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meditation reliant on Buddha?

JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
in Buddhism Basics
If you knew somehow or were totally convinced that Buddha did not and never existed. He never taught or he was a fraud...

Would you still continue with your meditation that (if) you do? I think that I would continue but I might work more on jhana and shamata rather than mindfulness of emptiness.

Comments

  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    I still mostly practice shamatha more, actually. If somewhere tomorrow someone discovered indisputable evidence that Buddha never existed, yes, I'd still meditate. Regardless of Buddha or not, meditation has benefits for me, and it did before I started studying Buddhism. Meditation and yoga came into my life in about 2000....11 years before Buddha did.
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    If you knew somehow or were totally convinced that Buddha did not and never existed. He never taught or he was a fraud...
    That can happen in lamaism. Also in some traditions the Buddha and the past is void. Are the teachings and subsequent awakenings fraudulent? Have your own efforts been based on hypocrisy?
    Is meditation scientifically provable as beneficial? Does an ethical lifestyle bring benefits? Most of us know the answers but prefer avoiding the right question. The right question will always, inherent in its posing have the karmic potential for the answer. :)
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    Just a rhetorical question @lobster
    I believe the Buddha existed
  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    Meditation for me is this moments buddha.
    Yesterday or tomorrow's buddha, pales in comparison.
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    If your dad taught you to swing a baseball bat and he died, would you be incapable of or unwilling to play baseball? If someone called Gautama was said to have enunciated the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, but then you found out he was just another figment of a con-man's imagination, would that upend the common sense of what that figment of imagination taught?
    lamaramadingdong
  • lamaramadingdonglamaramadingdong Veteran
    Yes, what the Buddha discovered and taught is not tied to him: it is outside of him. He was not a god, just awake.
    Bunkslobster
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    Jeffrey said:

    I believe the Buddha existed

    Heretic! Vishnu cannot 'exist' . . . :wave:
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    Jeffrey said:

    Would you still continue with your meditation that (if) you do? I think that I would continue but I might work more on jhana and shamata rather than mindfulness of emptiness.

    I'm addicted to meditation so it wouldn't make any difference. :p
  • LincLinc Site owner Detroit Moderator
    Meditation existed before Buddha. He didn't invent it.
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