How can you know what Buddha taught though? You are saying look to the practice of those who are Buddhists. I look to what Buddha actually taught.
Please do not insult my intelligence. I have practiced Buddhism in the temple, with a priest, on my own, with a group, studied the suttas for four years.
Since Buddhism is about practice, what you read is just that, what you read. Practice, and you will
know what The Buddha practice not just taught.
I understand that religion is about practice, and that the Abrahamics and Dharmics have a different paradigm.
However were we not considering the truth of what Buddha taught? If my parents taught love God, and I practice something else, does that mean my parents didn't teach love God?
There is no however. They are two different paradigm. Hinduism and Buddhism as well as non-GOA religions. Totally different. Even Spiritualism is different than GOA. Paganism is different and so forth. They cannot be put into one boat. Never.
My parents never told me they loved me. They never expressed that they cared in the manner most parents did.
However, my mother did
saved my life through my medical condition. That is an action of love not something told to me nor something I read about in her life story.
My father taught me expression/action through art. We'd hunt, we'd paint, we'd hike, we'd write, and so forth. All of these are actions. Yet, he never said I love you until he got in his later fifties where his counter personalities and actions are starting to bare down on him. (Mid life crisis). Now he calls me almost daily. This is an action.
He does not need to say I love you nor write it for me to know he does.
I'm practically in tears writing this.
Catholicism is an action.
Buddhism is an action.
Protestantism is about what's written.
New Buddhisms are more meditative rather than cultural buddhist practices (American oriented and a reflection off of GOA religions that cultural Buddhists, Hinduis, and so forth do not share)
Your parents teach love by words. My parents taught love
only through actions. If they do say I love you, it's almost as if someone is forcing it out of them. My mother taught work rather than education. And so on.
I'm not saying you have not experienced love because you have been taught it. I'm saying The Buddha taught about practice first. You can study, read his teachings, talk about love all you want but he is not god.
Very different.
I know you don't believe in sacred scripture, because you don't believe in God.
We are considering what Buddha really taught. Whether or not the teachings of Buddha were true is another consideration. However we can't know if the Buddha's teachings were true, if we don't know what the Buddha taught. Its not about paradigms, practice, God or god, East or West, Abrahamic or Dharmic. It's about what was taught by who. If we don't know that, or don't attempt to consider it, then debating religion becomes very difficult.
I don't believe in sacred scriptures because we make objects and people sacred, they are not sacred in and of themselves. Believing in god has nothing to do with it.
You just put two very very different religions into one boat. Yes, I give you that study of the bible is important. I'm not protestant minded, so practice trumps the Bible. Traditional Catholic Churches do not have bibles in their pews. You
talk to a priest. You
go to confession to
confess. You
worship in Mass. You
listen to the priest. You
consume the Eucharist.
These are verbs. Buddhism is not different in these regards.
I appreciate that some Buddhists don't care what Buddha taught, and its about the practice in the here and now. You can argue this approach distinguishes the two paradigms. But does it really?
What?????
Some Buddhist don't care what The Buddha taught? That's a huge insult to all Buddhist out there. Never say that to a Buddhist.
Yes, it does.
@Vinayaka explained it better than I can but then you'd have to read our posts in context.
When I went to the temple, you go in and bow to the priest. As you are talking before practice, when you go into where the Dhamma is, you bow to the
teachings before going in. When you sit (many sit on the floor in less formal settings since they practiced it in the home country as well) you face the Dhamma. You put your hands together in prayer as you see Indians do when they pray. Again, you bow. Then we say Gongyo (recitation of the Dhamma) because The Buddha said to read, recite, and write The Dhamma. In Washington State, another sect of the same lineage actually does calligraphy of the Dhamma as well as other cultural practices.
We finish Dhamma recitation and the priest gives a Dhamma talk. As we listen to him explain the Dhamma to us, the recitation (physical action of saying the Dhamma) means more than just having a pencil and paper and writing notes on the margins. This lineage is heavy into evangelization but that's not with the Vietnamese Buddhist, though. They are more humble as Vinayaka explains his experience.
When you go to the Vietnamese temple, it is different than Japanese Ten Tai Buddhism. You take off your shoes, go in, and bow to the monk. If I spoke his native language, we'd have a small talk as well. Greeting of some sort. Then we go to the individual incarnation of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas which all mean different things from evil to compassion. They represent different parts of the human emotions, body, and soul (how I translate it since I'm native to America). The Buddha up front, you take three incense: Dhamma, Sangha, and The Buddha. You light it, and put it in front of The Buddha statue. You bow, the bow on your knees, pray, then bow again, get up and bow, and say your last thoughts. Then you go back to the other bodhisattvas (this is in a circle) and buddhas, say your thoughts, and give donations to the monastery. You can stay and chat or leave.
I have not seen a book of any sutta because the sutta is in the practice. If I told this monk he didn't know Buddhism because he didn't study that is a huge insult not only to him, to Buddhist, but to humanity which Mahayana Buddhist believe all have the seed of Buddhahood they just have to
practice not study to live it.
That is true about the two most important commandments, but there is more to it. For example He also overturned the laws of divorce and said that a man and woman can not divorce.
Matthew 19:8. We can only know what Jesus taught, if we study what Jesus taught.
Christianity believes in words. Buddhism does not.
Example, The Buddha did say the physical Dhamma in the Lotus will go away. In the Pali (and my signature) says the physical will decay but the Dhamma-the practice and results of it-will never decay.
Christianity (protestant) feels without the bible they'd be doomed as if the bible has some sort of secret they can't find within themselves in christ.
John 5:39 "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Scriptures, in this case, meaning the Hebrew scriptures.
You guys go through prophets and scripture. Jesus taught go through him because the scriptures talk about
him not about themselves.
Actually I have asked the Jews, and I get different answers depending on whether the Jew is orthodox or reformist. None practice this today, but some orthodox Jews would like to re-establish a Jewish theocracy, stoning and all. Then there are others who see the laws as redundant, much like
you don't feel obliged to know and follow what Buddha taught.
They don't stone anyone, though, I assume.
That is a huge insult. I don't
practice (I still study and have Pali sutras without needing online reference) because The Buddha taught that gods (anything supernatural) are in our minds. I believe this heavily but I choose to communicate with The Spirits because I get inner peace when I connect to what I not only know but I can connect with. I don't have that cultural barrier that Bahai feel doesn't matter.
This whole post is an insult. I have to go pay bills.
Now you know where I stand.
