Buddhism

[niraj kumar chaudhary]

Buddhism is on of the popular religious in the world. In Buddhism people worship the lord Gautam Bddha . this religious is path of peace. people of this religious believe in peace. It gives the lesson to avoid violence and maintain peace on all over the world.:beach:

 

[farouk]

Peace.
Is Gautam Bddha the God of this religion?

 

[danieldemol]

Thanks for sharing Niraj

 

[apophenia]

Peace.
Is Gautam Bddha the God of this religion?

there is no god in buddhism

gautama was a man

buddha means 'awakened'

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Buddhism is on of the popular religious in the world. In Buddhism people worship the lord Gautam Bddha . this religious is path of peace. people of this religious believe in peace. It gives the lesson to avoid violence and maintain peace on all over the world.:beach:

Uh...venerate.

 

[Jainarayan]

there is no god in buddhism

That's up for debate based on the school.

Buddhism is fairly crawling with deities. Some are almost directly borrowed from Hinduism (Saraswati, Tara (Durga), Śakra (Indra) via Taoism, Cundi (Candika)).

Generally there's no creator God. Some schools consider Adi-Buddha the source of all buddhas and almost analogous to Brahman because we we all have buddha-nature.

 

[metis]

Generally speaking, for those rafts that do believe there are deities, the view tends to be that they are ever-changing and mostly inconsequential as far as dictating events. However, there's tremendous variance from culture to culture and person to person, so the important thing is for us to study dharma and rub it against our own experiences, observations, and reasoning.

 

[ChristineES]

When my stepfather was a child, he said his parents, who were Buddhists, used to serve the first spoon of rice to Buddha (or a statue of him). I was rather surprised years later when I found out there is no God in Buddhism. I suppose he meant it was a symbolic thing they were doing.

Edited to add: I believe he told me they were Zen Buddhists.

 

[farouk]

there is no god in buddhism

gautama was a man

buddha means 'awakened'

Please excuse my ignorance.
Knowledge is a cure for ignorance so please do not get upset on my questioning.
So Buddhism is a religion without a God.
Its followers worship a man called Gautam Bddha.
What are his teachings?

 

[crossfire]

Please excuse my ignorance.
Knowledge is a cure for ignorance so please do not get upset on my questioning.
So Buddhism is a religion without a God.
Its followers worship a man called Gautam Bddha.
What are his teachings?

Buddhists don't worship Buddha any more Muslims worship Mohammed.

Buddha's primary teaching was the ending of dukkha (stress, unsatisfactoriness.)

Major Buddhist Teachings:

Four Noble Truths - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Noble Eightfold Path - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brahmavihara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Three marks of existence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[metis]

There's no worshipping of the Buddha involved, although there's no doubt that some Buddhists might do so anyway. The basis of dharma is to ameliorate or eliminate suffering, and that's done through the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path:

The Four Noble Truths

1. The Noble Truth of Dukkha - stress, unsatisfactoriness, suffering;
2. The Noble Truth of the causal arising of Dukkha, which is grasping, clinging and wanting;
3. The Noble Truth of Nirvana, The ending of Dukkha. Awakening, Enlightenment. "Mind like fire unbound";
4. The Noble Truth of the Path leading to Nirvana or Awakening.

The Eight Fold-Path

Right, Integral, Complete, Perfected.

1. Right View, Understanding;
2. Right Attitude, Thought or Emotion;
3. Right Speech;
4. Right Action;
5. Right livelihood;
6. Right Effort, Energy, and Vitality;
7. Right Mindfulness or Awareness;
8. Right Samadhi "concentration", one-pointedness. Integration of, or establishment in, various levels of consciousness. [the word "appropriate" is a better choice of words than "right"]

 

[ozman]

Read your post and wanted to point something out. That Buddhist do not worship the Buddha. The word Buddha means awakened one. Siddhartha was the founder of Buddhism. He taught that all of us have Buddha nature within us. It is up to us to awaken the Buddha within us. No person is worshiped, when ever you see a Buddhist bowing to a statue of Buddha, it is a sign of reverence. In the Hindu faith when people meet each other, they often say "Namaste", which means: the god in me pays homage to the god in you. I hope this clears any misunderstanding.
ozman

 

[Poeticus]

Read your post and wanted to point something out. That Buddhist do not worship the Buddha. The word Buddha means awakened one. Siddhartha was the founder of Buddhism. He taught that all of us have Buddha nature within us. It is up to us to awaken the Buddha within us. No person is worshiped, when ever you see a Buddhist bowing to a statue of Buddha, it is a sign of reverence. In the Hindu faith when people meet each other, they often say "Namaste", which means: the god in me pays homage to the god in you. I hope this clears any misunderstanding.
ozman

Namaste, Ozman:

Regarding whether Buddhism entails the worship of deities or not varies from sect to sect within the Buddhist universe. Just ask Dyanaprajna and a few others to explain. Also, welcome to RF!

M.V.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

Namaste, Ozman:

Regarding whether Buddhism entails the worship of deities or not varies from sect to sect within the Buddhist universe. Just ask Dyanaprajna and a few others to explain. Also, welcome to RF!

M.V.

The concept of deity is quite complex within Buddhism. It's a bit more involved than just saying that "Buddhists don't believe in gods". I'll try to give a little information here.

Do Buddhists believe in an all-powerful, personal creator deity that controls the destinies of people? No, not at all. However, Buddhism is crawling with deities, but our understanding of what exactly deity is, is a bit different than the usual understanding.

Deities, such as the one's found within Hinduism, to the Buddhist, do exist, but are trapped in the cycle of samsara like we are. They are a bit more evolved spiritually, and can on occasion even offer a little help, but none can save us, none can offer us enlightenment, none can purge our unwholesome karma. You won't actually find many Buddhists praying to the deities.

Now, we have a plethora of Buddhas and bodhisattvas that are seen as higher than the gods, and are often given veneration and devotion. Beings such as Amitabha and Avalokitesvara are venerated and invoked. However, the general understanding is that these beings are not "gods" in the traditional sense, and are Buddhists who have reached higher states of enlightenment, who can offer their assistance to us on our path. And some, like myself and many Zen Buddhists, don't even see the external-ness of these beings as being important, but that these beings are a part of our minds, and this is their main importance, i.e., when we invoke Avalokitesvara, we're not invoking a being "out there", but the ultimate compassion in our own minds.

Any other questions, just ask.

 

[apophenia]

Buddhism is crawling with deities, but our understanding of what exactly deity is, is a bit different than the usual understanding.

Deities, such as the one's found within Hinduism, to the Buddhist, do exist, but are trapped in the cycle of samsara like we are. They are a bit more evolved spiritually, and can on occasion even offer a little help, but none can save us, none can offer us enlightenment, none can purge our unwholesome karma. You won't actually find many Buddhists praying to the deities.

I have never encountered a teacher who teaches this. That is not to say that you are wrong, but I have never encountered it.

Perhaps you could tell me what schools of buddhism teach this ?

Obviously, Theravadin buddhism would not teach this, so I assume you mean tibetan buddhism. I have received teachings from primarily Kagyu and Nyingma teachers. I did encounter some gelug students (western) who seemed to have some ( to me) crazy and primitive beliefs - like that if you disrespected a teacher you would be reborn as a dog 500 times ( or something very similar to that ), and they thought of the deities in that literal way, but I assumed they were just confused and taking metaphorical statements from teachings literally.

So which schools of buddhism teach this ?

All of the teachers I listened to taught that deities were aspects of mind, symbolised as deities, to be recognised as aspects of one's own mind. The concept that these deities actually objectively exist as individual beings like us was always treated as a misunderstanding by the naive.

Sure, there are people who believe this kind of stuff, no question. But teachers who believe it ? Please give examples.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

I have never encountered a teacher who teaches this. That is not to say that you are wrong, but I have never encountered it.

Perhaps you could tell me what schools of buddhism teach this ?

Obviously, Theravadin buddhism would not teach this, so I assume you mean tibetan buddhism. I have received teachings from primarily Kagyu and Nyingma teachers. I did encounter some gelug students (western) who seemed to have some ( to me) crazy and primitive beliefs - like that if you disrespected a teacher you would be reborn as a dog 500 times ( or something very similar to that ), and they thought of the deities in that literal way, but I assumed they were just confused and taking metaphorical statements from teachings literally.

So which schools of buddhism teach this ?

All of the teachers I listened to taught that deities were aspects of mind, symbolised as deities, to be recognised as aspects of one's own mind. The concept that these deities actually objectively exist as individual beings like us was always treated as a misunderstanding by the naive.

Sure, there are people who believe this kind of stuff, no question. But teachers who believe it ? Please give examples.

I'm not sure of any teachers who teach this, but this is what the Pali canon teaches.

 

[apophenia]

I'm not sure of any teachers who teach this, but this is what the Pali canon teaches.

Please provide quotes.

 

[danieldemol]

Deities, such as the one's found within Hinduism, to the Buddhist, do exist, but are trapped in the cycle of samsara like we are.

What is samsara? When you use non-English terms could you please add an interpretation in brackets.

 

[danieldemol]

Deities, such as the one's found within Hinduism, to the Buddhist, do exist, but are trapped in the cycle of samsara like we are. They are a bit more evolved spiritually, and can on occasion even offer a little help, but none can save us, none can offer us enlightenment, none can purge our unwholesome karma. You won't actually find many Buddhists praying to the deities.

Now, we have a plethora of Buddhas and bodhisattvas that are seen as higher than the gods, and are often given veneration and devotion. Beings such as Amitabha and Avalokitesvara are venerated and invoked. However, the general understanding is that these beings are not "gods" in the traditional sense, and are Buddhists who have reached higher states of enlightenment, who can offer their assistance to us on our path. And some, like myself and many Zen Buddhists, don't even see the external-ness of these beings as being important, but that these beings are a part of our minds, and this is their main importance, i.e., when we invoke Avalokitesvara, we're not invoking a being "out there", but the ultimate compassion in our own minds.

All of the teachers I listened to taught that deities were aspects of mind, symbolised as deities, to be recognised as aspects of one's own mind. The concept that these deities actually objectively exist as individual beings like us was always treated as a misunderstanding by the naive.

If deities to the Bhuddist are simply attributes of the mind it is actually interesting that they don't have a creator deity, since creativity is an attribute manifested through the mind.

 

[BSM1]

Read your post and wanted to point something out. That Buddhist do not worship the Buddha. The word Buddha means awakened one. Siddhartha was the founder of Buddhism. He taught that all of us have Buddha nature within us. It is up to us to awaken the Buddha within us. No person is worshiped, when ever you see a Buddhist bowing to a statue of Buddha, it is a sign of reverence. In the Hindu faith when people meet each other, they often say "Namaste", which means: the god in me pays homage to the god in you. I hope this clears any misunderstanding.
ozman

I had an Indian gentleman explain to me that 'namaste' roughly means "I greet you from where we are both one." But I like your explanation also.