What Buddhists Must Know

What Buddhists Must Know

by

Tiong Ho Poh

Copyright 2016 Tiong Ho Poh

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or used in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews, scholarly journals, blogs, and noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Introduction:

The motive in writing this book is not to show others that Buddhism is superior to all other religions. It is to revive the teachings and spread it.

Buddhism was not derived from Hinduism and was not stereotyped as many anti-Asian people used to believe. This group of racists said the fire and brimstones hells mentioned in Buddhism were borrowed from Christianity, not realizing that Buddhism was prevalent over 500 years before Jesus was born.

Buddhism and Hinduism are not the same. If they are, why are the Hindus very critical of the Buddha’s teachings? How can this happen if they are both of the same material?

Buddhism and Hinduism have common terminology, e.g. Kamma, Samadhi and Nirvana. However, the Nirvana of Hinduism is definitely not the Nirvana the Buddhists talk about. To realize the truth, you must practice because truth cannot be put into words or be given away. Otherwise the Buddha would have given it to us long ago. Just keep on practicing without wavering and you are sure to advance to a certain level, though you may not attain Nibbana within this life time. Nibbana is the dimension where time and space do not exist. It is definitely not empty (nothingness) because the Buddha says people who attain Nibbana will not age or die.

The Hindu Yoga is obviously concerned with gaining power over the forces of nature. When the Buddha taught meditation to His monks, His only objective was the extinction of suffering and release from conditioned existence. The supernormal powers, the ability to carry out prodigious physical feats or to obtain mastery over the external world were never His intentions. These abilities cropped up as the by-products of Buddhist meditation.

Many ignorant people are terrified or paralyzed with fear when they hear from hypocrites that unless they are converted to a certain religion, they will go to hell forever when they die. I personally don’t think a person must be put in hell forever, for whatever he has committed on this planet, for the short duration of 60 to 70 years. Moreover, for that period of 60 to 70 years a guy spends on this earth, just because he believes in the almighty god, and he goes to heaven forever. It is indeed a very childish idea. Is that justice? Religion doesn’t grip people today as it used to be because the new generations ask more and more questions. They are no longer God-fearing. Perhaps for the Orientals, or other Asians, God-fearing is still valid. An average person from Western countries will want to investigate and ask lots of questions. So the braggarts say: You cannot question God. He will send you to hell forever. Our God has his plan and no one should question him.

Do you need to be slaves to an unknown and unseen being who is always invisible, to offer you the eternal happiness? Our ancestors were once either looking for food or avoiding becoming the food of others. Why didn’t this almighty god help them?

Buddhism doesn’t promise poor people that they will go to heaven when they die, so that they would leave the rich in peace. Are the poor people made easier to control in this manner? Perhaps few of them are, but for how long? Was it effective 2000 years ago? Is it still effective today?

People created the idea of an almighty god because they lacked security. They needed this god to give them comfort in good times, and courage during bad times, e.g. when facing dangers or when things go wrong. Haven’t you seen people becoming more religious at times of crises? Because of fear and frustration, god cropped up out of nowhere. People claim this almighty god is masculine. Others say she is feminine. And the last group says god is neither a he or she! He is neuter! So far there is no real, concrete or irrefutable evidence for proof to indicate there is such an almighty god.

This almighty god idea originated from Egyptian legends, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. Some almighty god was always smiting non-believers by spreading disease, pestilence and mayhem on them. (Check up history on the Canaanites, Sodom and Gomorrah).

The Buddha says:

Gripped by fear people go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.

According to the Buddhists, the soul is only a constantly changing stream of mental energy. This energy is reborn, not the soul. However, the Hindus and other god-fearing people, believe an eternal soul or atman that passes from one life to the next. So during the Buddha’s time, the word soul meant a permanent thing, because it was created by an almighty god. That was why the Buddha said there was no soul. They would argue that it was impossible for the soul to be temporary since it was created by their almighty god. They held on to this god and permanent soul theory tenaciously.

The Buddha was talking to Meghiya:To him, O Meghiya, who comprehends impermanence, the comprehension of no-soul manifests itself. And to him who comprehends no-soul, the fantasy of an I presiding over the five aggregates is brought to destruction, and even in this present life he attains Nibbana.

Hindu sages had vague ideas about kamma and rebirth. The Buddha expounded them in details, fully and accurately. The Buddhists don’t believe an almighty god, but the Hindus do. In Buddhism every human is equal but the Hindus teach the caste system. Buddhists don’t believe in ritual purification, but for the Hindus, ritual purification is crucial.

Buddhism is a science because it stands up to verification. There are three main types of Buddhism today: Theravada, Mahayana & Vajrayana. Hinayana is a sectarian term the Mahayanists used to call the Theravadians whom the Mahayanists think are inferior. Hinayana signifies a smaller vehicle and therefore can carry less people to Nibbana.

Buddhism does not forbid us to believe some things and compel us to accept others. It is a rational philosophy, a comprehensive and realistic ethical code, a penetrative psychology, and effective methods of training and meditation. However, the minds and hearts must be matured enough to appreciate the Buddhist messages. By will-power, some people can separate their mind and the body. That is why there are yogis who are able to appear at two places at the same time. Isn’t this astral travel?

For a Buddhist, life is not a dream. A Buddhist does not one day suddenly wake up and live happily forever with an almighty god. The killing, cheating, swindling etc. he sees daily are real and beyond the power of all the gods to change them. The Buddhists don’t blame their sufferings on any external or supernatural agency.

Buddhists don’t believe in union with any supreme being (divine being). They believe in the natural law of cause and effect. They don’t fear the unknown or a supernatural almighty god, nor do they prescribe a system of ritual, worship, and supplication of deities or gods. They also do not believe there is some higher unseen power having control of man’s destiny. To the Buddhists the law of cause and effect is not operated by any external agency with the object of teaching human beings. They do not see a retributive and compensatory law at work in nature. The Christians attribute this to an almighty god, which is foreign to Buddhism. The universe and the almighty god are indifferent to the sufferings in the world. If there is indeed such an almighty god, then the presence of predators and the preys on this planet must be blamed on the so-called almighty god, who created them. The Buddhists know very well that even the gods cannot escape from the forces of evils they have committed.

It is indeed very childish to say that we cannot understand the plan of this almighty god because we are not enlightened beings. The enlightened beings are the Buddhas and the Arahants, and these beings never believe in an almighty god, who claims that those who believe him would be saved and those who don’t would go to hell forever.

Buddhists don't pray to the Buddha hoping that He would forgive them for the sins committed during the week and hoping that He would offer them rewards. Buddhists prostrate in front of the Buddha statue as a respect because the Buddha is a perfect human being. All over the world personnel from the fighting services and the police pay respect to their superior by standing straight and raising the right hand to the right side of the head to salute the senior. Is this a form of prayer?

When a Buddhist prostrates in front of a monk, he or she benefits by casting away pride and conceit, at least for a short while. They pay respects to the virtuous qualities of the noble Sangha, not to robes or shaven heads.

Buddhism is not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principle. It is about knowing, not believing, hoping or wishing. Buddhists don’t believe in reports, traditions, hearsay, or the authority of religious leaders, or texts. They don’t rely on logic, inference, appearance or speculation. They examine and see for themselves. Buddhism begins with facts, and Buddhists know that their suffering and the means to stop it lay within themselves. They don’t blame the governments, or Americans for all their problems.

Buddhism is about actual experience and investigating to release pain and vexation, once and for all. The deep-down ache of the heart doesn’t go away. It travels with us life after life. Bad times will come though we spend much time and energy trying to avoid them.

Buddhism teaches us to free ourselves from concepts and dogmas so that we can rejoice in true reality. Life is full of confusion. We are besieged with agitation and worry. We must learn how to relieve ourselves from delusions, attachments and conceits. We crave for pleasant sights, sounds, tastes, smells, contacts, and thought-impressions.

Despite the various insults and verbal attacks from non-Buddhists, especially from Asia, Buddhism remains as vital and penetrating as ever, because it doesn’t distinguish between nobles, peasants, learned, the illiterate, the moral and the base.

When we are awake, we will not speak or act in a way that can injure us or others. So when we meditate, the intention is to wake up, not to access any occult or supernatural powers. No person’s life, including that of the Buddha’s, is ever, or was ever free of difficulties. Buddhists know that fame, love, money and lack of stress cannot drive away all our troubles. They know that ups and downs of life will always remain.

The Buddha said: ehi-passiko, which in English means come and see.

During the past 2500 years, Buddhism, like other religions, accumulated variety of beliefs, rituals, ceremonies and practices, because of cultural trappings, e.g. clothes, hats, incense, gongs, bells etc. These rituals, ceremonies, prayers, and special outfits are for the less intelligent.They don’t express the essence of what the Buddha taught. Why should you, a non-Buddhist, be offended to see all these?

Buddhism is about seeing, not believing. The Buddhists are not dogmatic, arrogant or intolerant. They are not cynical and will never call non-Buddhists the devil worshippers. They have no wish to exert control over others, things, or events etc. You don’t have to believe, you can see it. The Buddhists actually don’t believe anything. They investigate and see for themselves. There is nothing to cover up, and no need to reinterpret the facts introduced 2500 years ago. Buddhists don’t promise to be good, pretend to be virtuous, curry favour in order to claim a reward at some later date, at a place called heaven which one must die before she or he can drop in there. Buddhism is like a buffet where sizzling foods are provided. All you need to do is to eat and satisfy your hunger. Who else can do that for you?

Buddhism doesn’t consist of dogmas one must blindly believe, creeds that one must accept on good faith, without reason, superstitious rites and ceremonies to be observed for formal religious conversion or entry to the fold, meaningless sacrifices and penances for one’s purification. An almighty creator that is a causeless cosmic force is also foreign to Buddhism. Buddhists know all the natural laws in the universe exist without a lawgiver. The Buddhas are omniscient and therefore there is nothing for them to learn afresh, but they are definitely not almighty.

Under the pretext of helping to spread Buddhism, some people tell lies to put Buddhism under bad

light, not knowing that the Buddha says: come and see. He never said: Come and believe. He did not use hell fires to frighten people, nor did he use other propagandas to hypnotize, blind, deceive or psychologically puzzle others.

We are like worms wriggling in a cess-pit and on the excrement. When a good guy moves us out of the cesspool with good intention, we would be most unhappy and would scramble back to look for the delicacies in the same pool. Just how long does it take us to understand our present environment so that we would make a firm determination to get out of this pool?

Buddhism does not totally deny the existence of a personality. It denies an identical being or a permanent entity. All mental and material phenomena are transient, lacking any permanence, substantiality or essence. Buddhist term for an individual is santati, i.e. a flux or continuity. This santati was not created by an almighty god, and had no perceptible source from the past. The Buddha could not find evidence of any separate persisting thing that had a beginning or end.

The mental stream flows on in accordance with the Kamma which had been accumulated. The mind, which is not permanent goes on, and we need this mind to discover Enlightenment. We cannot find permanent unchanging identity in the psychic process, but only the process of flux and momentary transition or transformation. In Buddhism, when something is devoid of any permanent unchanging element, it is said to be empty. All things are perpetually changing, and are therefore empty.

All the things we see around us are a collection of rapidly moving molecules. These molecules continuously interchange their electrons with other molecules and atoms. All these are constantly changing themselves. So where is this permanent thing which you and I called "self’?

Isn’t it a pity that most westerners still believe that Buddhism is about worshipping Buddha, bowing to a