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Vouthon
Guest
No Buddhist did.
It was me, a Christian.
And I wasn’t speaking about anyone personally. I was criticizing what I saw as a temperament with regards to Buddhism.
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It was me, a Christian.
And I wasn’t speaking about anyone personally. I was criticizing what I saw as a temperament with regards to Buddhism.
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rossum
Guest
No individual Buddha is immortal, they will all die. There is indeed an endless stream of them; the next one will be called Maitreya.
There has been a President of the United States for over 200 years. That does not mean that the current President is over 200 years old.
Further than that you are getting into Trikaya theory, which is specific to the Mahayana stream of Buddhism and so not accepted by all Buddhists.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
The gods are in scripture. I personally am inclined to believe that they are a cultural hangover from the time of the Buddha. Gods may or may not exist.
The absence of soul is shown through meditation and analysis. When analysed all the material and non-material components of a human being change. None of them is permanent. Anything that changes only has a temporary, contingent existence. It does not exist in and of itself, it exists contingent on other things. In Buddhist analysis there is no Thomist ‘substance’ anywhere. Since everything is subject to change, then there is no unchanging ‘substance’ anywhere.
The Abrahamic religions seem to see the world as essentialy unchanging, with a veneer of apparent change laid over the top: “God is unchanging”. Budhism has things the other way round. The world is always changing, with an apparent veneer of stasis in some places. It is a very different approach.
The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.
– Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.
Seeing through the illusion of ontological depth is part of enlightenment.
Yes. They live for a very long time, but they do die.
All beings are created. They created themselves by their failure to attain enlightenment in their previous lives. The Buddhist definition of “god” is not the same as the Abrahamic definition.
rossum
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Vico
Guest
I am thinking of Sakyamuni Buddha, eternal, infinite, immortal.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
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scapularkid8
Guest
As I understand, Indian religions speak of their gods fighting each other or dying only to be reborn in a new avatar or form but I could be wrong on that. Forgot a lot of our Hinduism unit. 
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scapularkid8
Guest
Buddhism is not to be compared to Western religious organization, though. Buddhism has split into many diverse branches and even within those branches there are differing views over the ‘best’ way to reach Nirvana or follow the Buddha’s teachings based on how they were taught by their forefathers or based on their native culture into which Buddhism came.
I don’t know for certain but I think the Buddha never even intended for there to be a “right” way for anyone to follow his teachings so Buddhists don’t really care that there are others doing it a different way. Again, I definitely cannot speak for Buddhists on this so any Buddhists please chime in if that’s right or not.
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rossum
Guest
Shakyamuni Buddha was born, lived and died age 80. He was not eternal, not infinite and not immortal.
If you are talking about trikaya theory, then I am probably not the person to talk to since I do not follow the Yogacara school where the theory was mostly developed.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
Buddhism does not demand adherence to dogmas. Individual schools might, but the practitioner can always move to a different school.
[The Buddha said:] “The religious life, Malunkyaputta, does not depend on the dogma that the universe is eternal, nor does it depend on the dogma that the universe is not eternal etc. [many dogmas omitted here] Whatever dogma obtains there is still birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief and despair, of which I declare the extinction in the present life.”
– Cula-Malunkyovada sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 63
Buddhism is a ‘salvation by works’ religion, to borrow a phrase. Because it concentrates on works, faith is far less important than in the Abrahamic religions. Faith is important early on the path to get you started. As you progress along the path faith is replaced by knowledge. By the end faith is mostly unimportant.
If a group of Buddhist monks cannot agree on a point, despite efforts to find a common agreement, then the monastic rules say they are to split into two separate groups. As you correctly point out, this has happened repeatedly.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
Gods change, so they die. Nothing that changes can be eternal.
All the people who saw Jesus die on the cross saw a God die. If gods cannot die, then there is a major problem at the heart of Christian theology.
rossum
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rossum
Guest
That is correct. Buddhism offers a wide menu of possible techniques. You can select whatever techniques work best for you from the menu. Other people are free to make their own choices.
One of the drivers behind the Zen school was the idea that the menu had become so big that it was confusing. Zen offers a greatly reduced and simplified menu to try to cut out some of the confusion.
Different techniques work best for different people. Some people get on very well with Tibetan visualisation methods. I tried them and they didn’t work for me. For me, simpler techniques like Vipassana and Zen ‘just sitting’ work better. Each person is free to try different techniques and work with those that suit them best.
rossum
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
They did not see God die. They saw a God/Man die only to be resurrected.
The Buddhist gods die forever?
Still sounds atheistic.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Seems strange that the Buddhists gods are called gods.
They are born and they die. That’s what humans do.
They are born and they die. That’s what humans do.
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Aloysium
Guest
Eastern traditions describe the ontological structure of human existence in mythological terms. Christianity deals with God’s historical relationship with humanity. There is no Buddhist magisterium, and the teachings are only as good as the Master or Guru.
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Vico
Guest
Yes Shakyamuni Buddha is born, however certain schools teach that he was the Eternal Buddha (not born) of the Mahayana school, from tathāgatagarbha sutras and the Lotus Sutra and also the Nichiren school, and I think there is another school also.
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scapularkid8
Guest
I have to bow out. It seems to me like the OP is just engaging in argumentative, circular baiting rather than attempting to respond thoughtfully to anything we contribute. We keep going back to the root misunderstanding that Indian religious traditions and thought systems are not similar to Abrahamic or Western schools of thought so until that is firmly grasped I don’t see any way of making progress or getting back on the topic of Nirvana. 
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rossum
Guest
Here are two statements:
- Jesus is God.
- Jesus died on the cross.
Any unenlightened being that dies gets reborn. If the dying god was not enlightened then it would come back for a new life, though not necessarily as a god. If the god were enlightened, then it would not be reborn.
You have a strange definition of atheism, with tens of thousands of gods.
Your Christian God walks, speaks, gets jealous, gets angry and loves. Humans walk, speak, get jealous, get angry and love. Your God does what humans do. Why do you call him “God”?
rossum
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rossum
Guest
As you say, this is getting into the differences between various Buddhist schools. I do not follow those schools.
As I said above, Buddhism offers many different methods to walk the path. The Dharmakaya (your “Eternal Buddha”) is one possible method, but not one that I follow.
rossum
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
We call him God because he made us. Buddhist gods have never made us. He is Supreme and Eternal. Buddhist gods are neither. He made us in his image and likeness, so we cannot safely ignore him, as you say we can safely ignore the Buddhist gods.
If Buddhist gods, even ten thousand of them, cannot be distinguished from humans in that they are born and they die, then they must be compatible with atheism, since so many Buddhist are atheists. No Christian is an atheist.
By the way, Christ alone died on the Cross. His humanity died on the Cross, but as God Almighty he could not die any more than the Father and the Holy Spirit could die.
Perhaps you have not read enough Christian theology to understand?
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