THE CICAK.com

Explaining the myths and truths of Buddhism

By CHAN SHIJUN

Namo Amitabha

A few weeks ago, while catching a movie with my friends, the topic of religion came up in our conversation. Upon discovering that I was a Buddhist, one friend proceeded to state that he disagreed with Buddhism as it was a materialistic religion, in that its followers prayed to certain gods for wealth and such. I was quite disappointed by his misconceptions about my religion.

However, the misunderstandings about Buddhism weren’t just confined to that friend of mine. For instance, the belief that Buddha is regarded as a God is also quite prevalent among many non-Buddhists. Heck, even my lecturer thinks that’s true!

So as a Buddhist, I’ve decided to contribute the limited knowledge that I have about my religion in the noble aim of fostering religious understanding and harmony everywhere.

So what exactly is Buddhism? Buddhism is a set of teachings taught by a great teacher, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, formerly a prince of the Shakyas tribe in India around 563-483 BCE. One day, while secretly out in the city, the young prince saw the Four Passing Sights: an old man, a diseased man, a corpse, and a holy man. These sights led him to the realisation that everyone experiences birth, old age, sickness and death in a depressing, endless cycle of rebirths, called samsara. He decided he would try to find a way out of this cruel cycle of suffering for mankind, and finally managed to do so by attaining enlightenment and achieving nirvana under a Bodhi tree.

What he realised was this, the Four Noble Truths:

1. All worldly life is filled with suffering
2. The cause of suffering is desire
3. There is an end to suffering, which is Nirvana
4. The way to escape from suffering is by following the Noble Eight-fold Path

The Noble Eight-fold Path consists of:

1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

That’s Buddhism in a nutshell.

And now, here are some of the major misconceptions about Buddhism that I’ve encountered:

1. Buddha is a God

Nope. Buddha was just a mere mortal, like you and me. However, he was a great spiritual teacher who attained nirvana, a way of escaping samsara (think of him as Neo and our world as the Matrix), and decided to teach others how to do so as well. Nirvana is a state of mind, not a physical state of being. The Buddha was no mythical being. He was a real person who eventually died of old age, and his tomb can still be seen in India today. It is due to this fact that Buddhism sometimes does not quite fit into the category of a “religion.� Some people prefer to classify it as a “way of life� instead.

2. Buddhists pray to certain gods for wealth

The very concepts of “God� and “material wealth� are the antithesis of what Buddhism is all about. This misconception arose due to people confusing Chinese deities for Buddhist ones.

It’s true that the Chinese culture does have certain deities, such as the God of Wealth and the Monkey God and so on. However, one must remember to separate Buddhism from Chinese mythology.

In fact, Buddha has stated that there is no supreme, divine being, although there are deities and bodhisattvas, which are beings who choose to delay their final enlightenment so they may help others to achieve nirvana. However, the Buddha has said it is more desirable to be human than to be a deity, as it is easier for us human beings than for those deities to attain nirvana. They are simply beings on a slightly higher plane, and thus enjoy a more pleasurable state of life than we do.

3. Buddhists are atheists, and therefore nihilistic

No, we aren’t. Just because Buddhism teaches that there is no God or Gods doesn’t mean that a Buddhist is directionless in life!

True, we do not aspire to do good deeds in this life, or truly believe in a God, to qualify spending our afterlife in a blissful heaven. However, instead of that aim, Buddhists try to attain nirvana by understanding what causes their suffering in life. Furthermore, we do believe in the afterlife in relation to the Karmic Law, reincarnation, and obviously, nirvana. The Karmic Law is a “cause and effect� law which determines what form one would be reborn into (i.e. as a happy or suffering person, animals, deities, etc.) based on the accumulated karmic points of each person, not only in one’s present life, but also based on all of his/her past lives. One accumulates good karma when one does good deeds, and bad ones when one does otherwise.

So this is our system for the afterlife.

4. Buddhists are idolaters

Because of our statues of the Buddha, one common charge against us by other religions is that we are idolaters. This couldn’t be further from the truth! In fact, Buddha himself has said that we shouldn’t worship him.

We Buddhists are not praying to the Buddha statues in temples. Rather, we are simply paying our respects, as well as showing our gratitude, towards Buddha. The statues merely serve to remind us of the Buddha’s teachings.

Buddhism is a religion that values life above all else, hence its abhorrence of violence and encouragement of vegetarianism. Another interesting thing about Buddhism is that it does not engage in evangelism. Buddhists only proceed to teach their religion to people who seek knowledge of Buddhism of their own volition. In fact, one doesn’t even have to be a Buddhist in order to achieve nirvana and escape from samsara. Buddhism is also a religion that frowns upon dogmatism. Buddha himself has advised his followers to carefully explore and investigate Buddhism to their satisfaction before finally accepting his teachings.

It is because of all of the above reasons that I am, and remain, a Buddhist.

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CHAN SHIJUN is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

Shijun is a sleep-deprived accounting student at the University of Sydney who (shock! horror!) kinda likes his course. He subscribes to social democracy, loves reading, hamsters and coffee. Visit his site.