You failed to add your definition of dukkha. It seems to mean suffering. I suggest you think about the concept of existence. It is not the same as phenomenal things. For instance, are you a phenomenon? How do you know you exist? I focus, over the years, on the existence of the unknown. Does the unknown exist? I fall in the dark and hit my head. Did I hit anything? It seems we need to affirm the existence of the unknown in order to justify investigating it.
This seems the basic claim of any happy person. If the unknown is bad, and it exists, then all hope is lost, etc. If the unknown does not exist, the only thing that exists is—what?
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Tara, like any Mother, is ready to jump to our aid, even in mundane areas of life. June 5 to October 31, — New! Spread The Dharma Podcast. Support us on Patreon. Buddha Weekly YouTube. What does Buddhism say about the idea of God? Does it even matter? What did Buddha say? The Poisoned Arrow parable Too many questions: the parable of the handful of leaves Bramajala Sutta, the impermance of all, including gods Buddha: neither accepted nor rejected God Scientific Buddhists and Athiest Buddhists.
Do Buddhists believe in God? What does Buddhism teach about the idea of God? Neither concept is right or wrong.
Buddha teaching. The current primary distinction is between the Theravada and Mahayana divisions of Buddhism, but there are many divisions and schools in each major form. Further, both current branches first arose hundreds of years after the Buddha lived, and continued to evolve for centuries.
Given this, it is hard to characterize firm differences, save to say that the Theravada branch is more conservative in that it accepts fewer scriptures, but includes the whole of the Pali canon; while the Mahayana branch accepts a few more scriptures, including some very well-known sutras including the Lotus Sutra, Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra and Amitabha Sutra.
In addition, Mahayana Buddhists generally revere more Bodhisattvas. The word has a very real meaning. A saint is one who leads a life of purity, one who has freed himself from all human weaknesses and imperfections. Understanding a few of the historic problems in Buddhist history and the authenticity of its scripture, we can now examine the most basic question about Buddhism: is it theistic? Do Buddhists believe in God? The Buddhist narrative says that the privileged caste of Vedic priests at the time, the brahmins, had become corrupt and knew little of the true spirit of religion.
Thus, they could not show others the path to God. A disciple of the Buddha, Vasettha, commented on this situation to the Buddha. The Buddha reportedly replied:.
Then you say, too, Vasettha, that the brahmins [priests] bear anger and malice in their hearts, and are sinful and uncontrolled, whilst Brahman [God] is free from anger and malice, and sinless, and has self-mastery. Now can there, then, be concord and likeness between the brahmins and Brahman? Already this puts Buddhism in the realm of theistic religions, as do many similar references in Buddhist scripture. The Buddha, however, lived in a time and place when people were drowning in a sea of gods and theological parsing.
It is reasonable, then, that he would not want to add to the intellectual fray and, sure enough, scripture records that he resisted being drug into these distinctions. In Sutra 63 of the Majjhima-Nikaya, a disciple, Malunkyaputta, asked the Buddha why he would not answer their theological questions.
The Buddha replied:. According to the Buddha, then, the essence of religion — the most useful part — must be about practices that ease suffering and bring people closer to salvation, to nirvana. The Buddha saw the rest as non-essential, and often a cause of idle theological wrangling and disunity. The beginnings of all great religions were pure; but priests, taking possession of the minds of the people, filled them with dogmas and superstitions, so that religion became gradually corrupt.
Tags: Buddhism. He is the author of numerous public health articles and texts and also a Biblical introduction to the Bahai Faith: Thy Kingdom Come, from Kalimat Press. The official website of the Baha'i Faith is: Bahai. The official website of the Baha'is of the United States can be found here: Bahai. The third reason the Buddha did not believe in a god is that the belief is not necessary.
Some claim that the belief in a god is necessary in order to explain the origin on the universe. But this is not so. Science has very convincingly explained how the universe came into being without having to introduce the god-idea.
Some claim that belief in god is necessary to have a happy, meaningful life. Again we can see that this is not so. There are millions of atheists and free-thinkers, not to mention many Buddhists, who live useful, happy and meaningful lives without belief in a god.
Once again, the evidence indicates the opposite.
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