All About Buddhism

Five Rules of Nature in Buddhism

2010-03-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

Buddhism is a philosophy which shows the world as a living being and nature creation. There is no one above the human to control himself apart from some forces of nature. The intension of this post to show that, as a human being you should see the world as it is. That is , the world is not a creation of a supernatural power, but merely the cause and effect and the nature makes the continuity of living being and the world/universe. In the previous post, I explained in general how the cause and effect principle ( kamma and vipaka ) affects person. But thats only a one way out of the five rules of nature.

These five rules are called Niyama in Pali.

1. Utu Niyama (physical inooganic order)
Effects from seasonal changes like in spring some flowers blossom, but in winter leaves fall. People get displaced by winds and rain, earthquakes. This is happening not because we have done bad karma, or some supernatural god is against us. But its the phenomena of nature which can be hardly controlled.

2. Bija Niyama (Physical Organic Order)
This is bind with living beings organic characteristcs. Eg:- When we plant a rice seed, we get rice as harvest, not apple. Thats the pattern of reproduction. Some fruit maybe tasty, but some is bitter. Some flowers smell and some do not. We live within the womb for roughly 10 month after conception, but elephants have a different time period.

3. Kamma Niyama (Order of Action and Reaction)
This is what I explained in the previous post. This is what you are fully responsible. Simply taking I abbreviate this as WYDIWYG ( "What you do is what you get" ). Quite cool huh.

4. Dhamma Niyama (Order of Norm )
This is the nature of the world in general. Eg:- gravitation, why the earth rotates. why your skin gets wrinkled with aging. Simply taking thats how the world as it is.

5. Chitta Niyama ( Order of Mind )
Thousands of ideas are coming to our mind within a second. We forget somethings, we remember important things. Your brain will prefer to keep some events forever. This will explain some abilities which some people posses like telepathy, premonition, thought reading.

One thing we should remember here. Kamma Niyama is the Niyama, which we should be aiming to control as its our responsibility. Other forces of nature, we should be able to control into some extent. I will explain Kamma Niyama in more detail later. But its pointless to prey for "external help" to change any of those natural phenomena.

Karma (Kamma) and its effectiveness according to Buddhism

2008-11-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

Buddhism and Karma ( Kamma )

Buddha once preached the differences between the people in the society. For example, when you look at the people in our society some are very rich and some are poor. Some are ugly looking and some are gorgeous. Like in the current time people were always thinking why there is such a difference. According to Buddhism, it is not god’s wish, but you are responsible for your current social/economical/physical status. Lord Buddha once preached that Karma ( Kamma ) plays a major role in this issue in Chula Kamma Wibhanga Sutta ( Sutra ).

Buddhist explanation on lifespan differences & healthy living

There are people in this world who are very cruel and haven’t got pity on other living beings. They hurt others and kill others. People with that nature will be in the “hell” with all suffering after the death. But if they born in this world, which has a very low probability ( this is due to good Assanna Karma ) will have a very short life span.
People who are afraid of killing/hurting others and practice that in the entire life span, will be born in “heaven” with all the luxuries and if they born as humans, they will have a higher lifespan without diseases.

Buddhist explanation on physical appearance of a person

Some people in the society are full of hatred and gets angry even for a very small issue. Those people are very tough and not flexible, they don’t respect others ideas. The unhappy lifestyle always adds bad Karma to themselves which leads to a “bad birth” in the afterlife. If they are born as humans, they won’t look pleasant. This is true for the current life also, you needn’t wait till next life to see how the bad emotions change your appearance.
Reason for some people seems to be neglected and lonely in the society according to Buddhism.

Reason for some people seems to be neglected and lonely in the society according to Buddhism.

Some people in this world are jealous of others wealth, happiness. And also unhappy because others are being prominent, being famous in the society. The thinking pattern like this leads to accumulate bad Karma. After death they born in “hell”. If they accidently born as humans, they will be isolated from the society.

These are the main points explained in the Sutta. But, Kamma (Karma) is only one phenomena (out of five) affects personal behavior. You can override or cancel these ill effects, and you will also have effects apart from Karma. The other facts which affects your behavior ( Weather related problems, reproductively related, thinking related, other natural causes related ) will be explained later. In Buddhism, everything is not effects of Karma.

(published in all about buddhism blog)

Insulting Buddhism and Buddha

2007-08-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

I just had a feeling that this is the time to write a blog post on this topic. Insulting buddhism is not a trend in the modern world. It had happened in the days when lord Buddha was alive. One day a prostitute piled up some wood and wore it to pretend she was pregnant and complained that she got pregnant because of lord Buddha. The greatest enemy ( at that time ) of Buddha was his cousin. He once made Buddha bleeding and sent untamed elephant Nalagiri to kill him. A gang killed a woman and hid her body where Buddha stayed claiming that lord Buddha is responsible for the murder. Complaining lord Buddha is complaining his teaching, Buddhism.

In this information age, the attack against Buddhism has become more complex. See the image below. As I can see it is not edited using Photoshop. But I'm not sure how Nestle people will take the resposibility for this image.

Can anyone of you think the relationship between Beef and Buddha/Buddhism?. No. This is merely to insult buddhism. This just says nothing. I must say thats a cruel thinking of a religious extremist.

Why people tend to use these types of low quality materials to insult buddhism?

They don't have grounds to argue and prove buddhism is falsy religionwise.

They are fear of the future of their religions

Einstein did also follow some theories in Buddhism. Sit Arthur C. Clarke once predicted, in the future when people tend to think more logically all single and multiple god centered religions will be less popular and conceptual religions like Buddhism will take their place.

I know this will be arguable. I will add more ways of insulting Buddhism in future posts. You would be amazed to see the "conspiracies by extremists"

Can anyone of you think what does Victoria Secret mean by adding a buddha image in bikini. For christian people, do you think its ok to put Jesus' image instead, replacing the Buddha image?

Life After Death( Afterlife ): Buddhism Christianity and Politics

2007-08-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

I wonder, when you talk about afterlife ( life after death ) Buddhism and Christianity have something in common. I know almost all the Christians / catholics don't believe in afterlife, but there are evidences in the bible to support afterlife. If you are a christian, just refer to terms 'gigul' or 'ibur' in new testament. ( Celtic christians believed in gigul ). But why this concept suppressed in Christianity?.

The main reason for that as I can see is the past politics. The later Roman emperors, both Western and Byzantine, were tyrants who owned their subjects body and soul. Anyone who opposed them was sentenced to a slow and painful death. This kingdom was extrapolated into the eternal spiritual realm by theologians, who imposed the blackmail of the doctrine of ever-lasting hell and its torments for defiance of authority.

These versus are from Judaism....

Matthew 16:15-16 When Yahshauah came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he
asked his Talmidim, "Who do people say the Son of Man (Ben Adam) is?" They
replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Eliyah; and still others,
Yemeryahu or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do
you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Mashiach, the Son of the
living Elohim (Adam Kadmon)."

Woe be unto you, ungodly men, which have forsaken the law of the most high
YHWH: for if you increase it shall be to your destruction. And if you be born, you
shall be born to a curse… Ecclesiasticus 41:8-9, edition Apocrypha

( published in All About Buddhism blog )

All About Buddhism: Life After Death

2007-08-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

We buddhists believe a living being ( layman ) is connected to a chain of lives. When we pass away from one life, we just stick to another life. There may or may not be a transition period which is bit controversial, but for a person who hasn't attain nirvana ( "Nibbana" -The ultimate goal in buddhism ) will have new life after the current one. In the new life , we can be a human, an animal or maybe a single celled being like amiba. The activities we perform in our current life and in past lives plays the major role in success of the new life after death. According to buddhism, it is not god's wish to make someone poor and some other person wish, it is our past life actions which determine the future life. Therefore Buddhists are not dependent upon a "highly powered, uncontrollable source".

Are we going our journey with a single "atman" like in Hindu? Of course not. The next life is like a mirror image of yours. If the mirror image is you , then there should be a duplicate of you in the world which is not true, but you can't argue that the mirror image doesn't represent you. Think about it. In the next life, you are not the same person as you are now, again you are not a different person into some extent. Simply, if we do good things, we gather good karma and you have the highest possibility to have a better life after death. So, why should we think of breaking the chain?. Lets take an example. Suppose you are the richest person in the world. Do you think that you would be free from all the problems in the world. No. You might have the risk of loosing your property. You maybe afraid that someone would break your record. That is life, we don't satisfy ourselves. We make our own goals and try to achieve and suffer. We need to get rid of continuous suffering.

This is just an overview of the life after death. There are many aspects in detail, which I would like to publish. Just let me know your thoughts

(published in All About Buddhism blog )

Killing Animals and HALAL - myth

2006-12-30T00:07:00.000-08:00

This blog post contains errorneous description, which will lead people to think of Halal ritual in a wrong way. To be honest I apologize for the mistake. For the readers, I recon to go through this wrong (myth) article and read the comments to have a better understanding. But, I must say one thing. Muslim community should publish more and more info on these so called controversial topics to minimize these types of mis - interpretations
Thank You

-Author

In Buddhism, killing a living being is always considered to be a sin as we have no right to take some other living creature's life. But as I can see in other religions there are variations for this.

Muslims do believe in animal welfare "Whoever is kind to the creatures of God is kind to himself" (Wisdom of Prophet Mohammad; Muhammad Amin; The Lion Press, Lahore, Pakistan; 1945)

They have regulations in meat. But... He hath forbidden you only carrion and blood and swine flesh and that which hath been immolated to any other than Allah.. (Quran Chapter II , Verse 173) The prophet has forbidden flesh only if it is not a sacrifice for himself. Does that mean he always expect sacrifices from men?.NO. Obviously he can't be that much cruel to accept meat from billions of people per day!.

That sacrifice ritual is called HALAL ( correct me if i am wrong ). As I know the original ritual of killing an animal is, the killer should be on a plate which is heated to become red and kill the animal. That ritual make sense, as no one would do such a commitment to kill another. So, he meant not to kill ( in an implicit way ). But the time has changed, you wouldn't believe how the ritual carried out now. They use a red colored plate as the seat when killing animals. You really can't symbolize a ritual in that way. But they perform other ritual there. That is never show the weapon to the animal before being killed :).

The religion should sometimes be adapted to the current society , but not in a selfish manner like this. I don't think this post would hurt Muslims ( as I didn't criticize holy prophet ) . This is what I see as truth. Always open for debate.

(Published in All About Buddhism blog)

The Person with Supernatural Powers

2006-03-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Can there be a person who can do everything?. Even Lord Buddha himself couldn't change milestones in his life. He was suffering from illnesses, had to pass away as a normal person. I think, no man or other person can forcibly change other persons life. I will use simple mathematical logic to prove that . ( This is not Buddhism, one may find it arguable ). This is proving by contradiction.

Suppose there is a person who can do everything a person can imagine ( person A )

He can materialize a person (person AA ) who is identical to him in every aspect.

Therefore person AA also can do every activity/thing.

Then the person A commands person AA to sit down ( assuming he is not seated ). But person AA also can do anything ( because he has all the powers ) , so he doesn’t sit down.

From this we can see person A couldn’t command person AA because he is identical to person A.

That implies , there can’t be 2 people in the universe who can do anything.

Again think of the materializing. That implies person A can’t materialize a person identical to him. So, no one in the world has got supernatural powers.

(Published in All About Buddhism blog)

The Independent Man

2006-03-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

The whole Buddhism is about understanding yourself. ( Buddha once defined yourself as the “world”, mainly because all the complexities in the universe is also there.) According to lord Buddha, the things you have done ( good or bad ) carries with you.
The good or bad will naturally reacts on you as the time goes on.

Therefore you, yourself has to understand what is good an what is bad and try to avoid doing bad ( sinful ) activities.

It is NOT because you are afraid of someone, not because you will be punished / questioned / watched by someone, it is because you know the consequences. So, you should be afraid of performing sinful activities. The difference I see here is if you are afraid of doing evil things because some one is watching you, you feel you feel insecure and you may afraid to think of your own. ( because there is a person looking at you. ) You feel you are lacking of the privacy you need. This will lead you to a stressful situation, especially when your master taught you something you should do but you are not willing to do so. In that case you feel guilty about yourself.

Eg:- What will happen to the astronomy if Catholics thought that criticizing the bible is a sin so we are not going beyond gods words on this area. So, in that situation you are bound by the culture and religion.

What Buddha taught is

"Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience.Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

(Published in All About Buddhism blog)

2006-03-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

What Faith can do to you?

Sometimes Faith is good for short term benefits and "start ups"
Suppose you are a human resource manager of a company. Its your responsibility to interview people and chose the person who is the most suitable for a vacant position. You may interview him. Practically, few hours of interview won’t tell everything. In that interview both parties build up a relationship based on faith on each other, which will lead to an eventual recruitment. ( You can’t disagree with that, that may happen without your intension ). So, faith is good for relationships in our society.

Have you heard about miracles performed by people in curing people?
In psychology, getting rid of phobias and other mental abnormalities. This is what faith can do. Here , you believe in a person that he is your savior and he will cure your “haunted feelings”. It really happens because you are hypnotized when doing rituals to him and you yourself internally orders yourself that you are not haunted anymore, or you are not afraid of cockroaches. So, your faith lead you to cure your illness. Simply, if you have a problem you can confess that to a person where you have faith on him. So, for that short term benefit, faith is good. Again you have to keep in mind, that you are not using his supernatural powers, but the power you have internally ( This is the power which you can command yourself ).

But… Think about the situation when we lost the faith for that person because of a fault in your exemplary supernatural character!

Therefore we can conclude, faith (into some extent) is good for social relationships. Lets talk about extreme faith and the harm in next thread. Any problems with this? This is an open discussion. Not intended to criticize any religion. But you can compare religions. Eg:- What Christianity has and what is lacking of. Good or bad compared to a philosophy like Buddhism.

(Published in All About Buddhism blog)

2006-03-09T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Religion Faith and You

Before going into logical or philosophical ways , I think its better to have an understanding of the way religion affects a person. As we all know our feelings and thinking are highly influenced by a religion ( for most people ). When a child is born, obviously he himself can’t determine the race, language or religion. The child gradually observes his/her environment as he grows. For that the input for him coming from the society he knows at that moment, which is his family. He learns the language their habits which are influenced by the religion ( Eg:- If you are a catholic, you usually pray before your meal ). Well, then if your parents are catholic , now you become a catholic too.

So religion is something you grabbed from the society, which was not with you by birth.

So, keeping that in mind just consider following cases ( I am NOT pointing at any religion )

What if you are used to kill animals as a tribute a person who think he has super natural powers?
Obviously that is socially unacceptable. But you do because of your faith to the god.
( Will discuss more on this later )

What If you believe that if there is a mystery you can simply say “Its some other person’s wish” and just forget it.
It’s the time for you to break the thinking barrier. That’s how people make innovations. For an example Isaac Newton could have put his “Apple Experience” ( which we all know ) into nature’s account we could have lost the great gravitational theory.
( Will discuss more on this later )

So, do u “believe in” a religion which is forced on to you by the society. Or Follow a philosophy which grants all the powers to your self. You decide. I’ll continue this post later. This is not a religion, but a philosophy where you can understand the “World” within you.

2006-03-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

Why We Used to think logically about thripitaka and buddhism....

Just to show a temple ( chaitya ) in Sri Lanka.

A photo taken at Bellanwila Raja maha Viharaya , Colombo Sri Lanka. Visit Sri Lanka, The only country with unspoiled Theravadic buddhism. You can personally contact me for more information via thripitaka@gmail.com.

2005-12-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

Wish you a Merry X'Mas

I Wish all my catholic and christian blog readers a happy and peaceful christmas, and pray for the people lost from tsunami ( 26th December 2004 ) and may them rest in peace. For those who are not aware of the incident:

There was a major earthquake (8.9) in the sea near Indonesa which created a giant tsunami. about 200,000 people lost their lives in an hour!. Especially affected Indonesia ( 120,000 ), Sri Lanka ( 40,000 ) and Thailand.
So May Those People Rest in Peace

2005-12-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

Killing a Living Being

In buddhism, killing of a living being is sinful, if

The party will be killed is a living being
The person who is killing should be aware the party which will be killed is a living being
The killer should intentionally do the killing
Eventually, the object should be killed.

See how logical it is , in law also almost all the above conditions should be met in order to sue him against a first degree murder. Buddhist think all leaving beings are equal, and animals are not "introduced" to the world in order to serve human, and sacrifice their lives whenever humans need. I may not be correct in that way. You can argue. Again think of a case where a person goes to the butcher and buy meat. Will that not be a SIN then?

2005-12-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

How Practical Buddhism IS

The lord buddha preached the people the way to live in the society. This can be further discussed in later threads. For a peaceful society one must live according to the 5 "sickha pada" ( rules ). Those 5 are sub divided and further explained.

Don't kill or harm living beings
Don't steal property of some other person
Refrain from socially unapproved sexual activity ( In this it's not clear whether he rejected masturbation, gay, lesbianism. One can start arguing on this point)
Don't lie anyone
Don't drink alcohol

2005-12-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

Understanding Buddhism Logically

First of all, in Buddhism whatever is taught should not be taken into account, because

1). The teachings are inherited from ancestors
2). The teachings are taught by a person who you like, or you obey
3). The teachings are in books

This is how it is explained in the Kalama Sutra
"Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience.Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

You yourself need to think logically and try to understand yourself the "core" of the teaching. There are no believers in Buddhism, what it says is believing on something may lose a persons ability of thinking and logical reasoning.
You can add missing elements, your thoughts and ideas which would contradict according to your religions.

Do you ever think any other religion or philosophy will lead you to think in a logical style like this ? Let's discuss