Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

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

A Buddha statue

Ahh, Buddhism. Redirecting from this blog yet?

If you’re still there, let’s talk about Buddhism for a while, shall we? First off, I was never a very religious person, I see no need for it unless I need to pray for divine intervention to pass a subject, or to get laid. But I digress.

I was born into a Buddhist family, my father being active in his local Buddhist society in Penang during his youth days. Granted, he’s also as secular as vanilla these days, but I did learn many interesting things from him on Buddhism that piqued my personal interest when I was a teenager. And I just wanna talk a little bit about them now.

Personally, I feel that Buddhism really suits my personal beliefs on life, spirituality and the universe. What is Buddhism? I feel that even though my former tanah air, Malaysia has a sizeable population who states their religion as ‘Buddhists’, most do not really understand much about what’s it’s actually about, or even worse, have gross misconceptions on what it is.

I just thought that I should try and correct some of those misconceptions right now, with my own (albeit limited) knowledge on it. But before I do, here’s a short explanation what is Buddhism:

Buddhism is a set of teachings taught by a great teacher, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, who was formerly a prince of a particular tribe called the Shakyas in India around 566-486 BCE. When he was young, he was sheltered by his protective father from the ills of the world, and he only experienced the beauty and pleasures of life. However, when he was 29, curiosity overcomed him as to what lies beyound the walls of his palace, and he secretly ventured out into the streets of his kingdom by himself. While on his eye-opening adventure, he saw the Four Passing Sights: an old man, a diseased man, and a dead body, and a holy man. These sights lead him to the realisation that birth, old age, sickness and death happens to everyone in a depressing, endless cycle of rebirths. He decided that he would try to find a way out of this cruel cycle of suffering, and he become a holy man. However, after a while, he found that the holy men’s methods of attaining spiritual insight by depriving themselves of food for long periods of food too extreme, and abandoned this quest and decided to find a new way of escape. He then went on to sit underneath a Bodhi tree, and vowed that we would not go away from it without first finding the end for suffering. He eventually managed to do so, obtaining Enlightenment. What he realised was this, the Four Noble Truths:

1. All wordly life is filled with suffering
2. The cause of suffering is desire
3. There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana
4. The way to escape from suffering is by following the Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path is:

1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

I guess that’s Buddhism in a nutshell.

And now, here are some of the major misconceptions on Buddhism:

1. Buddha is a God

Nopes. Buddha was just a mere mortal, like you and me. However, he was also a great spiritual teacher, and has attained Nirvana. Nirvana is a state of mind, not a physical state of being. Buddha was a real person, he eventually died of old age, and his tomb can still be seen in India.

2. Buddhists pray to certain Gods for money

This is one of the most common misconception that I’ve heard. This misconception arised due to people confusing the Chinese deities for Buddhist ones. True, Chinese culture do have certain deities called God of Wealth, Goddess of Mercy (Kuan Yin), Monkey God, some warrior guy with a beard carrying a big butcher sickle, etc, but these were never ‘Buddhist’ gods. One must remember to separate Buddhism from Chinese mythology. In fact, Buddha has stated before that there is NO supreme, divine being ala God. However, Buddha’s said that there are deities (a bit like ‘angels’ in a Christian sense), but that it’s more desirable to be humans, as it’s easier for us humans to attain Nirvana compared to them. These deities are just beings on a slightly higher plane, and thus enjoy a more plesurable state of life, than us.

3. Buddhist are Godless, aethists, and nihilistic

No we aren’t. Just because Buddhism teaches that there is no God or Gods, doesn’t mean that a Buddhist is directionless in life! True, we do not aspire to do good in this life so that we are qualified to spend our afterlife in a blissful Heaven, like what Christians, Muslims and the Jews believe. However, instead of that aim, all Buddhist should try to attain Nirvana, through understanding what causes their suffering in life. And just because Buddhists do not believe in the concept of Heaven and Hell, that doesn’t mean that Buddhists do not believe in the existence of an afterlife. We do, we believe in the Karmic Law and reincarnation. To me personally, this Karmic Law can be regarded like one of the scientific laws of nature, such as the law of gravity, or the law of preservation of energy, etc. The Karmic Law is a ‘cause and effect’ law in which determines what form of being one would be reborn into (ie happy person, suffering person, animals, deities, etc) based on the the accumulated karmic points of each person, not only in his this present life, but also based on all of this past lives. One accumulates good karma when one does a good deed, and a bad one when one does otherwise. So this is our system for the afterlife.

4. Buddhists are idolaters.

Because of our Buddha statues, one common charge against us by other religions is that we are idolaters. This couldn’t be further from the truth! In fact, Buddha himself has said before that we shouldn’t worship him. We Buddhists are not praying to the statue when we do our prayers in front of it, rather, those statues are there to help remind ourselves of Buddha’s teachings. We can easily do our prayers with or without it.

If one looks around Malaysia and in many Asian countries, Buddhism’s popularity is slowly fading, which I think is a real shame. Many former Buddhists have converted into other religions like Christianity, Islam, etc. Buddhism’s popularity has instead shifted to the West. But heck, did Buddha not say before that “Everything is impermanent”? However, Buddha has said before that it doesn’t matter what religion one believes in, just so long as he or she continues to do good deeds, they will continue to accumulate karmic points. So essentially, we Buddhists believe that you are can still follow Buddha’s teachings without needing to be Buddhists. Hence, the reason why you don’t see Buddhists going around trying to convert people for their salvation. I guess one of the reasons for Buddhism’s declining popularity is it’s passivity, coupled with the aforementioned misconceptions above.

But to me, I still believe in Buddhism. I do not really believe in God’s existence. If God exists, why then does he allow so much suffering to His beloved creations? Why does he continue to allow so much strive to happen in the world? And I definately cannot accept the concept of Absolution: If Mr Tan has been a good Buddhist all his life, and Adolf Hitler decides to seek forgiveness from God for all his sins just before his death, who ultimately goes to Heaven then? According to the Absolution, it is Hitler, and Mr Tan will have the pleasure of meeting The Devil in Hell, regardless of how good he has lived his life. Buddhism is also a very peaceful religion. In a world where religion is the cause of so much conflict, there are hardly any that’s caused by Buddhists. I strongly agree with Buddhism’s fundamental belief in not harming other living creatures, and in always striving to help our fellow men. Buddha has also taught Buddhists to not just believe in his teachings completely based on his wisdom alone. He encouraged them to always be inquisitive and question things before fully accepting them. In other words, dogmatism is frowned upon in Buddhism. To me, Buddhism is also one of the most compatible religions to science. For instance, Buddha has never stated any ‘origin of life’ teachings which were ultimately disproved by science today.

Here’s what Albert Einstein had to say about Buddhism:

“Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity” - Albert Einstein

Namo Amitabha