Buddhism?

Da_iMac_Daddy

Da_iMac_Daddy

Not-so-Neo-DumbA$$
I've been reading about Buddhism lately and many books and internet resources talk about using meditation on the path to enlightenment. Anyway I want to try meditating but I can't find much information on it. I've checked out Buddhanet.net and I didn't really find anything maybe I'm not looking in the right place. Any help would be appreciated.

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SN: Sublime Nate
 
I liked the book "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Zen Living" ... you can get it used at Amazon for around 10 bucks, or your local library might have it.
 
Keep in mind that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion. You can be a Buddhist Muslim, a Buddhist Christian, a Buddhist Jew, a Buddhist Shinto, a Buddhist atheist, or whatever you like. Just in case anybody brings it up.
 
Wow, really? huh. You know, calling yourself a "Buddhist Christian" or a "Buddhist whatever" is bound to piss off at least a few people of those religions.

oh well
 
Originally posted by adambyte
Wow, really? huh. You know, calling yourself a "Buddhist Christian" or a "Buddhist whatever" is bound to piss off at least a few people of those religions.
Click to expand...

Calling oneself a member of ANY religion is bound to piss off at least a few people of other religions or those that espouse no religion.

~Peace
 
There are several brands of meditation out there that serve different needs and people. It is also not necessarily a non-western thing as is often presented, the vocabulary is just different. For instance in the Christian tradition the practice of religious contemplation and things like saying the rosary are exact parallels to meditation in the eastern tradition.

This parallel even goes so far as to reach the same ends in many ways. Again the terminology is different but they are the same.

The christian version: The result of focused contemplation is to become closer to god and achieve a deeper understanding and possibly a state of rapture.

The eastern version: The result of focused meditation is to transcend the material world to a plane to higher understanding and possibly the state of bliss.

Now according the the tradition there will be specific words like samsara and samti in the second version but that is not really important.

One "brand" of meditation that I particularly like is Vipassana. There is a nice introduction called Mindfulness in Plain English you can read online here .

-Eric
 
Arden, I disagree with you. My aunt is now a Buddhist (she just got her name this year) and she left Christianity for it. My understanding is that it is just as much a religion as Christianity, Hinduism, Muslim, etc. I'm probably wrong, but...
 
Thank you all for you input. I would like to discuss Buddhism more but I don't know where to start asking questions. If you guys wouldn't mind giving me a shove in the right direction I would love to participate in an open discussion about it.
 
http://www.buddhism.net/ Although it seems a lot more like they're trying to sell you something
http://www.buddhism.org/

Dlloyd: Your aunt may have left Christianity for Buddhism, but you can practice Buddhism and still practice Christianity. Like I said, it's a philosphy for living your life, not a religion in which you pray to some higher being.
 
How about reading a book about real science, and stop deluding yourself with the disease of religious thinking...
 
Originally posted by habilis
How about reading a book about real science, and stop deluding yourself with the disease of religious thinking...
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Some philosopher (I forgot which) had the theory that science is just another reason for believing something, just like faith.... as if, we will never know the real way to "know" something, because science could be just as fake as religion.

So who the hell "knows?"
 
How about reading a book about real science, and stop deluding yourself with the disease of religious thinking...
Click to expand...
I wholeheartedly agree!

Buddhism actually IS a real full-fledged religion. The fact that they may not have an organisation or supreme being comparable to the judaic/islamic/christian religion does not entail that it is not a religion.
If you disagree, arden, I would like to see some reasons.
Buddhism has its own mystical founder, holy men, theories about what is Good, the afterlife, divinities, human souls, temples, etc. What does it lack to be called religion by you?

I think nowadays Buddhism has more religiousness than the judaic/islamic/christian tradition.
 
There is a lot of truth in most of this thread's posts.

Buddhism can be practised as a religion, as it is in some parts of South-East Asia. It can also be considered as nothing more than a philosophy of life, idea est a way to act and live. While religion worries about what happens on Earth and after(life), Buddhism can be taken as a very materialistic doctrin of how to live on Earth only. It is not a religion in the holistic sense of the term 'religion'.

However, and Cat is right, religio is the Latin word for 'connecting, bonding'. Religion is about communication with someone, something, as you like (as a confirmed atheist, I can't tell you more about that). And Buddhism do connects you to some other conscience, in fact, Buddha. Meditation is the way to reach a 'superior' mind level where you can feel some Buddha vibes (please pardon this very poor expression, I hope you see what I mean).

Habilis says: go back to science. Why not, after all. But beware, science and religion are playing in the same playground. Science has nothing to do with faith, religion has nothing to do with facts.

iMac Daddy: imagine your heart is a big sponge and that every breath you take brings back all the blood to it, cleans it and then lets it flow back to your whole body. Take long, slow, deep breathes. Try to concentrate on your blood traffic.
 
I was so tempted to say something like that... heh :p
Wouldn't that be - your dogma got run over by my karma? :D
 
I'm pretty sure that's what I said.

Thanks, Toast, I laughed when I saw it, too.
 
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