Who is Budda

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Gennell

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Can someone help me, explain budda? I am totally ignorate about this, I know nothing about Budda, except that you rub his belly three times for good luck, that is what I was told when I saw a little statue.
Of course coming back into the church everyone thinks that I am
this crazed religous person, who talks about God all the time,
well I have been back with the church for over a year now, with a
much better understanding about God, and the catechism.
I went to the non catholic page but could not find anything about
budda, maybe I was not looking in the right place, but my husbands Aunt came over the other day and we started to talk about the Passion of the Christ, the movie, and I was telling her isn’t it great about the truth and Catholic religion, now understanding it better and absorbing it, and she
says what about Budda, he was around long before anyone, even
God, I have to admit, I thought I had the answers when it comes to the mormans and the JW, but she dumbfounded me, first time I was speechless when talking about our Lord, HELP, who is Budda?? What religion is he? So I am gonna do some homework and find out before I email her back, hopefully a lil information from all you good smart people will help, thanks.:confused:
 
Gennell,

A Zen parable:

A monk set off on a long pilgrimage to find the Buddha. He devoted many years to his search until he finally reached the land where the Buddha was said to live. While crossing the river to this country, the monk looked around as the boatman rowed. He noticed something floating towards them. As it got closer, he realized that it was the corpse of a person. When it drifted so close that he could almost touch it, he suddenly recognized the dead body - it was his own! He lost all control and wailed at the sight of himself, still and lifeless, drifting along the river’s currents. That moment was the beginning of his liberation.
 
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Gennell:
Can someone help me, explain budda? I am totally ignorate about this, I know nothing about Budda, except that you rub his belly three times for good luck, that is what I was told when I saw a little statue.

HELP, who is Budda?? What religion is he? So I am gonna do some homework and find out before I email her back, hopefully a lil information from all you good smart people will help, thanks.:confused:
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Maybe you are referring to the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha. From what I’ve read about his life, the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince, about five centuries before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a member of the kshatriya caste, and was shielded by his father from the world, who wanted him to become a ruler. Later as a young man, he witnesed what human suffering is all about. He saw a corpse, an old man, a wandering mendicant, and a sick man and was so affected by the suffering that he saw (in stark contrast to his own life of wealth) that he began to ask why there is suffering in the world. He left his palace and became a wandering mendicant, where he endured physical mortification, but later he decided that enlightenment could not be attained by such means. So, as the account goes, he began meditating under a Bo tree and was tempted by an evil spirit to renounce his quest for enlightenment. He is said to have finally succeeded in attaining what they call the supreme mystical experience of Nirvana, wherein the truth was said to have been revealed to him.

With regards his teachings, I would rather leave that to the resident Buddhists in this forum to explain it to you.

Gerry 🙂
 
WOW, thanks for the information, I never knew anything
about him, except those little statues with a big belly. I never
did find anything on him that interested me enough to look into it, but it sounds like a lesson to teach compassion, now remember folks
I don’t know ioda about buddhism. My Aunt made it sound like
he was here then thousand years before Christ, or something like
that. You should of seen the look on my face, lol
 
From Koans: The Lessons of Zen edited by Manuela Dunn Mascetti
*A monk said to Joshu, “I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me.”
“Have you eaten your rice porridge?” asked Joshu. “Yes, I have,” replied the monk. “Then you had better wash your bowl,” said Joshu. With this the monk gained enlightenment.
*
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*Hyakujo wished to send a monk to open a new monastery. He told his disciples that whoever answered a question most ably would be appointed. Placing a water vase on the ground, he asked, “Who can say what this is without calling its name?”
The chief monk said, “No one can call it a wooden shoe.”
Isan, the cooking monk, tipped over the vase with his foot and went out.
Hyakujo smiled and said, “The chief monk loses.” And Isan became the master of the new monastery.
*
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*A philosopher asked Buddha,
“Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me truth?”
The Buddha kept silence.
The philosopher bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying, “With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path.”
After the philosopher had gone, Ananda asked the Buddha what the philosopher had attained.
The Buddha replied, “A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.”
*
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Alan
 
Wow, Zen Catholics are popping their heads out today.

😃

Aum Shanti,

SD
 
Gennell,

Gautama lived in the 6th century B.C., I believe (or was it 5th?). So he did live several centuries before Jesus. Of course it makes no sense to say that anyone was around “before God.” Buddhists, however, don’t believe in God, although they do believe in gods and spirits, who are born and die and are reborn just like everyone else. In the Buddhist view, everything is always changing and turning into something else, and no living being (not even a god) is exempt from this. In the Buddhist understanding, our ultimate goal is to be released from the cycle of rebirths and reach a state called “nirvana,” which is often described as ceasing to exist but is also described as ultimate bliss. So it’s rather hard to get one’s mind around, and Christians tend to see it as a rather pessimistic view (as if existence is so awful that the greatest happiness is just to go out like a candle). But that’s not really how Buddhists see it–they tend to say that nirvana simply can’t be described.

Anyway, in the view of some (Theravada) Buddhists, Buddha was simply someone who managed to achieve enlightenment (release from the cycle of rebirths, so that when you die you attain nirvana) and taught others the way to do so. However, other (Mahayana) Buddhists believe that Buddha and various other beings actually achieved enlightenment many many lifetimes ago, but put off entering nirvana out of compassion, in order to bring others to enlightenment. In this view, Buddha is much closer to a godlike figure and that may be what your aunt has in mind. But frankly, she’s probably just confused.

Edwin
 
Siddharta Gautama, later known as Buddha, was born in about 560 B.C. in a village called Lumbini, near the modern border between India and Nepal. His father, Shuddhodanna, reigned as the rajah of a small principality in the area. The name Siddharta means ‘he who has reached his goal.’ Usually, he is referred to as ‘Gautama’, a name derived from a famous Hindu teacher from whom he had descended. ‘Buddha’, the name by which he came to be known, is actually a title of honor, meaning ‘the awakened or enlightened one.’ At 16, Gautama married a girl named Gopa or Yashodara. He also had a harem of dancing girls. He named his only son Rahula, which means ‘chain’ because he felt as if he were in chains while in the midst of tremendous luxury. At 29, he left his family and became a wandering mendicant. Buddha came to believe that all life’s pleasures and attractions are vain and worthless. He thereafter came to seek true knowledge. He settled at Uruvela in northern India, where he lived in extreme self-denial and discipline with 5 followers for 6 years. He ruined his health and came to believe that only through meditation could holiness be achieved. He abandoned his followers and immersed himself in contemplation under a fig tree, which came to be called ‘the tree of enlightenment’ or *bodhi-*tree (often shortened to ‘*bo-*tree’). He finally reached the highest knowledge and became the Buddha. His enlightenment had 3 stages: 1) vision of previous lives; 2) insight into the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth; 3) revelation of the 4 holy truths (knowledge of suffering - source of suffering - removal of suffering - the way to the removal of suffering). After his enlightenment, Buddha traveled about India for about 44 years, living as a begging monk and teaching. At 80, he was taken ill during a meal and died in the town of Kushinagara.
 
Well, isn’t this a nice surprise! A whole different world being heard from, yet, I sense, orthodox also.

As long as Jesus Christ in the Holy Trinity is acknowledged as the only God, there are other things to be learned in the world.
 
Thanks to all who helped me answer this, WOW, sounds like
a Saints life, or am I getting this totally wrong. Anyhow now
I can at least say he was not around before everyone, I just knew
she was confused and misinformed the way most of us our about
religion. I hope and pray for her to come back to the church, she
said right now she is just checking out different religions, I know
God is calling her but she needs education, I am buying her the
book “Surprised by Truth”, I keep hearing the book is great!
And can you believe up until I was about sixteen I thought every
religion was like ours but they just had little things that were different
and when I started to find out about all these other ones, I said
that’s CRAZY, how can people believe that, go figure.
Thanks again:D
 
The problem is that he taught “truths” that contridict the Truth of God. Buddhism can not be true if the teachings of the Church are true, and visa versa. They stand in opposition to one another.
 
Ghosty,

Of course Buddhism and Christianity contradict on a number of points. I’m certainly not denying that, and I hope no one else is either. However, we can admire Buddha’s life without thinking all his teachings were correct. He does seem to have been a good and holy man who sought truth and goodness–although in some respects (contrary to what a lot of liberals will tell you) his teachings were less compatible with Christianity than those of Hinduism (he rejected the theistic teachings of mainstream Hinduism and taught a way of salvation that was far more focused on human effort rather than divine grace).

In Christ,

Edwin
 
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Gennell:
Thanks to all who helped me answer this, WOW, sounds like
a Saints life, or am I getting this totally wrong.
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No, you are quite right. For some time the Buddha was a saint, though he has since been delisted. See Barlaam and Josaphat, also here.
Saint Josaphat is said to have lived and died in the 3rd century or 4th century in India. His story appears to be in many respects a Christianized version of Siddhartha Gautama’s story. … Wilfred Cantwell Smith traced the story from a second to fourth-century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, to a Manichee version, to an Arabic Muslim version, to an eleventh century Christian Georgian version, to a Christian Greek version, and from there into Western European languages. He traced Josaphat’s name from the Sanskrit term bodhisattva via the Middle Persian bodasif.
rossum
 
A Zen novice went to his master one bitterly cold night and complained that he had no firewood left in his cell.

The master asked, “Is there no wood at all in your cell?”

“Only the frame of the cot and a carving of the Buddha,” replied the newbie.

“So burn the Buddha,” said the master. “you can’t sleep on a statue, can you?”
 
**“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
**

**
– The Christ [Matthew 7:13-14].**

“Blinded this world – how few here see clearly! Just as birds who’ve escaped
from a net are
few, few
are the people
who make it to heaven.”

– The Buddha [Dhammapada 174]
 
Who is the Buddha?

If you seek him, you’ll find him.

If you find him, you’ll meet him.

If you meet him, you’ll have a smashin’ good time.

And – then – you’ll have to kill him.

👍

Ahimsa
 
The Buddha said:
“Blinded this world – how few here see clearly! Just as birds who’ve escaped
from a net are
few, few
are the people
who make it to heaven.”

[Dhammapada 174]
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Christ:
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.Matthew 18:3
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Speaking of becoming little children…
The Buddha:
While at Savatthi, the Buddha said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes the process of rebirth. The beginning of the process is not evident, though beings – hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving – are being born, living, and dying, continually. A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find. Likewise, a being who has not been your father, your brother, your sister, your son, or your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to find.

– Mata Sutta, “The Mother Sutra”
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😉

Ahimsa
 
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