Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautama?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Alex123
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Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

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BlackBird wrote:Imagine you're on fire, and a man comes up with a bucket of water and says - here, quickly, let me pour this water on you and you say: 'Well, does it really work? How do you know it's going to work? Where did you get that water from? Where did you buy that bucket? Is it a good bucket?" - That's how I see people with too much skepticism. A bit is fine, a bit is healthy, especially when you're new to Buddhism. But when you're chopping and changing parts of the Buddha's teachings, and you don't believe he said X or Y because of some revisionist history, then I think you're more interested in the origin of the bucket than in putting out the fire.
And how do we really know that Buddhist, as opposed to Christian or some other religion is the way to "extinguish the fire"?
How do we know that "fire" can even be permanently "extinguished"?

Some say that the reason why Buddhism is better than Christianity is that it offers Nibbāna here and now* in this life. To this a Christian can easily reply that "who cares about your Nibbāna in this life if you will burn in hell for eternity due to non-acceptance of Lord Jesus Christ?"


* How many people have actually reached Arahatship in the present time? Is the amount of these something to rely and place one hopes on? :(
Last edited by Alex123 on Sat Jul 20, 2013 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Alex123
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Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:32 pm

Re: Why do Buddhists always revert back to siddhartha gautam

Post by Alex123 »

mikenz66 wrote: 1. What the Buddha taught.
2. What is useful elaboration.
Unfortunately we can never know what the Buddha, if He even existed, has verbally taught , thus we can't compare it with modern elaborations of his Teaching as was written down centuries after his death.

How do we really know what elaborations are really useful in long term and which aren't? Some believe that Awakening takes many lifetimes which one cannot observe, of course. So it is an article of Faith. How do we really know that there is rebirth?

A person can temporary pacify his mind through jhāna, vipassana ñāṇa, seclusion, etc. But this works only while these very brittle conditions are present. What happens when they pass, and circumstances change? I would love to know what would happen to the mind of a great monk who disrobed and became a lay follower.
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