Can there be a person who can do everything?. Even Lord Buddha himself couldn't change milestones in his life. He was suffering from illnesses, had to pass away as a normal person. I think, no man or other person can forcibly change other persons life. I will use simple mathematical logic to prove that . ( This is not Buddhism, one may find it arguable ). This is proving by contradiction.
Suppose there is a person who can do everything a person can imagine ( person A )
He can materialize a person (person AA ) who is identical to him in every aspect.
Therefore person AA also can do every activity/thing.
Then the person A commands person AA to sit down ( assuming he is not seated ). But person AA also can do anything ( because he has all the powers ) , so he doesn’t sit down.
From this we can see person A couldn’t command person AA because he is identical to person A.
That implies , there can’t be 2 people in the universe who can do anything.
Again think of the materializing. That implies person A can’t materialize a person identical to him. So, no one in the world has got supernatural powers.
(Published in All About Buddhism blog)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Independent Man
The whole Buddhism is about understanding yourself. ( Buddha once defined yourself as the “world”, mainly because all the complexities in the universe is also there.) According to lord Buddha, the things you have done ( good or bad ) carries with you.
The good or bad will naturally reacts on you as the time goes on.
Therefore you, yourself has to understand what is good an what is bad and try to avoid doing bad ( sinful ) activities.
It is NOT because you are afraid of someone, not because you will be punished / questioned / watched by someone, it is because you know the consequences. So, you should be afraid of performing sinful activities. The difference I see here is if you are afraid of doing evil things because some one is watching you, you feel you feel insecure and you may afraid to think of your own. ( because there is a person looking at you. ) You feel you are lacking of the privacy you need. This will lead you to a stressful situation, especially when your master taught you something you should do but you are not willing to do so. In that case you feel guilty about yourself.
Eg:- What will happen to the astronomy if Catholics thought that criticizing the bible is a sin so we are not going beyond gods words on this area. So, in that situation you are bound by the culture and religion.
What Buddha taught is
"Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience.Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
(Published in All About Buddhism blog)
The good or bad will naturally reacts on you as the time goes on.
Therefore you, yourself has to understand what is good an what is bad and try to avoid doing bad ( sinful ) activities.
It is NOT because you are afraid of someone, not because you will be punished / questioned / watched by someone, it is because you know the consequences. So, you should be afraid of performing sinful activities. The difference I see here is if you are afraid of doing evil things because some one is watching you, you feel you feel insecure and you may afraid to think of your own. ( because there is a person looking at you. ) You feel you are lacking of the privacy you need. This will lead you to a stressful situation, especially when your master taught you something you should do but you are not willing to do so. In that case you feel guilty about yourself.
Eg:- What will happen to the astronomy if Catholics thought that criticizing the bible is a sin so we are not going beyond gods words on this area. So, in that situation you are bound by the culture and religion.
What Buddha taught is
"Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience.Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
(Published in All About Buddhism blog)
Thursday, March 09, 2006
What Faith can do to you?
Sometimes Faith is good for short term benefits and "start ups"
Suppose you are a human resource manager of a company. Its your responsibility to interview people and chose the person who is the most suitable for a vacant position. You may interview him. Practically, few hours of interview won’t tell everything. In that interview both parties build up a relationship based on faith on each other, which will lead to an eventual recruitment. ( You can’t disagree with that, that may happen without your intension ). So, faith is good for relationships in our society.
Have you heard about miracles performed by people in curing people?
In psychology, getting rid of phobias and other mental abnormalities. This is what faith can do. Here , you believe in a person that he is your savior and he will cure your “haunted feelings”. It really happens because you are hypnotized when doing rituals to him and you yourself internally orders yourself that you are not haunted anymore, or you are not afraid of cockroaches. So, your faith lead you to cure your illness. Simply, if you have a problem you can confess that to a person where you have faith on him. So, for that short term benefit, faith is good. Again you have to keep in mind, that you are not using his supernatural powers, but the power you have internally ( This is the power which you can command yourself ).
But… Think about the situation when we lost the faith for that person because of a fault in your exemplary supernatural character!
Therefore we can conclude, faith (into some extent) is good for social relationships. Lets talk about extreme faith and the harm in next thread. Any problems with this? This is an open discussion. Not intended to criticize any religion. But you can compare religions. Eg:- What Christianity has and what is lacking of. Good or bad compared to a philosophy like Buddhism.
(Published in All About Buddhism blog)
Sometimes Faith is good for short term benefits and "start ups"
Suppose you are a human resource manager of a company. Its your responsibility to interview people and chose the person who is the most suitable for a vacant position. You may interview him. Practically, few hours of interview won’t tell everything. In that interview both parties build up a relationship based on faith on each other, which will lead to an eventual recruitment. ( You can’t disagree with that, that may happen without your intension ). So, faith is good for relationships in our society.
Have you heard about miracles performed by people in curing people?
In psychology, getting rid of phobias and other mental abnormalities. This is what faith can do. Here , you believe in a person that he is your savior and he will cure your “haunted feelings”. It really happens because you are hypnotized when doing rituals to him and you yourself internally orders yourself that you are not haunted anymore, or you are not afraid of cockroaches. So, your faith lead you to cure your illness. Simply, if you have a problem you can confess that to a person where you have faith on him. So, for that short term benefit, faith is good. Again you have to keep in mind, that you are not using his supernatural powers, but the power you have internally ( This is the power which you can command yourself ).
But… Think about the situation when we lost the faith for that person because of a fault in your exemplary supernatural character!
Therefore we can conclude, faith (into some extent) is good for social relationships. Lets talk about extreme faith and the harm in next thread. Any problems with this? This is an open discussion. Not intended to criticize any religion. But you can compare religions. Eg:- What Christianity has and what is lacking of. Good or bad compared to a philosophy like Buddhism.
(Published in All About Buddhism blog)
The Religion Faith and You
Before going into logical or philosophical ways , I think its better to have an understanding of the way religion affects a person. As we all know our feelings and thinking are highly influenced by a religion ( for most people ). When a child is born, obviously he himself can’t determine the race, language or religion. The child gradually observes his/her environment as he grows. For that the input for him coming from the society he knows at that moment, which is his family. He learns the language their habits which are influenced by the religion ( Eg:- If you are a catholic, you usually pray before your meal ). Well, then if your parents are catholic , now you become a catholic too.
So religion is something you grabbed from the society, which was not with you by birth.
So, keeping that in mind just consider following cases ( I am NOT pointing at any religion )
What if you are used to kill animals as a tribute a person who think he has super natural powers?
Obviously that is socially unacceptable. But you do because of your faith to the god.
( Will discuss more on this later )
What If you believe that if there is a mystery you can simply say “Its some other person’s wish” and just forget it.
It’s the time for you to break the thinking barrier. That’s how people make innovations. For an example Isaac Newton could have put his “Apple Experience” ( which we all know ) into nature’s account we could have lost the great gravitational theory.
( Will discuss more on this later )
So, do u “believe in” a religion which is forced on to you by the society. Or Follow a philosophy which grants all the powers to your self. You decide. I’ll continue this post later. This is not a religion, but a philosophy where you can understand the “World” within you.
Before going into logical or philosophical ways , I think its better to have an understanding of the way religion affects a person. As we all know our feelings and thinking are highly influenced by a religion ( for most people ). When a child is born, obviously he himself can’t determine the race, language or religion. The child gradually observes his/her environment as he grows. For that the input for him coming from the society he knows at that moment, which is his family. He learns the language their habits which are influenced by the religion ( Eg:- If you are a catholic, you usually pray before your meal ). Well, then if your parents are catholic , now you become a catholic too.
So religion is something you grabbed from the society, which was not with you by birth.
So, keeping that in mind just consider following cases ( I am NOT pointing at any religion )
What if you are used to kill animals as a tribute a person who think he has super natural powers?
Obviously that is socially unacceptable. But you do because of your faith to the god.
( Will discuss more on this later )
What If you believe that if there is a mystery you can simply say “Its some other person’s wish” and just forget it.
It’s the time for you to break the thinking barrier. That’s how people make innovations. For an example Isaac Newton could have put his “Apple Experience” ( which we all know ) into nature’s account we could have lost the great gravitational theory.
( Will discuss more on this later )
So, do u “believe in” a religion which is forced on to you by the society. Or Follow a philosophy which grants all the powers to your self. You decide. I’ll continue this post later. This is not a religion, but a philosophy where you can understand the “World” within you.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Why We Used to think logically about thripitaka and buddhism....
Just to show a temple ( chaitya ) in Sri Lanka.
A photo taken at Bellanwila Raja maha Viharaya , Colombo Sri Lanka. Visit Sri Lanka, The only country with unspoiled Theravadic buddhism. You can personally contact me for more information via thripitaka@gmail.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
