Table of Content: HOW TO RAISE A RESILIENT KID: I AM NOT RIGHT BUT THAT’S OK
We must live harmoniously based on the commonalities (such as compassion) between religions instead of fighting over the differences. There are many misunderstanding between believers of different religions and these may lead to conflicts. The misunderstanding are due to ignorance, refusing to understand each other, or ill-intention of preachers to outright distorting the contents of other religions. Karen Armstrong was a Roman Catholic nun. I like her book on Buddha, in particular. It is so honest, and has no bias; unlike other books written by Christians who try to “Christianize” other religions and philosophies, viewing them through Christian’s lens or interpret them according to the concepts of Christianity. She has also written many other books such as “The First Christian: Saint Paul’s Impact on Christianity”, “Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World”, “Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet”, “A History of God”, “The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam”, etc. She is so open-minded. Some religious authorities forbid believers from reading the sacred texts of other religions, fearing that they will be proselytized. Some religious authorities forbid non-believers from writing about the religion. The fear is a sign of insecurity, or lack of confident in their God, contrary to their strong faith in the almighty God. I don’t believe this is the original teaching of the prophets.
Both Buddha and Jesus preached love, peace, non-violence, and compassion. I don’t think they disagree with each other on anything, because everything else is secondary. There are surely many differences between the two teachings, but each will respect the right to free-speech, the right to their own opinions, and not get offended or accuse the other as being wrong. It is the fault of believers who want to pick a fight over religions which created disagreements, conflicts, violence, and fears. Although everybody is “protected” by the laws, non-believers fear being persecuted by believers, because believers tend to take the laws into their own hand. Right of free-speech “guaranteed” by the laws is meaningless if you have to self-censor before you speak due to fear of being persecuted by the public.
One misunderstanding about Atheists is: Atheism is not about disbelief of God. What is Atheism? | American Atheists Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Buddha believes the existence of gods, but reject the assertion that gods rule over each and every human. Gods and ghosts, like other creatures, co-exist with humans. Humans are not the creation of gods nor Maha-mariamman (Maha means great, Mariamman means Mother Mari; she is the main Mother goddess to some Hindus). In that sense, Buddhists’ belief on the existence of gods is very different from Christians. Buddha said that everybody, including gods, can become a Buddha and escape the cycle of birth and death. By the way, some people believe the story that Jesus had his education at Varanasi and Puri where he studied yoga and Hindu Scriptures, between the age of 13 and 30. He also studied Buddhism in Kashmir and Laddakh. There was a book by Holger Kersten called “Jesus Lived in India”.
Jesus tried to preach the Truth to people. Buddha said that the Truth cannot be told; one can only experience it himself by walking the path. This is probably the most fundamental difference between the opinions of Buddha and Jesus. However, Buddha will never say anything is right or wrong in general. All generalizations are not right, but not necessarily wrong. Hence, you will find that Buddhist monks are usually very quiet and dislike making comments about what is right and what is wrong. There are right in wrong, and wrong in right. Whatever Jesus preached was about love, peace, non-violence, and compassion. It is not important to the believers what the Truth is, so long as they benefited from the teachings, in terms of mind and body. In Buddhism as a religion today (rather than a Philosophy), many Buddhist monks preach to believers about rituals, practices, do-and-don’t, and even “the ways of the Buddha” which are not taught by the Buddha. A true Buddhist would not say these are wrong; these are not right, but okay if it brings happiness to the people, and it is about love, peace, non-violence, and compassion. There is only one “way of the Buddha”, but there are many ways to learn the “way of the Buddha”. Some people cannot instantly accept the “way of the Buddha”, therefore inductions (or inducements) are needed to guide them gradually through many different ways. There is no guarantee that these ways are effective; however, so long as the intention is genuinely for the happiness of the people, let the outcomes be determined by Karma. Brainwash is not always bad. Brainwash can be un-brainwashed through another round of brainwash, or through Enlightenment by oneself. When a person is inducted (or induced) into believing in love, peace, non-violence, and compassion, he will benefit personally and the society will also benefit.
ALL MANMADE DISTINCTIONS ARE FALSE. Heart Sutra is considered as the heart or the core of Buddhism; hence, the name Heart Sutra. Buddha said that nothing is real; everything looks real but not actually real. We gain nothing in our life, therefore we never really lose anything. Form is no different to emptiness, emptiness is no different to form. Mind manifestations give rise to the virtual reality; what we feel with our five-senses and what we think, therefore our emotions are not real. When you understand and experience what Buddha really means, you will have no fear, obligation, and guilt.
The best sacred text has no word in it. In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha said: “If a sacred text is said to belong to Buddhism, then it is not a sacred text of Buddhism.” (所谓佛法者，即非佛法。) “Whatever the Buddha said cannot be used as a doctrine and cannot be told to others as such. The ultimate truth cannot be written down in words but it doesn’t mean there are no words that can point you to the ultimate truth.” (如来所说法，皆不可取，不可说。非法非非法。) Whatever the Buddha said was neither truth nor falsehood. “If someone says a Sure Way to achieve Enlightenment is said by the Buddha, it is actually a slander. It is because he cannot understand what I said. My dear disciple, Subhuti! For the so-called Way of Saying It, there is really no way to say it. That is why it is called a Way of Saying It.” (若人言：如来有所说法，即为谤佛，不能解我所说故。须菩提！说法者，无法可说，是名说法。) Buddha would not keep it as a secret; unfortunately, the Way cannot be told. He could only point out the direction. One will have to find his way and experience it himself.
The commonalities of all major religions are about love, peace, non-violence, and compassion. When believers fight over religions, they go against the core values and original purposes of their religions. Fighting and competition is all about winning; the stink of greed, hatred, and delusion is so obvious. However, the believers are blinded by the the fires in their hearts and could not smell the stink. The new term for that is cognitive dissonance, as applied to Trump’s supporters. Dominion theology (ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians/Muslims based on their personal understandings of biblical law) was not preached by the prophets. Anyway, I am happy that people worldwide are becoming more open-minded and able to return to the core values of their religions. I am optimistic about the future when Muslims in Jakarta are open to eating pork.
RESILIENT KID 