Ref: JK, Can Humanity Change?, Walpola Rahula
By Sadanand
4 Minutes Read
Buddha🙏🏿……Many people (irrespective of their religion) get an authentic vibe or feeling when we hear this man’s name. Very few people like Socrates, Buddha, and few other earned this kind of respect. They were the wisest.
This post intends not to criticize Buddhism or any other religion but to focus on some of the fundamental gaps Buddhism and other faiths/religions we have been taught and practiced for thousands of years
I am not religious nor Atheist or associate myself with anything(At least now). I am Agnostic. I have massive Respect for Buddha and some of the Buddhist teachings like Theravada’s Sutras on Self liberation, Vipasana and Samatha, on Desires, Meditations, No Self and “If you see Budha Kill him or destroy him” in Zen Buddhism, which means something like “Those who think they’ve found all the answers in any religion need to start questioning”
Most of my below questions are based on “Can Humanity Change“? book by K’s (J Krishnamurti) which covers a dialogue b/w K and Buddhist scholars in Theravada, Mahayna and Zen Buddhism
Before Buddhism came into existence ~2500 years ago, there were already a lot of other religions in place starting from Sumerians 7-8 thousand years ago from ancient Egypt. According to them, they are all supposed to make the world a better place, a better human, Peace, Harmony, etc. Yet Buddhism came and supposed to make the world a better place and all the rest of it. Yet we are here dealing with the same issues for the most part even after 2500 years of Buddhism, 2000+ years of Christianity, ~5000-6000 years of Hinduism, Judaism, etc. Why? Did they really made the change they supposed to make?
That is the reason for these questions. Let’s begin with a simple question.
Question1: Can any Mind, burdened with information see a Truth?
Any mind if it is filled with some prejudice or knowledge, that can perceive the entire information correctly? Like for example, if I have a prior opinion on someone for some reason. Can I see that individual totally when i interact with him/her?
Question2:Can such a mind perceive the 100% truth, filled with some knowledge? Any Knowledge? Could it be Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and all the rest of it?
I want to quote Buddha (Theravada scripture here), “Believe nothing, no matter what you read or who said it.”
Shouldn’t we include Buddhist scriptures/teaching in this list?
Question3: To attain so-called “Nirvana,” in Buddhist language/scripts, which is nothingness, no desires, etc., etc. Why should someone accumulate all the knowledge, Buddhist Knowledge/teachings/scriptures, and then abandon all to get to the final “Nirvana” state?
Isn’t it contradicting Buddhist teachings?
Buddhism argument on this point was “Buddhism is something like, In our Studies, as Children at School, we used to practice our writings in a Rule Paper notebook to learn writing correctly. Buddhism is something similar where you use it as a medium/path to living a better life even though Buddha said to listen to no one.
Good explanation but not convincing enough
Question4:The whole Tradition, Though Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Jain, and Christian. All religious attitude is caught up in Time, in Evolution. Like someday, I will be better, or I will be good if I do this or do that as per religious teachings. Not sure if anyone ever lived or experienced that someday ?
Question5:.Why do we humans all over the created symbols, idols? Buddha Said no Idols, statues, or worship anyone, look at yourself, etc. Yet we have thousands of Buddha statues worldwide and possibly in most of all our homes.
Religious thoughts created massive Cathedrals, Mosques, and temples. Some of them are currently in construction after 50+ years of legal battles🙆♂️. Why do we build and worship these idols? Why do we need interpreters, mediators, priests, popes, gurus, and SADGURU’s between truth and god(whatever it may mean)? .
By the way I have one Buddha statue in my home as well 😊
And finally,
Question6: How do we know if Buddha is Enlightened? or found the ultimate truth? Based on what proof? What scientific explanation? Is there a logical reason? Who knows for real? Why is there no sign of another Buddha after 2500+ years of Buddhist teachings/following? And Same goes for Krishna, Mahavira, Jesus, Mohammedan, and others. Who knows? They Might have deceived themselves. Or they could be hallucinating or tripping their balls on some psychedelics. I Can say, I’ve seen Shiva after 4 drinks
Budha might have said something, and it probably got lost in passing the information and translations by his followers/disciples. Most of his teachings are written by his followers. Who knows if they modified them according to their prejudices, beliefs, and ideologies? Have you ever noticed followers always destroy the Gurus? Look at Buddha, Socrates, etc. Like Plato(Socrates) and Ananda(Budha), their disciples started coming into the picture.
I want to share a couple of K’s thoughts here on Truth and God
“Truth is not Christian, Hindu, Jain, or Islam. Truth is TRUTH. It doesn’t belong to anyone or any religion Just Like Love. It doesn’t belong to any individual or religion.
“There is a root of untruth in all these religious concepts. We may have progressed scientifically, technically, Heigene, and all the rest. But Psychologically, Inwardly, we are not!!. We are what we were Thousands of years ago.
Did we? Look at what’s going around us; I will quote a couple of examples for the context
1. We all know about the Recent law on the “Right to Abortion” in the US, the world’s greatest democratic country.
And
2. Recent judgment in Kerala, India. A judge has ruled a woman wore “provocative” clothing, effectively dismissing her sexual assault complaint.Full details here
Such a SHAM
And many more we all see in our day to day life
So, Did we progress psychologically inwardly? For Real ? Not as an Intellectual Concept or as a great topic for discussion.I think, the root cause is all these religious traps set for 1000’s of years.
Hence these questions
I would like to hear @samHarris (huge fan ) view on these questions. Hope this post gets his attention. Shared to him.I watched his Making Sense Podcast#102 “Is Buddhism True ?” on similar topic
Peace✌🏿