Path: shell.portal.com!shell.portal.com!not-for-mail From: nagasiva@yronwode.com (mordred) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi Subject: Re: Walpola Rahula Date: 11 Mar 1995 01:00:09 -0800 Organization: Portal Communications (shell) Lines: 36 Sender: tyagi@shell.portal.com Message-ID: <3jroqp$ffk@jobe.shell.portal.com> References: Reply-To: rwahl@netcom.com (Robert Wahl) NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com [from alt.philosophy.zen: rwahl@netcom.com (Robert Wahl)] gfuentes@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (G.Fuentes) writes: >I just read the book "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. A humble >little book full of wisdom. Can anybody tell me why Buddhism became a >"Religion", with saints and "sin" and "paradise"?? The core of Buddhist teachings is difficult for people to grasp, since their understanding is clouded by preconceptions, desire and the like. The Buddha, an ever pragmatic teacher, taught people on whatever level they were capable of understanding. Thus he might use Nirvana as a carrot to encourage people to practice, knowing their ideas of nirvana would need to be corrected at a later stage. Most people never make the effort to go beyond a surface understanding, and so their views of the teachings remain superficial and greatly flawed. Also, like Sufism, Buddhism has been adapted by each culture which has embraced it -- this is very apparent in its current migration to America. The deities of the religions it displaced or merged with became components of the new form, and often continued to be venerated as protective bodhisattvas or devas. The distinction between "religion" and "philosophy" is unclear. To my mind, they differ in that religion requires faith and practice; from this perspective, Buddhism was never less than a religion. As for the rest, the earliest sutras mention buddhas and bodhisattvas. While people are urged to practice good and suffer the consequences of their self-created karma, "sin" is an alien concept. Likewise, there is no "paradise", in the Western sense, though the popular understanding may treat "nirvana" as such. -- Robert Wahl rwahl@netcom.com Denver/Boulder, Colorado, USA Standing by a stump, waiting for rabbits...