Interesting documentary:
They say Buddhism is the only atheistic world religion. That may be true, but lots of supernatural, metaphysic, and eschatological nonsense has accreted to Buddha’s core message across the centuries of cultural evolution.
Despite the many cultural accretions, there is something admirably ingenious about Buddhism’s fundamental reframing of the issue of death in its philosophy. Most religions blunt the psychological potency of the awareness of the inevitability of personal mortality with a promise of everlasting spiritual afterlife. Buddhism does something much more extraordinary and difficult.
Buddhism presupposes an immortal afterlife, but conceives it as a terrible punishment (karma), and a terrible chore, not a reward. Then it makes its highest ideal the extinguishment of the self (nirvana) and an end to the cycle of rebirth (personal death), which adherents actively strive for. In essence, Buddhism combats the existential angst resulting from the knowledge of personal mortality by making personal mortality its highest ethical achievement instead of just a biological eventuality. This is fine mental judo; making a virtue of something you cannot change.
This is why Buddhism is my favorite world religion. It wraps the kinds of mythic meaning and rituals we humans hunger for around a core of practical atheism and self-reliance that I wholly endorse.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is an important nesting of information. Now that the trial is in session and Bill Risner has made his opening statements, we’ll start to see how things progress. Next, the County makes its statement.
Because of Buddhism Funerals in The United States went from a traditional service,casket and burial to a CREMATION and who knows what happens from then on to the remains!
this one tradition changed America forever as we began the path to unwinding who we are as Americans and our values toward each other!
We now have been told every other religion;every other Government(Dictator or NOT) is better than our government,and we the legal American Citizens are RACITS and need to give back what we built to a bunch of Mexican Invaders with no morals!
Mike now is a Buddist? Ha;HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t take in the video yet, but I think your summation of Buddhism and karma needs work. Let me sort it out:
Karma: Your actions leave an indelible impression on the fabric of your existence, through this life and the next ones. Your path is then influenced by these actions and their effects, such that you will be forced to learn specific lessons in order to move toward enlightenment.
Siddhartha (original Buddha) laid down an eightfold path to enlightenment to aid those who sought it. It is not a social construct, as the Ten Commandments, but more like the instructions to your kid’s bicycle. Sometimes you can get it put together without reading them, but if you get stuck, they’re nice to have around.
The two facets of Buddhism that are most compelling are the concept of the bodhisattva and the idea of enlightenment.
A bodhisattva is a person who decides to forsake personal enlightenment to aid others in their quest of that goal. Imagine a church full of Christians when the pastor says, “Never mind getting into heaven. Make sure the person next to you gets in.” Kinda takes the selfishness out of salvation, if you will. This is really the idea that makes Buddhism so unique – it’s lack of self-centeredness.
Enlightenment is a funny thing. Humans have a problem pursuing a goal if there is no defined end point. The challenge of understanding Buddhism then is the realization that you must seek enlightenment with the understanding that you will not achieve it, nor should you. Nirvana is not a destination, but the cumulative benefits of the actions you took to strive for it. To my knowledge, Buddhism is the only religion that approaches existence in this way.
I am not Buddhist in the purest sense. Nor am I completely Christian or anything else. But I recognize the moments of truth in every attempt we make in explaining our role in the universe. This amalgamation of beliefs makes it very hard to attend church services, where dogma prevails and the search for truth is often discouraged. But I remain optimistic that even in this fractured state, we can pursue the same goals and perhaps even learn a thing or two along the way.