Articles
Introduction to Buddhism
by Tiongho Poh Mechanical Engineer
Sakyamuni Buddha
He lived from 566 to 486 BC. His teachings were passed down orally and they were only committed to writing in
The Pitaka consists of 1) the discourses or sermons of the Buddha, 2) the Monastic rules, and 3) the Abhidhamma.
The four sacred Buddhist places are : Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kusinara. Lubini is now in
He was born as an average person. This was a good sign because it means you and I can also become a Buddha. You don't need to be the most intelligent ones in the nation like the top 0.000001% of the population to be able to understand the Dharma to become a Buddha. If He was very intelligent, He would have attained Nirvana earlier, because as a child (aged 7) He sat under a rose-apple tree ( Bodhi Tree, Botanical name: ficus religiosa) watching His father carrying out the opening ceremony for the annual ploughing festival, He crossed legs and went on meditation and was believed to have reached the different levels of the Jhanas. He could have continued and practised harder and successfully attain Buddhahood without spending the six years which He did later on.
His most learned disciple was Ananda (Buddha’s cousin) and Ananda was the last of the 1250 disciples to attain arahanthood. Ananda spent a lot of him time serving the Buddha and the guests of the Buddha. After the Great Decease of the Buddha, Ananda was less busy and he concentrated on meditation, attaining arahanthood while lying down. This attainment qualified him to participate in the first convocation of the Sangha with the aim of settling questions of doctrine and fixing the text of the scriptures. This Meeting was carried out, three months after the Buddha’s final Nirvana, by five hundred monks who were Arahants. An Arahant has perfect memory. They met at
Manjusri was the brightest of the 1250 disciples but he was not the first one to attain arahanthood.
The Buddha never claimed there was a royal road to Nirvana. However, He did teach that if a person should develop sincerely (The Noble Eightfold Path ) in the way He described, for seven days, he or she would attain full Enlightenment or the state of non-returner. For more info, please log on to http://satipatthana.org/satipatthana_sutta.html
The Buddha was not an eternalist, nor was He an annihilationist. According to Him, there were only events which arise because of previous conditions. But when asked if the person who was reborn was the same as the previous one who died, the Buddha said it was neither the same nor another person. The self is not constant, everlasting or eternal. It is subject to change, and will not endure as long as eternity.
There are 31 planes of existence, and our human world is the fifth one. This is the only plane where, we the humans can see the things around us with our naked eyes. From level 6 to level 31 are all heavenly realms. From level 1 to 4 are the realms of the ghosts. The ghosts are only able to frighten the humans but are not able to physically hurt us. Otherwise, many people would have been dead, taking into consideration that the ghosts can see us but we cannot see them. The access to those 26 heavenly realms are within the reach of humans who are performing good deeds on this earth. No god holds the keys to those heavens and no god decides who goes there and who goes to hells.
Depending on his deeds, a person may be reborn as a hell being, an animal, a hungry ghost, a human being, a frightened ghost, a god of the sensuous heaven, an embodied brahma, or a bodiless brahma.
Meditation will strengthen your faith on the religion. As you mediate, you breathe in cosmic energy and actually breathe out your defilements. This will help to weaken your past bad karma. You need to perform good karma to neutralize your bad karma. No one can undo your previous bad karma.
Loving-kindness (not carnal love) is Metta in Pali. This Metta possesses a mystic power. A person with a pure heart can radiate this beneficent force, which is capable of transforming wild beasts into tame ones, and murderers into saints. You don’t believe it? Why do you think the insects and beasts in the jungle can live peacefully with the monks, side by side?
Nimittas are the lights you see during meditation. These are mental signs. For most people, they are beautiful lights of various colours, e.g. white blue, purple, grey, yellow, orange etc. Sometimes they are bright and unstable, vibrating or flashing and changing shapes, like the clouds.
Some people also see eye, eyes or faces when their eyes are closed. These are very normal and we should not be attached to them for our own safety.
Please tell yourself that these are your own creations and are therefore not real. Sakyamuni Buddha said it very clearly that He would not be able to return to this earth, knowing that after His era many fakes would appear. The next Buddha will be born as a person when Buddhism no longer exists on this earth. He will practise on his own as a common being and eventually attain Buddhahood and will be able to enlighten others.
For more advance practitioner, within next few minutes after the nimitta, maybe few hours, days, months, or years, ( depending on how well you have practised so far) Jhana will happen by themselves later on.
According the the Buddha : for one who indulges in Jhana, four results are to be expected : Stream-Winner, Once-Returner, Non-Returner, or Arahant.
When Sakyamuni attained Buddhahood under the Bohdi tree, the Dharma He discovered was very hard to understand and He was thinking of leaving this Earth at that moment. Fortunately, Brahma Sahampati came down from heaven to invite the Buddha to expound the Dharma.
Quote:
"Those Enlightened ones of the past, those of the future, and those of the present age, who dispel the grief of many – all of them lived, will live, and are living respecting the noble Dharma. This is the characteristic of the Buddhas."
Unquote.
Perhaps during His previous life He made a wish that for His final birth as a man, He would be an ordinary being, grow up, get married and have children to show the public that they need not shave off the hair to attain nirvana, just like one couple did during the Buddha's time. This couple was both acrobats, earning a living around every part of
The Buddha also encouraged His followers to continue earning money. He said every body must put aside some of the profits for the rainy day (our CPF or Pension Funds today), and spend a portion of the remaining amount for family maintenance, and another portion for doing Dharma, and invest the remaining portion to keep the business or economy growing.
The Buddha was not a vegetarian. The Buddhists need not be vegetarians. There was one fisherman who invited the Buddha to a dinner of curry fish. The Buddha personally went to the fisherman's hut to accept the meal because He wanted that poor fisherman to have the chance to receive the merit. The Buddha did not tell the fisherman to change the profession even though the Buddhists were and still are advised to refrain from killing. The Buddha also clearly stated it was the citizens’ duties to take up arms to defend their country.
There were cases which non-Buddhists who wished to show that their religions were superior to Buddhism, deliberately questioned the monks regarding how Buddhism, that was introduced 2600 years ago could be still valid today. They pointed the examples of Buddhists today who have to cull animals. In these cases, the culling is acceptable because we have to save the lives of millions of other lives. For example, if you come across a man who is going to shoot another person, and you kill the attacker on the spot, you do not commit the bad Karma of killing because you are saving another person. This example was given by the Buddha.
However, if a country attacks another country for selfish reason, and a citizen joins the armed forces, in the process he kills some of the so-called enemies, he creates the personal Karma of killing.
Fixed Karma is committed with speech, mind and body. The example would be a premeditated crime. Every thought, utterance, and deed is a seed that ripens over time. Every one has the potential at every moment to alter the course of the future Karma, by doing good deeds. The Buddha personally said “ If there is no way out, I will not be teaching you todayâ€.
Collective Karma is created when a group of people, for example, go and set fires to destroy properties and living beings. The resulting Karma will be about the same for the future of this group. They will be burned to death in their future live and their properties will be destroyed by others.
Karma means the retribution or reward, in current or future life. Poverty and want are the results of miserly thoughts and actions in past lives. There are common Karma, fixed Karma and Collective Karma. It is the law of nature. Every good action will result in good Karma and every bad action will result in bad Karma. No one can escape it except the Buddhas and the Arahants, whose actions will create no further Karma.
The area covered by the Buddha when He was teaching was about 250 miles from East to West and about 150 miles from North to South, roughly covered modern Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and the Tarai of
The Buddha died at a small town called Kusinara. It was mistakenly reported he died of food poisoning after eating a meal of pork donated by a lay follower, Cunda who was a smith. Some people who disliked the Buddha even said He was poisoned by Chunda. The Buddha actually told Ananda to visit Cunda ( so that Cunda would not be plagued by remorse) to tell him that it was a most auspicious act to offer a Buddha’s last meal.
This was most unlikely because a Buddha or an Arahant could see what was in the food, just like they could see the viruses in the cup of water. There was no way a person could poison him. For whatever reason the food was contaminated, the Buddha knew it because after the meal He told His disciple to dig a hole in the ground and bury the remaining food because no humans or animals could consume that food without being harmed. The Buddha ate the meal because He wanted the lay follower to receive the merit. Eating animal flesh and be poisoned was common during the Buddha's time and it is still common even today just as what we see in the TV every day.
After eating that meal the Buddha became ill but he recovered later on. During that time He was 80 years old. Naturally, He died of failing health later on.
Before attaining parinirvana, the Buddha asked His disciples and all the lay followers if there was any question they wanted to raise. No one raised any question. This proved that He had taught us every thing we need to know to attain Buddhahood. When Ananda wanted to know if there should be a successor, the Buddha said the Dharma should be the guide after He was gone.
The Buddha's last words were:
" Decay is inherent in all things
be sure to strive with clarity of mind for Nirvana. "
(unquote)
After the Parinirvana of Sakyamuni Buddha, many non-Buddhist monks put on the robes, pretended to be Buddhist monks, and changed or deliberately mistranslated some of the Scriptures which were recorded in Sanskrit. That was why King Asoka, crowned in 273 BC, called the Third Council Meeting for the Sangha, presided by monks who were arahants. During this meeting, schismatic monks and nuns were expelled from the Sangha. Between 100 and 200 years after the Parinirvana of the Buddha, a controversy over some monastic rules had been decided by a committee of mostly Arahants, against the views of the majority. The majority group introduced the Bodhisattua ideals, and calling themselves the Maha Sanga, which later became the Mahayana.
The First Council Meeting ( carried out long before King Asoka was born) was presided by Phra Maha Kassapa Thera, with 499 other Arahants, to settle the questions of doctrines and fix the text of the Scriptures, by reciting and memorizing. Thus the Tripitaka was recorded and has been studied and practised until today.
However, this group of faked monks were not going to be eradicated at all. They managed to carry on even until the later centuries when
The Buddhists do not extinguish sufferings by lighting incense and candles, and making pledges to supposedly supernatural things.
The modern practitioner is advised to consult full-fledged Buddhist monks whenever he or she faces a certain doubt. One of the worst misconceptions is that “there is Nirvana but there is no one to attain or enter itâ€.
I don’t know what you call that thing that attains Nirvana. But does that matter? When the frog returns to the pond to tell the tadpoles that he saw George Bush who was holding the most coveted position on this planet, lived in a beautiful and magnificent building. Would the tadpoles believe him?
Nirvana doesn't mean emptiness because when the Buddha returned to His hometown, the throne was still open for him. He refused it and did not want His son to inherit it either. Would a person give up a coveted kingdom for emptiness (nothingness)? Nirvana is the realm where all conditioned things cease to be, ( in Pali : Sankhara-samatho).
It is the complete annihilation of desire, hatred, and delusion.
A person has to transcend the worldly condition in order to attain the supramundane plane, which is free from hellfire, scourging, torture, bondage, subjection and thralldom.
At the moment, you are made up of the physical body and mind. This mind exists because of the body. When the physical body is dead, this mind will appear in a new body. For you to attain Nibbana, the mind too must be left behind. The mind is like a tree. We don’t know where the fruit is. But when the tree matures, it bears the fruit. Likewise, when the mind matures, it bears that “something†that attains Nibbana.
According to the arahants who were present during the parinibbana of the Buddha, after the dead of His physical body, there was the spiritual body. That spiritual body was severed, resulting another body that could be seen appearing from the spiritual body. Where do you think that third body is now?
Sakyamuni was the only religious teacher who had said that to protect other people’s religion was to protect your own religion. He was also the only religious teacher who said that sentient existence was/is dependent upon harmonious co-existence with non-sentient life-forms. He never said that to attain Nirvana, a person must be a monk. During His time, there were many lay followers who attained Arahanthood, which was actually Nirvana. The bliss is the same except that the arahants are not able to enlighten others. The Buddha also never said there was a
The following story will give you a better idea of how the Buddhists train themselves:
Once there was a woman who offered her guesthouse for a monk to practice meditation. She even provided a pretty maid to feed him and clean his abode daily. After many years, this woman wanted to see if the monk really progressed. She asked her maid to request a hug from the monk, in return for all the good work the maid had provided him in the past.
The monk refused the request telling the maid: “ Monks are not allowed to interact with women in this wayâ€. As a result of this refusal, he was chased away from the abode. Was the monk making a correct decision?
For an average monk, he progresses by removing sensual desires, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubts. After some years, he may reach the 1st stage of Sainthood, (Sotapanna) which means he has to be reborn for seven times, to continue his training to attain Nirvana. A Sotapanna no longer believes in self, has no more doubt, and is no longer superstitious. He will be reborn seven times at the most before attaining Nirvana. However, whatever a Sotapanna learnt during the previous life will not be carried forward to the next life as most people would expect. In the future lives, he has to relearn to fulfill the requirements to attain Nirvana. But not every thing he learnt during the past life is lost because in this life or the next life, he will definitely improve faster and would be able to learn better, just like a musician who may have stopped learning music for the past forty years, and if he were to study music again, he would definitely do better by then.
The 2nd stage of Sainthood is Sakadagami, which means he has to be reborn one more time in the human world to continue his training for perfection. Even at this Stage, lust and anger are only inhibited. They may resurface.
The 3rd Stage of Sainthood is Anagami, which means a Never-Returner. Anagami will not be born in the human world or the celestial realms. After death in the human world, he is reborn in he Pure Abodes, an environment reserved for Anagamis. There he attains arahanship, and lives till the end of his live and then attains Nirvana. An Anagami has totally eradicated sensual desire and ill will.
The final Stage of Sainthood, Arahant, is one who does not need any more training as he has lived the Holy Life, and has accomplished his object. He is not subject to rebirth because he does not accumulate fresh Karmic activities. He remains in this world to guide others until his natural life cycle is completed and then attains Nirvana.
An Arahant is one whose mind has abolished all desires for anything whatsoever. He has also abolished fear, hatred, worry, anxiety, mistrust, and doubt. His mind is free. Nothing can provoke or lure him, induce inquisitiveness or curiosity because He has abolished partiality.
The Buddha’s teachings can be summarized within six words: morality, concentration, wisdom, non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion. Every Buddhist is learning to develop morality, concentration and wisdom to remove greed, hatred and delusion.
The Buddha clearly stated that Vipassana meditation was the only way to escape the endless cycle of sufferings. He was not conducting meditation classes to make money. There was no reason for him to mention “only†if it was not true.
The two main types of meditation were and are still Samatha Meditation and Vipassana Meditation.
Samatha Meditation will not lead you to any wisdom or insight. When Samatha practitioners reach the state of jhana, they remain in this state for a long time and are not likely to learn anything. The Buddha’s two teachers Arara Dabos and Utaka Dabos were the best examples. When the Buddha was enlightened, He wanted to help these two former teachers but He found them passed away already and were re-borne as Arupa Bramins. These Bramins could not be reached or taught. By the time their life cycle ends, and they are borne as humans again, Buddhism would have ceased to exist.
With Vipassana Meditation, we practice on the four foundations of mindfulness. We concentrate on observation of how we see, smell, hear, taste, touch, and feel. Right observation will bring forth right understanding of cause and effect.
Buddhism does not confine only to the philosophical and psychological aspects of religion but extends to the field of social service, and the cultivation of self-discipline.
Do we have a new interpretation of what it means to be a good Buddhist? The criteria of a good Buddhist were laid down by the Buddha 2600 years ago and they remained unchanged until today. Are you more Buddhist than the Buddha to change them now?
The Buddha never said He wanted to save every living being and He never said He would return to this planet, but He did predict that another Buddha would be born on our present planet and that would be the 5th and the final Buddha for our planet Earth.
For more info on classes about Buddhism, & lecture schedules, please contact
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www.saetawwin2.org
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About Tiongho Poh 
Mechanical Engineer
102 connections, 0 recommendations, 224 honor points.Joined APSense since, May 18th, 2007, From Queenstown, Singapore.
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