Comparative Religion Lecture (Buddhism)

[Ed Teune]

Start with Buddhism
A. The three jewels, going for refuge
I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.
B. Popular Buddhism today v. the original teachings

As a westerner studying buddhism from the outside I found buddhism very warm and inviting. For people growing up in buddhism it is quite often cold, and suspicion filled. Be afraid to do this, be afraid to do that, you will aquire bad karma. The people at the top of the religion are solitary monks imbued with special powers to bless and are closer to nirvana than us. When celebate solitary monks living an austere life are the epitome of your religion, you know you cannot aspire to that life if you want a family, so you just try to stear clear of the no-nos, follow the mandatory rules and your buddhism can be hollow and cold.

To put it into the view of a buddhist who sees past the religious part:
The solitary part comes in part from the three jewels. It is up to you to change yourself, you follow the Buddha with a capital B as your example, he did it himself, he woke himself up from the dream of illusion. Buddha isn't going to 'save' you, he just points the way. He isn't the way himself, just the best, purest example of one who woke himself up and laid the path clearly for us to follow.

He was a great teacher and was able to clearly expound what was really necessary. But, of course, if you are afraid of aquiring bad karma but really don't have the gumption to follow the challenging path the Buddha set out to free yourself from the cycle of rebirth that karma ties you to, then you just pray to Budda and make offerings at the temple and the little shrine in your house and just try to aquire good karma to avoid the bad karma. Then your hope is to be reborn into a more suitable life for pursuing the buddhist path in your next life.

So although originally buddhism was very dissimilar to other religions in that there was no worship of deities, it quickly deteriorated into the worship of not only the Buddha but a wide variety of deities and bhodisatvas that you had to entreat to get what you wanted in life and for hope of salvation after this life.

This is all, of course, the view from inside buddhism and the different ways it can be seen from there.

[Ed Teune]

I think really Buddhist lecture and the Hindu lecture need to be combined as Buddhism came out of Hinduism and much of the core cosmology came from Hinduism.

[Ed Teune]

After trying to explain some basics of Buddhism and how one should try to not let emotions control you, friend of mine asked, "but you have to vent sometimes, right?". I agreed but thought better of it later. Venting implies that you have bottled something up that wants to get out. You have tried to control your emotions or thoughts or feelings. You have tried to cage something that came passing across your awareness. You tried to capture it, keep it and in doing so buried it inside you in this attempt.

But thoughts, feelings and emotions are passing, so they just came unburied and built up pressure until you gave up and "uncorked" and "vented". And I suppose that is healthier than simply exploding or imploding.

But wouldn't it be better if you did not bottle these passing things up in the first place? And maybe we can do away with the bottle altogether.

Why do we latch onto things? Something passes by, a feeling, a thought or an emotion. Something that makes us hang on to it, illusion of self, or old "karma" basically something we never let go of in the past that now makes us "sticky" in the present.

Rexamine over-spiritualized Chrisitanity versus things that are simply of natural cause and effect. Not discounting divine intervention, but understanding how things work help deliver us from an overly superstitous form of Christian faith.

[Ed Teune]

Some links:

http://www.ways-of-christ.net/topics/buddhism.htm

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/BUDDHISM/ORIGINS.HTM

http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/buddha.html

Contemporaries,
pre-Socratic greek philosophers
The Upanishads and Vedanta
Zoroaster
Isaiah
Ezekiel
Lao-tzu
Confucius

This mass philosophical and religious flowering, why did it happen? Was it preparation for something, the next level of human development, the hand of God?

[Ed Teune]

Dhammapada

Yammakavagga - The Pairs

Very similar to Christ's teachings.
but the first pair very important to understanding Buddhism

Mind is the forerunner of (all evil) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with wicked mind, suffering follows one, even as the wheel follows the hoof of the draught-ox.

Mind is the forerunner of (all good) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with pure mind, AFFECTION follows one, even as one's shadow that never leaves.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.

1. All the phenomena of existence have mind as their precursor, mind as their supreme leader, and of mind are they made. If with an impure mind one speaks or acts, suffering follows him in the same way as the wheel follows the foot of the drawer (of the chariot).

2. All the phenomena of existence have mind as their precursor, mind as their supreme leader, and of mind are they made. If with a pure mind one speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his shadow that never leaves him.

the results are always very clear, if I acted out of selfish, or disturbed or lustful motives, the end results are destructive to myself and others, always. The state of my mind before the action was the root of that destruction and ruin. The state of my mind created, eventually, the reality that I live in. My unpeaceful, clinging mind caused me to perform actions that were evil and destructive and made my world and reality evil and destructive. Our world is created by our mind.

[Ed Teune]

Find comparisons from the Dhammapada and the words of Christ in the gospels and other parts of the Bible.

[Ed Teune]

Big difference in some aspects is responsibility. In Buddhism, all responsibility is placed on the individual.

By self alone is evil done; by self alone is one defiled; by self alone is evil not done; by self alone is one purified. Purity and impurity depend on oneself; no one can purify another.

It is all your choice every moment. It is all up to you. You choose and you defile or purify yourself.

and again

You yourself must make an effort. The Tathâgatas (Buddhas) are only preachers. The thoughtful who enter the way are freed from the bondage of Mâra.

you make the effort, no one else will make it for you, but not for heaven or reward, for deliverance, for freedom. in Buddhism heaven is still filled with Karmic chains and causes one to be reborn, only in the breaking of those chains is freedom from the endless cycles of death and rebirth

Seeking the maker of the House; Painful is birth again and again. House-builder! I behold thee now. Again a house thou shalt not build; All the rafters are broken now, The ridgepole also is destroyed, My mind, its elements dissolved, The end of cravings has attained

[Ed Teune]

A quote attributed to Mother Theresa that I may use to link Buddhism and Christianity together:

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

[Ed Teune]

These were just some notes I stored online for a lecture I gave at church as part of the adult education progam.
I have attached the program sheet for the lecture from our church.