Who is responsible for a person's faith in the Triple Gem?

[cappuccino]

I consider myself an ordinary person (well, relatively ordinary!) who practices Buddhism.

This teaching is not ordinary.


Not the ordinary perspective.


If you understand the teaching… you are transcending the ordinary.

[Sam Vara]

I consider myself an ordinary person (well, relatively ordinary!) who practices Buddhism.

This teaching is not ordinary.


Not the ordinary perspective.


If you understand the teaching… you are transcending the ordinary.

I would have thought that it's not "all or nothing". Nearly everyone can understand some aspects, and a very few understand it all. A continuum of understanding.

[Goofaholix]

When people claim to be Buddhists but behave just like ordinary, worldly people, or like just plain jerks, this has an effect on how other people will perceive Buddhism.

If you're putting your faith in other people you aren't putting it in the Triple Gem.

[Radix]

Are you assuming there's some requirement for lay people to promote the Dhamma or Buddhism?

This conversation is like pulling out fingernails.

I would think that even lay people feel a measure of responsibility for how they conduct themselves as members, and thus representatives of a religion/spirituality.

[Radix]

Buddhism is for ordinary worldly people who are often jerks, and one's personal salvation is more important than what other people think.

Then by all means, let's be jerks -- as long as we get saved, right?
But case in point: perhaps one needs to be a jerk in order to get saved.

[cappuccino]

Then by all means, let's be jerks -- as long as we get saved, right?

Hell is for decent people who weren’t concerned with hell


Did not believe in hell


Weren’t concerned with the spiritual

[dharmacorps]

This conversation is like pulling out fingernails.

If you got answers you don't like, re-phrase your question.

Have you read much of the pali canon? Its the texts that are the basis for theravada buddhism which is tradition this forum is addressing. There is much there about faith and it may help you re-orient your question.

[santa100]

But case in point: perhaps one needs to be a jerk in order to get saved.

Sorry to break it to you, but one doesn't need to be a jerk for s/he's already one. "Jerkfulness" is baked into the human OS (operating system) right from the get-go. So it's either one wants to stick with the default mode or at least try to do something about it.

[Sam Vara]

Buddhism is for ordinary worldly people who are often jerks, and one's personal salvation is more important than what other people think.

Then by all means, let's be jerks -- as long as we get saved, right?

Certainly, there's no sense in beating yourself up about having been a jerk. We just need to stop doing it when we recognise it.

He, who having been a jerk, ceases to be one, illuminates this world like the moon emerging from clouds

But case in point: perhaps one needs to be a jerk in order to get saved.

Only if you construe being a jerk as comprising every defilement. It depends on how you define the term, of course.

[Pulsar]

Sam Vera wrote 

I would have thought that it's not "all or nothing".

It depends on one's goal, If it is merely to lead a good life with heaven as aspiration, several religions offer advice on this. But unlike other teachers Buddha has claimed that heaven is not everlasting.

• This is unique.

So why would we aspire for impermanence? All Buddhists claim that they have taken refuge in the triple gem, and have faith in such.
Yet, think of corrupt politicians who claim to be devout buddhists who apparently have taken refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.
Faith itself has to be qualified?
Sam wrote:

Nearly everyone can understand some aspects, and a very few understand it all. A continuum of understanding.

This is true.
But the concept of 'All or nothing" comes into play with a buddhist aspiring for Nibbana, not aspiring to heavens.

• Such a buddhist will have to know "Origination of Suffering", in order to cut off suffering.

Does it begin with physical birth? Was the Buddha teaching a profound Dhamma to a newborn?
Or was he teaching "Origination of Suffering" to the spiritually mature?" able to see that suffering originates or births during mental proliferation, or in the diffused or unguarded mind.

I don't mean to deviate from the topic.
But Sam's comment "All Or Nothing" brought me these thoughts.
Likewise the word Jerk might mean different things to different people.
"Beauty is in in the eye of the beholder"

• Four Noble Truths As Meditative Perception

Chapter 4 in Eviatar "Shulman's Rethinking the Buddha" is worth a read, to figure out "How suffering begins" 

Beauty or Jerkiness?  does it not sit in the eye of the beholder?https://www.csuerfsa.org/index.php/news ... e-beholder
With love

[Radix]

But case in point: perhaps one needs to be a jerk in order to get saved.

Sorry to break it to you, but one doesn't need to be a jerk for s/he's already one. "Jerkfulness" is baked into the human OS (operating system) right from the get-go. So it's either one wants to stick with the default mode or at least try to do something about it.

Unfortunately, I apparently missed school when they taught Adam Smith.

[Radix]

Certainly, there's no sense in beating yourself up about having been a jerk. We just need to stop doing it when we recognise it.

Indeed. Beating yourself up for being a jerk is wrong. As Buddhists have taught me the hard way, one must always pursue one's interests without any consideration for other people or how they will be affected by those pursuits. And, of course, deny doing so. Everyone is responsible solely for themselves.

[cappuccino]

Everyone is responsible … for themselves.

Good if you take responsibility


I always tell others they should

[santa100]

But case in point: perhaps one needs to be a jerk in order to get saved.

Sorry to break it to you, but one doesn't need to be a jerk for s/he's already one. "Jerkfulness" is baked into the human OS (operating system) right from the get-go. So it's either one wants to stick with the default mode or at least try to do something about it.

Unfortunately, I apparently missed school when they taught Adam Smith.

Well, nobody's perfect.

[Sam Vara]

Certainly, there's no sense in beating yourself up about having been a jerk. We just need to stop doing it when we recognise it.

Indeed. Beating yourself up for being a jerk is wrong. As Buddhists have taught me the hard way, one must always pursue one's interests without any consideration for other people or how they will be affected by those pursuits. And, of course, deny doing so. Everyone is responsible solely for themselves.

If Buddhists have taught you that, then my initial recommendation was to find yourself some different Buddhists. But on reflection, it's probably more appropriate to recommend that you pay attention differently. What probably happened is that you approached them with particularly unhelpful and rigidly-held views, which then coloured how you perceived their responses.

So you are partly right. It was the hard way, but you haven't learnt anything.