I just deleted the thread about Buddhism as the best religion.
If you are wondering why, Aik TC informed me that it is a hoax. General Zhaoyun said:
When you revere Buddhism to the extent of attachment, you tend to glorify it to the point of creating hoax.
Buddha has taught us not to be attached even to Buddhism or the Buddha
itself or even be attached towards enlightenment. Yet, the truth is that
attachment is as equal as to a false image in front of us, attachment
is like a wall blinding us from the real truth and blinds us from seeing
the truth of phenomenon.
Just take this incidence as a case study for understanding Buddha's teaching.
Buddhism teaches us not to see things from what it perceive to be, but
from whether it contributes to a well-being or wholesome doing of the
world.
Even if such an award exist and such award was given to the Buddhism world, it's correct that all buddhist will not want it, as it's against Buddha's teaching.
This reminds me of a dream I had another day back. (Lately I had a lot
of meaningful, auspicious and very accurate prophetic dreams nowadays,
maybe the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas gave me their blessings - which
happened before I know - so I am grateful to them)
In the dream, I was driving past and saw a religious banner. The
religious banner is about charity, about goodness.... it was nothing
pretentious, nothing about promoting their own religion in any way, and
nothing about using fear tactics to convert people!
I realized that true religions doesn't advertise itself with anything
pretentious.... but naturally demonstrates itself as sincere, genuine,
and of great qualities... of great compassion, generosity, kindness.
That is when you truly shine of your own accord and not through
pretentious advertisement.
When I woke up, I was reminded of what the Buddha said:
"There are these ten topics of [proper] conversation. Which ten? Talk on
modesty, on contentment, on seclusion, on non-entanglement, on arousing
persistence, on virtue, on concentration, on discernment, on release,
and on the knowledge & vision of release. These are the ten topics
of conversation. If you were to engage repeatedly in these ten topics of
conversation, you would outshine even the sun & moon, so mighty, so
powerful -- to say nothing of the wanderers of other sects."
-- AN X.69
The Dalai Lama also said the same thing.
Narated by Leonardo Boff:
In a round table discussion about religion and freedom in which Dalai
Lama and myself were participating at recess I maliciously, and also
with interest,
asked him:
“Your holiness, what is the best religion?”
I thought he would say: “The Tibetan Buddhism” or “The oriental religions, much older than Chritianity”
Dalai Lama paused, smiled and looked me in the eyes ….
which surprised me because I knew of the malice contained in my question.
He answered:
“The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God.
It is the one that makes you a better person.”
To get out of my embarassment with such a wise answer, I asked:
“What is it that makes me better?”
He responded:
“Whatever makes you
more compassionate,
more sensible,
more detached,
more loving,
more humanitarian,
more responsible,
more ethical.”
“The religion that will do that for you is the best religion”
I was silent for a moment, marvelling and even today thinking of his wise and irrefutable response:
"I am not interested, my friend, about your religión or if you are
religious or not. What really is important to me is your behaviour in
front of your peers, family, work, community, and in front of the
world.”
“Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts.”
“The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics. It is
also of human relations. If I act with goodness, I will receive
goodness. If I act with eviI, I will get evil.”
“What our grandparents told us is the pure truth. You will always have
what you desire for others. Being happy is not a matter of destiny. It
is a matter of options.”
When I read this, I prayed to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to bless me
with the wisdom and skillful means of the Dalai Lama. Certainly the
Dalai Lama must be a great bodhisattva. How perfectly he understands
sentient beings mind, how perfected his skillful means are, and how
wonderful and true his answers are.
Instead of saying Buddhism is the best religion, I would say Buddhism is the ultimate truth of reality.
Originally posted by Dawnfirstlight:Instead of saying Buddhism is the best religion, I would say Buddhism is the ultimate truth of reality.
I would say Buddhism is a set of teachings which best points to the nature of reality.
I have no attachment to Buddhism but I find it impressive, informative and down to earth. It is an eye opener to know that in Buddhism all the spirits are not regarded as demons.
yea, evil beings can also be transform to good beings. beings are evil due to greed, aversion, ego, delusion and folly.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:"There are these ten topics of [proper] conversation. Which ten? Talk on modesty, on contentment, on seclusion, on non-entanglement, on arousing persistence, on virtue, on concentration, on discernment, on release, and on the knowledge & vision of release. These are the ten topics of conversation. If you were to engage repeatedly in these ten topics of conversation, you would outshine even the sun & moon, so mighty, so powerful -- to say nothing of the wanderers of other sects."
Could you give examples of the 10 topics of proper conversation? I do not understand about some of their meanings.
--
Dalai Lama is respectful.
--
Originally posted by Beautiful951:Could you give examples of the 10 topics of proper conversation? I do not understand about some of their meanings.
Means you do not talk about useless things.... or idle talk.
You talk about things that are practical, helps in your practice, helps in developing good qualities of mind, helps in developing virtues, helps in developing samadhi, helps in developing insight.