I understand you're helping others to understand Buddhism
better, so it's not appropriate for me to say certain things in
reply here. My point was simply because too many people 'practise'
a faith (not limited to any particular one), wanting to gain
salvation, enlightenment, or hope for better after-life, etc, but
actually have 2 totally different faces - a 'holy' one in front of
fellow faith-followers, and the opposite type in normal times. I'm
not sure what they will expect to gain at the end of the day, since
nothing much has been learnt.
As for your question: again, not right for me to share here.
There are many many people all around the world also back here on
Earth at this special time to help, by voluntary choice. Many of
these people have started their journeys eons ago, and have
already long completed their 'compulsory' lessons and cycles. The
reason for returning will be very very clear in next few years,
even though what I can share may seem totally unbelievable
now. :)
Actually, the core of any mainstream faith is to teach people to
live their lives better and be more spiritual beings,
but taught in different perspectives. As long as people don't
get this, and just study/pray/meditate/chant by rote (and just
hope to get some benefits out of it), but actually learning
nothing, their cycles (of suffering or whatever) continue
endlessly.
Rainbow Jigsaw of Life
Hi,
First of all regarding "a 'holy' one in front of fellow
faith-followers, and the opposite type in normal times. I'm not
sure what they will expect to gain at the end of the day, since
nothing much has been learnt." - I would say this is a good
advice.
However, you're also missing something here - the point of
Buddhism is not merely to learn life lessons. The main point of
Buddhism is to realize enlightenment and hence overcome
afflictions, overcome ALL sufferings (even in this life), and get
out of the cycle of birth and death.
In other words, if you have not overcome the Three Poisons of
desire/greed, aversion/anger/hatred and ignorance, and have not
overcome suffering, you cannot consider yourself as being outside
the wheel of samsara. By your karma, attachments (to any form of
material or immaterial existence), desires, etc etc, you will be
pulled back into the cycle of rebirth. How many can say that they
are not attached to anything whatsoever in their lives (and not be
the least affected by the loss of their kins, possessions, etc)? If
a person is as such, maybe he has overcome the cycle of birth and
death - just maybe, it is not a confirmation. How many can say that
he does not suffer at all in life and is 100% non-attached to
anything whatsoever? Have they totally overcomed the tendency to
identify with things as 'me' or 'mine' by deep realisation? Of
course, owing to past karmas we all (including the Buddha and all
enlightened beings) undergo physical pain and unpleasant life
situations, but someone who is liberated does not mentally suffer
*at all* in the face of all these. If one has achieved this, then,
maybe he has overcome birth and death.
The point is this: you can learn a lot of worldly lessons in
life, but unless you overcome *All* sufferings and
attachments, you are not considered 'out' of the cycle of birth and
death. And the only way to overcome all sufferings and
attachments is by Realizing the true nature of mind and reality,
which as simpo/longchen explained before, includes realizing the no
subject-object division and no solidity of reality. And Buddhism
provides the way to this realization, of course, and many did
achieve this goal no matter how 'difficult' it seems (it is not
difficult when you realize the empty and no-self nature of
reality). This is not what worldly lessons can offer - maybe
through a worldly lesson, we can learn to be 'less attached' to
certain things, but it does not remove the root cause of
the problem - the ignorance of the nature of reality causing us to
grasp on apparently existing 'self' and 'objects' and thus grasping
for worldly existence at a very fundamental level and keeps us
trapped in samsara for beginning-less time.
As for 'rote chanting/meditating', as zero thought says
Buddhists are probably the least 'blind faith' people among all
religions. We understand what we are practicing, and we do it
properly. Most importantly, if we do our practices properly, we
will see the results - we will develop samadhi, and we will develop
insights into the nature of reality and these will automatically
make us transcend our afflictions and sufferings.
Important note: Meditation is not for the purpose of
learning worldly lessons (even though it may very well yield some
level of 'relative' insights). It is for the purpose of developing
insights into the nature of reality, and transcending
suffering.
One last thing... there are endless lessons to learn if we do
not overcome our samsaric condition. That means, you learn a lesson
today, but next day you may make another mistake... and so on and
so forth. Then maybe 10 lives later you forgot and make the same
old mistake again. I do not believe that lessons are accumulated on
the long term (though on a short term perhaps so), precisely
because sentient beings are ignorant, at the end of the day we
don't really 'learn'. We may even - and most certainly will,
someday in a matter of time on the cosmic scale - retrogress.
Hence, 'evolving' into a higher state of samsaric existence no
matter how good it is - is never our goal, for you can stay in that
state for kalpas and aeons but still eventually fall back into a
lower realm. We aim to get out of samsara altogether as soon as
possible - and this is not through learning some sort of worldly
lesson, but realizing the nature of reality that cuts out the
source of self-grasping and desires that is the cause of all
sufferings and rebirth.
Garab Dorje Rinpoche, "Even with 5 Wisdoms, the Buddha was unable
to find happiness in Samsara."
Ajahn Brahm:
Jatipaccayå Dukkha5 – ‘Suffering is caused by birth’.
As shown above, birth is a sufficient cause for suffering, that is,
birth must
give rise to dukkha. Every being that is born will get old, get
sick and die, and
experience the inescapable dukkha associated with that process.
Thus birth is the
problem.
This first link of Paticca-samuppåda is rarely given the
attention it deserves.
It has enormous implications. Before the great insight into
Dependent Origination
under the Bodhi Tree, the Bodhisatta, like most people, had lived
in hope that
somehow He could attain perfect happiness in this existence or some
future existence.
Now He saw that all existence (bhava) is inextricably
involved with suffering. There
is no perfect happiness to be found in any form of existence. As
The Buddha said in
the Anguttara collection:
“Just as a tiny bit of faeces has a bad smell, so I do not
recommend even a tiny
bit of existence, not even for so long as a fingersnap”. (AN 1,
18)
A simile might help. A person born in a harsh prison, raised
in that prison,
who has spent all their time in the prison, can only know prison
life. They don’t even
suspect that anything beyond their prison can exist. So they make
the best of prison.
Those who think positively, because they have gone to prison
seminars, begin to think
that the harsh prison is instead a wonderful place. They even
compose songs like “All
jails bright and beautiful … the good Lord made them all”! Others
get involved with
social service, compassionately decorating the prison cells of
others. When someone
gets tortured or otherwise punished in jail, they think something
has gone wrong and
look for someone to blame. If someone suggests that it is the very
nature of jail to be
suffering, then they are dismissed as a pessimist and told to “Get
a life!”. One full
moon night, a prisoner discovers a door leading out of the jail and
goes through. Only
then does he realize that jail was inherently suffering and you
can’t make it other
wise. He goes back to tell his fellow prisoners. Most don’t believe
him. They can’t
even imagine anything other than their jail. When he says that the
jail is suffering and
the cessation of imprisonment is happiness, he is accused by one
and all of escapism.
Sometimes people rebuke me saying “You monks are just trying
to escape
from the real world!”.
I reply “Well done! At last someone else has understood
Buddhism!”
What’s wrong with escapism, especially when one realises that the
real world
is the harsh prison