What does your Buddhism mean to you?

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Curious11

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How do you live out your Buddhism in everyday life? @Rossum if you know Buddhists in this forum it’d be cool if you could bring them here
 
Not a buddhist, but the non-christian religions have always been intriuging to me. Looking forward to this thread.
 
I was right into it for a while. There was an X factor missing for me I’m afraid. That is why I came back to Catholicism.
 
In everyday life, Buddhism is mostly similar to other religions:
  • don’t do evil.
  • do good.
  • meditate.
The first two are common to all religions. The last is more common in the Indian religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, though it is present to some extent in Christianity. I think it would be useful for Christians to put more emphasis on meditation, either Counting Breaths or Saying the Jesus Prayer for example.

In everyday life there are two effects I have noticed. One is staying in the current moment; not thinking too much about what happened in the past and not thinking too much about what will happen in the future. Just be aware of what you are doing here and now.

The other is to be more aware of the differences between the internal mental model we construct of the real world and the actual real world out there. Our internal model has errors in it, and those errors can cause dukkha (suffering). Learning to recognise when one of those errors crops up, and to change the internal model as needed, is good. Trying to hang on to the faulty internal model is a mistake; reality always wins in the end. For Catholics, Galileo might be a good example. Some people tried to hang on to a faulty model of how the Bible was to be read. Reality showed that their reading of the Bible was incorrect, so they had to change their interpretation. Do not grasp too hard at your internal models, they are not the same as reality.

rossum
 
Really informative. It’s great that you can basically apply everything you just wrote without being a Buddhist
 
Yes, there is no self/soul in Buddhism. It is one of those things where your internal model does not match the external world. You do not have a permanent self; what you are is constantly changing with no unchanging permanent core.

What you think is your self actually isn’t.

rossum
 
Brendan_64 said:
How are good and evil defined in Buddhism?
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Buddhism is an orthopraxy: Right Action rather than an orthodoxy: Right Belief. Hence good and evil are defined in terms of actions:

Don’t do evil
  • avoid injury to living things.
  • avoid taking what is not given.
  • avoid sensual misconduct.
  • avoid false and malicious speech.
  • avoid intoxicants.
Do good:
  • Love others as you love yourself.
Notice that the first group of five is not phrased as an order: “Thou shalt not…” but as advice: “avoid…” Actions have consequences, Buddhism advises what actions to avoid if you do not want the consequences of those actions. There is no equivalent of forgiveness of sin in Buddhism, if you do the crime then you do the time.
Neither in the sky nor in mid-ocean,
nor in a cave in the mountains,
is there a place where a man
can escape his evil deed.

– Dhammapada 9:12
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rossum
 
The orthopraxy part of Buddhism is similar to Judaism, which is likewise more oriented toward behavior than belief. But there are beliefs as well in Judaism. There, I think, the similarity ends. I’m also thinking that the late Leonard Cohen was both a Buddhist monk and an Orthodox Jew. Is this acceptable according to Buddhist religion?
 
meltzerboy2 said:
But there are beliefs as well in Judaism. There, I think, the similarity ends.
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Correct. Buddhism is a Dharmic religion and the underlying theory is very different to that of the Abrahamic religions. The moral rules are essentially the same, though the route to those rules is very different.
meltzerboy2 said:
Leonard Cohen was both a Buddhist monk and an Orthodox Jew. Is this acceptable according to Buddhist religion?
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Yes, it is acceptable. Whenever Buddhism moved into a new country it tended to absorb the local religion, adding more gods/spirits to the many already in Buddhist scriptures. Sometimes the more important gods were treated as manifestations of an important Buddha or Bodhisattva. In Japan the Shinto goddess Amaterasu was treated as a manifestation of Kannon (a female version of Avalokita). When Christianity was suppressed in Japan, images of Kannon were used as a substitute for the Virgin Mary: Maria Kannon.

The only changes Buddhism insisted on were to practices that went directly against Buddhism: stopping animal sacrifice for instance.

A far as I am aware there is nothing in Orthodox Judaism that goes against Buddhism, so the two are compatible.

rossum
 
rossum said:
Yes, there is no self/soul in Buddhism. It is one of those things where your internal model does not match the external world. You do not have a permanent self; what you are is constantly changing with no unchanging permanent core.

What you think is your self actually isn’t.

rossum
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How does that internal model match up with the reality of, say, the criminal justice system?

If you believe your self is always changing, how do you make sense of getting arrested for and going to prison for a crime you committed years ago?
 
Since you’re answering everyone’s questions, one thing that I’ve never really understood is what is reincarnated, what goes to Heaven or Hell, and how is that “you”? (I recognize the after life is a point of being different, but some pretty Buddhist places believe in both an afterlife but also reincarnation, but without a self I’ve always been confused on that).
 
There is a causal connection to the past versions of yourself. Each past version of you caused the next, slightly-less-past, version of you. Among the things that are passed from one version to the next is responsibility for past actions.

If you like, you can think of it as a much more personalised version of the guilt of Original Sin being passed forward from Adam to all his descendants. The Buddhist version takes no notice of genetics, it just looks at the succession of lives as a person is born, lives, dies and is reincarnated into a further life. One of the things that crosses from the previous life is the net accumulated responsibility for previous actions: karma. The same happens within a life, unresolved karma is passed forward.

rossum
 
Kei said:
Since you’re answering everyone’s questions, one thing that I’ve never really understood is what is reincarnated, what goes to Heaven or Hell, and how is that “you”? (I recognize the after life is a point of being different, but some pretty Buddhist places believe in both an afterlife but also reincarnation, but without a self I’ve always been confused on that).
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Buddhist heavens and hells are all temporary. You get a (long) lifetime there, then you die and are reborn. You may be reborn as a human again.

A human being has five components: Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Formations and Consciousness.

Form is the physical body. Some of the higher heavens (the Formless Heavens) lack this component, beings there are entirely immaterial.

Feelings and Perceptions are our sense perceptions and our reactions to them: pleasant, painful or neutral. Both of these exist in the heavens and hells.

Formations, sometimes called ‘Karma Formations’, is primarily the unresolved karma from previous lives being carried forward. Karma continues to be active in the heavens and the hells, so it will change during a lifetime there. The new value will be carried forward into the next life.

Consciousness is our awareness of ourselves. It changes, and may be temporarily absent during periods of unconsciousness. Again this is present in the heavens and hells.

As well as heavens and hells we may be reborn as human or an animal. The scriptures contain two other possible destinations: Asuras and Pretas. The first are a sort of lesser heaven populated by lesser gods, the second a sort of lesser hell. Both are tied to Indian mythology and are less emphasised outside India. Pretas are often linked to the local spirits of folk-religion.

rossum
 
Thanks, that makes sense.

@rossum, personally are you a Buddhist of the Theravada or Mahayana tradition?

From what I’ve seen and know, it seems like Mahayana Buddhism is more popular among traditional Buddhist peoples and nations, and Theravada Buddhism is more popular in the West, for the most part.

My idea for why Theravada Buddhism is more popular in the West - because it is essentially atheistic. So people who are secular or atheist are drawn to it because it gives them a spiritual philosophy and moral framework which is lacking in strict secular atheism, Buddhist atheism is, IMO, substantially different from secular atheism.
 
How does it feel to have been a member of CAF since 2004? 14 years isn’t bad
 
Spyridon said:
@rossum, personally are you a Buddhist of the Theravada or Mahayana tradition?
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My theory is Mahayana (Madhyamika-Prasangika) my practice is mostly Theravada with a little Soto Zen thrown in. I tried some of the Tibetan visualisation meditations and did not get on with them. Theravada and Zen use a much simpler approach, which suits me better.
From what I’ve seen and know, it seems like Mahayana Buddhism is more popular among traditional Buddhist peoples and nations, and Theravada Buddhism is more popular in the West, for the most part.
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Theravada is prevalent in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. I’m not sure about Cambodia.
My idea for why Theravada Buddhism is more popular in the West - because it is essentially atheistic. So people who are secular or atheist are drawn to it because it gives them a spiritual philosophy and moral framework which is lacking in strict secular atheism, Buddhist atheism is, IMO, substantially different from secular atheism.
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All of Buddhism has gods, Theravada included. In addition there are Mahayana Bodhisattvas and Buddhas who can fill some of the roles assigned to gods. However, the gods can easily be ignored, and those roles are only a part of the function of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. If I am hungry, then I have to eat the food for myself; having a god or Bodhisattva eat it for me won’t do me any good. Following the Buddhist path is something I have to do for myself.

Buddhist atheism is probably more like agnosticism: gods are not explicitly denied, just ignored.

rossum
 
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