Do you think that Buddha saw God? (if Buddha was real)

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anhphan

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I think he saw God but he was a human, he wasn’t able to understand God?
 
This from the Brahamajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1. One of the Buddhist Gods is speaking:
“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 meditation, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”
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I should warn you that this comes from the section enumerating various errors. The Buddhist attitude to gods is very different to the Christian attitude.

rossum
 
Who cares about Buddha -
You should go to their web site - ask -
as long as he wasn’t a charlatan - that’s as far as I think about that.
As long as he isn’t in Hell - after his time in the sun on earth.
 
He was a human being who:
made up his own religion (fantasy)

The Catholic God traced the history of all His prophets from Creation to Jesus Birth in the Bible, and mentions all sorts of countries during this history. None of God’s prophets taught contrary to what is the Catholic Faith.

The Buddha is not mentioned because he is not of God, was a human being who made up an imagined religion
 
The Buddha was a real person. The buddha died. The buddha wanted to be spared the suffering of the cycle of reincarnation. He Buddha had some very nice teaching on how to live properly. How not to be selfish. This is good.

I wish everyone at some point could return to our God who created everyone. God can let anyone into heaven he wants. I know the Bible is clear on what is needed to be with God in the next life. This is a wish.

What I really wish is that the Buddha and the apostles didn’t leave their families including kids for years on a spiritual quest.
 
Kris34 said:
What I really wish is that the Buddha and the apostles didn’t leave their families including kids for years on a spiritual quest.
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The apostles didn’t, at least while they were alive. With those who were married, it appears their wives traveled with the group.
 
I don’t believe “Buddha” existed. So the answer is no.
 
lilypadrees said:
I don’t believe “Buddha” existed. So the answer is no.
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Can you explain why you think the Buddha didn’t exist.

Is it because of a judgement on your part of a lack of corroborating and sound evidence for his existence or something else?

Thank you in advance for your explanation.
 
lilypadrees said:
I don’t believe “Buddha” existed. So the answer is no.
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We have more evidence for the Buddha’s existence than for Jesus’ existence. All the evidence for Jesus comes from Christian scripture. We have evidence of the Buddha from both Buddhist and Jain scriptures. Similarly there is evidence for the Jain Mahavira in Buddhist scriptures as well as Jain scriptures.

The two were contemporaries, the Mahavira being the older. Hence each gets a mention in the scriptures of the other religion. This is similar to Christian scriptures being evidence for the existence of groups like the Pharisees and Sadduccees.

rossum
 
I think the Buddha existed, as the various biographies and histories make clear.

Obviously he was just a man, but I think during the “Enlightenment”, he may have been given a glimpse of heaven, and possibly God. Not having 2000 years of Jewish history behind him, he would hardly have put a Christian spin on it. His background was originally a Hindu based culture.

It may well be that the religion he founded, becomes part of the path for his disciples to finally accept Christianity. Man is a religious creature, and he will always follow something, even if it’s faith in hardcore atheism. For whatever reason, the Buddha’s teaching took root very strongly in much of South East and East Asia.

The challenge for Christianity is to find the link which will bridge the divide. The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton had quite a long acquaintance and friendship with Buddhist spiritual figures, so what we need is another Thomas Merton (or three).
 
Bob_Crowley said:
The challenge for Christianity is to find the link which will bridge the divide. The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton had quite a long acquaintance and friendship with Buddhist spiritual figures, so what we need is another Thomas Merton (or three).
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Thomas Merton was himself possibly enlightened on his final journey:
[At Polonnaruwa] I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything – without refutation – without establishing some argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.

I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the clarity and fluidity of shape and line, the design of the monumental bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock slopping away on the other side of the hollow, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded (much more “imperative” than Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa because completely simple and straightforward).

The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem and really no “mystery.” All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya … everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. … I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise. …

It says everything, it needs nothing. And because it needs nothing it can afford to be silent, unnoticed, undiscovered. It does not need to be discovered. It is we who need to discover it.

From: The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton
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Merton was at Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka, looking at the carving of the Death of the Buddha. Ananda is the smaller standing figure at the left, who was the Buddha’s attendant.
 
There is actually more evidence for Our Lord and Savior’s existence than there is for the alleged “Buddha.” But believe as you wish.
 
rossum said:
We have more evidence for the Buddha’s existence than for Jesus’ existence. All the evidence for Jesus comes from Christian scripture.
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That is actually false. Not all the evidence of Jesus comes only from Christian scripture. We have sources from non-Catholics like Cornelius Tacitus (Roman) and Flavius Josephus (Jewish).
 
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rossum said:
Merton was at Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka, looking at the carving of the [Death of the Buddha ](http://explorelanka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/polonna ruwa-640x360.jpg). Ananda is the smaller standing figure at the left, who was the Buddha’s attendant.
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I was in Sigiriya last year and had the choice of going to Polonnaruwa or Anuradhapura. I chose the latter so missed out on Polonnaruwa. Dambulla caves were also interesting with the Buddhist statues and paintings.

There was also a good History of Buddhism museum in Kandy.
 
Kris34 said:
What I really wish is that the Buddha and the apostles didn’t leave their families including kids for years on a spiritual quest.
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I don’t know about Buddha, but Christ apparently had no problem with the Apostles leaving their families behind. To have done otherwise would have been a violation of the first commandment, not to mention an ignoring of Christ’s own exhortations.
 
kill051 said:
I don’t know about Buddha, but Christ apparently had no problem with the Apostles leaving their families behind. To have done otherwise would have been a violation of the first commandment, not to mention an ignoring of Christ’s own exhortations.
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I don’t know but perhaps those that had wives and families sometimes took them along with Jesus’ different visits of towns around Galilee and maybe also the final trip down to Jerusalem.
 
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