Brain Scans: Buddhists really do know secret of happiness

Id say that it is real Korean Buddhism. Wouldnt you? Just like Im a real American Agnostic? I dont think that you can debunk someone else who has the same basic beliefs because you dont agree with some things, and have alternate practices, eh? Like how many Christians say that others arnt real Christians because they dont have the same practices. To me it doesnt matter you are what you identify yourself to be. As long as your not a prick bastard.

exactly my point.

truht
Bongstar you said that my suggestion that we are really "everything" sounds like Pantheism. That is not my meaning. Pantheism means that God is everything; I said that we are everything. Actually, everything is everything.
Of course that is a "mystical" statement (whether valid or not) and, as such, has nothing to do with logic. It is, indeed, a logical tautology of the most blatant kind: A=A. Yet it is, to my mind, true, and nontrivially true.

Re: truht
same thing goes true for everything religious, and mystical, eh?


Oh yeah, it sliped my mind because I dont think in terms of god. But in a way if A=A than wouldnt god be part of that. I mean if god(s) existed of coarse.

truth
Of course.

Well, you will never know enlightenment until you are truly enlightened yourself, as experience is difficult to be replaced by words, especially in this case. Buddhism is a religion or teaching of experience. Experience is needed. I'm not enlightened, so don't ask me how its like. LOL

And you've not wasted your time if you put what you learnt in Buddhism into your life. I don't know if you are a buddhist or want to be a buddhist or just a person who agrees with Buddha's teaching, but anyway for your info, I think a buddhist should focus on one buddhist school instead of learning a little from every sects.



There is only one type of true buddhism in the world: Buddhism that follows the Dharma, or what the Buddha taught. Korean Buddhism is true buddhism, as long as its pure (not mixed with other concepts) and share the core teaching of Buddha, and that goes to Chinese Buddhism, Thai Buddhism, Jap Buddhism, etc, as well, and more than a dozen buddhist sects in the world, Zen being one of them.

Perhaps there is a difference between Christianity and Buddhism that you need to know. Buddhism has a great variety of practices, which Christianity doesn't seem to have that many. In Buddhism, like Buddha said, there are 84000 (a digit often used by Buddha to describe uncountable) Dharma-doors. Each of them can lead to supreme-enlightenment. It is up to a person who wants to become a buddhist choose the Zen sect, Pure Land sect, Tibetan Buddism, etc, is up to one's preferance. But basically they all share the core teaching of Buddha, the 4 noble truth and the goal of Nirvana. Although there are such a wide variety of practices, there was no conflicts between the buddhist sects.

Those cultist groups probably don't even recognise nirvana, nor practice Buddha's basic rules, which already forbid violence, since there isn't any other excuses for them to abuse or misinterprete the teaching which does not allow any form of violence for any single cause, but anyway, cultist group is a very small minority currently.

of course all buddhist sects accept the basic teachings of buddha. but religion is never static. how can you call one development of buddhism "fake" and others "real"?

ok christianity forbids violence as well. so then would you agree that there has never been any blood shed by true christianity?

truth
X-Surf. It seems to me that the "countless dharma-doors" does not refer to practices (e.g., "techniques" such as shikantaza, koan study, satipatthana, vipassana--sitting or walking-- etc.). Instead it seems to me that "dharma-doors" refers to all the forms (as "empty" as they may be) of experience, all the "objects" of experience: falling leaf, rising sun, itching leg, bitter taste, ad infinitum. It is what the zen exclamation refers to: "All things enlighten me!" That is to say, when we realize that we ARE one with the objects of perception, not separate subjects to whom they happen. This is hard to describe. Can't do better than Twyvel's reminder that there is neither perceiver nor perceived, only perceiving. To see this is to pass through a dharma-door. Yet there is no "passing" through anything. We "go through" a dharma "gate", as it is also called, only to realize that we remain where we were originally--with already, originally, enlightened ordinary mind. Perhaps that's the meaning of the phrase "gateless gate."

Erm how do I delete an extra post? lol

I do not consider people who claim themselves as Buddhist by claims of perhaps respect to Buddha, yet disagreed on Buddha's teaching or did not accept them, a developement of Buddhism. Cultist groups usually don't even take refuge in the Triple Jem, which is not Trinity, not God, Jesus and Holy Ghost but refers to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Just like its a must to be baptized for Christians, Buddhists are only considered true buddhists when they take refuge in the Triple Jem. They have no reason to call themselves Buddhists. I am refering to degenerated Buddhism, Buddhism that no longer hold the message from Buddha as "fakes".

About the dharma-doors well... Perhaps there are a few definations about it. Just like the word Buddha, which can be referred as Awareness, or the teacher who taught us 2500+ years ago. It is also the way you think about it. Usually when we say dharma-doors to ordinary people, we often refered it to practices. A person once asked my buddhist master whether it is compulsory for meditation, in which he replied "Meditation is only one out of 84000 dharma-doors".

I did not say Christianity allows violence. Yes, Christianity teaches love and not to kill. All I'm saying is that there is no violence due to Buddhism in history, which most other major religions cannot make that claim. Buddhism emphasizes peace too, and Dalai Lama is a good example who have won the Peace Nobel Prize. I am not discarding any violence started by "buddhists" as "fake buddhism", but the fact is, there is no buddhist violence in history! Perhaps I shouldn't even mention about cultist buddhists in the first place, because they just simply aren't buddhists and do not spread Buddha's message and are not recognised by anyone else in the world, and anyway, is only a small minority. Nobody will call them buddhists. For example, I can start claiming I'm a christian right now for no acceptable reasons, and start killing all the other christians. Am I a true christian? Am I a "developement" of christianity? I would rather consider myself as a bad mutation of it.

You can search the web to confirm my claim that there is no buddhist violence in the world. It is a well known fact that buddhism is a very peace loving religion.

You can search the web to confirm my claim that there is no buddhist violence in the world. It is a well known fact that buddhism is a very peace loving religion. [/quote]


I always thought so, and brought up the atrocities of other religions like christianity. I say it is wrong to kill in the name of a god(s). If the god(s) wanted it done, wouldnt they do it themselfs?
For instance, christianity has a long history of genocidal types of practices, but people say that the people who killed and all of that other crap arnt christians. I say whatever, you do something in the name of the christian god, and you worship it, so you are a christian. But christians arnt alone, eh?

truth
I think that ALL so-called religions are available for use by demogogues and ambitious tyrants and presidents to justify violence against others, whether the others be labled infidels or evil sinners. Religion's ultimate function, IMHO, is to give relief from the existential facts of life, e.g., the inevitability of death, the fundamental illusion of aloneness, the inabiity to completely merge/communicate with others, the injustice of amoral nature (e.g. sometimes the "good" die young while the "evil" die peacefully at an old age). But religion also has societal functions, e.g., it can serve to unite a people by giving them a common origin mythology which distinguishes them from outsiders (this is called in anthropology a "boundary maintenance function"), and it gives a kind of absolute legitimacy to the leaders of a country, note that european kings are crowned by bishops, cardinals and other Church officials. But it must always be remembered that religions can BE USED as tools of violence, as ways of justifying the slaughter of "unbelievers." While Buddhism has not as yet been used in this way, there is no guarantee that it will not be used in this way in the future. When Christianity or Islam are MIS-used in this way, I think that "true" Christians and Muslims do not go along with it. When Buddhism is used in the way, I'm sure that many people who call themselves buddhist will not respond. But consider this fact, a famous zen master, Roshi Yasutani, gave his full support to the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the destruction of Jews (and he had, as far as I know, never met a Jew--except that later, in America, his most famous student was jewish). All the zen adepts I know would not and did not cooperate with the Japanese government during WWII. SO, I think we should not judge a religion by the ways it is mis-used, only by the ways it is properly used (and sometimes that will also be negative).

Ive came to a similar conclusion a few years back. Then I figured that I didnt need that relief. Im told how Im blind and mislead, whatever.

Monks charged over temple violence
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/241066.stm

and there have been countless occasions where buddhists commited suicide to further their cause. it that really that much better?

Being monks does not mean they are good buddhists. A true buddhist does not only take refuge but practices Buddha's teaching, at least try his best to do so. These individuals probably do not represent the Chogye Sect of 8 million people, and these gang factions' violence in South Korea probably do not represent group's leader's true motives and it does not represent the basic foundation of the Chogye Sect. Fortunately South Korean's temple gangs are probably one of the few in the world. Its also interesting to note that Buddha himself knew that nothing is permanent in this world and predicted degeneration of buddhists 25 centuries after his times (cultist buddhism is also started in 1900s), including fighting among rival gangs. But ultimately the core foundation of the sect wont accept such behaviours and probably the leadership too. I do not know the whole story about the violence, this is in fact the first time I've heard about it (I was 8 years old when the incident occured). Surely a lot of things must have happened, so I cannot give an explanation for the actions.

Perhaps it will be more correct to say that peace will be attained.. if one is a buddhist who practices Buddhism correctly. It is pointless claiming oneself as a disciple of Buddha yet does not practice what was taught, and ultimately practice is more important than faith in buddhism. What I meant "buddhists" as.. are those that are practicing dharma. You don't really have to be a buddhist to practice what Buddha taught. True buddhists will be cultivating themselves instead of starting conflicts. What I mean by a peaceful buddhism is that buddhism had no wars fought in its name if you look into the history of buddhism. However, unfortunately there are seperatists who have shown up startin from the last few decades, instead of practicing dharma, causes violence. And I'm not trying to point out that true christians are violent.

you aren't discarding it as fake buddhism? that's exactly what you just did!

as for the dalai lama and tibetan buddhism, their history is comparable to the catholic church. there was plenty of violence and abuses of power.

Perhaps I should rephrase. What I meant was.. those violence are started from internationally recognised cultist groups, which are no longer considered as Buddhism, so there is no need to discard any violence as fake buddhism.

As for the Tibetans, they were barbaric warriors before Buddhism entered Tibetan from India, which ended all its barbarity and wars. As for the Dalai Lama, are you refering to the current one? I'm not very familiar with Tibetan history.. except that i know some stuff about the overtaking of Tibet from China. From all that I know, Dalai Lama is a very peaceful person.

Bumblebee directed my attention to this thread this morning. Thank you, Aunt Bee. It is good to see more Buddhists have joined A2K, and that there is enough interest in our religion to make this thread so active over the last few weeks. A perusal of a couple of pages of posts prompts several comments. In an attempt to keep postings short and on point, I'll divide my comments into a short series of postings.

What is a "True Religion"? This is a question that by it's self could fuel 84000 postings (LOL). One of our esteemed contributors has suggested that a "true religion" is one that carefully follows the precepts and doctrine of its founder. By focusing on this more limited approach to "true religion" we can ignore here the wider question of what is religion, and whether one family of religious thought is superior to all others.

The Abrahamic religions represent the religious affiliation of the vast majority of people living at beginning of the 21st century. Because most people have some understanding of this religious family it makes a reasonably good example to look at. Hinduism is a religious family, not very dissimilar from the Abrahamic group, but its historic development is less clear and much less familiar to most who will likely read this thread. Hinduism has no clear "founder" and is one the oldest of the root religions. Though I'll look primarily here at Abrahmism, you should know that from Hinduism sprang the Jain and the Buddhist religions. The third "family" of religious thought is even less clear. Native Chinese religion can be divided into two basic streams: Taoism and Confucianism, each of which can be divided into sub-gourps/sects. These two streams do not share a philosophical foundation; indeed they are philosophically at odds. It is the balance between the three major Taoist Schools and the several Confucian schools that typify Chinese religion prior to the introduction of Buddhism in the Current Era. Taoism shares many fundamental notions with the form of Buddhism that first reached China, and greatly facilitated the early growth of Buddhism in Northeastern Asia. The final major stream surviving to modern times may be called Shamanism and, probably in its most sophisticated form lies at the heart of Shinto.

Abraham is said to have "founded" the Judaic religion by forming a covenant with "God". The Judaism of today has evolved into quite a different from the religion from that of Abraham. Historical conditions changed and so the religion changed to remain relevant and effective. Nomadic Sheppard's have different "religious" needs than settled agriculturists, and the needs of slaves are different yet. The Ten Commandments "given" to Moses is an important change to what had gone before. During the Diaspora Jews who settled in "Europe" developed quite different religious notions than the Sephardic Jews, though there remained many common elements in the two branches of Judaism. There also developed different schools among the Ashkenazi Jews, i.e., the Kabalistic movement that began in Eastern Europe.

From the womb of Judaism sprang two brothers, Christianity and Islam. The founders, Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed, each had a "mystical" experience that transformed them and in turn inspired the birth of two new religions. Both Christianity and Islam share the fundamental philosophical concepts that underpin Judaism. Christianity, the elder brother, consolidated a very diverse group of "cultists" into a single doctrine around the time of the Constantine, split into eastern and western branches soon after, and dominated Europe for a thousand years. Catholicism began to split up when Luther posted his manifesto on the church door. Protestantism then rather rapidly broke up into the almost countless varieties of belief we see today. Islam split into two basic groups not long after the death of Mohammed into the Sunni and Shitite groups. In the approx. thirteen hundred years since further subdivisions of Islam have developed.

The entire Abrahamic religious grouping believes, to some extent or another, that the universe is finite, that a first cause transcends mundane reality and that cause is "God", and that "God" has some degree of involvement in the affairs of mundane reality.

With that preliminary stuff out of the way, what can we say about "true religion"? Obviously, most of the religious groups existing today are rooted in one of the four principle religious families. None of the individual sects existing today has remained unchanged and unchallenged since the founding of the root religious family. If the original founder delivered the clear "truth" about the nature of reality, the universe and our place in that larger scheme (if one exists), then it has been obscured with the passage of time and in the interpretations made by countless followers. A very helpful source for understanding religion is found in The Varieties of Religious Experience. The central thesis of The Varieties of Religious Experience is that there are at least three sorts of religious experience.

There is the direct experience of individuals who transcend what most would regard as ordinary perception. If that person is charismatic, and all other factors positive, they may become the founder of a religious movement. In the past, the number of truly different religious movements was much greater than it is today. As the world shrank and one group conquered another by various means, some religious groups came to predominate. The founders of those religious movements whose origins are in the distant past have become legendary, though devotees will adamantly deny that.

Founders try to communicate their newfound insights to those around them. Effective communication can usually only take place when both the "sender" and the "receiver" have common shared experience. That means language and culture. So the person who has been transformed/informed by direct experience can only communicate that unique experience by reference to what is already known. Jesus, no matter what his personal vision was, could only communicate it using the language and fundamental religious concepts already extant around him. That of course, means that even if insights were really, really revolutionary, they will be expressed in terms reflecting the culture from which the suddenly "enlightened" person springs. It is very probable that the transfiguring insight that moved Anonymous, Abraham, Siddhartha, Lao Tze, Jesus, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith, et. al., were exactly the same … only expressed differently according the needs of their unique time and place in history. Notice that I've stitched together here the founding, direct personal transforming experience of each of the four root religious families that still exist and a smattering of derivatives. The actual experience cannot survive that single flash of insight when the individual is stricken from their normal perceptual reality. As soon as the person begins to rejoin the rest of us, they begin to interpret the experience in terms that they can relate to. The transformed individual tries to reduce the reality-shattering experience to something that they can communicate.

The direct, personal transforming insight and experience often does change the "Lightening Struck". They become suddenly, perhaps even undefined-ly "different" than they were prior to the experience. The "founder's" transformation seems apparent to their close associates. "What happened? How can we too experience this marvelous transformation?" The "founder" tries to describe the experience, and interprets in common terms the import of the experience to the group's daily life and Weltanschauung. Not having the direct experience, the disciples struggle with the message, and often make heroic efforts to achieve the same transforming experience of the founder. Eventually, the founder dies … often leaving very little in the way of exact direction. A period of competition usually ensues until one, or more leaders emerge. Not having the direct experience, these new religious leaders will expound their own understanding of what the founder's message was and meant. Within a generation fixed doctrines and dogmas are in place that may, or may not have very much to do with the actual message of the founder. The founder is deified. As time goes by and generations fade back into dust, what may have been a very mistaken idea of what the founder experienced becomes sanctified. Religious leadership tends to be conservative, but even the most devout make some compromises. As times and conditions change, alterations are made to accommodate new needs and challenges to the core faith. Survival of the core justifies to some changes that even a generation earlier would have been unthinkable. Each compromise and change carries with it the risk of new schisms, and the proliferation of sects.

There is a third sort of religious experience, and one that more accurately describes the great bulk of believers in all of the world's religions. This form consists of our human need for peer and social acceptance. The person has only vague stirrings of a religious "need", and they fasten upon the dominant religious movement of their group to satisfy that need. Most folks don't spend a whole lot of time fitting their lives and beliefs to the doctrines of their religion. What they do is adapt the folkways they are familiar with into the nominal doctrine of the dominant faith. Generations of ministers have battered their heads against folk-ways and beliefs. The Indians of America adopted the Catholic faith forced on them by their conquerors, but just beneath the surface we can still easily see the folk-beliefs that motivated their ancestors. Good Christians still avoid stepping on cracks, or crossing the paths of black cats. Even leaving superstition aside, think of how many behavioral notions, or social conventions we tend to think of as "religious". People more often go to church so that they will have social standing in their group. They go to be seen. They go to "raise their children better". They go because they need an emotional outlet from their daily lives. Not one in a thousand has a very deep understanding of the actual tenents and meaning of their religion. Even fewer in most religious groups actually aspire to personally achieve the transforming experience that gave rise to their religion in the first place.

So there are three forms of religious experience: Direct (1 person), doctrine (a small number of disciples and religious leaders who define what the religions is and is about), and popular (the actual practices and nominal beliefs of the masses).

When we talk about "true religion" it is important to understand which of these is being referred to.