Okay here's the story of Buddha, coz I DID study that one, in college of all places CLICK HERE. -- Eddie Pedantic Gasbag Discussion Group

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Date Posted: 01:32:43 07/20/01 Fri
Author: spoot
Subject:

Okay here's the story of Buddha, coz I DID study that one, in college of all places CLICK HERE.
In reply to: gumtree 's message, "Bean! Glad to see you here...Religion? jeepers - one of the three forbidden subjects in civil conversation...my views? >click<" on 00:12:12 07/20/01 Fri

The legend goes, there was a prince named Sidhartha who was sheltered by his parents from all exposure to suffering and pain. He married and was very happy when one day he looked out of the window and saw a starving beggar. He asked his counselor who was that and the counselor told him about the world outside his palace. He was stricken, he could not eat or sleep, could not understand why the world had pain and suffering in it. Finally he could not suppress his grief and he stole out of the palace with nothing but the clothes on his back, to find the reason for the state of the world.

He wandered alone, sought priests and wise men, begged for his food. At one point he became an ascetic, and denied his body any pleasure and sustenance until he was down to a grain of rice per day. But abstinence brought no insight and he gave that up. One day he sat down under a Bodhi tree, and he meditated on the human condition and he reached Nirvana (enlightenment).

From there he began to try to teach what he learned under that tree, that suffering is the result of being chained to delusions, the delusions coming from our senses, the delusions from our beliefs, the delusions from our desires and even the delusions from our loves, and that enlightenment is reached by breaking the attachment to delusion. The literal translation of Nirvana is difficult, it means 'snuffing out' and it is said to mean both 'nothingness' and 'suchness'. It is a state hard to describe, because it is a negative state, a 'letting go'.

In Buddhism there is no good, no evil, no sin, no afterlife, there is only freedom from the delusions that make up our normal state of consciousness. It's more a psychology than a religion, but the operative state of the mind is one of compassion for all who suffer.

Oh and I love the way Buddha died. Nothing dramatic, he ate a piece of tainted pork, became ill and layed down and died.

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Oh I forgot to mention that Buddha is not a name, it's a title, like teacher or wise man or enlightened one, I forget which one.... (NT) -- spoot, 01:37:43 07/20/01 Fri