Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
You are making me want to do some research on this. Any good books for an aspiring Buddhist?
Why are you a Buddhist? If it isn't a path to God or the afterlife... what is the point?
BOB
|
The point -- and this isn't an easy thing to stick in a nutshell, if you know what I mean -- is that all creatures are more or less stuck on this sinking ship we call Earth. We can spend a lot of time and energy stealing food and water from each other, or tossing others overboard, but in the end, it makes no one's life any better.
Being trapped on the wheel of life (the Great Mandala) is not the goal of existence ... and going to a "heaven" implies that people who are only doing what they should be doing for their fellow creatures are supposed to get some sort of reward for doing it.
Doing the right thing should be its own reward in the Buddhist philosophy.
People get the ideas of reincarnation and eternal life very confused if they haven't done much studying in the area. The Buddha, having learned what he needed to learn and taught what he needed to teach, reached nirvana, and ceased to be. Never to be reincarnated again .... becoming one with the universe, which will eventually fade off into nothingness (according to modern science).
A lama, on the other hand, would be reincarnated (having not reached nirvana) because he or she does have more to learn and more to teach. It goes without saying that someone less enlightened than a lama is going to go through a lot more cycles in the wash (so to speak).
I'll give you an example. Buddhism doesn't have a lot of "military heroes" simply because the idea of military "persuasion" is not a Buddhist concept. In any event ... and I believe it was in about the year 300 (I think it was during the Chou Dynasty), a general who happened to be a Buddhist (don't ask me, I guess he was drafted), was told to conquer a neighboring city-state. So, this general marches all his military forces over to this large city, and then tells his men "OK, men .... put all your weapons down and build a city right here. Then, those of you who are without more wives than you can support, go over to that city and respectfully ask if you might marry some of their daughters." And the men go "???" But they do it. And over the next few years, the people of the old city see how well the people of the new city are treated by their emperor, and how just and kind the governor of the new city (the general) is. And they say .... "we want to be a part of this ... where do we sign up??" And so, the old city became a part of the empire, and not a drop of blood was spilled in the name of conquest. That's the Buddhist way of doing things.
I will try to put together a reading list for you. I happen to like a lot of the Dalai Lama's works, although, to be honest when it comes to the day to day stuff, his English language books come off a little stiff (and query how much detail the reader really needs about all the mouse crap that used to land on his head while he was sleeping from the mice in the palace rafters).
OH .... sorry .... must edit. As to why I am personally a Buddhist. When I was about 15, I realized that I no longer believed in the Christian God, or in any god for that matter. And, I had just gotten my ass kicked out of a church for asking questions about things in the Bible that made no farking sense to me at all. So, for several months I went around calling myself an atheist ... which was technically correct, but didn't leave me with a very good feeling about missing out on the guidance that the church used to provide.
Then, I met a monk who was staying with the family of a friend, and I had a long talk with him. He asked me if I was "happy" with simply being an atheist. And I thought ... "happy?" You are supposed to find joy in a philosophy? He then suggested that the world would be a much better place if all people were living with a religion or a philosophy that gave them joy. And that, if the mere absence of a god did not give me joy, perhaps I might want to consider studying Buddhism. And so I did, and I found out that he was right ... you know you are in the right place when being there gives you joy, because you will project that joy around you. You're in the wrong place when you feel the need to punch the other guy in the face simply because he or she does believe in a god, or in a different god than you.
After a lot of study, I began attending teaching (seminars? sermons? .... hard to pin down what they are) by Lama Ole Nydahl, a Danish lama, who teaches "the Diamond Way." I could listen to him talk all night, he is a wonderful and interesting man who epitomizes all I love about Buddhism. If you get a chance to go to one of his talks, I highly recommend it. He tells this one story about being in a cabin in the dead of winter and trying to write with this stupid fly buzzing around the room. He went through all these gyrations to try to get the fly out of the cabin while not harming the fly, only to end up killing it by accident as it flew out the window and he closed the window too quickly. The lesson?? Sometimes sh*t happens. Apparently, it was that fly's time to go ... and you can't spend the rest of your life agonizing about something that just happened.
Really .... he's so great.