Quick Talk on Buddhism for busy People

Because of ago, each person sticks with his or her ideas and refuses to listen to the others. Grasped at or clung to their dogmatic ideas, they  suffer state of depression, anxiety, distress and upset. Almost every religion claims it is the only true religion, with an almighty God. Which one should you follow?

Buddhist teachings can be summarized into:

Don’t hurt others.

Don’t hurt yourself.

Ultimately the path will bring will bring the mind to a level of strength where it no longer needs to feed on solid food, but at the moment we need solid food to bring us to that level.

Patience, tolerance, forbearance and endurance were taught by the Buddha. To lighten your kamma, you need to practice vipassana meditation. This practice is itself a good deed, and you expiate the previous bad kamma, and create new good kamma. Thought is a form of energy. The devils can read our thoughts. Negative thinking contaminates our mind and sends out  negative force. Positive thinking emits positive energy and  brings harmony and peace. Clinging hampers the body healing process and also causes new illness or worsen our physical condition. Now you know why some patients recover faster than the others? Regardless of whether they are celestial or terrestrials, they cannot escape from the forces of kamma.

Nibbana (eternal happiness) is the realm of the noble ones. It is the state beyond birth, aging, sickness and death. It is the ultimate goal of the Buddhists.  Nibbana  is the level where pain and vexation will never strike. It was described as pariveka in Pali, meaning absolute freedom, when the mind  gradually become apt and fit, with no more mental taints or defilement.

The Buddha says things do not come into existence randomly or through the will of an almighty god, but through a specific cause or web of causes. Planetary influence does affect our earth.

Physical and mental energies, which made up this body, take a new form, for example man, woman, animals etc. when a person passes away.

For all other religions, a person must die before he or she can be with the Divine (almighty god). Nibbana can be realized in this very life. It is not necessary to wait until death.  Won’t you want to leave this world of pain and vexation once and for all? Is it worthwhile to come back unless there is no choice? A Buddhist works for higher spiritual attainments, till the highest level Nibbana. He does not have to wait until he dies to attain Nibbana.

Buddhism does not consist of you –shalls & you-shall-nots. Buddhism begins with facts. We don’t rely on mere logic, inference, appearance or speculation. No person’s life, including that of the Arahants, or the Buddhas, will be free of difficulty. Buddha said: Look not for refuge to anyone beside yourself.

Not allowing it to become fascinated by forms, sounds, odours, flavours, physical sensations and mental phenomena is the essence of meditation techniques. Don’t waver when you see forms, hear sounds, beautiful or ugly, and don’t be deceived no matter how delicious the taste of the food is. Develop your mind and establish it in the present moment.  When effluents in the mind are removed, the mind becomes calm, clean and clear and  not subject to pains.  It is undistracted and undeceived by external matters.

The Buddha did not claim that he could remove suffering from the world as an Almighty God. Buddhists are not conducting a business. They don’t have do’s and don’t do’s, or thou shalt and thou shalt not.

Which things should you develop and which to let go? In order to abandon suffering you must remove greed, hatred and delusion.

Buddha did not say life was suffering. He said there was suffering in life. Everything is a passing affair. Buddhism is about ultimate freedom which is accessible to all of us. Sufferings crop up because of attachment to desire; sufferings cease when desire ceases. Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the eight-fold path. There is no need to depend on anything from outside, you depend on your power and potential. Those  pains in the mind, the mental anguish, and distress can be removed.

Practising  meditation and mindfulness will lead you to freedom, which cannot be obtained by scholarly  studies or research. Buddhist precepts  were introduced by the Buddha. They were not written down on stone slab and handed over to a holy man by an unseen being on our planet earth. Why was that being shy to show his face? The psychic powers a person develops after practicing meditation  are only by-products of meditation.

The ceremonies are for opening up yourselves, not for you to hold on. Whatever you attach to becomes a cult. Chanting and having shrines are for getting the faith going. They are not done out of superstition. Sangha is the community of virtuous people who are practicing. It is communal, and whether you are a man, woman, young or old, it is no longer important.