Questioning Buddhism
In Buddhism, there’s a sutta (or scripture) called the Kalama Sutta where Buddha instructed his followers not to merely believe the truth of what he preached, but to investigate and fully satisfy oneself with all aspects of his teachings before accepting it.
I’ve decided to exercise this spirit now 
Truth be told, my knowledge on Buddhism is quite limited. I tried a few times before to read some of its suttas, but I seemed to only end up dozing off after the first 3 pages. Unlike many other religion, Buddhism doesn’t have a one definitive holy book. It has many suttas and collections. Nevertheless, I vow to try to at least read the Sutra Pitaka, which contains Buddha’s teachings.
But irregardless, let us proceed in our criticism based on my half-arsed knowledge anyway, ok? 
One of the main points about Buddhism is that desire leads to suffering right? So my question is that doesn’t this belief discourages initiative, hard work and ambition? I mean, why should any Buddhist study or work so hard then? Isn’t what they’re doing going against Buddhism’s basic tenet? To take this argument further, shouldn’t Buddhists also give up their desire for attaining enlightenment?
I must confess that although I like the concept of karma and a reincarnation cycle, I don’t really get how it is supposed to work. Apparently, the determinant of what you will be reborn as is not just confined to what you do in this life, but what you’ve done in all of your previous lives. But how is that fair? I can’t help it if my past lives consist of me being a murderer. Why does that have to condemn me to being reborn miserable over and over again? Furthermore, if in the event that one does get reborn into a lower life-form, such as an animal, how am I supposed to collect enough good karma to climb out from that? Since animals do not have the capacity to choose between right and wrong in their actions. Most of their minds are too simple for that. They only act instinctively for survival.
The third thing is less of a question, and more of a discussion. Unlike some other religious followers, Buddhists are by and large not troubled by how ‘literally’ or ‘closely’ they must follow their religion, or risk being accused by others of being a ‘pick-and-choose Buddhist’. I’ve seen pamphlets around Sydney Uni by the Evangelical Union that said something to the effect of “You either believe in everything the Bible teaches, or none at all”. I’ve also seen the formation of an online movement in Malaysia which states the same thing for Muslims, as in “There’s only one kind of Islam, and that there is no such thing as a liberal Islam’.
So like what I’ve said, if I take the Kalama Sutta to heart, I am then able to be picky about what I choose to believe in Buddhism. Become a ‘liberal Buddhist’, if you will. But if concepts such as reincarnation, the existence of ‘devas‘ inhabiting other higher realms, and even the state of enlightenment cannot be investigated and proven to be ‘true’ beyond doubt by me, does that mean that I don’t have to believe them and still claim to be a Buddhist? But if I don’t believe in those core beliefs of Buddhism, then there’s nothing much else for me to believe in. Buddhism would cease to serve as a religion or even a way of life for me then. Therefore, I think that even though Buddhism doesn’t subscribe to the belief of an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient ‘God’ being(s), it still requires large doses of faith in the unseen and unproven. Buddhism is thus far from scientific.
The last criticism that I can think of is that Buddhism is too pragmatic. Unlike many other religions, Buddhism doesn’t offer many answers to those big questions such as “What is the meaning of life?”, or those “Where did we came from?” questions. It is instead a very clinical religion, one that focuses solely on the alleviation of human suffering. This is good as it is, but being humans, we can’t help but continue to seek answers to those big questions. Even in the movie The Matrix, where Neo could be seen as representing the Buddha, apart from freeing humans from the Matrix (representing samsara), we, as well as the hero, ultimately also wondered about and finally got the answer as to why humans were held captive in the Matrix, and by whom. To be harvested for power by the machines was the answer provided at the end. But ‘real’ Buddhism doesn’t tell us that. Depending on the person, this issue can be of no concern to them or be a really unsatisfactory matter.
So what do you guys think about all of this? Opinions from both Buddhist and non-Buddhists are more than welcomed 
quote“Where did we came from?”unquote
I read a Buddhist story that tells of a man shot by an arrow. Instead of getting his friend to look for a healer to treat his wound, he demanded that his friend find out who shot that arrow.
As for the word ‘desire’, it’s not the ‘desire’ you have in mind, but that related to the unrealistic desire for something without considering the inevitable cycle of life and death, the wandering through Samasara.
But then, I am only at best an aethist.
Comment by KTemoc — February 18, 2007 @ 7:25 am
kalama Sutta or KarmaSutra?
Comment by Rachmaninov — February 18, 2007 @ 7:34 am
“The last criticism that I can think of is that Buddhism is too pragmatic. Unlike many other religions, Buddhism doesn’t offer many answers to those big questions such as “What is the meaning of life?”, or those “Where did we came from?” question”
not true~~ read more~~
buddhism is a very liberating PHILOSOPHY. the crux being we are part of a greater whole ~~ a collective whole
re suffering…what buddhism is trying to say is tt…our clinging to desires is what causes suffering…it encourages us to break free from this tendencies, usually rooted in some emotional pattern…
the following blog written by a senior corporate tai ko in the US has an interesting and succint exposition on buddhsit principles
You are a Cog
IMHO, it takes some time to understand the true philosphy.
btw, i am brought up a christina but embrace a more plural worldview~~more buddhist i guess
Comment by freelunch — February 18, 2007 @ 8:03 am
Thanks guys for your comments
I guess I’ll need to look into its philosophy more to better understand it.
Comment by sigma — February 18, 2007 @ 12:06 pm
You’re welcome. Karma Sutra is a very important and exciting read. Everyone should embrace it just as much to embrace each other, before embarking on a spiritual journey to a higher transcendence.
But something i do not quite agree with Buddhism is the desire is a baddie, cos suffering is not bad. It is painful. And painful is not neccesary bad. Bad is celibacy, which the monks do. That is unnecessary suffering done unto themselves by testing desire.
I am a christian, but not a catholic because I think Catholics misintepreted Celebrate instead of celibate which is a very very bad mistake. Nuns according to their principles and accoutrement is to my opinion as sinful as wearing tudung, because you are not being honest to yourselves and other people. It is like lying through omission, omission of female beauty that is.
Don’t get me wrong, I encourage people like old man and ugly people to wear hoods like american gangsta. I really think badawi make a good sith lord like lord sidious.
In conclusion, war on iraq is not only good because it helps emancipation and liberation of iraqi women from oppression of sex fanatics , it is also a war on See-rack ( it rhymes with iraq , hope you get my sexual joke ).
I’m not sure why i add sexual commentary into your religion article, but as the zen people says, we should put all in one, or something. I’m listening to bolero, but guess what i’m thinking of now.
Comment by Rachmaninov — February 18, 2007 @ 3:39 pm
Not a Buddhist expert too, and haven’t read from any sutras, but here’s what I gather and understand from various talks/sources.
1. As for desire leading to suffering, as the others has pointed out, it refers to earthly/material desires. Eg, someone suffering due to unrequited love, another slaving away to earn big bucks to buy a bungalow etc.
2. Ok, this is gonna be a bit messy. The idea of karma and reincarnation does not refer to you as a individual in your current mortal shell, but an entity that’s temporarily in your current mortal state. Regardless of your past lives, the simple rule of thumb would be to conduct your current one as best as you can.
You’ll never reach enlightenment in a single lifetime (1 mortal shell), but through many shells. In each shell, you’ll gain more wisdom and good karma, which you’ll carry over to your following shell. If you’ve been very bad that you are reborn as lower life form, tough luck. You’ll have to start accumulating wisdom and do good (animals can too, if I remember correctly) where you’ll ascend to a higher life form and so forth.
The ultimate goal is to stop reincarnation from happening - ie. you’ve attained enlightenment and sufficient good karma. This is also know as the state of ‘Nirvana’ or perfection. And that’s about pretty much all I know bout this.
3. Buddhism originally didn’t start off as a religion per se - ie. with any dogmas relating to a divine figure and so on. It is just a mere philosophy, the natural law of the universe (the 4 truths) and a guide to carry out your life. It is not made up of strict dogmas and restrictions - whatever that exists (eg - vegetarianism, celibacy etc) are to respect life and aid in attaining enlightenment. As time went by, people started adding more rules and traditions - ie. “religionize” it. IIRC, Buddhism actually is not about praying to the various deities etc, though it’s not forbidden. This is because the other deities are ‘higher’ forms of being that can be respected, but we should also strive to attain a higher state of being (not deity-hood, just a more enlightened state).
This is also a reason Buddhism or eastern philoshophies are gaining popularity in the west - It’s not a strict dogma or a set rules. There is no singular entity of God or ultimate being. This is also one of the main concept of Buddhism is also the idea of “impermanence”.
Buddha is not the ultimate being for of all time, He is succumbed to this rule too. I’m not too sure or clear about this - but there have been other Buddhas before the current one now. And then there will be a period of ‘darkness’ or chaos before the coming of the next Buddha.
Comment by junhoe — February 18, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
Jun Hoe: Thanks for the clarification on reincarnation. The next Buddha is the Maitreya, better known as the Laughinng Buddha. He is supposed to come to us once Buddhism has been forgotten by the world.
To me, being a true Buddhist is almost neigh impossible. It requires us to let go of every desire. But is it wrong for me to desire to love my family? Or wife? Or the fate of other more unfortunate people?
The mental aspect of truly practicing Buddhism is incredibly difficult. It demands a lot from its followers. I mean, from between a scale of 1-10 in how close my mind truly is in gaining enlightenment, I think I am currently on a 0.1. Guess I won’t be leaving samsara anytime soon.
Comment by sigma — February 18, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
So there is this question(s) that has piqued my interest:
- how do we know we have past lives?
- how do we know we are reincarnated, i.e. there is a karma cycle?
Comment by Loong — February 19, 2007 @ 5:35 am
Loong: We won’t be able to know for sure. Similar to knowing whether there is a God, heaven and hell, and angels in Christianity/Islam/Judaism. We just have to believe those spiritual leader’s teachings and their disciple’s records.
Comment by sigma — February 19, 2007 @ 9:02 am
I was just wondering if anyone knows what Buddhism teaches us about love? Are we supposed to, as sigma said, have the desire to love our family, wife and everyone else?
Comment by hlam3167 — February 19, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
to hlam3167: This is just my personal interpretation, not validated by any reading of the sutras or expertss.
We are allowed to love without being too attached to it, ie. not loving unconditionally. This is the way of the 4 noble truths - that mortals will age, diseased and die. Eg. you may love your spouse, but if she passes away, you have to let it go. Desiring to be with her though it’s impossible will only torture yourself. The same goes for cheating partners, wanting someone you can’t have etc.
Yeah, easier said than done. But to be enlightened is to leave behind mortal worries and desires.
Comment by junhoe — February 19, 2007 @ 5:13 pm