Buddhism in "Shaolin" movie

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In “Shaolin” (2011, Dir. Benny Chan), temple monks in early 20th c. Dengfeng, Henan say “Buddha be praised!” whenever something good happens, and in one scene two monks attribute (deceitfully) a miracle to Buddha, venerating his image. My questions:

Do Buddhists (or did warlord-era Shaolin monks) do such things? If so, do (did) they believe that Buddha is in some way alive, hearing prayers and working miracles?
 
Hello,

Here are some thoughts about this based on my own studies and contact to some buddhist friends…

First of all it is important to understabd that there is not "the " buddhism. Every “school” or denomination has another way to practice the mostly very abstract thoughts and guidelines in daily life.

Then, if we see the historic situation when buddhism got popular , we will see that the culture and religion which was dominant before didn´t disappeared, each culture created an own, special buddhism. In the ancient china for example buddhism has a strong moral-theoretical side, in tibet, where paganism with a strong belief in ghosts, ancestors etc. is still alive, buddhism was integrated in this system of religion, in the old traditional ways of worship , so you have many prayers for buddha, no matter that he is no god in the way we understand theism.
Greetings,
Alice
 
There was similar terminology in The King and I. I can’t answer OP’s question, but in that movie it seemed to me that Buddhism was being charicatured.
 
Ad_Orientem said:
Do Buddhists (or did warlord-era Shaolin monks) do such things? If so, do (did) they believe that Buddha is in some way alive, hearing prayers and working miracles?
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Not that I’m aware of, or at least not in the Christian sense.
 
Ad_Orientem said:
Do Buddhists (or did warlord-era Shaolin monks) do such things? If so, do (did) they believe that Buddha is in some way alive, hearing prayers and working miracles?
Click to expand...
I cannot speak for Shaolin monks of any era, but there is no point in praying to the Buddha.

If you are going to pray, then pray to your favourite god – there are tens of thousands of them to pick from, including all the traditional gods local to your area. As alice24 pointed out, Buddhism does not replace the local religion but rather integrates the local gods into Buddhism at some level. Important gods could become identified as incarnations of important Bodhisattvas for instance.

The question of the current status of the Buddha is unanswerable. Four of the fourteen unanswerable questions relate to the status of the Buddha after his last death:
  • Does the Buddha exist after death?
  • Does the Buddha not exist after death?
  • Does the Buddha both exist and not exist after death?
  • Does the Buddha neither exist nor not exist after death?
rossum
 
rossum, thank you. Do you (and Buddhists generally) think that some gods really exist?
 
Ad_Orientem said:
rossum, thank you. Do you (and Buddhists generally) think that some gods really exist?
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Personally I am agnostic. Some Buddhists are atheist and some other Buddhists are theists.

The main purpose of the gods in Buddhist scriptures is to applaud in all the right places when the Buddha is speaking. Gods are of very little importance in Buddhism. Hence the mixture of atheist/agnostic/theist. Gods are a very small part of the religion.

rossum
 
“Respect the Gods and Buddhas, but do not rely apon them.”
-Myomoto Musashi

As stated above Buddhism melds with local religion rather than replacing them. In Japan they are Shinto-Buddhist, combing both Shinto ("The way of the gods, Traditional Japanese religion) and Zen Buddhism. The practices and philosophy of a Samurai could be very different from those of say a Shaolin Monk or a a Tibetan Monk.
 
Interesting, thanks for the responses.

Do agnostic or atheist Buddhists pray? If so, what does this entail? (For me, prayer involves another person.)
 
Ad_Orientem said:
Do agnostic or atheist Buddhists pray? If so, what does this entail? (For me, prayer involves another person.)
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No, we meditate. That does not always involve another person. There are many different meditations techniques, some of which focus on people, gods or Bodhisattvas while others do not.

Among simplest techniques is just breathing and counting to ten. Nothing more. For more advanced practitioners you can drop the counting.

rossum
 
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