I just deleted the thread about Buddhism as the best
religion.
If you are wondering why, Aik TC informed me that it is a hoax.
General Zhaoyun said:
When you revere Buddhism to the extent of attachment, you
tend to glorify it to the point of creating hoax.
Buddha has taught us not to be attached even to Buddhism or the
Buddha itself or even be attached towards enlightenment. Yet, the
truth is that attachment is as equal as to a false image in front
of us, attachment is like a wall blinding us from the real truth
and blinds us from seeing the truth of phenomenon.
Just take this incidence as a case study for understanding Buddha's
teaching.
Buddhism teaches us not to see things from what it perceive to be,
but from whether it contributes to a well-being or wholesome doing
of the world.
Even if such an award exist and such award was given to the
Buddhism world, it's correct that all buddhist will not want it, as
it's against Buddha's teaching.
This reminds me of a dream I had another day back. (Lately I had
a lot of meaningful, auspicious and very accurate prophetic dreams
nowadays, maybe the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas gave me their
blessings - which happened before I know - so I am grateful to
them)
In the dream, I was driving past and saw a religious banner. The
religious banner is about charity, about goodness.... it was
nothing pretentious, nothing about promoting their own religion in
any way, and nothing about using fear tactics to convert
people!
I realized that true religions doesn't advertise itself with
anything pretentious.... but naturally demonstrates itself as
sincere, genuine, and of great qualities... of great compassion,
generosity, kindness. That is when you truly shine of your own
accord and not through pretentious advertisement.
When I woke up, I was reminded of what the Buddha said:
"There are these ten topics of [proper] conversation. Which ten?
Talk on modesty, on contentment, on seclusion, on non-entanglement,
on arousing persistence, on virtue, on concentration, on
discernment, on release, and on the knowledge & vision of
release. These are the ten topics of conversation. If you were to
engage repeatedly in these ten topics of conversation, you would
outshine even the sun & moon, so mighty, so powerful -- to say
nothing of the wanderers of other sects."
-- AN X.69
The Dalai Lama also said the same thing.
Narated by Leonardo Boff:
In a round table discussion about religion and freedom in which
Dalai Lama and myself were participating at recess I maliciously,
and also with interest,
asked him:
“Your holiness, what is the best religion?”
I thought he would say: “The Tibetan Buddhism” or “The oriental
religions, much older than Chritianity”
Dalai Lama paused, smiled and looked me in the eyes ….
which surprised me because I knew of the malice contained in my
question.
He answered:
“The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God.
It is the one that makes you a better person.”
To get out of my embarassment with such a wise answer, I
asked:
“What is it that makes me better?”
He responded:
“Whatever makes you
more compassionate,
more sensible,
more detached,
more loving,
more humanitarian,
more responsible,
more ethical.”
“The religion that will do that for you is the best religion”
I was silent for a moment, marvelling and even today thinking of
his wise and irrefutable response:
"I am not interested, my friend, about your religión or if you are
religious or not. What really is important to me is your behaviour
in front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of
the world.”
“Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our
thoughts.”
“The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It
is also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive
goodness. If I act with eviI, I will get evil.”
“What our grandparents told us is the pure truth. You will always
have what you desire for others. Being happy is not a matter of
destiny. It is a matter of options.”
When I read this, I prayed to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to bless
me with the wisdom and skillful means of the Dalai Lama. Certainly
the Dalai Lama must be a great bodhisattva. How perfectly he
understands sentient beings mind, how perfected his skillful means
are, and how wonderful and true his answers are.