Can someone explain Buddhism to me?

[Bellator]

I recently followed some (university level) lectures on Buddhism. I (think I) understood the whole cycle of rebirth vs nirvana. But then they started talking about the doctrine of emptyness, which I think implied that there is no distinction between the cycle of rebirth and nirvana (or between anything, really). I think I'm getting it wrong.

Also, a long time ago back in high school I was thought that Buddhism isn't a religion but a philosophical system. However, in one of the lectures it was then stated that you can pray to "celestial buddhas" who will answer your prayers and perform miracle on your behalf. How is this different from other religions?

Could someone explain what Buddhists believe, what the doctrine of emptyness is, what nirvana is, why Buddhism is or isn't a religion, and what the deal is with celestial buddhas? The internet isn't helping me much in this regard, since I'm getting conflicting answers.

[Vehrec]

Well, as far as I understand, the Celestial Buddhas are part of a system for the lower level believers who can't afford to spend hours a day meditating at a monastery to achieve Nirvana. In other words, it's Buddhism for peasants. Some people aren't going to make it in this incarnation, so they have a lower tier of the religion available to them. It includes a lot of the trappings of other religions, such as temples, objects of worship, and lesser dieties to whom one can pray for intercession, even if the terminology is slightly different.

I'm not clear about this doctrine of Emptiness myself, but a quick googling reveals that it has something to do with everything lacking a self and an independent existence. Or something, I only skimmed the article I found.

[Bakustra]

As for the celestial Buddhas, this sounds like they're talking about Mahayana Buddhism, which is generally more religious than Theravada Buddhism. If they talked at all about Bodhisattvas, then they're definitely talking about Mahayana, which is no surprise, as it's by far the largest of the three major divisions of Buddhism and contains the divisions (Zen, etc.) most likely to be familiar to Westerners. Keep in mind that I'm by no means an expert on Buddhism.

[TheLostVikings]

I recently followed some (university level) lectures on Buddhism. I (think I) understood the whole cycle of rebirth vs nirvana. But then they started talking about the doctrine of emptyness, which I think implied that there is no distinction between the cycle of rebirth and nirvana (or between anything, really). I think I'm getting it wrong.

Also, a long time ago back in high school I was thought that Buddhism isn't a religion but a philosophical system. However, in one of the lectures it was then stated that you can pray to "celestial buddhas" who will answer your prayers and perform miracle on your behalf. How is this different from other religions?

Could someone explain what Buddhists believe, what the doctrine of emptyness is, what nirvana is, why Buddhism is or isn't a religion, and what the deal is with celestial buddhas? The internet isn't helping me much in this regard, since I'm getting conflicting answers.

It's because Buddhism has several levels depending on how you look at it, in this case the most relevant explanation is probably the 3 truths:

1. Existence is a never-ending cycle of rebirth and suffering.
2. Everything is empty, the world, the suffering, yourself, everything is all just an illusion.
3. Both sentence 1 and 2 are true... at the same time.

Hey, it's a bit of a mindfuck, but for Buddhism that is pretty common.

And "the 3 truths" might not be the correct name for it in English, but I can't remember what they are actually called. And while I can't recall those 3 axioms word by word, the general idea is something like that. I guess I could go hunt down my actual notes from when I was in the University, but I don't know where I put them so I guess you have to take my word for it.

Also keep in mind that Buddhism is a very old religion that is composed of many different schools, many of them created out of purely political reasons (i.e. attempting to control the general population, gaining favor from the government, etc, etc) and not so much for any particular theological reason. So one one hand you have all kinds of Buddhism, super esoteric schools who have massive amounts of secret hand symbols, secret incantation, secret symbols, secret text, all kinds of secret stuff which supposedly grant you all kinds of supernatural BS. Then on the other hand you have hardcore zen monks who basically reject pretty much everything in their quest for enlightenment, focusing all their teachings on the workings of the mind. And on the gripping hand you have Buddhist schools who have no problems with worldly possessions, building all sort of giant statues and temples, often using gold leaf, and all kinds of precious stuff.

For the most part anyone who says: "Buddhism is like this" are not saying that everyone who is a Buddhist thinks like that, or even remotely agree with that line of though. Just that some Buddhists think like like that. In other words, always take what people tell you with several grains of salt.

[Darth Wong]

Buddhism doesn't have the kind of uniformity that Christianity has. I know Christians will point out that there are many doctrinal or denominational schisms, but still, Christianity is an incredibly uniform model of consistency compared to most other kinds of religion. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all more top-down religions than other religions are.

There are only a few things you can say about Buddhism:

1) It's Eastern in origin
2) Buddha is a philosopher, not a god.
3) It's about enlightenment, not appeasing deities.

[TheLostVikings]

Ops, the editing window ran out. Just forgot to add: Some schools of Buddhism only believe in the first one. Some believe in both 1&2, and obviously some schools believe in all three. It depends.

[AniThyng]

It should also be noted that in practice Buddhism is practiced in conjunction with Taoism and "traditional chinese folk religion" as a sort of mishmash "religion" amongst the overseas Chinese (and I believe to some extent in Japan and China itself). Frankly there are probably western laypeople with a better understanding of Buddhism then it's so called practitioners because for us it literally is just a 'cultural' ritual then any sort of actual religious obligation.

[Mayabird]

It's a mishmash of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, yes. My mother describes it as "Shinto ceremonies for sad times, Buddhist ceremonies for sad times, and once a year you go to a temple to pray and donate a little money so the monks don't starve." It's not a very active religion.

[Ford Prefect]

2) Buddha is a philosopher, not a god.

And under Theravada, he was not special at all. Gautama Buddha was signficant, because he was first, but there were no particular qualities about him which separated him from anyone else. After all,t he story goes that he was spoiled, cloistered rich kid, but he achieved enlightenment anyway. There is a sutra where he even says 'superpowers and the ability to perform miracles is irrelevant to your worthiness as a spiritual teacher'.

That said, he eventually ended up being characterised as a gigantic badass in mythology; even Sun Wukong couldn't beat Buddha in a fight.

[Mayabird]

Ghetto edit: Buddhist ceremonies for HAPPY times. Happy! Like festivals! Great job there, Amy. Attaway to uphold that big scary abusive mod power.

[ray245]

It should also be noted that in practice Buddhism is practiced in conjunction with Taoism and "traditional chinese folk religion" as a sort of mishmash "religion" amongst the overseas Chinese (and I believe to some extent in Japan and China itself). Frankly there are probably western laypeople with a better understanding of Buddhism then it's so called practitioners because for us it literally is just a 'cultural' ritual then any sort of actual religious obligation.

Exactly. Most people don't even care about the teachings of Buddhism and what the monks are chanting. Most people think that as long as they listen to monks chanting away without any idea what kind of language the monks are talking in, it's good enough for them to go into heaven and all that.

That said, he eventually ended up being characterised as a gigantic badass in mythology; even Sun Wukong couldn't beat Buddha in a fight.

The funny thing about Chinese culture is the fact that even fictional characters that can be clearly identitifed by the average joe as a work of fiction can be turned into religious figure.

[Coyote]

This seems a good place and time to ask:

Is it true that--
Buddhism is as much "just" a philosophy as it is a religion?
There are different styles of Buddhism for just about each country & region?
It is normal for young men (at least in conservative areas) to spend some time as Buddhist monks, and then move on with life (ie, beign a Buddhist monk is not expected to be a lifelong commitment)?

Thanks ahead of time for any input.

[Ford Prefect]

Is it true that--
Buddhism is as much "just" a philosophy as it is a religion?

For a given value of 'truth', I don't think this is the case. I think it's safe to say that some sects are philosophical, but at the same time it is philosophical in the way that all religions are philosophical. Ultimately, most religions do attempt to explain the true order of things, though obviously how they explain this order and what this means for practioners differs. Theravada is perhaps one of the more philosophical religions you could find due to its emphasis on you reaching an individual understanding of the 'facts', but as Darth Wong suggested, it's not really possible to make many blanket statements regarding Buddhism. Comparitively, 'Pure Land' Buddhism holds that it is currently too difficult to achieve enlightenment through meditative self-knowledge, but through devotion to Amitābha it is possible to reach the Pure Land, where it is easier to achieve enlightenment.

So ... maybe? I don't think it's answerable without a pretty comprehensive view of most of Buddhism, which I certainly can't offer (setting aside the fact that I covered this stuff literally years ago, that class was at best a shallow and cursory view of Buddhism). Do we have a bodhisattva on the board?

[AniThyng]

Exactly. Most people don't even care about the teachings of Buddhism and what the monks are chanting. Most people think that as long as they listen to monks chanting away without any idea what kind of language the monks are talking in, it's good enough for them to go into heaven and all that.

The funny thing about Chinese culture is the fact that even fictional characters that can be clearly identitifed by the average joe as a work of fiction can be turned into religious figure.

Well yeah, but no one seriously argues for their reality. It's not at all analogous to the way say, Jesus is a religious figure.

This seems a good place and time to ask:

Is it true that--
Buddhism is as much "just" a philosophy as it is a religion?
There are different styles of Buddhism for just about each country & region?
It is normal for young men (at least in conservative areas) to spend some time as Buddhist monks, and then move on with life (ie, beign a Buddhist monk is not expected to be a lifelong commitment)?

Thanks ahead of time for any input.

For some people yes, it is "just" a philosophy. For others, it is a "religion" with a nebulous "God" that comes more from the propogation of western/islamic ideas of theism and they say they are buddhist because they want to put <something> in the religion box and don't have the heart to say "none".

The answer to the 2nd question is clearly yes.

For the 3rd one, I believe this is common in Thailand, which is a far more "religious" Buddhist society then say, Japan or Malaysia(n chinese), even though Buddhist iconography is common in all 3.

[madd0ct0r]

1: As far as my experience of it goes, Vietnamese Buhddisim (as practised by Kem's family) is more like the Church of England then a philosophy -

It's viewed as a bit of ritual that probably won't do you any harm; is interwoven with older pagan traditions (christmas and eostre for us, ancestor worship and 'the female buhhda' for them)

There is far less pressure to visit a temple regularly, but most people will have a small ancesotr shrine in their home anyway. Since the destruction of other beings is wrong, Kem keeps saying she ought to have a few vegetarian days a month to show willing.

I remeber her explaining her version of reincarnation to me - "there's only so many personality traits, so sonner or later you'll be back"
That said, her great aunt is deeply religious, and her aunt is fairly spritual and no doubt take this sort of thing far more seriously.

She actually asked me if I'd be annoyyed if she joined the temple (like confirmation, not a fem-monk). I was a bit surprised - it's one of the leaast offensive religions.

[PainRack]

This seems a good place and time to ask:

Is it true that--
Buddhism is as much "just" a philosophy as it is a religion?

Yes. Although arguably, this view emerges more from its early evolution in China where philosophy, treated as religion competed with Buddhism.

There are different styles of Buddhism for just about each country & region?

Region is more accurate. The Buddhism practised in Singapore and Malaysia is significantly different from that practised in India, or China.

It is normal for young men (at least in conservative areas) to spend some time as Buddhist monks, and then move on with life (ie, beign a Buddhist monk is not expected to be a lifelong commitment)?

Thanks ahead of time for any input.

Yup. Thailand is a perfect example of this.

[Knife]

Again you have to go back and think about how it splintered between Mahayana and Theravada schools of thought. Mahayana was Buddhism in China that took the notion of Buddhism and ran with it, mixed it some with Confucius (or at least competed with it in Zhou and Han China) with a dash of Taoism. It got very religious, with Buddhivista's as a kind of angle or Saint like demigods, Buddha as a god, mix in the various local religions and hells and heavens, etc...

Theravada kept a lot of the original philosophy, as I understand it, and never took the trappings of heavy religion that China did.

[Duckie]

There's also Vajrayana and Zen which are both very weird in very different ways.