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Buddha Boy
Has anyone seen this?
0
Comments
Try sitting meditation for more than 2 hours and see what happen.
The kid spent months, meditating without moving everyday for at least 20 hours a day.
It doesn't matter weather he drinks a bit at night or not.
We need more studies...
More observations and the like.
This doesn't preclude that it could be a hoax, either getting sustenance every so often (deep meditation would slow down the body, he wouldn't need so much so often) in secret or something else. I mean David Blaine does strange endurance feats too.
My question is, why meditate deeply for 10 months straight? Are we sure he hasn't gone too deep into meditation and is now in a coma or something?
EDIT: By the way this is only part 1 of 5... I for one am going to go check out the other parts on YouTube.
Here's him giving his speech after re-appearing, which has subtitled translations in several languages (English is the top-left translation so just keep your eyes on that one).
May have to watch it larger to read it, i.e. full-screen. To watch this on YouTube, where it's larger but not taking up your whole screen, click on the bottom-right of this where it says "YouTube" and it'll go to the vid on that site.
If I could pull that off, I'd do it.
What I've read is he took those ascetic practices to the brink of the human ability to endure, and his mind wasn't able to focus and he was on the brink of death. Not exactly what I'm talking about or what "Buddha Boy" is doing.
We should definitely ask him and see how he feels being watched and such.
The boy's family and local temple were raking in a fortune by local standards from pilgrims, and in our country this would be considered child abuse. And yes, it does matter that his handlers lied about letting him eat and drink move around behind screens every night so they could maintain the illusion. Oh, and he was supposedly bitten by poisonous snakes and healed himself. And sick people who showed up there and prayed to him were healed. Standard stuff.
Now he's popped back up with some rambling claim that he's yet another enlightened master with the answer to the world's problems.
The answer is not found in magic or fake supernatural powers and the Buddha rejected this dead end path for the Middle Way for a reason.
So another self-appointed enlightened master walks the earth. He'll make a good living and end up a footnote in the long list of gurus that also claimed to be something special.
For those who believe he should be scrutinized by science, he was (just watch all of the vids). But by the only scientific that matters to him; the highly achieved and knowledgeable Buddhist teachers.
Again, judging weather it's a scam or not or weather there is some money made around him is missing the enormous point that this boy was meditating for at least 18 hours a day without moving for months.
Please keep in mind when you watch the videos that most of the people talking have no idea whatsoever about what they are talking about, the only people you should pay attention to are the Buddhist teachers and the boy himself.
Notice that none of them have made any "magical" claims.
It's even sadder if his life has been distorted and he believes this. However, they had to know they were pulling a con on people with their wild claims in the past about his supernatural powers. No, his meditation does not magically make the world better. He would help the world more if he made some sandwitches and handed them out to the poor.
Nobody can survive for months without eating or drinking enough to sustain their body. Period. There are millions of starving people in Africa who wish it was otherwise. No scientist or doctor will do anything but laugh at the claim. What's a "scientist" going to test for? They're not going to lock him in a plexiglass box with some airholes and watch him die.
And scientists and reporters are some of the biggest idiots in the world when it comes to spotting tricks, because they think that they have some special intelligence for spotting them. For this sort of con, it takes a stage magician to show up and suddenly their powers vanish. The Amazing Randi has busted breatharians time and again, until he doesn't want to waste his time anymore.
If I'm rather forceful, it's because this sort of thing gives Buddhism a bad name. It's like people showing up to pray at and hold vigil where the Virgin Mary appears in a stain on a wall.
Do you believe that all Bodhisattva's who wishes to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings are wasting their time also and would be better off making sandwiches for the poor?
Are you here on this board to save us from this waste of time?
It's possible. To deny that it's a possibility is rather short-sighted, as there are things humans can do that were "impossible" not long ago, such as the Tibetan yogic practice of tummo. We should have our doubts, but we should also be open at the same time. We get "stuck" in views of belief and disbelief too easily; there is also abiding in neither belief nor disbelief, but this is apparently the rarest ability of all.
It may seem cynical to you, but I think it's just being realistic. I'm very wary of supposed "enlightened" people like this. The most powerful masters I know do not claim to have incredible meditation abilities, they simply teach and help others as best they can. That is the true power of bodhisattvas.
If they feel they could help people by making sandwiches for the poor, then yes, it would be more beneficial than sitting under a tree to prove that one can do so for months on end. And a true bodhisattva would make sandwiches with no thought of being thanked or recognized for their actions.
It seems that the boy has since been living a quiet and humble life, helping others who come to seek his help.
If Buddha or Jesus were alive today, people would also scream "SCAM" and dismiss them from watching and reading the claims of others about them, while other people would be more than willing to write books about them and their teachings to make money...
There would be others to sell all kind of derived products like t-shirts and souvenirs, feeding the "scam" claims...
August, 2010:
The so-called "Buddha Boy" of Nepal is under investigation for assaulting 17 local villagers who disturbed him while he was meditating. One report says Rom Bomjan and his attendants locked the villagers in a small room and kept them there overnight. Several of the alleged assaultees required medical attention.
News stories say Ram Bomjan admits he and some of his attendants had assaulted the villagers, slapping them around and beating them with sticks. His story is that they climbed onto his meditation platform and mimicked him. "I was therefore forced to beat them."
That puts the benefits of long meditation into perspective.
If you take the video (including the other 4 parts on YouTube), the speech he gave, and the fact that he showed violence, these seem to be reasonable conclusions about the boy and his fame:
1) He meditated for a long time
2) Others made money off of him
3) He scorned this being a sideshow/entertainment, asked people to leave him alone in his meditation, expressed his desire to awaken for all beings
4) For whatever reason there was a large group of people interfering with his meditating and mocking him, and he got violent
5) So he's not enlightened yet
What other people think about him, i.e. that he's the reincarnation of the Buddha, and the people who are making money off of him... none of those factor in to who the kid actually is and what he's done. Sure he's not enlightened, but he didn't claim to be. Whatever else, if we look at this with discernment and clarity, it's not at all about him, but about the hype itself and those who have been promoting Buddha Boy.
So it seems harsh to call him a fraud, as none of the claims are his. He seems to be an honest practitioner wanting to awaken for himself and others, and he has work to do yet (obviously), just like any of us! There's nothing special about him, other than maybe the fact that he can meditate for a long time.
So go easy on the kid. He's only human, and not at fault for the fame that's been thrust upon him.
He certainly didn't have a normal childhood. I hope his adult life can become something more normal, for a regular old monk trying to follow the Dharma.