world population follow Buddhism, and probably most of those people follow it because it is the only religion they have ever known. Doesn't that strike anyone as odd, that there are 94% of the worlds population following some other form of religion to reach there highest human potential?
I find this very offensive.
:-(
1) Define Buddhism. Is Buddhism a way of life? Is it different dogmas and metaphysics? Is it a philosophy? Lets say it is a way of life. Most people would agree that Buddhism in its strictest sense is a way of life.
2) Define enlightenment. Does the cessation of suffering = enlightenment (and vice versa)? Lets assume yes, it is the cessation of suffering.
3) Does the Buddhist way of life lead to enlightenment? Or is the Buddhist way of life enlightenment itself? (Think about this one)
So, is Buddhism the only way to enlightenment? Well, no, the Buddhist way of life is enlightenment itself. There are many paths that *lead* to enlightenment, but in the end, if you become enlightened then you are a Buddhist.
If I were to tell these people to do 'intense' meditation. like zazen or something they would go mad, literally.
People like me need to have something like meta practice.
Its funny because we all want to rid ourselves of 'self'. But people like me lost ourselfs, not in a good way, and would do anything to find ourselves.
When you say, "there's more than one way to skin a cat" what you mean is that there are several different ways of achieving something. In other words, there is more than one way of doing something. The expression is often used humorously. Here are a few examples.
*You don't have to shout at Kalyan, but you can make it obvious to him that you are disappointed with what he did. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
According to some scholars, the "cat" referred to in the expression is the "catfish". I understand that its skin is very tough; it has to be removed to make the fish edible.
:eek2:
oh well. nuff said.
(rofl)
This is a dogfish.
This is also a dogfish.
i know another way thats helped many people are the 12 steps of A.A
It metions a 'higher power' which can be really anything....God/nature/higher self/ true self/ pure conciousness/ or my favoirt instead of god use Group of Drunks lol. My personal higher power has no name/no form/no nothing (using words would ruin it) But the steps goes
* Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
* Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
* Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
* Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
* Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
* Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
* Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
* Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
* Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
* Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
* Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
* Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs
thats one way to skin a cat.......or dog fish....lol