The truth about The Dalai-Lama.

lol even with a definition staring at you flatly in the face you insist on arguing.

A religion does not need a deity nor a God to be a religion. Your beef is with the dictionary, Muaddib, not me.

[edit on 10/11/06 by subz]

Subz....do you know what DIVINE GUIDANCE MEANS?..... Your definitions both mention "devine beings" or devine guidance" as being part of a religion and theocracy..... There is no DEVINE GUIDANCE OR DEVINE BEINGS in Buddhism..... There are no deities, no Gods, or Goddesses in Buddhism.... You just have a need to label anything and everything you don't understand.... that's all.


[edit on 10-11-2006 by Muaddib]

subz you are right, in a purely technical and legal stance Buddhism is a religion, but so is Atheism or any other religions which do not follow a god(s)/goddess(s).

But in practice Buddhism is not considered a Religion but more of a philosophy just as Atheism is not considered a Religion in practice.

It's not a technicality, Buddhism is a religion period.

Hey Muaddib, how's about actually reading what some one else has to say for once in your life? I said a religion does not need a deity, God or a divine spirit/presence/belief/pizza/navel lint/whatever to be classed as a religion. Here, have a few more dictionary definitions.





Notice how they all say the belief in God(s) OR any such system or belief involving ritual or devotion. Including moral code governing the conduct of human affairs? Hell, it even names the Buddhist religion in the definition itself!

Listen, I'll believe what you're saying if you show me a definition where it states a religion has to involve belief in a deity and if it doesn't involve a God it's not a religion.

Dude....every link and excerpt you have given clearly states religions have a devine entity.... The person who put Buddhism in there obviously doesn't know or don't seem to understand, like you, that in Buddhism there is no divine being... According to Buddhism there was no creation of the Universe, the Universe has always existed, it just changes constantly from one state to another.... There is no worship in Buddhism.... Buddhist don't worship the Buddha, it is a goal every Buddhist is trying to achieve....

I guess we are going to have to "label" anyone who believes in the "steady state theory" as a religious person now....

How about "an activity which someone is extremely enthusiastic about".... you are extremely enthusiastic in labeling everything you don't understand, i guess you are a religious person too.....
Not only that, but you are extremely enthusiastic about being an atheistsand have you own belief like many other atheists, i guess you are a religious person after all subz....


[edit on 10-11-2006 by Muaddib]

Did they change the meaning of the word "or" when you were with the Lamas? They say a religion is the belief in a divine being or spiritual beliefs etc.

ANYWAY, I'd have a more interesting conversation with my driveway. Muaddib, myself and the dictionary are wrong. You are right, good day Sir.

A driveway is way too smart for you to debate with...

Since when is "Football" a religion?..... and if we take as an example some of the things you excerpted to "label" what a religious person is, then you sir are a religious person, because you do have an opinion on spirituality. Also, unless I am wrong and you are a deranged murderer who doesn't think on the behalf of anyone, then you do have certain morals too.... i suppose you ahve a job, because one of your goals is to make money to pay for rent, food and buy whatever you desire, hence you fall into a "ritual" of events which you repeat almost everyday to achive this goal, right?.... Buddhist have as one of their goals to reach Nirvana, a state where they do not desire anything so they do not suffer, they meditate, which could be thinking on something in specific, such as a mantra, or not thinking on anything at all trying to train their minds. That is part of the job they chose, hence they get into a habit of doing things, but they do not worship.

In religions there is a belief that a God, orGoddess, or Gods created the Universe and everything in it, and the followers worship these deities, there is no such thing in Buddhism.

Apparently you cannot comprehend this, but still you have the need, like many other people, to "label" that which you do not understand, perhaps to feel safer in your own little world, perhaps because you feel yourself superior to anyone who thinks differently from you, hence your need to label what you cannot understand.

Buddhism is errouneously "labeled" by many including some supposed educated people, because there are many people who follow this path, this way of life, but those people who label Buddhism as a religion, just do not understand it.

A word to the wise...do not debate Cambodian history with me. I have lived there. My wife is Khmer and both of my sons have Cambodian citizenship.



And Cambodia's national motto is still Nation, Religion, King...and guess what they define that religion as...

Not to take this off-topic, but...

Were you looking?

This is true. Tibet under the monks was a destritute, ruined nations of dirt poor serfs who gave everything to the monastaries.
BUT, there was no phsyical compulsion for them to do that, lets keep in mind. The monks didn't burn down a village that wouldn't give them proper tribute.

The chinese invaded independent tibet and are occupying it, against the will, apparently, of the tibetans. They're not even allowing the tibetans to leave, they've been shooting and killing them as they try to flee.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. The chinese represented a threat to lamist authority, and they used brutal violence to destroy the lamists and control the population agianst their will.

Thats not true. MLK and Ghandi were in opposition to the government, but they weren't inspiring violence. People aren't killing people in the name of the Dalai Lama.


[edit on 14-11-2006 by Nygdan]

Lets not all get upset over this issue of whether buddhism is a religion or a school of philosophy or anything else. IN the end its literally semantics and irrelevant. Its interesting to discuss it, imo, but lets not get worked up over it.


They weren't threatened. It was an imperialist venture. That was what communism did, it spread from its centers to its edges. Communism is intended as a system of world government, just as the people inside of a country are supposed to start a class war, so is that country supposed to support the workers in other neighbhoring nations.

Tibet is the perfect example. Tibet was a backwards country where the people lived in near poverty, and what little they could get together for themselves, they'd give to the monks in the monasteries. 'REligion is the oppiate of the masses', as the communists say. It was practically required for the chinese communists to invade the elitist-ruled tibet, destroy the monasteries and religion, and establish a dictatorship of the proletariate, in order to prevent the exploitation of the masses.


Of course there is. Both are religions and both are open to perversions and manipulation and use as methods of control. The lamists had complete control in tibet, their control was so strong, that they didn't even need guns to enforce it, they'd completed subjugated and conquered the tibetan people's culture, personalities, psyches, society, everything. These people were utterly brainwashed into propping up a system that really didn't do anything for them, like most religions. Of course, at the same time, the monks weren't mean about it, and the regular people could join the monasteries too.


There is no philosophy in teh wild magical claims of the lamists. Its an out and out religion, with reincarnation, demons, demi-gods, a cosmology, etc.

This is not a good definition of religion. Just because a group doesn't have an idol or a human-like personification of the universe doesn't mean its not a religion. The muslims don't have any images of their god, their god is the all-pervasive force that regulates the physical and spiritual universe. THis, really, isn't any different from the bhuddists. THe bhudda connected with absolute reality (or claims to have anyway). His cultists had a way for the spirit to become saved from spiritual afflictions and reach a perfected heavenly state. Calling it 'zen' doesn't make it any different than calling it heaven. The mazdeans beleived that the universe was divided into evil and good poles, that doesn't mean that they weren't a religion. The buddhists merely suggest that their religion is the one and only true religion, that their metaphysics are real, and thus people can say 'its not a religion, its a description of reality'.

Of course there is. They wouldn't be buddhists if they weren't practicing buddhist doctrines. A person can't go around saying 'christ saves' and claim to be a buddhist, for the buddhists, christ isn't the physical son of god who's death and ressurection sets up a pathway to clear men of sin during the one lifetime that they get. Buddhism has split into many many factions and sects though. The lamists sect is especially religious, with its monks, church, demons, rituals, etc etc.


They are oppressed now, and the chinese oppress them by forcing them to be communists and use violence and murder to keep up that rule.
The monks didn't use violence and murder, they used more subtle means to gain control. They told people that if they don't help the monks, and live by their teachings, they, effectively, go to hell, are punished eternally, etc etc.

Buddha is not his name, buddha is his title, and it means enlightened. He, according to buddhists, reached perfection, yes. Buddha is not a god in the usual sense, but he does take on human incarnations, can be appealed to, can help people get enlightenment, etc. He's not, de facto, any different than a god, especially since he's actually acheived enlightenment, he's reached the highest position in the universe. The dali lama is supposed to be an incarnation of the buddha, iow, he is the buddha.


You're probably, though, not living in a hut, working the fields to support your master who is being backed by the monks.


Lamist buddhism is NOT representative of all of buddhism. Buddhism is clearly a religion, there are gods, demons, monsters, super-beings, souls, spritis, magical rites, rituals, etc etc. Its not a philosophy. Just because they don't have a personal name for their super-all-powerful ruling force of the entire universe
doesn't mean that its a philosophy. Its entirely un-philoopshical and concerned with the metaphysical spritual realm. More than that, an elite group of leaders has come up with their statements on the metaphysical spiritual realm, and told their followers that they must conform to those ideas. Its pretty darned clearly a religion.

Sufism, for example, is not a religion, its a movement within Islam. Buddhism is not a school of though within christianity, or hinduism, or anything like that. Its a full fledged religion. Its just that all buddhists don't 'worship' a single personally named god, like hte christians worship jesus.

This is incorrect. Buddhism has long been recognized as one of the propagandistic religions, one of the big three infact, along side christianity and islam. It actively seeks converts, unlike, say, judaism or zoroastrianism. The non-propagandistic religions stayed, essentially, in their own homelands. Buddhism was 'invented' in india, and spread across the entire world, because there were monks and mystics and preists who went around 'spreading the word'.


How? The mullahs use religion to get people to support them, the lamists do the same. The mullahs and priests convince the public to give them money and goods, even when they don't have enough for themselves, the lamists do that. Whats the difference? People in pre-occupation tibet lived dirty, nasty, short lives, without any real control over their own destiny. Whats so great about the lamists?
I agree, the chinese are probably even worse, but lets not pretend that the lamists are a bunch of saints. Tibet was like a nation made up of those people that send money to TV preachers.


All religions are paths and ways of life. Buddha said that desire causes suffering. Christ says our sins cause suffering. The mazdaens say that evil inclinations cause suffering. They're all religions. The lamas, certainly, are just another religion.Its debateably exactly what was going on in the actual circles with the buddha himself, but its pretty clear that a religion sprung out of it.


Thats bogus. There are divine beings, and when a lamist dies he has to go through a ritual and do spiritual battle with demons and malicient beings to save his soul, there are goodly and evil spirits in the living world too that have to be struggled against, offered sacrifice to, or have incense burned for them in order to appease them. Just because the buddhists call their perfected state that they are seeking to attain union with 'nrivana' instead of "mr. nirvana' doesn't mean that its not a religion.
[
Bollocks. THe buddha himself is a divine permanent being that reaches down from the exalted spritual world to help peopel attain perfection and the heavenly state, he even makes emmanations of himself and incarnations of himself and his aspects in order to guide the people. Its a religion, plain and simple. Its a religion that just doesn't have the modern sense of a 'god'. Ahura Mazda is the 'divine light', does that mean that they're not a religion?


Nirvana is a superhuman agency. The buddha is a superhuman agency. And the demons that afflict man in the lamist system are superhuman agencies. These are not philosophies, these are theologies.

This is like saying, because mohammedeans don't worship mohammed, they're not a religion. There is worship in buddhism, they worship nirvana and the perfected state, they are trying to acheive it. Thats religious worship.


The mazdaens beleive that a struggle between the evil and good principles created the universe. The greeks beleive it was opposition between love and strife. The christians merely give a name to the force that created the universe. These are all religions.




It doesn't require a technical definition to see that its a religion, not a mere philosophy. A person can follow a particular school of philosophy and still be a muslim, animist, christian, jew, etc. You can't be an islamic buddhist, you can't worship christ and be a buddhist. You CAN say, 'jesus was actually a person that had attained enlightenment, just like guatama', but thats just a buddhist religious interpretation of other religions.
The only way to claim that buddhism isn't a religion is to be overly technical and say 'it doesn't have a King-God'
I mean, we're all used to the greco-roman religion, which a series of gods, and zeus as the king, or the judeo-christian system, with a monotheistic god. But these are just small parochial peices of the entire religious spectrum. Buddhism is clearly a religion, its just different from our modern, narrow-minded understanding of religion.


This is like saying that because the shintoists don't all worship a single named supreme god, that therefore shintoism is nothing more than a 'way of life'.

[edit on 14-11-2006 by Nygdan]

Nice post Nygdan.




What hell or punishment exactly? I have never heard of punishment in Buddhism. According to Buddhism, life itself is a punishment, so to speak. Not literaly but, Buddhism believes life to be suffering.

Nirvana is a very misunderstood tenet of Buddhism. People always say,"Doesn't that signify non-existence?" Not exactly,at least not from what I have gleaned from what I have read about Buddhism. Nirvana is more like an immersion into the whole,than it is going into non-existence. Now, individuality may cease,according to buddhist,which is essentially what I believe as well, but that does not imply that we do not exist within the whole.


[edit on 14-11-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

[edit on 14-11-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Some misconceptions

The dalai lama is not the reincarnation of Buddha! Gouthama Buddha was a practising hindu prince who on seeing the misery sought to understand his place and the reason for such in the world. Like it was the custom in his day, all those in search for enlightenment left civilization and possesion and took to the jungles to meditate. The story goes that Siddartha did this and acheived supreme enligthenment. He then sought to teach what he had "learned" to others. Thus, Buddhism is actually a cult or a off shoot of Hinduism which relies heavily on early vedic philosophy and thinking with a few tweaks and some additions. It was never seen as a new religion by either buddha or anybody else. It was seen as a movement, a cult, etc. The same basic principles still applied. Life and rebirth !
There is no hell only Kurma! To put that in gentile terms "As you sow so shall you reap!"

So if the Buddha has attained enlightenment, he has freed his "athma" /soul from the cycle of life-death-rebirth making it fundamentally impossible for him to be born again, as he has become one with the universe, aka nirvana! Also during hsi time and also after him there are many people who have been considered as having attained enlightenment and they have their own little sects/cults. This does not mean that they have formed a new religion!

The Tibetan buddhism is a different sect that has taken the Buddhist teaching and expanded on it through their own understanding and interpretation, mutating it into something of a quasi-religion. So it would be understandable if you say Tibettan Buddhism is a religion but not buddhism as it is prescribed by Buddha. Same is the case of Zen Buddhism, which developed independently in China etc. The Shaolin buddhists actually train to fight, which if you read buddha's teachings are almost taboo. But this was developed as a product of the surroundings and as a need of that time.


The dalai lama, the title itself has been bestowed to the 4th or 3rd or some such dalai lama(I'm writing this off-hand, look this up if you want to! ) by a mongolian king Altan Kahn, which means the "wisest in the world " or "ocean of wisdom" or something to that effect. The dalai lama used these Mongolian kings to spread their message through out their kingdoms and thus with the help of these kings were able to form the first Tibetian kingdom. Also the dalai lama's reincarnation is supposed to be because they have unfinished work to do and to provide guidence to the Tibetan people. The Chinese a long time ago tried to decide for the Tibetan who the next dalai lama was going during the Quing dynasty but that didnt last long. There is talk that this dalai lama is going to be probebaly the last dalai lama so that would put an end to his office in Tibetian buddhism.

With regards to Tibet being a theocracy, the interim government of Tibet now is a demoratically elected one and the dalai lama has long since ceded power to them and in all probability if a new Tibetian nation were to be put in place they would also be a democratic nation.

These are somthing amongst others that needed to be added to this thread.

The idea of escaping the punishment of existence is what motivated the buddha himself, and its the idea of escape from the perpetual cycle of reincarnation and struggle in hinduism that is thought to have resulted in its spread.


He's a reincarnation of one or some of the aspects of the original buddha, and there are several of them at any one time.



I just don't think its reasonable to see it that way. These guys are saying 'here is the metaphysical system, here is how to reach the state of perfect and non-suffering within and through it'. Thats religion.

Indeed, and perhaps its arguable that the buddha himself, and his teachings to his inner circle, the 'small boat', are a philosophy. BUt even still, I don't know if I buy that, you can't be a christian AND a small boat buddhist, you're either a buddhist, or some other religion, or an atheist. But you're not an atheist and a buddhist, whereas you can be a follower of a school of philosophy and be an atheist, buddhist, christian, muslim, etc.

Sorry to pick on you, Muaddib. I could have picked on any of the posters who've said the same kind of thing on this thread. You're all wrong, I fear.

Credentials first: my experience of Buddhism has been lifelong. I am from a country where Buddhism is the majority religion. Although I was not born into a Buddhist family, I inevitably came to learn quite a lot about both the philosophy and the practice of Buddhism. I even dabbled in it for a while myself when I was younger.

Many Westerners think of Buddhism as a kind of rarefied, sanitized, philosophical approach to personal or, if you prefer, spiritual development. This may well have been the kind of thing the Buddha had in mind, but since the man's sayings and thoughts weren't written down till about 500 years after his death, thousands of kilometres from the place he died, long after the religion he founded had been rent by schism after schism, nobody can possibly tell for sure. What we do know about this type of Buddhism today is that it bears the same relation to Buddhism in common practice as Sufi mysticism bears to workaday Islam, or the ecstasies of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila to ordinary Christian faith. In fact, the gulf between 'intellectual' or 'mystical' Buddhism of the sort favoured by Westerners and the kind of Buddhism practised by ordinary folk in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tibet is even wider than this.

I'll debate this in as much detail as anybody wants to. Just ask me. I have seen, at first hand, the evil that Buddhism does to societies, to human relationships and aspirations. I'd be only too happy to share what I have learnt with others.

The fact is that Buddhism, in every one of the countries mentioned above, is closely linked to traditional and highly oppressive power structures -- in all these countries, with the possible exception of Tibet under the Chinese, it is the State religion.

And it is indeed a religion. Anyone who has watched people prostrating themselves before a statue of the Buddha, muttering incantations with tears in their eyes, offering flowers and lighting incense as they make vows and sacrifices -- often nasty self-mortifying ones, such as circumnavigating a stupa one hundred times on one's knees -- and generally going through the whole sad palaver of ritual self-delusion cannot possibly doubt for a moment that Buddhism is a religion in the truest and most objectionable sense of the word. It is emphatically not simply a philosophy or 'way of life'

And it is an oppressive, demanding faith. The Buddhist establishments of the countries I mention have been in cahoots with princes and politicians for centuries and centuries. They have grown obscenely fat on the relationship, bloated with princely favours and paupers' alms, while the countries themselves and the people who live in them remain, as they have always been (Thailand excepted), horrifically poor.

Buddhism in practice actively promotes religious bigotry, racism and moral tyranny in all these countries. It actively wars against free thought and free speech.

It is, in short, just as bad as any other religion and worse than many of them.

As for the Dalai Lama, he's just another celebrity, isn't he? No different from Janet Jackson at the end of the day, really.

[edit on 17-11-2006 by Astyanax]

I think you mean karma or (if you prefer Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, to Sanskrit), kamma.

Or did you really mean kurma??

LOL

Dont make me laugh! While you may be so ignorant as to call it KARMA (Car-maw) I know that that is NOT the way it is pronounced in Sanskrit, because I can read, write and speak the language!

It is and always has been pronounced as Kurma (kur-maa). The bastardized pronunciation that you so eagerly tout is the first sign of ignorance with regard to Vedic cultures.

As for your other assertions they are too ridiculous for me to even begin to reply.

BTW, the dish is pronounced as Korma!

IAF

[edit on 17-11-2006 by IAF101]

Its beginning to get heated in here, please play nice.

How is he anti-democratic? Is that even an issue here?
Ofcourse he wants to rule the country under religious rule. It's his rightful place.
How does this pinch you? Vatican. It is ruled by religion. If he was exiled after an invasion by another country, do you think he would really 'let it go'? And if he did not, would you say the same thing about him? Get real.


No it doesn't! Where do you get that bogus information from? Unlike the other religions, Buddism is in both theory and practice a peaceful one. But in the case of Tibet, I would (as would many, I'm sure) over look an uprising, should it occur. The Dalai Lama and Tibet have no interest in gaining political or religious control over China. Just give him his country back.


That doesn't make a thread of sense. You contradict yourself. If the Dalai Lama was to preach about Buddhism, and cause an uprising in Tibet, doesn't that tell you something about the collective will of it's people?
According your logic, if someone forcefuly took control of your home, and you complained about it, then you are in the wrong. It is the exact same scenario that you are suggesting.


Contrary to what you have said as him being an "Anti-democracy rebel."
Besides, it doesn't matter who he was, nor his position, so long as he has a high influence, for the West to use him. It's just common sense.

I declare that you have no idea about anything to do with the Dalai Lama or Tibet! What you have suggested is misguided and disgusting!


Sorry to go offtopic, but sound familiar? A democratic Iraq for example?


Your joking, right? Do you really think it is any different? Do you think China really abolished slavery? The only difference being that China is now benefiting from the slavery, The Dalai Lama did not.
Besides, I'd rather be a slave to my own country than be beaten by another, should I disagree with them


Maybe so, but you should also redifine your idea of a Utopia.
Do you have any idea how many people are below the poverty line in the US, or any other country, for that matter. Do you have any idea what oppression you never hear about on the news or in the papers? Tibet was one of the closest things to a Utopia there is.


At least Prokurator got close to getting this one right. It is not Tibet's choice unless an uprising is commited. It is China's. China is not about to give up a massive piece of passive income. By 'ours' I assume you mean the US. Again, your mistaken. You are so liberal in invading or threatening other countries. But why not get involved with Tibet? Tibet is under the control of China. China has trade agreements with the US. US won't hinder their relations for something that is of no benefit to them.


There's nothing unenlightened about it. Why kill someone who is defending their land and their ideologies when you don't have to?
Anyway, It makes perfect common sense. Cause a non-fatal wound in an enemy, and they have to use resources to get them back up and running. Kill the enemy, and the most resources used would be payment to someone to bury him.

G'day Muaddib!
Actually it is a religion. As you said, it has no god. that does not make it a religion.
Omnism is a religion, yet it has no god. How does scientology affect your definition of what a religion is or is not? What about the religions that have several, or even hundreds of gods? Does that mean that they are not a religion? Or prehaps it is even more of a religion, because it has so many?

Nygdan...heh...It looks like we finally agree on something!

Might I add something? I understand that most people on ATS are Christian. Do any of you realise how many people have been killed by missionaries? I am unaware of any deaths caused by buddhist missionaries. I am even going on a limb here to say that there are no buddhist missionaries. (?)



Several of the comments in this thread are misguided, or at most just plain disgusting.
I am disappointed to see that so many people on ATS feel this way.