The intention of having this topic in writing, came after some reflections on the questions about Buddhism that my surrounding friends posted every now and then. If there are views that are not in accordance to the Teachings, please bear with me as it is due to my lack of understanding.
Buddhism is commonly regarded as a religion by the general populace. How do we define a religion? From what we can gather in our daily lives, a religion is usually made out to be a belief in and reverence for a creator and governor of the universe. It can also be seen as a personal or institutionalized system with its ways of worships made on the same beliefs.
Based on such a definition, can we look upon Buddhism as a religion? Before we jump into any conclusion, it will be best if we have a better understanding of Buddhism and its origins.
Buddhism has its origins in India from a monk named Gautama who attained the Great Awakening in his thirties. Right after attaining enlightenment, a man who was greatly impressed by his radiance, went up and asked, "Who are you? Are you a man or are you a god?". Monk Gautama replied, "I'm neither. I'm awake." Thereafter, he was known as the Buddha, meaning "One who has Awoke".
In his first discourse that he delivered (also one of the most important discourses he made), he talked about the Four Noble Truths. They are
- There is suffering;
- There is a cause of suffering;
- There is cessation of suffering;
- There is a path leading to the cessation of suffering.
To awaken to the truth about this conditioned world and to end suffering, one must uproot ignorance as the roots of suffering lie in ignorance itself. How do we do it then? In Buddhism, to uproot ignorance, one leads the Noble Eightfold Path which entails the following
- Right Views
- Right Thoughts
- Right Speech
- Right Action
- Right Livelihood
- Right Mindfulness
- Right Effort
- Right Concentration
When we talk about ignorance in Buddhism, we mean to say that one takes to believing what is impermanent to be permanent and non-self to be self. This is also where many starts to hear about emptiness. Emptiness in Buddhism is not just being empty but it is to mean that all is empty of a independent self, there is non-self, there is dependent co-arising.
As the Buddha has put it nicely, "This is because that is. That is because this is. This is not because that is not. That is not because this is not." For if there is a a independent self, it will not need to grow, to interact with the rest of this world thus it cannot be known to us. As such, it is necessary to uproot such false views for liberation, total freedom.
Furthermore it is also important to note that Buddha believes that everyone is liable for their own actions and conduct, most importantly, their own liberation. He dismissed the idea that there is an ultimate creator for if there is, then there would be no recourse for those who did great wrongs. And that there are murderers, thieves, rapists and evil-doers are at no fault and wrong as they are not here on their own intentions but they are here for the only reason that they are created to do wrong in the first place by this ultimate creator.
Furthermore the Buddha has chosen to remain silent on several occasions when he was posed with questions that revolves around the topic of an eternal world or eternal soul. He liken the people who asked such questions to someone who has been wounded by an arrow.
Instead of treating and taking care of the wound immediately, the wounded choose to first find out, where did the arrow come from, who shot it, what was the texture of the arrowhead and what wood is the arrow made of and refusing treatment till these questions are answered. Such questions do not deserve our attention as the answers will not bring one closer to enlightenment. Rather cultivation of oneself for liberation is far more important than questions on the metaphysical.
There is so much more to Buddhism and i have barely scratched on it. I will be more than glad to share more about it but in the meantime, think about it, what about your views on Buddism now - Is Buddhism a religion or is it something else or more? =)
QY, my good old secondary school friend, was having her training at Park View Square and we met each other for lunch. It was a good lunch and to top it up, we had an excellent conversation about our personal views on having a well balanced life.
What is a well balanced life? I'm sure everyone of us has a common answer for it. It is the sort of life that we lead in order to bring joy and happiness into the various aspects of everyday living. Some of the main aspects being spiritual, social, intellectual and work.
Of course, everyone is unique and so places different emphasis on each single aspect of their life. There is no right and wrong weightage nor is there a standard amount of attention that one should place for each. As long as it brings about temporal and ultimate happiness, then one can consider that the current way that one leads their life is a good way. If it brings about suffering in our life, then we should reflect and try to reorganise our life style.
During our conversation, we reached a common understanding and i would like to draw your attention to this fact. The fact that we tend to neglect the social aspect of our life. It seems that most metropolitans living in a fast paced city tend to spend very little quality time with their family and friends. This is a well known fact and it is hardly healthy at all.
For simplification purposes, let's look at the average life of an working adult working from 9 to 6 during the weekdays and assuming we rests an average of 8 hours per day. On a normal working day, that is a total of 17 hours gone, leaving you with 7 hours. Take away 2 or 3 hours for travelling time to and fro, we probably have about 4 hours left. 4 hours left each day to do whatever is required to fulfill your social, intellectual and spiritual aspects of living. Seems hardly enough especially when we have to make up for the other 3 main aspects of our life.
We might argue that we have the whole of our weekend for the developing and fulfillment of all our other commitments. Giving us a total of 32 waking hours for the weekends and a total of 52 hours per week. That works out to be just slightly under half of our waking time (112 hours) per week. Is that enough? Some might say yes and some might say no. It's really up to the individual. But to me, if everything being equal, we are spending less than 50% of our time on 75% makeup of our life and more than 50% on 25% of our life's makeup.
Since we know that we might already be living an unbalanced lifestyle, do we really want to make it worse by getting our priorities wrong? Should we not pay more attention to some other things in our life that we may be neglecting all these while especially people like loved ones (parents, siblings, friends,etc...) ~ and i cannot stress more than enough ~ the study of our spiritual life so that we may lead our life with our surroundings in a more harmonious relationship (this is definitely lacking in a lot of us including myself).
I wish all of you well in finding the true path of your life and that you and your loved ones may always dwell in peace, joy and happiness! =)
