THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION DEBATE
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Originally posted by I No Stupid:
I noticed this thread was inactive for several days and I take this liberty to conclude where I began. I have stated that Buddhism began as a philosophy. That is not to be misinterpreted that Buddha was a philosopher. He never regarded himself as one but he certainly propounded some notable philosophical ideas; and the most notable among these is probably that for things, as commonly understood, he substituted processes. A salient example is his doctrine of the 5 khandha – a person is constituted by a set of 5 processes. He probably got this idea from considering the nature of fire which he perceived to be not a thing (let alone a god) but a process and a causally conditioned process at that.
This is most insightful, as the actual content of the Buddha's teaching was properly established by his contemporaries. The 'supernatural' accounts have nothing to do with the body of teachings; they are the hagiographies that were written about him later, over the centuries. The teachings themselves are on philosophical or metaphysical subjects - the nature of being, ignorance, the causes of suffering, the nonexistence of either the self or phenomena as autonomous entities, the law of causality, and so forth. Such subjects hardly lend themselves to lots of supernatural embellishment.
However, this is not to deny the reason usually given for the Buddha's historical importance in that he founded one of the world's great religions. Unfortunately, our secular and pluralistic age has contracted the word ‘religion’ so far in the direction of individual belief and practices that to define the Buddha as the founder of a religion is to miss the full scale of his achievement.
Nevertheless, from a certain perspective it would be perhaps more accurate to say that the Buddha founded a civilization - one whose soul was indeed religion and metaphysical convention, but whose body was a body politic. As a civilization, Buddhism was a total view of the world and man's place in it. It created for the community of its adherents an entire universe, one that gathered into coherent whole levels and aspects of life that the world then and the modern world now divides into economics, politics, law, art, philosophy, and the like.
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"Nevertheless, from a certain perspective it would be perhaps more accurate to say that the Buddha founded a civilization - one whose soul was indeed religion and metaphysical convention, but whose body was a body politic. As a civilization, Buddhism was a total view of the world and man's place in it. It created for the community of its adherents an entire universe, one that gathered into coherent whole levels and aspects of life that the world then and the modern world now divides into economics, politics, law, art, philosophy, and the like."
Well put... :::Thumbs up:::
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Well, i once heard this from a Geshe and i really think HH Dalai Lama put it in a very skillful way and with much common sense. Someone once asked HH Dalai Lama this Question: Is Buddhism the best religion? Dalai Lama answer: This is a stupid question! Why? It is like asking whether is this medicine the best medicine? The most common sense and intelligent answer is no. Why? Because different medicine applies most effectively to different illness. (Though i am not sure if this is the exact words by his HH)
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Originally posted by Metta with Mindfulness:
Well, i once heard this from a Geshe and i really think HH Dalai Lama put it in a very skillful way and with much common sense.
Someone once asked HH Dalai Lama this Question: Is Buddhism the best religion?
Dalai Lama answer: This is a stupid question! Why? It is like asking whether is this medicine the best medicine? The most common sense and intelligent answer is no. Why? Because different medicine applies most effectively to different illness.(Though i am not sure if this is the exact words by his HH)
hmmm ... I won't see it the way the Dalai Lama put it. A drug is developed for a particular ailment. Not only that, its efficacy also depends on the metabolism of one who takes the drug.
The person who ask "Is Buddhism the best religion?" is very specific unless he is asking a broad question like "Which is the best religion?"
Here is another example of 'skilful mean' when a question is not directly answered but projected it in another way as to make it look so noble and wise! What I can see is that the Dalai Lama was put in a difficult position and did not wish to be caught up in controversy. Saving his own skin is the best way to ensure a return invitation to USA!
As a matter of fact, the Dalai Lama could have answered the way Buddha did.
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Originally posted by Kosen pang:
eeeeeeee, cutie !!! can help to post it at the forum here ? : http://sgforums.com/forums/1796/topics/350618
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Originally posted by Metta with Mindfulness:
Well, i once heard this from a Geshe and i really think HH Dalai Lama put it in a very skillful way and with much common sense.
Someone once asked HH Dalai Lama this Question: Is Buddhism the best religion?
Dalai Lama answer: This is a stupid question! Why? It is like asking whether is this medicine the best medicine? The most common sense and intelligent answer is no. Why? Because different medicine applies most effectively to different illness.(Though i am not sure if this is the exact words by his HH)
Religion is present modern democratic society may come in many forms like politicism, other capitalism etc
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Originally posted by Amitayus48:
Religion is present modern democratic society may come in many forms like politicism, other capitalism etcThat's why I said Buddhism began as a philosophy and became a religion.
Buddhism today (already centuries ago) is definitely mixed with politics like other religions. If you read the history of monastic involvement in politics, monks in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Tibet were either direct participants or behind the sence influencers.
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Originally posted by I No Stupid:
That's why I said Buddhism began as a philosophy and became a religion.
Buddhism today (already centuries ago) is definitely mixed with politics like other religions. If you read the history of monastic involvement in politics, monks in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Tibet were either direct participants or behind the sence influencers.
In fact, Buddhism is both philosophy and religion, it also never separate of politic either, as the wise put it, samsara is bodhi. In this regards, the involvement of politic is not improper. If you would to explore Zen master Bao Zhi Gong, Yong Ming Yan Shou amongst others who were with the rulers, they exercised the politic of loving-kindness. Trantric master Zhang Jia was being strongly regarded as politic monk, but was cremated with over 10000 relics.
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In light of HL on best medicine, it should read as the secularistic capitalism, politicism among others are medicine as well. This is due to human limited understanding on the naturely structure of existence. If blindly capitalists etc, the effect has a gradual detriment to the societal well beings, as the pursuit will develop into self centric and thereafter "self-detonation" in whole scale. It is emptiness nonethelessly but having an interdependent origination of kinship either in loving-kindness or the other way round.
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Originally posted by Amitayus48:
In light of HL on best medicine, it should read as the secularistic capitalism, politicism among others are medicine as well. This is due to human limited understanding on the naturely structure of existence. If blindly capitalists etc, the effect has a gradual detriment to the societal well beings, as the pursuit will develop into self centric and thereafter "self-detonation" in whole scale. It is emptiness nonethelessly but having an interdependent origination of kinship either in loving-kindness or the other way round.
hmmm ..... don't get what you are trying to say...