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farhan

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Salam,

I've been reading Buddhism off & on for some time. So, had a few questions in my mind.

1) If atman isnt permanent, what is?

2) What is the final end of human being? And the final end of all of creation?

3) Whats the Buddhist view of God? AS far as I remember, Buddha didnt answer this question. Which kind of makes sense.

4) What are the key practices that differentiate Vajrayana from other two vehicles?
 
Namaste farhan,

thank you for the post.

i'll treat the questions lightly and we can go into more depth with them based upon my responses and your interest if you'd like :)

farhan said:
Salam,

I've been reading Buddhism off & on for some time. So, had a few questions in my mind.

1) If atman isnt permanent, what is?
Click to expand...

in short, nothing.

the Buddhist philosophical position is that all noumena and phenomena are impermanent.

2) What is the final end of human being? And the final end of all of creation?
Click to expand...

the Buddha states that all sentient beings will eventually Awaken and attain Liberation, not just humans ;) as Buddhism doesn't teach the idea of creation per se i understand your question to be asking about the universe. this universe is impermanent as well.. it arose from the previous universe and, when this one ceases, the next one will arise from it.

generally speaking the idea of an end point is based on an ontological view which the Buddhadharma does not share.

3) Whats the Buddhist view of God? AS far as I remember, Buddha didnt answer this question. Which kind of makes sense.
Click to expand...

it sort of depends on the person asking the question and what conceptions they attach to that word... so.. depending on that the Buddhist view would, i think, have to be variable. the Buddhas response regarding speculating on the nature of Brahma was given to a very specific group of beings and thus may not actually be an answer which is applicable to us. in any event, the Buddhist Suttas do address the concept of a creator deity in both negative and positive manners.

given my own understanding and the nature of the dialog which i often have with monotheists my typical answer is that there is a being which believes it is the creator deity and which is subject to karma and vipaka and will eventually cease to arise and take rebirth based on the vipaka of it's karma as such there is no value in supplicating this deity for it cannot do the only thing really needing doing, in this context, which is to help a being Awaken and attain Liberation.

4) What are the key practices that differentiate Vajrayana from other two vehicles?
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there are several main and notable differences betwixt the schools, in terms of main practice differences i would say that the Vajrayana inclusion of of Tantra is the single most significant difference in the practice lineages.

metta,

~v
 
A little more on the God question:

In one sutta a disciple of Buddha went into a state of high concentration and actually met and asked questions of Brahma the Creator. It turns out that Brahma admitted (out of the hearing of his followers) that his disciples thought he was all-wise & all-powerful Creator of the universe. But he confessed, he was not. He told the disciple to go back to his Guru Buddha, for only He knew the answer to the disciples question.
 
farhan said:
Salam,

I've been reading Buddhism off & on for some time. So, had a few questions in my mind.

1) If atman isnt permanent, what is?

2) What is the final end of human being? And the final end of all of creation?

3) Whats the Buddhist view of God? AS far as I remember, Buddha didnt answer this question. Which kind of makes sense.

4) What are the key practices that differentiate Vajrayana from other two vehicles?
Click to expand...



THE PARABLE OF THE ARROW


The Buddha was sitting in the park when his disciple Malunkyaputta approached him. Malunkyaputta had recently retired from the world and he was concerned that so many things remained unexplained by the Buddha. Was the world eternal or not eternal? Was the soul different from the body? Did the enlightened exist after death or not? He thought, ‘If the Buddha does not explain these things to me, I will give up this training and return to worldly life’.

Thus, he approached the Buddha with this question, who replied...​
 
citizenzen said:
THE PARABLE OF THE ARROW


The Buddha was sitting in the park when his disciple Malunkyaputta approached him. Malunkyaputta had recently retired from the world and he was concerned that so many things remained unexplained by the Buddha. Was the world eternal or not eternal? Was the soul different from the body? Did the enlightened exist after death or not? He thought, ‘If the Buddha does not explain these things to me, I will give up this training and return to worldly life’.

Thus, he approached the Buddha with this question, who replied...​
Click to expand...
Now why didn't someone tell me about that 40 years ago? It is a fact that I have to a considerable degree wasted my time and energy seeking answers to such questions as are mentioned here. I did not find the answers but the questions don't bother me any more. I guess that it some progress. I am not clear on the Buddhist teaching regarding karma but I assume that it was karma for me to waste so much of my life seeking answers to the unanswerable.
 
Karma = Action.
Karma-phalam = Action's results [lit., Fruit-of-Action].
Ugra-Karma = horrendous results from Actions performed.

In the Bhagavad-gita, three succesive catagories of Yoga are described:
NOTE: Yoga [Lit., to Link; similar to "Religio", to bind fast] The word Yoga is related to the word Yoke & it the name of an oxen's nose ring.

"Karma Yoga" = Do good acts & Do not do bad acts.

"Gyana Yoga" [aka, Sanhkya Yoga; Dhayana Yoga; Budhi-yoga] = Ceaseless Study of Scripture.

"Bhakta Yoga" = Combine Acts & Intelligence in Devotion to Godhead.

This was spoken by None other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna himself to his Cousin Arjuna, the Prince, on the first day of a civil-war that had brewed for decades prior to the war ---the Gita's 700 verse long sutra was spoken to an Unsurpassed Grand Master Warrior-Prince 3,000 BC who declared, moments before the first charge, that 'He would not fight'.

Hence, Dharma and how to decern what is dharma was concisely explained by Krishna Himself directly.

Best wellwishes from the always aspiring Bhakti-yogi servant of Vaishnavas,
Bhaktajan
 
farhan may have put the OP in the Buddhist forum, rather than Hindu, for a reason ;)s.
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Buddha was born in a Brahmin Hindu caste long before his reformation movement was named. BTW, Buddhi = Intellegence. All Buddhist doctrine arises from the Sanskrit scriptures upon which the Buddha's Commentary predicated.

"Karma Yoga" = Do good acts & Do not do bad acts.

"Gyana Yoga" = Ceaseless Study of Scripture.

"Bhakta Yoga" = Combine Acts & Intelligence in Devotion to . . .

are absolute catagories.

farhan wrote:
Whats the Buddhist view of God?
AS far as I remember, Buddha didnt answer this question. Which kind of makes sense.
Click to expand...

Buddha was the avatara-incarnation of Vishnu ---designed to stop Orthodox Hindu secular common citisens [and ergo, the known world from Ido, Japan to all the regions along the mediterranean sea] from performing "Animal Sacrificing" ---this task required the introduction of metaphysics that denied the existence of the Devas (celetial Demigods) ---since the advent of kali-yuga's age began 3,000 BCE.

2,500 years before Buddha Advent in India, the Brahmin Class of India had vanished, having feverishly entered the forest or mountains to obtain Moksha (liberation) following in the coat-tails of Krishna's departure from this planet some time after the Kurukshetre War made famous in the Mahabharata Epic, and especially made famous because of its 700 verse Chapter (aka, a sutra) call the Bhagavad-gita.

Best wellwishes from the always aspiring Bhakti-yogi servant of Vaishnavas,
Bhaktajan

PS: Buddha was an avatara of Lord Vishnu. The Demigods (or Devas) were the goal of the sacrificers' animal sacrifices ---thus, to dis-continue this secular act (as perfromed by Non-Brahmins), the Devas conspired to denounce the authority of the Vedic rituals along with the knowledge of the existence of the Devas themselves.

Later, there was a re-reformation movement led by Shankaracarya (the avatara-incarnation of Shiva, the Highest Vaishnava, and senior son of Lord Brahma and paternal Cousin to all the Demigods) ---Shankaracarya re-established the authority of the Vedas ---just in the nick of time, without a moment to spare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara
 
bhaktajan said:
Buddha was born in a Brahmin Hindu caste
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and Richard Dawkins was born in an ostensibly Christian country...


long before his reformation movement was named.
Click to expand...
I know; and not by him.


Buddha was the avatara-incarnation of Vishnu
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It seems quite common for Hindus to treat Buddhism as one of two things. Either it is ascribed the status of being somehow within Hinduism or it is dismissed as heretical.

s.
 
farhan said:
Salam,
I've been reading Buddhism off & on for some time. So, had a few questions in my mind.
Click to expand...

If you do not already know of it you may find the Access to Insight website interesting. It is an online repository of the "Word of the Buddha", the Pali canon and is searchable by subject.

Access to Insight

s.
 
Farhan...

1) If atman isnt permanent, what is?

-- the idea that atman isn't permanent doesn't belong to every school of buddhism....

2) What is the final end of human being? And the final end of all of creation?

-- nobody knows. Buddha didn't say. There's plenty who'll tell you what they have been told, but ... they have agendas... The sutras state that when Buddha was asked about "supreme reality" he closed his mouth and stopped teaching... why?

3) Whats the Buddhist view of God? AS far as I remember, Buddha didnt answer this question. Which kind of makes sense.

-- exactly. As you have pointed out, Buddha didn't answer that question. Why? In my humble opinion, simply because answering existential questions wasn't what Buddhism was about. It was more of a... philosophy, to be used by a person to gain... enlightenment/inner peace/ intellectual advantage.

4) What are the key practices that differentiate Vajrayana from other two vehicles?

-- Tantra, and reliance on a guru. IMHO...
 
Re: Questions
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
Buddha was born in a Brahmin Hindu caste
Click to expand...
Originally Posted by bhaktajan
Buddha was born in a Brahmin Hindu caste

and Richard Dawkins was born in an ostensibly Christian country...

What significance is this? Buddha is known to Hindu Scholars and hindu history as a direct reformer of the Hindu-Brahmin ruling class ---making ashram life approachable to the common masses.


long before his reformation movement was named.
Click to expand...
long before his reformation movement was named.
I know; and not by him.
Again, Buddha is known to Hindu Scholars and hindu history as a direct reformer of the Hindu-Brahmin ruling class ---making ashram life approachable to the common masses.



Buddha was the avatara-incarnation of Vishnu
Click to expand...
Buddha was the avatara-incarnation of Vishnu
It seems quite common for Hindus to treat Buddhism as one of two things. Either it is ascribed the status of being somehow within Hinduism or it is dismissed as heretical.

Buddha is known as both Within Hindusim ---Because it is non-other than "Advaita" monism ---the sanskrit text and the ancient personalities in those sutra are common to both Buddhism and Hinduism.

Heretical is not applicable, since it is outside Brahminical Ritual and family tradition ---which is automatically outside the preview of Non-Brahmins and thus non-Brahmins are not made privy to such estoteric 'Tradesman's Guild-like' knowledge that only Brahmins are allowed to know. There are no philosophical competitivness between Buddhist and Hindu philosophies.

Buddism in India is virtually the same as advaita-ashram's daily practices yet w/o the Hindu iconography . . . yet, too Buddist ashrams will partake of iconography, depending on where the ashram's linage originates.

Similar to a Chinese kung-fu school incontrast with a Japanese Karate Class room's decorations and salutations.
 
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