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.
With a simple YES or NO! Do you believe buddhism is the ONLY path to the Cessation Of Suffering??
zenmyste
Veteran
If your answer is NO (please state briefly what other paths you may think could lead the way)
PLEASE NOTE:
(I am simply asking out of interest only, so please dont get offensive or make sarcastic comments)
PLEASE NOTE:
(I am simply asking out of interest only, so please dont get offensive or make sarcastic comments)
1
Comments
And
No.
Brief reason;
I believe to practice Taoism (to live in accordance with nature) could also be a path to the cessation of suffering!
So sorry to disappoint you, but a simple yes or no is not what you are going to get from me.
I hear what ya sayin!
Thanks for comment!
Relief, no
There is nothing magic about the Eightfold Path. The stuff within it is laid out as a good path of life in many other traditions. If people stop getting deluded with the stories and details and stop listening to the talking heads and just dig deep in their own minds to come up with how to follow that path, they'll get to the same place. You don't have to be a Buddhist to meditate. And you don't have to be a Buddhist to follow the things laid out in the eightfold path.
I think first we have to decide if the second and third noble truths are correct. It's possible that the Buddha was wrong about the causes for suffering, or only got it partly right, or that there are other explanations.
If he's right about the second noble truth, then the third logically follows and we know how to end suffering: get rid of tanha (craving) born of ignorance. So then it becomes a question of whether the Eightfold Path is the best or only way to do that.
The answer also depends on whether concepts of self/soul must be abandoned in order to root out the ignorance that drives tanha (and hence leads to suffering). Anatta/emptiness is a distinctively Buddhist teaching, though of course it's possible that another seeker could find it. In which case that seeker would be a Buddha!
As if any of this were something that could be tied down to a concept! If only it were as easy as that, there would be no need to practice...
I cannot speak for the whole of humanity. A Sufi mystic, a Hindu, a Hassidic Jew, a Christian, a follower of the Tao or a pagan, if their path help them to lay down this burden and find peace, how can one speak of just one path.
I love to read the writing of Sufi poets, one can see the heart, the essence of something they have touched- it's love, the divine if one wants to say so. I cannot read such things and claim my way is only one way.
For one to claim that Buddhism is the only way to end suffering is akin to someone saying that Christianity or Islam is the only one true religion.
I believe Hinduism and Taoism could also lead to the cessation of suffering. Probably paths such as Sikhism and Sufism as well but I don't know much about these.
1) According to both Theravada and Mahayana tradition, one does not attain the cessation of suffering in one lifetime, but rather we are to develop the perfections over innumerable lifetimes. This means that along this path, we will be at times be following a Buddha's teachings, but at other times we will be following other paths as well especially since during certain aeons the Buddha's teachings are said to be non-existent. But whatever the path we happen to be following, we are still developing the perfections which will eventually allow us to end our suffering.
2) The Buddha while he was developing the perfections was not always a Buddhist. Even when teachings of the Dhamma existed in the world, he was in certain lifetimes following asceticism. He was also born into the animal kingdom many lifetimes such as once when he was a monkey king.
3) Several people who were not following the Buddhist path were able to attain full enlightenment or one of the stages of enlightenment through hearing just a verse of the Buddha's teachings. So even in the final lifetime when one attains the cessation of suffering, it is possible to do so by following a non-Buddhist path. (Although perhaps technically we can say that they followed the Buddhist path for a few seconds when they heard the single verse of the Buddha before they became enlightened).
So the answer is, if we look at the entire journey towards the cessation of suffering which encompasses countless lifetimes, we see that there can be many paths to reaching the cessation of suffering because it is possible to develop the perfections through following a non-Buddhist path. Nonetheless, it is still arguable that at the very final moment of liberation, it is the eightfold elements that come together to open one's eye to the Dhamma.
The important thing is to go so deeply in that you reach the place, the motherlode, where all streams have their origin.
Various Vajrayana schools barely acknowledge it. And many Dzogchen teachers see such an idea as unhelpful.
The point being that you are going to need to look elsewhere for a universal commonality.
A fact ?
Many Vajrayana schools do not teach either the 8fp or 4nt at all...They dont deny them...they simply ignore them..check it out. Other Vajrayana schools like the Gelug teach them in much the same way that a Theravada teacher would....The point being a lack of Universality.
And for many Dzogchen schools the 8fp and 4nt. would indicate would a position which reinforces Duality.
But the Vajrayana takes it's origin in another and different schema.
If you want to overcome dukkha then other religions might give you a breadth and diversity of knowledge, just as you can study carpentry without being the adopted son of Joseph.
As for simple no's and yeah's - I think you have us confused with slot machines . . .
"I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach" Buddha
But, guess not.
moreover, Hinduism also states that initially there was sunyata - from this sunyata, arose Universal Consciousness (Shiva) as a manifestation - something like sunyata and Shiva are the two aspects of the same thing - from Shiva, arose matter(Shakti or Prakriti) through manifestation, which lead to the creation of Samsara - in the end, everything dissolves back to Shiva or shunyata. Also, Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali contains 8 steps to follow to realize True Self. Also, Lord Krishna taught that the ultimate goal of human life is Self-Realization.
Christ and Mohammad became one with God - now, the question comes what you can call God? is God the same as a ruler of heaven, as Hinduism or Buddhism states - or - is God another name for the ultimate reality. how can we know if it is not the later thing? So if God is another name for the experience of ultimate reality or peace, which can be seen through ending of ignorance, then the paths of Christ and Mohammad can also lead to ultimate reality - provided, we leave the rites and rituals and put things in correct perspective.
so all these religions also have the path for ending of suffering and leading to ultimate reality.
Buddhadharma must be understood by its own lights. As must Christianity.
If we fully enter either we may find that at depth they have a common source.
But to simply draw a veil of 19th century Hindu universalism over both is to misunderstand both.
The idea that The Buddha and Jesus are manifestations of Visnu is equally offensive to most Buddhists and most Christians.
Don't get me started.
( others have btw...there was blood all up the walls )
Then try popping into a Catholic or Orthodox or Southern Baptist website and suggesting that Jesus is an avatar of Visnu.
Let us know how it goes.
The Abrahamic faiths get no where near this accomplishment at the most they could accomplish would be rebirth within the Desire realm of the Gods, Some of what is practiced amongst them they would be lucky to reach a higher realm at all.