Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Do you know what Buddhism is all about?
hermitwin
Veteran
I see many people asking interesting questions and getting into lively discussions.
Yet, too often what is missing is the crux of the issue.
What is Buddha all about?
Yet, too often what is missing is the crux of the issue.
What is Buddha all about?
2
Comments
That is at least why the Buddha taught what he taught, and is the heart of the Four Noble Truths... suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation.
Of course people "use" Buddhism for other things as well.
but there are many spiritual teachers.
what is unique about Buddha?
I think it is about the true nature of the reality and, as Cloud pointed out above, the nature of suffering and the cessation of suffering. It is about understanding and developing the mind.
Buddhism is about Loving Kindness.
The aims are reducing dukkha and cultivating sukha, ideally to the point of totality.
It is about many things, from the universal truths of all realities (impermanence, interconnectivity, causal interdependence...) up to how best to drive a car kindly:)
Not a god, not a deity, not a self-glorifying egotistic individual with a Me~Complex.
Just a bloke, really.
I tried to link this to avoid another youtube video on here but I thought this was a good presentation from philosopher Alan Watts.
Once such a being comes into existence, and becomes a Buddha, they "turn the wheel" so that others can benefit and learn.
That's what makes a Buddha distinct. The Dharma is pretty profound, but if no one had discovered it, people of today would not benefit from it.
Probably the primary reason I feel he was unique (or unique to my experience, anyway) is that his path requires a personal realization of these things, rather than having us latch on to someone else to realize it for us. To me, that makes the most sense, and probably more importantly, every investigation I take into that theory seems to prove it out logically.
Dependent origination, the mechanics of karma and ethics--all those are massively important to me, and accepted as the most logical concept of reality; but in contrasting Buddhism with other religions, what stands out to me is the concept that we ourselves are responsible for our salvation.
Buddha simply means the awaken, the one who understand the real nature, the four noble (as explained by cloud).
The teaching of all Buddhas is: To avoid all evil: To do good. To purify one's mind.
"What is uniques about Buddha?"
I think this teaching in Kalama Sutta can show "one" of the unique about Buddha.
It stated like this:
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,
nor upon tradition,
nor upon rumor,
nor upon what is in a scripture,
nor upon surmise,
nor upon an axiom,
nor upon specious reasoning,
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over,
nor upon another's seeming ability,
nor upon the consideration, "The monk is our teacher." [emphasis added]
Kalamas, when you yourselves know: "These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness," enter on and abide in them.'
I don't know, blessed one, but I am sure they both stink.
Another interesting thing to me about that visit is that Hocąks are often not--I don't know how to put it gently--kindly disposed towards other religions, but when they first got there, they walked around the grounds for a while by themselves and uncle Jones, who was about 90 at the time and an extremely revered elder, finally said in Hocąk, "This is a very high order."
All of the main teachings like the 4NTs, 12links, emptiness, meditation etc are all crucial to the path and lead on to relizations about yourself, life and human nature.
@Sile I am reading a book, well I am reading two but one is based around the teachings of Ajahn Chah 'Living Dhamma' and he puts so much emphasis on training the mind, to look inward.
"You have greed and delusion in the mind but don't know it. You won't know anything if you are always looking outside. This is the trouble with people not looking at themselves. Looking inwards you will see good and evil. Seeing goodness, we can take it to heart and practice accordingly. Giving up the bad, practicing the good... this is the heart of Buddhism."
The Question is "What is BUDDHA all about....?"
That's basically what the buddha was on about.
In Theravada, for example, the general consensus (especially among those who put a lot of stock in the Abhidhamma Pitaka and the commentarial literature) is that there's no self to be found whatsoever, and you get passages like this from the Visuddhimagga: However, there are also those in Theravada who take a more 'middle of the path' approach, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, who is of the opinion that "the anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness" (No-self or Not-self?).
And then there are those who believe that there is a transcendent self, but that it's merely obscured by the aggregates.
As for myself, when I first started out, I was decidedly in the no self category since most of the books and teachers I had stressed this interpretation. But after studying and contemplating the teachings more, I'm now of the opinion that the anatta teaching is ultimately a pragmatic, soteriological method rather than a strict ontological statement.
Yes, I find all teachings are best understood pragmatically.
The problem with taking things pragmatic is that it is dependent on our interpretation to begin with. Those who think god created them also think it's pragmatic - for them it's applicable in daily life - that's why they prey. Those who think there is no self at all or those who think there is a self somewhere also see that as pragmatic. Those who sort of flow inbetween also think they are pragmatic. So to make a division between certain approaches that are pragmatic and others that are not, is creating a division that's not there in reality. Also, whether something is pragmatic or not doesn't say anything about whether it is true or not, of course.
But it's getting a bit off topic.
However, it is valid to comment that your examples are not valid in relation to taking a pragmatic approach to understanding Buddha's teachings.
I do not need to reflect on what others believe and what I think about what they believe has nothing to do with what Buddha taught - and what my practice is aiming for - understanding the nature of and the ending of suffering - my own and others.
I do not believe my way is the way, the only way or whatever ... such ideas do not enter into aiding understanding, as I see it.
Difficult word, what it comes down to is that practice can prove theory.
Anatta can be used pragmatically, but also has a deeper meaning. If we only are pragmatic and don't look deeper into the mind, we won't find this meaning. If we only go by theory and suttas, and are not pragmatic, we won't find it either. It's our wisdom that should decide when we pick up whatever approach. The amount of practice and theory probably depends on personality.
So in a way this is ontopic again. The Buddha wasn't just pragmatic, he wasn't a philosopher either. He taught a way to see the truth. Is the truth pragmatic or ontological of whatever difficult word? It's all, it's neither, it's useless to define it in such terms because that's limiting the options of what it can be.
If we're to conclude now what the answer may be, without the insights born of the practice itself, it'll be little more than speculation; there'll be no 'gnosis,' no knowledge of the truth. And we're never asked by the Buddha to speculate about what he meant, nor are we told that we'll be freed by our conceptual thoughts of such. All that does is lead to what the Buddha called 'a thicket of view' and to the propagation of those views (a mental form of samsara, literally 'wandering on').
In fact, I think the Suttas are quite clear that, as important as having an intellectual understanding of the teachings is, people who are serious about ending suffering will eventually need to put these teachings into practice to see whether they really do lead to a true and lasting happiness. Simply clinging to views of self certainly won't do it; and it should be noted that clinging to the view 'I have no self' can be as much of a form of self view as 'I have a self' (MN 22).
Ultimately, I think trying to approach the teachings on not-self from an purely intellectual standpoint runs the risk of turning them into a metaphysical doctrine of self, which I believe falls short of their intended purpose. The Dhamma itself isn't just a collection of words, it's something to be utilized, to be experienced; and the Buddha didn't teach anatta as a doctrine of self, he taught anatta as part of his overall strategy to overcome suffering.
So depending on where we are we can see anatta as an initial idea, as a tool, as something to realize, as something partly realized, as something fully realized, as something to keep in mind, as something that brings us to liberation. The same is basically true for all the Buddha's teachings.
Let's say we did an experiment. We created two groups of people, 10 in each group.
Group A would be made up of people who were not Buddhist and didn't know much about Buddhism, BUT were randomly chosen among people who were very open-minded about Buddhism. And we had them read -- independently -- all the sections of the Buddhist scriptures that dealt specifically about one topic of Buddhism...let's say kamma.
Then, we selected Group B -- again randomly -- 10 members of our forum. And one by one, each member of Group A would sit down and have a 15 minute discussion about kamma with each member of group B. All these sessions would be only one-on-one.
At the end we had each member of Group A prepare a 5 minute presentation on kamma, which they would then give to all the members of the forum.
What we would we find? My guess is that we would find significant variations about the understanding of kamma among our 10 members of Group A.
And that's where the key word of your post comes in, which I find so powerful -- INTERPRETATION.
And I think about how interpretation flavors all discourse in Buddhism and other religions, as well.
Yes, interpretation has huge inpact and a lot of discussion is just a matter of interpretation. But it should be added that interpretation is not the end or start of all things, because interpretation also has causes. In Buddhism we have this thing called 'delusion' which clouds our view, causing a clouded interpretation. Why do all people who have different interpretations think their interpretations is right? That's caused by that delusion. So one aim of the path is to rise above delusion, thus rise above interpretation and get actual insight. Based on insight things are not really an interpretation anymore.
Now, to be one step ahead, who says that's not just an interpretation? :crazy: But it doesn't matter if it is or not, because trying to get beyond clouded interpretations is the only thing we can do.
But seriously, ultimately we must remember, in all these issues, some of us are correct, some of us are incorrect.
Taking a pragmatic view of the teachings has meant and by definition will continue to result in not having a fixed view about a concept - which is what Lord Buddha was all about.