What makes a person a Buddhist is how they regard the perceived world they live in, including their body: the apperceiving mechanism. If a person believes that the world they live in cannot be other than true reality where things and conditions never change—well, for starters, they are not Buddhists. They’re just immature idiots! They have a long way to go before they even get close to become Buddhists.
In some Buddhist traditions what distinguishes a Buddhist from a person who is not a Buddhist are what is called The Four Dharma Seals.
The first seal states that all composed things (sarva-samskrita) are impermanent (anitya). The second seal states that everything that deteriorates is suffering (sarvsâsrava-dhhkha), for example, the Five Aggregates consisting of form, sensation, perception, habitual tendencies, and sensory consciousness. In fact, these aggregates, i.e., the psychophysical organism, are synonymous with suffering or duhkha. The third seal states that nirvana is peace or shânti. The fourth seal states that all things are empty (shunya) and not of the self or âtmaka.
All this is easy to grasp if we think of composed things as being like the waves of the ocean, or more accurately, the waves of water. The waves are always changing. They are impermanent, in other words. Only the substance of the waves, namely, the water, is permanent and unchanging. Next, insofar as all things are changing they are deteriorating. They are not like they were when first we attached to them. Because of this degeneration or deterioration we come to suffer. Only nirvana offers us peace from samskrita or composed existence. It is like the water, in other words. Nirvana is, according to the Buddha:
“Not-born, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be apparent no escape from this here that is born, become, made, compounded” (Udana).
Being in nirvana we see that this wave-like phenomenal world is empty and not our self which rests in nirvana being also the Buddha-nature. In fact, our self has never been actually connected with phenomena or the Five Aggregates anymore than sand, itself, is connected with a heap of sand or dirt is bound to a pile of dirt.
A home without books is like a house without windows; no man has the right to bring up children without books to surround them.
Posted by: Cheap Sunglasses 2011 | June 14, 2011 at 02:24 AM
You are operating in a world where point of view not peer review holds sway. It is your knowledge based on careful research of the buddhahdarma versus the reckless opinions by other "dharma deniers" and freewheeling opinion makers. In such an enviroment you might loose the battle but never the war. Because once they die and face the first wave of their true nature, unable to reckognize it they will regret every second they wasted in making opinions about the buddha dharma rather than studied it with the same precision and passion you have.
Keep up the good fight. I suggest though that you try to embed some good virtues found in real buddhism as a mystic. You cannot write only about the self every time. Remember that you deal with beings on a level slightly higher than apes. They need something exciting to covet so they can leave behind that delicious banana their monkey minds keep promising them if they stray from the path.
Posted by: azanshi | January 26, 2011 at 05:12 AM
I don't share 100% of your positions on Buddhism, but most of it makes sense from my experience and your writing makes it all the more crystal clear.
Thanks for your effort and time.
Posted by: Alessandro | January 25, 2011 at 11:06 AM