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whats the most annoying question are comment
HollyRose1
Explorer
whats the most annoying comment do you get from someone that has no idea or just doesn't like Buddhism
_my mom always says Buddha is not Jesus , and says she regrets not raising me in a church ...when i never seen her step one foot in a church ..she thinks religion is genetics ...then i get my self centered and remind her i know i am not a bad person .
1
Comments
Actually, I am beyond the point where I feel I have to justify my beliefs to anyone or even have the energy to do so.
My Mom is very Catholic, so I simply do not engage in discussions about religion with her.
She is the person from my environment who comes up with the most grating comments, but since she won't change her point of view and neither will I, better to stop her short and move on to more amiable subjects.
That holds for everyone else.
My wife thinks that the aim of Buddhism is to have no feelings any more.
"Do you levitate then?" :om: .
i get ....are you going to wear a rope and be bald?
It wasn't annoying, but I thought it was funny. At one time I was sort of dating one of our secretaries, whose father was a teacher in our school. One day I said to the father, "I was interested to learn that Shery was a Buddhist." "She's not supposed to tell anyone that. Her crazy religion is supposed to be a secret here." I replied, "Bill, I'm Buddhist."
You never heard such a long silence.
Whatever annoys us can lead us to an improvement.
Why aren't you enlightened? :orange: .
When they try to be clever about it - cover their lack of understanding or respect with little cute-isms that at the very shallow surface are supposed to be funny, but in reality are simply stupid and insulting to the intelligence.
Something else tht bugs is when non-Buddhists judge others on what they think their particular religion stands on. For example, Buddhism isn't really about being Mr. Nice Guy. There are those who think it is, and when a "Buddhist" acts like a jerk they will declare that the person really isn't a very good Buddhist. It's a species of Straw Man - a load of BS, bt it truly amazes me how many people still buuy into it.
Yes, that bugs me too. I think I mentioned that in another thread, after a comment to similar effect, by @DhammaDragon..
The other one guaranteed to get me going occasionally is "Well Buddhists are supposed to be vegetarian, aren't they...? "
I'm not sure about particular comments (I can't think of one off-hand that's "so" annoying), but people who say they're not Buddhists acting like they know Buddhism better than actual practitioners... that can be a tad annoying.
Or the average "Buddhism is pessimistic because they claim that life is suffering..."
That is, getting stuck in the first NT and thinking they know everything there is to know about Buddhism...
If I had been given a dollar for every gape I got every time I explained that there are three more truths to the story, and a happy ending to boot..!
(Well, rather a happy "to be continued...")
When one of my wife's uncles heard that the two of us were going to be married by a Zen Buddhist teacher, you might have thought he'd be somehow offended: My wife's family is more Catholic than Mexico and Abrahamic persuasions seem to find endless ways to be offended.
Instead, the uncle, without knowing it, put me in my place. He only had one question: "Does that mean I'll have to wear a turban?" He was willing to do whatever it was that would cement the bonds of family ... dressing up and belief systems were minor matters. Of course, Buddhists don't do turbans -- though they've got other gear -- but that uncle made me want to go get one.
Well, I do go round telling everyone that....
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Wear a rope?
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^^^ either Gaga Buddhism or robe . . .
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For example, Buddhism isn't really about being Mr. Nice Guy.
What's wrong with being Mr. Nice Guy? ( or "Mrs. Nice Gal" to include the ladies
)
I didn't say there was anything "wrong" with being Mr. Nice Guy.
Someone said Buddhism is boring. What does he expect when he said that?
:scratch:
"Why do you care? I thought everything was meaningless to you people."
What makes it even worse is it was my brother that asked, lol.
I think the most annoying comments could be that Buddhism is nihilistic or centered on the avoidance of suffering.
However, when there are many Buddhists freely telling others who aren't familar with emptiness that they don't exist what else are they to think or how else are they to react?
Propagating this type of issue is, in my mind, akin to perpetuating it - step away from the cycle of reinforcement.
When I told my devout, but open-minded Christian dad that I had begun my spiritual life with practicing Buddhism, he displayed a sense of joy. Joy for me beginning a spiritual life. He said something that everyone should consider. "There are many forms of the Path of Truth."
I live in the South (of the US), and here, Christianity reigns supreme. If you don't believe in the Christian god, you are a heretic, you will burn in hell, and it is their duty to save your soul - to convert you. Granted, not every Christian is like that, but they can't help themselves to try and "help" you by giving you the word of god in some way.
I do my best not to discuss religion at all with any known Christian, except my dad.
As for annoying comments and questions, I can't say that I have had the experience, yet. Honestly, in the South, not many people know much about any other religion than their own.
Someone telling me enthusiastically and with a straight face that they had studied Budism for years before moving on to another practice which took half their income but promised levitation and invisibility courses..
No, they hadn't seen anybody levitate more than meditatively hop, and no the invisibility course was hard to verify when everyone doing it had to keep their eyes closed and no she did not know she had a very unique way of enunciating Buddhism (the subject they had studied for years.
With great restraint, I did not mention how evidently obvious it was that those courses did in fact work.......... at least on her mind.
How did she enunciate "Buddhism"...? It's a well-known fact that the American pronunciation differs to the British one...
many Americans pronounce it "BOOdism" . Trungpa was once asked what was correct. he said "BUDism" when asked what was wrong with BOOdism, he said "it sounds stupid".
Something else thaat bugs the shit out of me is when people start in with that quasi-intellectual "there's no ______" crap. It's especially annoying when the person making the quip hasn't gor the slightest frikkin idea what he/she is talking about.
Somebody1: I was saying to my wife ......
Sombody2: Your wife does not exist.
As long as I'm in Rant Mode, there used to be this guy over on the old Freesangha board (when it was still cool), who jump into those goofy, "There is no ______" convos with the perrenially profound "Just Sit". It was painful. Like having someone pull out your fingernails with a pliers and then pour paint stripper over your fingertips.
I hesitate to admit that I agree with him - but I agree with him!
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>
If I'm honest - and I do try to be - I get really peeved when we have a good-humoured thread going on some such topic, and then somebody comes in with a 'deeply meaningful profound' Buddhist statement, which although in all probability true, recognised as Buddhist teaching and utterly pertinent, STILL succeeds in being a total party-pooper....
Next time I see one, I'll just quote and respond with .. :rarr: .
You'll know what I mean....
I pronounce it boo-dism, and to me bud-ism sounds like some sort of botany thing.
Btw, I'm just beginning to learn about Buddhism (reading lots of books/scouring the library), so I'll be sticking to the kiddies end of the conversational pool for a while, anyway. I hope this post turns out okay.
p.s. I previewed, but I know it's not quite how I wanted it to turn out, but here it goes anyway.
Moderator Note:
Fixed it for you.
boo doo!
Love it!
There are no annoying questions/comments...Only teaching tools for practicing the Dharma...
Oh shut up.
Don't just take my word for it...See for yourself
@Shoshin I said that jokingly because your comment was itself one of those "annoying comments" this thread is about. It was ironic, tee-hee!
@Toraldris,
I know, hence my little Kalama Sutta Buddhist flavoured 'joke' "Don't take my word for it...See for your self"
I told somebody recently that I was an atheist and a Buddhist, they couldn't see how I could be both things at the same time - like being an atheist was a separate religion or something. Doh!
This person ( a new-age type ) then announced that he was a Buddhist too....though he'd only had a brief time with Nichirin and didn't know what the four Noble Truths were or anything else about Buddhism for that matter. Doh!
Oh, shut up.
Any question about Karma or reincarnation or the meaning of life - i.e. the unknowables!
They just lead to pointless speculation!
Then we have to take away their Super-Secret Vajra Decoder Ring.
Damned kids.
I was talking with a lady from the west coast who practiced some flavor of Nichirin and she didn't know what the word "Sangha" meant.
I was more surprised by that than annoyed.
Fortnately, or annoyingly, our status as Buddhists isn't predicated on what we know.
I know of others who have had comments directed at them, mostly a Christian friend who is married to a Buddhist and gets a lot of "how could you marry HIM!" comments from people in town.
I honestly don't get any. People who are overly negative and/or toxic eventually are sifted out of my life by natural processes. I'm thankful to be surrounded by people who are supportive, even if they don't always understand. They ask insightful questions and don't make judgements. In any case, I try not to get annoyed at such trivial matters. Buddhism doesn't care what others think of it. I try to live my beliefs rather than talk about them, and people have a hard time arguing that.
When I first got interested in it and went to a retreat, my husband did ask if that meant I was going to be celibate, lol.
Today at the JobCentre. (answer to complex status questionnaire, being verbally put to me. )
"I'm Buddhist, actually."
"Oh, really? You don't look very fat to me...."
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(I would add, that many questions were optional, and I didn't have to answer if I didn't want to....)
Mine too, except the "natural processes" part. More and more, as I grow older and hopefully wiser, I just don't put up with it anymore... and choose to associate with wiser, more compassionate people. I'm sure that's somewhere in the teachings too, but I don't base it on that, I base it on my life experiences.
As for my being a Buddhist and an atheist, I've run into some minor issues over the years. For instance once I was being pursued by a female co-worker, and during our conversation it came up that I was an atheist (I think she asked me where I went to church). She asked what I was, and at the time "Buddhist" hadn't applied, so I told her "nothing in particular". She immediately went cold... She didn't even attempt to convince me to believe in God, she acted like I was myself toxic instead of an open-minded and reasonable person. I guess that's conditioning too.
By natural processes I meant situations that arise that just result in people no longer being in my life. I don't find it necessary to forcefully kick them out of my life most of the time, they just fall out of it because there isn't a place for them when I am involved in healthy and wholesome activities. That doesn't mean anyone who is a challenge, just people who are truly toxic and harmful. It's like when you are kids and you have a certain friend, and as you go through high school and college you drift apart because one of you becomes interested in sports and the other is interested in the arts. People drift in and out of our lives as our activities and directions change, and the more you go towards healthy activities, the more those toxic people naturally fall out of your life because that's not what they are participating in.
Sounds too much like the butter is awake for me.
Buddha bing
When others say things about Buddhism which are annoying it is a wonderful opportunity to calmly and respectfully inquire where those ideas come from. Then explain how you see it and why. People can't really react negatively towards the calm and well spoken representations of your belief.
You should have said yes to the turban and NO UNDERWEAR beneath the saffron robe.