:D

It would be a great honor for me to answer questions regarding Buddhism and it's many schools. The questions I cannot answer I will try to address in my next life (if I achieve human form again, heh).

What's the most common misconception that people have about Buddhism?

Wow, a customer!!! Good question LB, probably the biggest misconception about Buddhism is that when a Buddhist bows, he or she is worshipping the Buddha. It is easy to see how Bowing could be mistaken as worship. The practitioner folds his hands, kneels and places his or her palms and forehead to the floor, usually facing a statue of the Shakyamuni Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri or any of the other Buddha’s or Bodhisattva’s.
Bowing can be a difficult concept for Westerners to understand because we are taught to, „Bow to no one“.When a Buddhist bows he/she bows to surrender his/her self-centered preoccupation. To a Buddhist practitioner, bowing helps , „lower the ego“. Buddhists bow alot, especially to each other to show respect.
Statues in a Buddhist Temple are placed there as a reminder of the Buddha’s teachings and not as objects to be worshipped. The concept of „worship“ is contradictory to the Buddha’s teachings („Dharma“ or „Dhamma“ in Pali). Before Buddha died, he ask his followers not to worship him and that they should use his teachings only as a guide to find their own path to enlightenment.

E :ph34r:

"May all beings be well, be happy and be peaceful"

This post has been edited by Greenplanet65: Dec 9 2005, 11:58 PM

What kind/sect of buddhism do you follow?

Hello acow,

I started my practice approximately 12 years ago with Theravada Buddhism. I am currently practicing at a Korean Zen temple in the Detroit area. Korean Zen Buddhism is more or less a combination of Mahayana Buddhism and Zen. When I teach, I use concepts from all the different schools of Buddhism. In my opinion, other than some cultural influences, the Buddhist schools are all very similar with regard to the basic concepts.

E :ph34r:

Explain: "Movement is nonmovement, nonmovement is movement."

Is your sect vegeterians?

I have a question, a problem to be more precise.


I forgot the word. It is....a different word and its location, according to the the myth, lies in some cave in the Himalayas.


What is the word? It is driving me insane.

Telum, thank you for the koan! :) However, since koans were designed to put the Zen student in a double bind situation, with the hope that the student realizes how silly and hopeless the koan really is, I will maintain a dignified silence.
A student could attempt to answer this question by stating that In order to have movement, there must exist non-movement and in order for there to be non-movement there must exist movement. One might then conclude that one cannot exist without the other and that both are essentially the
same.

Namaste!

E

This post has been edited by Greenplanet65: Dec 21 2005, 02:19 AM

Some of our members eat meat and some abstain from it. This is a very difficult and controversial topic. For the most part, whether or not to abstain from eating meet is up to the individual practitioner. The Buddha, for example, never really discussed whether or not it was ok for the Bhikkus (monks) or laypersons to eat meat. Here’s where it gets complicated. Since „no killing „ is one of the Buddhist precepts for both laypeople and the ordained, arguably, all Buddhists should abstain from eating meat all together. The concept of Karma (cause and effect) tells us that if we kill, the act has a certain Karmic „weight“. So if the practitioner kills or has something killed for them, it would have a greater Karmic weight then if he or she consumed meat that was purchased in a store or served to them by a host. Many Buddhists have chosen to simply cut down on their consumption of meat and some abstain completely.
One of my teachers once ask me what I would do if I were the last Buddhist on earth and I lived in an area where vegetation could not be grown. I answered the question by stating that I would have to harvest an animal or starve. The question cannot really be answered unless one were actually confronted with such a situation. If I had to kill, I would try to do so, "mindfully" and with best intention.


Namaste!

E

Baron, are you refering to Babaji's message, "Om Namah Shivaya"?

Namaste!

E

No that was not it, but thankfully I remember it now: its Shambala.

... Nonesense.

In order for there to be cats, there needs to be non-cats. Therefore cats aren't cats.

Holy shit, i just pwned aristotle.

Exactly Stimulant, it is nonsense! There is no correct answer. :ph34r:

Well, actually there is. This is not a question of empirical thought. We have created a closed system of identifiication. There is no leftovers that allow for skepiticism. in fact, the very nature of logic, a noncat is defined by everything THAT IS NOT CAT.

So, the basis of your enlightment is the dismissal of logic and the basis for all western thought? Good game, I can see why that worked so well in both india and china as a fundamental philosophy.

This post has been edited by Stimulant: Dec 10 2005, 06:51 AM

I am not enlightened and I don't assume I "Know" anything. I was merely suggesting a possible answer to the koan, not necessarily my answer. :D

LOL but i guess that doen't matter because (/mystic) NONESENSE IS SENSE TOO (/mystic)

I actually just took it from the autobiography of Funakoshi Sensei. He says: "There is a Buddhist saying that, like so many Buddhist sayings, is ostensibly self-contradictory, but for the karate-ka it lends special meaning to his technical practice. Translated, the saying is, "Movement is nonmovement, nonmovement is movement." This is a thesis that, even in contemporary Japan, is accepted by educationalists, and due to its familiarity the saying may even be shortened and used adjectivally in our language."

[/quote]
I actually just took it from the autobiography of Funakoshi Sensei. He says: "There is a Buddhist saying that, like so many Buddhist sayings, is ostensibly self-contradictory, but for the karate-ka it lends special meaning to his technical practice. Translated, the saying is, "Movement is nonmovement, nonmovement is movement." This is a thesis that, even in contemporary Japan, is accepted by educationalists, and due to its familiarity the saying may even be shortened and used adjectivally in our language."

[/quote]

Thanks for the explanation Telum. :) Do you practice Shotokan?


E

Indeed I do. Also, fix your quotes.

Thanks, I will figure out how to do this sooner or later! Errrrr.....

You dont have to type it manually. Just hit the quote button to open a quote, and again to close it.

Here is an Interesting perspective on Buddhism.



Namaste!

Ji San

Do you practice martial arts to achieve enlightenment?

I used to practice martial arts Telum, I got quite far in Tai Kwon Do and then the two instructors disbanded and I was left with a green belt with blue stripes I think. Shortly thereafter, I tried my hand at Aikido but never got too far.
Personally, I think martial arts are great for the mind. I no longer practice but I certainly respect those who do. Some martial artists I know use meditation as a means of trying to achieve single pointedness of mind which probably helps them somehow with their practice. If I'm not mistaken, Bodhidharma used martial arts as a means of exercise for his followers. This is supposedly how the martial arts were introduced to the ordained. I can't comment on whether or not martial arts helps a person become awake but supposedly many Zen masters had, "Satori" while performing mundane tasks which may or may not include the martial arts. Do you meditate before of after you practice? If so, does it help you at all?

E

This post has been edited by Greenplanet65: Jan 12 2006, 02:23 AM

Perhaps. It can also be reagrded as –cat, ie if you owe someone a cat. It is still cat, yet it is a noncat, as it does not exist as a real cat, but as an owed cat. Thus the benefits of new mathematical language can be seen in explaining philosphical concepts. Although that’s not to say that that is what the explanation of the koan ‘is’.





This is so incredibly potential that the greatest harm can come of saying “this is the explanation” – the joy of zen koans is that they are like russian dolls, or chinese magic boxes, they just keep on opening up and giving.


Another possible element in understanding is to consider the river – what is it that makes a ‘river’? the changing elements and the permanent elements, the water and river bed, the human conception of river versus the material physicality – are these elements fixed, or are they reversible? Movement is nonmovement, nonmovement is movement.

Also, think of the universe – the key element of the universe is change, movement – even sitting still you are hurtling around the sun, around the galaxy, around the earths rotation, yet even sitting at the controls of a spaceship travelling at .9C you are also motionless from the perspective of the spaceship - movement is nonmovement, nonmovement is movement.

Now think of left and right – both opposites, yet both are linked, the two opposing elements combining in a wider grouping called ‘direction’. Two elements apparently utterly opposite, yet when investigated by consciousness it is revealed that actually they have far more in common than in opposition - ie what is more different, left v right, or left v candle-holder? what both left and right have in common - that is what the question 'movement is nonmovement' koan attempts to enter. Perhaps. And perhaps not. Like all great Art, it is the involvement and interpretation of the observer that is the magical crux.

What in part zen koans attempt to achieve is the mindset of childhood and then infancy – the mind and consciousness before the lies and errors of this world are programmed into it, and the method of such koans is to make the mind question these later programs (such as the assumption of knowledge about movement and nonmovement), with the aim not of merely intellectually understanding (as a trained child psychologist would), but of actual experience – to take the consciousness back to that state that existed before the newborn child/consciousness conceptualised the distinction between them.

And more – as someone who has had experiences whilst dancing that seem to approximate to definitions of sartori, the feeling is unmistakable when the two elements of non-movement and movement integrate (or fall away), movement/nonmovement is all part of the dance, inseparable as are silences and sounds in music.





Since life must necessarily devour other life to survive, apart from the life elements that live off the previous deaths of other life (such as plants), and also that the matrix of Terran life almost certainly comes from the same source (yes, taken back far enough that goat that muz is shacked up with is a relative of ro’s! There’s a thought… :huh: ), all of which put together tends to push the enlightened soul towards killing and eating as low down the food chain as possible, preferably of course vegetable matter, as that has had the most genetic differentiation from us.

It all comes down to whether you would prefer to eat a sibling for lunch, or a far-removed cousin. Or if you are retarded/in denial, you can believe that GAIA was only created a few millennia ago, and there are no genetic lineages tying mankind to every other form of life, as it all came out of a bloke-onna-cloud’s magic cauldron. Free world… :rolleyes:


Excellent reply BTW. ;)



Yet westerners, especially the pseudo-scientist kind, believe that the core of the universe is ‘truth’, and find it very hard to deal with a multi-value philosophy, as we can see...


Actually, you have pierced the side of Aristotle with your spear, although you recognize it not. To limit logic to merely x v nonx is a stupidity on the collosal heights of “if youre not with us….”. if ‘red’ is only definable in relation to blue as ‘nonblue’, then using your logic it is identical to yellow, which is also ‘nonblue’. The ‘problem’ in your understanding does not come from the oriental philosophy, it comes from your own, occidental structures of comprehension, or to be even more precise your limited understand of occidental logic. The conceptual structures used in most of modern science is a far remove from such simple logic structures of the ancient greeks, and have far more in common with the asian philosophies, they are more logical and rational, not less so.

Tomorrow begins our week-long celebration of Buddha's birthday. :)


May all beings be well, be happy and be peaceful,


Ji San

This post has been edited by Sushi Bar: Apr 23 2006, 03:49 AM

A noncat is an "owed cat"? Listen, i am going to give you an education today. Look up "equivacation". Memmorize the defination, and before you hit "enter reply", ask yourself, am i high/pretending to be high is this equivcation?



Look up law of converse. Learn it, and then tell me the error you made.

This post has been edited by Stimulant: Apr 23 2006, 01:53 PM

On the second day of Buddha's birthday celebration, the first precept:

I vow to abstain from taking life.
Killing roots out the seeds of love and mercy. To kill another is to feast on one's friends and relatives. Someday, we shall be in one of the three painful realms in payment for our killing, for it is by bestowing life that we receive human life in return.


May all beings be well, be happy and be peaceful,


Ji San

On the third day of Buddha's birthday celebration, the second precept:

I vow to abstain from taking things not given.
The taking of things not given cuts off the roots of virtue and wisdom; attaining ease, we shall lose this ease. But by desiring anything of another, we are brought in the future face to face with animal rebirth.


May all beings be well, be happy and be peaceful,


Ji San

This post has been edited by Sushi Bar: Apr 26 2006, 01:42 AM