Welcom Lodro. Bakmoon and I follow Theravada. rossum follows Mahayana. We need Pure Land and Zen, and we’ll have most of Buddhist thought well covered. Of course we will most likely confuse non Buddhists.
Probably unavoidable, given how often we confuse ourselves.
I have learned a lot about the fundamental teachings by reading your posts. That is an important part of study and one that I think vajrayana students including me often neglect, very much at our peril.
Most of the posts so far about Buddhism are from the Theravada POV. Budddha nature is not part of Theravada understanding.
That’s what I remembered, but I didn’t want to speak for other traditions. The important thing in all of these cases is that “all dharma agrees at one point”. The experience of complete wakefulness is the same, as is the understanding that ego is the culprit for all of our dissatisfaction. I think everything else is simply exploring the implications of those basic truths and how we can work with those most skillfully.
Thanks for your detailed answer.
Why the lack of interest in metaphysics and the workings of the universe etc.
I think for the very simple reason that it doesn’t really inform the path. All of Buddhist practice and study is single-mindly focussed on ending ego-clinging. That’s not at all to say that there hasn’t been a lot of Buddhist scholarship around this area.
Personally as a scientist I am very interested in the workings of the universe, though I think Physicists and Cosmologists are ultimately building castles in the sky. I don’t believe that there is a single answer to the question “how does the universe work?”
What is the focus of living as a Buddhist? What is the meaning of life as a Buddhist?
The meaning of life for a Catholic is to imitate Christ so what is it for a Buddhist?
Wow. That’s the big one. And it’s actually pretty problematic, as almost any answer will get you more questions. For example, what do you mean when you say “to imitate Christ”? What would that entail? I mean, could we say that it would mean treating other people with perfect compassion, love and understanding, or are there other aspects? (Perhaps what we should really have is an “Ask A Catholic” topic.
One way to put the goal of a Buddhist practitioner is “to become the Buddha”. There are many Buddhas; the actual corporal Buddha Shakyamuni, but depending on the tradition Buddha has many manifestations. And again from a Mahayan point of view, we all have Buddha Nature as part of our essential make up, so saying this is merely saying that you wish to uncover your true nature.
So I guess that is similar, though my very limited understanding of Catholic tradition is that to say that you actually wanted to
become Christ would be both absurd, because there is only one, and very suspicious, because it would imply taking on the attributes of God that a mortal being could not posses?
The activity of a Buddhist practitioner is to do everything we can to end suffering, both for ourselves but in the bigger picture for all sentient beings. Assumed in that is that we have to deal with our own ego-clinging before we have much of being of benefit to anyone else.
But this becomes an open question with no easy answers when it comes down to actual life experience. Should it be happiness? But is it really possible to be happy all of the time, and what would that mean anyway?
One of my most revered teachers had a very interesting answer for this question, which I love:
“Communication”
The path itself is the goal and that involves at heart interacting with other sentient beings so that we can all awaken. I will stop making this caveat now, but it should be obvious that I am speaking from my own tradition. Other Buddhists may have different takes on all of this. For one thing, Vajrayana teachings emphasize the very challenging and interesting point that you can’t actually have a perfect situation. We say that Samsara and Nirvana are inseparable. Without confusion, you can’t have wakefulness.
As notself implies, this is likely to be as confusing as it is enlightening.
Okay now if this info. is true. Why Not?