This has become a raging debate in Thomas’s thread, but it is off-topic in that thread, so I am starting a separate thread to discuss this matter in.
Buddha walked out of his palace and left Hinduism behind. That I know. I’m sure it wasn’t one day he stepped one foot out of the palace and suddenly he was no longer Hindu. It happened over the course of his journey. I did state, did I not, that he did have Hindu teachers. But he left those Hindu teachers and religion to seek the answers.
Buddha did not leave Hinduism behind. Sheesh, where do you get this information from? It is well known that Buddha left his artistocratic lifestyle behind and his wife and children in search for enlightenment. Then he met various teachers on the way to his enlightenment. He tried out various techniques and methods prescribed by these different teachers. However, the benefits he gained from those techniques were not the ultimate and Buddha was seeking the ultimate. In his spiritual journey after he tried technique after technique, one day he was able to find enlightenment.
Buddha is not the first to have reached enlightenment in the history of India. Prior to Buddha there was Mahavira and a long lineage of Jain masters. Prior to the Jain masters there is a long lineage of Vedic masters. There is even a prior to the Vedic masters as the Vedas describe a long lineage of sages going back into very distant antiquity.
The point is clear: Buddha was not special. He was one in a long line of masters of India. His teachings are nothing special either. The methods he taught are Yoga and Yoga goes back 5000 years. Much older than Buddha.
Is Buddhism a religion? Yes
Siddhārtha Gautama was later called the Buddha.
Was he a Buddhist? Well I don’t really know but all of his followers were Buddhist not Hindu.
After Siddhārtha Gautama spent some serious time sitting under a Bodhi tree and gained enlightenment did he still practice Hinduism? No
[U][B]EDIT[/B][/U]
You know after thinking about this I need to edit my answer to the question; Is Buddhism a religion? It depends on your perspective
It has been defined as a religion
a religion, originated in India by Buddha (Gautama) and later spreading to China, Burma, Japan, Tibet, and parts of southeast Asia, holding that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end this suffering is through enlightenment that enables one to halt the endless sequence of births and deaths to which one is otherwise subject.
But it has also been defined as a religious teaching and it is possible to follow Buddhist concepts and not be a religious Buddhist.
But then this would get into a much deeper debate as to what is a religion and the answer to that is incredibly subjective based on ones feelings and experience and to be honest I am not going to go there
It is debatable to this day and second in time and cannot be substantially supported either way.x
Boring but true
I second that! And yes, much depends on ones perspective.
From the perspective of someone who already has a religion, to embrace Buddhism would be to embrace concepts which contradict with their religion, or at least that would be the case with Christianity.
Regardless of what Buddhism is called, I don’t see how it could be practiced by a Christian. It would be like taking on a different religion.
Isn’t Buddhism considered to be one of the Great Religions? I don’t see why anyone would want to deny it’s a religion. If it is not that, then what is it?
Certainly it is not entirely secular like medicine or science or sports. It involves beliefs that go beyond the physical realm and beyond the believer’s time of earthly existence, and concepts like karma and reincarnation.
Buddhism is not a Dogma in its aim Thomas.
[QUOTE=thomas;42161]From the perspective of someone who already has a religion, to embrace Buddhism would be to embrace concepts which contradict with their religion, or at least that would be the case with Christianity.
Regardless of what Buddhism is called, I don’t see how it could be practiced by a Christian. It would be like taking on a different religion.
Isn’t Buddhism considered to be one of the Great Religions? I don’t see why anyone would want to deny it’s a religion. If it is not that, then what is it?
Certainly it is not entirely secular like medicine or science or sports. It involves beliefs that go beyond the physical realm and beyond the believer’s time of earthly existence, and concepts like karma and reincarnation.[/QUOTE]
To be honest, in my opinion, it would depend on what people like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh or a Chan Buddhist or if you could ask Dōgen or DT Suzuki and hear what they had to say about it.
I am just guessing here but I do believe they would all say it is not that important
And Yulaw is correct, I second that totally
So what do those who deny Buddhism is a religion say that it is?
[QUOTE=thomas;42172]So what do those who deny Buddhism is a religion say that it is?[/QUOTE]
Whose denying it?
[QUOTE=Yulaw;42173]Whose denying it?[/QUOTE]
Those who say that it’s not a religion.
SD asserted it is and he has some people who disagree with him.
I would like to know what those who disagree say it is.
To be honest, in my opinion, it would depend on what people like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh or a Chan Buddhist or if you could ask Dōgen or DT Suzuki and hear what they had to say about it.
I am just guessing here but I do believe they would all say it is not that important
Yulaw,
Yes, they would say it doesn’t matter.
Thomas,
It is a way of life, a philosophy, science, experiential rather than dogmatic. It is a method rather than a statement about reality. Prescriptive rather than descriptive.
Oops. Have to go to class.
If there is no dogma in Buddhism, then are beliefs in karma and reincarnation optional?
To be honest the same is said about Hinduism by some Hindus: It is a science, a philosophy, a way of life, experential rather than dogmatic. However, people who make such claims about their religion, seem to think that their religion being science, philosophy, a way of life, experiential rather than dogmatic is mutually contradictory with it being a religion. This is not the case. Many Hindus have realised this, and hence why we now call Hinduism the scientific religion or the philosophical religion
There is no denying that Hinduism has its roots in philosophical reasoning. The Hinduism that we know today as yoga, karma and reincarnation, dharma, prana, chakras, kundalini, advaita was enunciated in the Upanishads long after the Vedas were written. Thereafter arose the 6 Hindu philosophical schools where all of these concepts were investigated using critical thinking divorced from acceptance of tradition, and systematized and developed more precisely. The kind of reasoning that was used by these 6 main Hindu philosophical schools is based an epistemology known as the pramana method which basically means, “How can we methodically know what we know” it is basically skepticism which is the foundation of any science.
The 6 Hindu philosophical schools essentially rejected what the Vedas taught at the onset of their inquiries in order to reestablish the same concepts without reliance on scripture, but instead using ones own experiences and intellect to validate the scripture.
In the end the following pramanas were agreed upon by all schools as valid methods of gaining valid knowledge: perception, inference and direct experience. Any kind of knowledge begins with ones perception of what there is, but soon one realises that what there is, is phenomena and appearance, because our senses and meditate between reality and the observation of reality, so we always get a sensory view of reality as things as they appear, but not things as they are. In order to know these hidden things and the ultimate things one must use their faculty of reason/intellect.
This is where Hinduism triumphs over all other religions, including Buddhism. It has an incredible faith in reasoning. It is the only religion which demands logical argument and precise critical thinking for any proposition. This is why you will find Hinduism is full of discourses of hair splitting analysis of such things time space, time, causation, mind, consciousness.
There are many examples on youtube to show you how the Hindu mind works:
Swami Dayananda: Discourses on Self:
The following discourse, which is fairly long consisting of 11 parts of 16 min long or so, more than illustrates this reasoning strength of Hinduism and delinates how Hindus reason and how they establish their conclusions which later becomes their faith. Anybody who watches and studies this discourse will come up to par with my own knowledge of Hinduism.
Swami Chinmayananda: The logic of spirituality
Swamini Vimalananda: How to think
The above examples are common of how Hindu swami’s/risis give discourses. They are are very logical and easy to follow, they use plenty of logical arguments and examples and their conclusions are acceptable to rational people. This is no accident, logic itself is a tradition Hindus have studied for thousands of years. We have developed the art of logic into a precise science of critical thinking.
The razzle and dazzle of my own intellect is but a dull 5 watt bulb before the 100 watt bulbs of the swami and the 1000 watt bulb of the maharishi. So we Hindus are intellectual people and scientific people. Most of the conclusions known to science today such as atoms, cycles of nature, big bang theory, energy conservation, mechanics were known to us long before, and many of the conclusions science is coming to know today are likewise known to us. But we have not used the methods modern science have used: empiricism. We have used what is known as rationalism. Pure thinking, intellecutalization.
We have faith in reasoning, to an extent which even modern science lacks.
Now how does this contrast with Buddhism. Most forms of Buddhism are anti-reason. They eschew metaphysics, speculation, contemplation or any kinds of thinking. This is especially marked in Zen Buddhism. The Buddhist tries to directly perceive their own reality through their own experience. So the main focus of Buddhism is meditation, detached observation. It is subjective, as opposed to objective. It cannot strictly be called a science because there is no focus on measuring observation and then rationally explaining those observations which is what science and Hindu sages do, but what it does do is scientifically observe the subjective world. It is what Hindus call paravidya - higher science or spiritual science.
But Hinduism has Buddhism as well and in Hinduism it is called Yoga. It is the third way of knowing and the highest way of knowing: direct experience. It has exactly the same focus as Buddhism to directly experience reality through detached observation and through meditation. So all of Buddhism is basically the Yoga part of Hinduism. In fact the Yoga part is true Hinduism. So Buddhism could be said to be true Hinduism. Yet, Buddhism lacks the preliminary stage which is equally as important: developing the intellect.
Too many Buddhists fail to develop their intellect but rather just focus on sit down meditation and mindfullness practices. This is why they fail to give answers to “why and how” and questions. Ramana maharishi, who was strongly inspired by Buddhism, would rarely ever give a direct answer to a question. He would simply say, “Who is it that wants to know” in order to dissolve the questioner. However, what the Buddhists fail to realise that the practices they practice involved deep scientific thinking and observing the world, mind, body before they were developed. Just as the average man driving the car does not realise how much deep scientific thinking has gone into producing that car.
Buddhism is more about the finished product(practice) than the research and development(metaphysics that underpin the practice) in Hinduism, and because of this I find Buddhism to be an incomplete religion. It cannot really be called scientific or philosophical because it rejects thinking. Although the 8-fold path does prescribe “Right thinking” Buddhism has neglected this.
Hinduism obviously has a better right to be called a science than Buddhism does BUT Hinduism cannot only be called a science, because it is obvious to anybody it is extremely religious.
What separates Hinduism from science is Hinduism pertains to the sacred. It worships knowledge. In fact knowledge is deified in the form of Saraswati, the goddess of learning and Hindus have the ritual of praying to Saraswati before attending school, taking an exam. A scientist does not have any deity of knowledge which they worship or hold sacred attitudes to. In Hinduism the laws of nature are all defied: energy becomes Agni; forces become Vayu; water becomes Apas. In science the scientist does not worship energy, gravity or hydrogen. Science has no rituals.
While Buddhism has no deity other than some forms of Buddhism such as Tibetian Buddhism which have many deities, it does hold sacred attitudes to “nirvana” as an ultimate liberation from suffering. It gives sacred importance to nothingness and this is repeated as a mantra. It also gives sacred importance to Buddhas and Buddhahood and Buddha is worshipped by many Buddhists.
Science is completely neutral. There is no value-judgement in science. It is because of this neutrality science is also very dangerous and irresposnble. The science of eugenics is about breeding humans like animals in order to develop humans with better fitness. It sees nothing wrong with breeding, genetic engineering and even exterminating. The holocausts are often called a scientific genocide, because it was based on the principles of eugenics. The development of nuclear weapons is again scientific, because it is simply the application of a natural energy. Science does not care about the consequences such weapons would have for humans.
Science does not deal with morality and value judgements. Religion however not only deals with the moral dimension of things, but it preaches morality to people. It encourages and/or enforces moral living and moral transformation of people towards the sacred. On the other hand, Hinduism DOES encourage one to live a moral life and does encourage people to become morally transformed and sacred. However, its morality is based the law of nature, which makes it a scientific morality. These are general guidelines that have been found to encourage well being of the human and the world.
Likewise Buddhism also encourages moral living and transformation and has a scientific morality which subscribes to the same law of karma as Hinduism does.
Another distinguishing feature of science is it does not have anything to say on the metaphysical. It remains silent on that which cannot be empirically demonstrated or observed. Religions do not remain silent on these matters at all. They make all kinds of statements on what the metaphysical world is like. Hinduism talks about various planes of reality and various entities populating each one. It talks about souls, reincarnation, prana, chakras, kundalini, gunas. Similarly, Buddhism also talks about different planes of reality, various beings that populate them, rebirth, mystical states.
But it is a bit of a fallacy to say that science does not deal in the metaphysical. In fact any level of the universe which is unobserved is by definition metaphysical. But the difference is science needs to observe it to validate it. Religion does not need empirical validation, it accepts it as an article of faith, or in case of Hinduism, as an article of reason.
This is why Hinduism is clearly a religion. It is also why Buddhism is clearly a religion. To summarize the characteristics that distinguish religion from science are:
- An attitude of reverence or sacredness to something, often accompanied by ritual
- Preaching morality
- Accepting metaphysical things on faith or on reason without empriical proof
You discover your true nature through simplicity Thomas…Tree of Knowledge Thomas, remember?..This is what Buddhism tries to accomplish, a mind that is at rest, not striving and desiring and grasping and complicating…Like a radio tuner, a little too far either side of the channel and you end up with interference.The interference being too much information churning around in your head.
What pleased Ishvara Surya was simplicity. Ishvara noticeably grew with it xx
What pleased Ishvara Surya was simplicity. Ishvara noticeably grew with it xx
Simplicity and complexity are as intertwined as the one and the many 
Try not to focus too much on one, or you will lose sight of the other.
It is the other you want to lose sight of:D
Not really, I am trying to resolve the paradox of the ONE and the MANY. I do so by living holistically. Not rejecting a single aspect of my being: social, physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual. When one has fully integrated all of these aspects they are fully actualized.