Wednesday 5 November 2008

ok some teachings i gonna have here, or preaching if you prefer the word..
anyway this is my blog.. ^^ hope it could give you some understanding
to buddhism.. what is buddhism?

strictly speaking, if we follow the definition from dictionaries.. buddhism is
not really a religion.. it is a teaching.. buddhism started off as a teaching
and later being termed as a religion.. well, alot of religions also claimed that
they're not a religion.. christian claimed its a "relationship with God".. isn't
"relationship with God" yet another term..

human had actually created a term "religion" for general use and for simple
understanding, pls juz acknowledge this word.. maybe we'll start with the
definition of religion..

Religion

oxford dictionary
1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially
a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship.

msn dictonary
belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and
worshiped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe

wordweb dictonary
people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship
of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life

why i say buddhism is not a religion because it did not meet any of the
above definitions given by the 3 dictionaries..

1. Buddha is not a God..
2. there is no creator or ruler in buddhism..
3. there is no worshipping in buddhism..

giving the facts.. so why buddhism became a religion? its the same reason..
people get confused and misunderstood buddhism.. thus it turned from being
an ancient teaching in china to today a religion.. i bet you're also not
aware that till the early Qing dynasty, buddhism is still a form of education
in china..

in the past, many people went to temple to attend lessons like students
going to school instead of merely praying or worshiping which people do now..
so where come all the praying and worshiping.. thanks to the human greed that
buddhism was been misunderstood by so many people..

nonetheless, some larger temple like 光明山 do still provide lessons for
children on weekend.. and fyi too, there are diploma and degree courses
on buddhism.. you can't find degree course in other religion.. as i mentioned
earlier, in actual fact buddhism is a teaching..

now that we're clear about what a religion is, we go to:
"what is the purpose of a religion?"

the purpose of a religion is to help a human being train his mind so that
he develops understanding and acts in a morally responsible way.. he does
good because he "know" that is the right thing to do, not because he wants
to avoid punishment or receive rewards.. so religion is also a kind of
teaching but teaching is not equal to religion.. but for general understanding,
people still term buddhism as a religion..

people sometimes do good deeds or provide some service to others in
expectation of a big reward.. if this is the motivation, they will not
develop sympanthy, understanding according to the true meaning of these
words.. they become selfish avoiding evil deeds to escape punishment or
do good to get rewards.. this is selfishness..

the Buddha did not advocate this.. if heaven and hell were both closed
down, how many people would remain religious? buddhism however encourages
moral behaviour without reference to heaven or hell.. this is the uniqueness
of Buddha's teaching..

buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to insight
into the true nature of life.. the main purpose of buddhism is not to ensure
escape from punshiment or gain a reward but to help one become perfect
and to end physical and mental suffering and be free from unsatisfactoriness..

buddhism focus on changing one's mindset.. a person's action is based on his
thinking.. when a person's thoughts run wild, his actions will not be upright..
the best way to change a man action is to change his mindset.. changing a
person is not easy.. what's the best way? thru' education.. dhamma education
consist of all one need in his life.. thru' dhamma education, one is then
able to know himself, change himself, know the world, change the world..

and one most common misunderstanding, burning incense stick is NOT
worshiping the buddha.. burning incense actually is to burn for ourself
not for the buddha.. its not compulsory and beside showing our gratitude to
the buddha and supporting the triple gem(Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha),
more important is it set as a reminder to us that we should burn away our
greed, hatred, lack of wisdom that lead us to death and to get peace..

of course, burning incense bring fragrant to the atmosphere and make a
person feel relaxed.. i'm not refering to those smoky temples that burnt
tonnes of incense.. buddhism had been deeply misunderstood by many
peoples.. and due to greed, people had been using religion to make money..
this is very sad.. very few people know the purpose of burning incense..

this go the same for burning oil lamp.. its not providing light to the Buddha..
haha.. Buddha no need such dim light.. its burned to set as a reminder that
we should sacrify ourself to help others..(burn oneself to provide light..)
you can also see water not tea on the altar as water mean we should keep our
mind pure from impurities.. so everything buddhist place in front of the Buddha
have its meaning and all of them are but reminders to us.. even the buddha
statue itself is a reminder..

buddhists are not crazy enough to knee down and worship a statue blindly..
kneeling in front of the buddha is actually a kind of training and practice to
lesser our ego and self-important and to remind ourself that we should practice
like the Buddha..

ok, i think it going too long here.. what i wanna say is buddhism is very
very much different from what one perceive.. if you really want to know what
buddhism is, its better to read up some books on buddhism, do some googling
or visit some monks in genuine buddhist temple..

lastly, religion is juz a term.. in my opinion, a more approriate definition should be
a particular system of faith, truth or beliefs(in a God if any) that concern human life
and afterlife(if any).. this way, buddhism will fit perfectly into the term..

a site for the western buddhist..


dreamed of racing on 5:08 pm

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