1) Mutation of buddhism
Buddhism has many traditions like Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana.
As it goes, some new sects appear and doesn't seem like genuine
buddhism, eg. falungong. Although claiming themselves as buddhism,
but their teaching is either contradicting with original buddhism
teaching or they don't treat sakyamuni buddha as the founder.
It is important that when we want to cultivate, we should seek a
reliable and at least a dharma center which is recognized by the
mainstream buddhism.
2) Second thing I find is we buddhists don't have a a tight
cohesion. A good example of muslim is every friday, they will go to
mosques to pray, they really treat it as part of their life.
Mosques has become a place for them to socialize, maintain their
faith and unity as well as exchange knowledge.
But when I look at we buddhists, I can only shake my head. Is it
bcoz our scripture is so deep and profound that we can ignore all
the social factors. In this aspect, we need to learn from the
muslim.
3) 3rd is middle path in cultivation. To ensure healthy cultivation
in long term, we need to have faith, understanding of dharma,
practise and some social factors. It seems to me that many people
don't balance up among these few points. Some people only have
faith, every week go bugis burn josstick, but their dharma
knowledge is empty, when asked about why not join christian, they
also don't know how to debut. Social factors also very important,
in the past there are many dharma tragedy happened (some monks are
forced to go back as layman), just bcoz of the lack of it. A temple
should have activities which can attract youngster, otherwise very
soon all the dharma like karma, precepts, selfless will be lost in
humanity.
4) Last is Bodhichitta.
The reason why mahayana buddhism in china flourished for so long is
also because of bodhichitta, they are willing to take up their
precious time to spread the dharma to layman people.
Some buddhist has a wrong perception that they don't need to preach
to other people simply bcoz buddhism is precious. What a wrong
concept. After buddha attain ultimate enlightenment, he went to
preach the 5 bikkhus, not the 5 bikkhus come to buddha. Buddha
knows sentient beings don't have the wisdom to seek the
truth.
Some like to emphasize on self liberation. They are not enlightened
yet but isolate themselves from the crowd, just stay alone
meditating and reading books. The danger of doing so is, when he
take the wrong step, no one will correct him.
These are my 2 cents. Comments welcome.
