Did the Buddha talk about God?

[Ion]

rossum

What do you mean by this? Buddhism is not monotheistic, there are tens of thousands of gods:

You cannot worship ten thousand gods. As you said earlier, they are not even relevant, so how can they be awake? You said: “Gods are not important in Buddhism and can safely be ignored.” Then they are certainly not gods in the Judeo-Christian sense. They are not Supreme Beings. If you can safely ignore them, by all means do! But that throws whatever salvation Buddhists believe in back on their own willingness to say they can do it by themselves, and they don’t need God at all.

You also said: “The Buddha is recorded as having ascended into one of the heavens and preached to the gods there.” What kind of idiocy is this? We do not imagine St. Peter ascending to heaven in order to preach to Jesus.

We speak in the comfort of our comunion with Jesus. They had nothing at the time of Buddha.

 

[wittgenstein]

When I was in Thailand a Buddhist monk told me (my wife had been in the peace corp and speaks Thai) that all the Gods etc are not Buddhist they are the local traditions that have mingled with Buddhism. Buddhism = no self.
One can be a theist Buddhist or an atheist Buddhist. Similarly, one can be a theist car mechanic or an atheist car mechanic.

 

[rossum]

You cannot worship ten thousand gods.

You don’t have to. You can worship as many or as few as you wish.

They are not Supreme Beings.

You need to read the Brahmajala sutta. One of them claims to be the supreme being. I have quoted the section upthread.

If you can safely ignore them, by all means do! But that throws whatever salvation Buddhists believe in back on their own willingness to say they can do it by themselves, and they don’t need God at all.

Buddhists do not seek salvation. That is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. Buddhists seek enlightenment.

You also said: “The Buddha is recorded as having ascended into one of the heavens and preached to the gods there.” What kind of idiocy is this?

Catholics say that Jesus and Mary ascended into heaven. Are you saying that is idiocy as well?

The gods were not enlightened, the Buddha was. Why should he not preach to them? He preached to humans and to gods. If you look at the Wheel of Life you can see Buddhas preaching in all the sections: to gods, to humans and in the hells.

http://www.thangka.ru/gallery/img/koleso_3.jpg

All living beings, wherever they are, need to hear the words of the Buddha.

We do not imagine St. Peter ascending to heaven in order to preach to Jesus.

Peter was not a Buddha; Jesus was probably a bodhisattva.

rossum

 

[Ion]

Buddhists do not seek salvation. That is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. Buddhists seek enlightenment.

rossum

What is that enlightenment for? Didn’t help Buddha himself with his diet.
Does it give you life? Does it keep you alive? So, you will not do sin anymore because enlightement tells you sin it is bad? Will you be above any harm from other persons enlighted/ or not?
I have to say buddhism it was a tremendous thing done by a human at that time, but it is only that, the effort made of a human to reach heaven.
Christianity is coherent and non-selfcontradicting, proven by Christ death and resurection, and you have the gifts of graces to live in accordance with the teachings.

 

[billcu1]

You don’t have to. You can worship as many or as few as you wish.

You need to read the Brahmajala sutta. One of them claims to be the supreme being. I have quoted the section upthread.

Buddhists do not seek salvation. That is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. Buddhists seek enlightenment.

Catholics say that Jesus and Mary ascended into heaven. Are you saying that is idiocy as well?

The gods were not enlightened, the Buddha was. Why should he not preach to them? He preached to humans and to gods. If you look at the Wheel of Life you can see Buddhas preaching in all the sections: to gods, to humans and in the hells.

http://www.thangka.ru/gallery/img/koleso_3.jpg

All living beings, wherever they are, need to hear the words of the Buddha.

Peter was not a Buddha; Jesus was probably a bodhisattva.

rossum

Yes a bodhissattva. The next buddha is indeed Maitreya where shakyamuni came from Maitreya’s pureland. So he came from a “heaven” that was prepared. Maitreya will be the 5th of 104 buddhas for this age.

 

[rossum]

What is that enlightenment for?

The elimination of suffering.

[The Buddha said:] "What I have revealed is: ‘This is Suffering, this is the Arising of Suffering, this is the Cessation of Suffering, and this is the Path that leads to the Cessation of Suffering.’ And why, monks, have I revealed it?

“Because this is related to the goal, fundamental to the holy life, conduces to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment and Nibbana, therefore I have revealed it.”

– Samyutta Nikaya, 56.31, Simsapa sutta

Does it give you life? Does it keep you alive?

Neither. You have to be alive to attain enlightenment. Even the enlightened still die, but they are not reborn again.

So, you will not do sin anymore because enlightement tells you sin it is bad?

Sin is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. The enlightened no longer perform any unwise actions. They always act wisely.

Will you be above any harm from other persons enlighted/ or not?

No. Devadatta harmed the Buddha.

I have to say buddhism it was a tremendous thing done by a human at that time, but it is only that, the effort made of a human to reach heaven.

Nirvana is not heaven. It is a common error to confuse the two.

Christianity is coherent and non-selfcontradicting, proven by Christ death and resurection, and you have the gifts of graces to live in accordance with the teachings.

From a Buddhist point of view, Jesus’ resurrection shows that he was not enlightened. The enlightened do not return. Since Jesus returned, He was not enlightened.

Buddhism is not Christianity. Certain obvious assumptions in Christianity are either not valid in Buddhism or work the other way. For example, the promise of eternal life in Buddhism equates to an eternity of suffering.

rossum

 

[Ion]

Yes a bodhissattva. The next buddha is indeed Maitreya where shakyamuni came from Maitreya’s pureland. So he came from a “heaven” that was prepared. Maitreya will be the 5th of 104 buddhas for this age.

They should be more careful and buy extended medical coverage, also go to full medical examinations every year…

 

[tomarin]

They should be more careful and buy extended medical coverage, also go to full medical examinations every year…

Hey bub, we’re supposed to treat other religions with the same degree of respect we expect others to accord our faith.

 

[Love4All]

This is an extract from the Brahmajala sutta. I have used ellipses since the sutta is one of the longer ones:

[The Buddha said] "… And then, monks, that being who first arose there thinks: ‘I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.’ " (emphases added)

– Digha Nikaya 1, Brahmajala sutta 42, (Wrong View #5)

I have indicated the properties which show that the Buddha is talking about the Abrahamic God. This is taken from the Pali Canon, which is the earliest complete canon we have.

In Buddhism, all gods are living beings who need to follow the path to nirvana. They are all subject to the three marks of change, suffering and soullessness. While the gods may help us on out path, and vice versa, they cannot walk our path for us. At best a god can grant us a temporary time on one of the heavens.

Gods are not important in Buddhism and can safely be ignored. In Buddhist countries, people pray to gods for material things: money, a child, health etc. The gods are part of the material world of samsara, they have not attained nirvana.

rossum

Buddha was not talking about God, he was talking about Brahma, one of the gods. None of the gods is Almighty God. The Vedic Trimurti is the three gods, Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, Shiva the Dissolver. That is the Brahma that Gautama was talking about, and he was speaking from the perspective of a philosopher who had attained Nibbana. As a philosopher, he was familiar with the Vedas and Vedic literature, so he knew of Brahma. As one who had attained Nibbana, he was able to imagine himself in Brahma’s place and infer what that was like.

But, myths are myths. The Buddha also rejected the authority of the Vedas, and ended sacrifices to the gods. His system was entirely focused on overcoming clinging, the root of all suffering. Thus, he was unable to imagine any being in any state who was not originally subject to clinging. For the Buddha, the Origin of all is shrouded in Ignorance. In the chain of causation that culminates in birth, it is Ignorance that is the first link. Here the Buddha confessed his ignorance of the Origin.

By contrast, in Catholic Doctrine, God is Pure Act. Pure Act cannot be in ignorance of anything, because ignorance is potential knowledge, and Pure Act would already possess all knowledge. Pure Act cannot cling to anything, because clinging implies desire, and Pure Act already possesses all things. Pure Act means precisely that there is nothing at all lacking in God, so God has no need to attain Nibbana; if anything, He is entirely and eternally situated in Nibbana. But even this, is a conception, and would lead one to more clinging.

In the end, if you wish to follow the Buddha, you ought, I think, to follow him also in his treatment of such questions, to wit: considering imponderables is at best a distraction from the Path; it does not help one to attain to the cessation of craving. The Buddha refused to answer speculative questions as to the Origin of All. You are therefore way out of line assuming that he was contradicting himself, and referring to the Origin of All under the name, “Brahma.” He was not, nor would he have ever done so. He was quite pointedly referring to the Vedic Myth.

 

[Love4All]

Does the Bible mention nirvana?

Obviously, not by that name. However, if Nibbana is the remainderless cessation of all craving, it can easily be deduced that the parallel concept in the West is, “The Kingdom of Heaven.” Note Well that this is not the same conception as any of the Buddhist heavens, it is rather a parallel conception to the Buddhist end goal, Nibbana.

While your attempts to synthesize may be noble, without complete knowledge, they are bound to miss the mark. And we are way past that by now. We have had enough of incomplete understandings and idle speculation by those who do not know whence they speak. What the world need now is the Truth, and it shall have it. Whether you yourself accept the truth or stand in its way, is up to you; but I would counsel you to cease from making attempts at incomplete and inaccurate syntheses. For your part, let the East remain the East and the West remain the West for the time being. I am not discouraging you from your path, I am merely counseling you to cease from effectively leading others astray on theirs.

 

[Love4All]

This is what I have just read: budsas.org/ebud/ebdha192.htm

“Dr Mettanando Bhikkhu was a physician before entering the monkhood. He is currently based at Wat Raja Orasaram, Thailand”

Some time ago I’v read the same thing from another source, that Buddha died because he ate too much for his age, and I was not sure about the source. It looks like there are different opinions, but the cause was food anyway.
Arent there little statues with Buddha as an obese person? Are they only symbolic, and he was actualy slim?

No, that really happened to him. The Buddha began his life in India and ended it in China. China was, for him, more or less a paradise. They loved him, in China, and they fed him well.

 

[Love4All]

rossum

What do you mean by this? Buddhism is not monotheistic, there are tens of thousands of gods:

You cannot worship ten thousand gods. As you said earlier, they are not even relevant, so how can they be awake? You said: “Gods are not important in Buddhism and can safely be ignored.” Then they are certainly not gods in the Judeo-Christian sense. They are not Supreme Beings. If you can safely ignore them, by all means do! But that throws whatever salvation Buddhists believe in back on their own willingness to say they can do it by themselves, and they don’t need God at all.

You also said: “The Buddha is recorded as having ascended into one of the heavens and preached to the gods there.” What kind of idiocy is this? We do not imagine St. Peter ascending to heaven in order to preach to Jesus.

Charlemagne, if I may: By “the gods” the Buddha means people, essentially. They may be super-powered people who live for millions of years, but, all the same, they are people like you and me, they live, and eventually they die, and in between, they have desires and engage in activities. Everything rossum holds about any of the gods has nothing whatever to do with God, who possesses the attribute of Aseity. None of the gods rossum talks about possess Aseity, rather, they are all caught in clinging, just like humans.

rossum’s primary error as I see it, and the one that may cost him his eternal soul if he does not renounce it, is lumping God in with the “gods.” He is so blind to his error that he thinks he is here to enlighten us, who have the Light of the World. He thinks our conviction that we have the Light of the World to be a delusion based in ignorance. And he thinks himself sufficiently enlightened already to be in a position to judge, not only gods, but God.

So you see the mess he is in. Please pray for him!

 

[Love4All]

Yes a bodhissattva. The next buddha is indeed Maitreya where shakyamuni came from Maitreya’s pureland. So he came from a “heaven” that was prepared. Maitreya will be the 5th of 104 buddhas for this age.

Where are you getting your information?

 

[Ion]

Ion:They should be more careful and buy extended medical coverage, also go to full medical examinations every year…

Hey bub, we’re supposed to treat other religions with the same degree of respect we expect others to accord our faith.

What was disrespectful in my comment? It’s plain truth, they are bones and flesh. You can’t expect more from them, or do you imagine something else because of the word “religion”?
At the time of Buddha, unfortunately there was no really medical care. Keeping abstinence from food in an advised medical environment, Buddha could have lived 120 years.
And they shouldn’t mention Jesus Christ as part of some buddhist hierarchy because it’s a lie.
Jesus is the Doctor of our souls and bodies.

 

[tomarin]

Ion:They should be more careful and buy extended medical coverage, also go to full medical examinations every year…

What was disrespectful in my comment? It’s plain truth, they are bones and flesh. You can’t expect more from them, or do you imagine something else because of the word “religion”?
At the time of Buddha, unfortunately there was no really medical care. Keeping abstinence from food in an advised medical environment, Buddha could have lived 120 years.
And they shouldn’t mention Jesus Christ as part of some buddhist hierarchy because it’s a lie.
Jesus is the Doctor of our souls and bodies.

Making fun of the founder of someone’s religion is obviously disrespectful.

I’m just re-stating the rules of the forum; if you don’t like them, take it up with the moderators.

 

[Ion]

Making fun of the founder of someone’s religion is obviously disrespectful.

I’m just re-stating the rules of the forum; if you don’t like them, take it up with the moderators.

Would I give you this advice, would you think I’m having fun of you? It’s deadly serious!!!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

rossum

Buddhists do not seek salvation. That is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. Buddhists seek enlightenment.

So they seek neither god nor salvation. They seek wisdom only … then the worms?

Christians also seek enlightenment, not as an end, but as a means to an end.

So Buddhism really is atheistic after all since it doesn’t matter whether you believe in the gods or not, they not really qualifying as God according to our idea of a Supreme Creator.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Love

Thanks for the clarification. I’ve always been confused by the various versions (incarnations) of Buddhism. My sense of the fundamental flaw in Buddhism is that it is ultimately egocentric. Enlightenment comes strictly from within. There is no God to whom we must submit our will in humility and pray constantly “Thy will be done.”.

 

[wittgenstein]

Response to post 37
Buddhism is not atheistic or theistic. Similarly, how to fix a car is not atheistic or theistic. One can be an atheist car mechanic or a theist car mechanic.
Actually,. Buddhism is the opposite of egotism. It is based on enlightenment and enlightenment = the realization that the self is an illusion.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

wittgenstein

Actually,. Buddhism is the opposite of egotism.

I doubt it. It is a self-sufficient search for enlightenment, no help needed from gods because they are irrelevant. What can be more egotistic than preaching to the gods?