Buddhist Or Anamist

[francois]

hi'

to follow a bit the topic "hilltribe ..etc ..", but out of it like the way it could easily turn out ..

I thought that it could be more convenient to start a new one on the same kind of string ..

we have been talking about religion, philosophy and else ...

human condition and way of thinking ...

all this made me remember a talk I had once with a Thai Buddhist monk, after a while, he told me, that most of rituals belonged in fact to a kind of Anamism, some like the cotton thread they attach to your wrist.

It has been said that Thai won't be so happy to hear that their religion is not considered like one by some foreigners, I do agree with this.

as I said it is lived as a religion here and this fact can't be ignored.

like it has been said too, the meaning of religion is not well defined.

could we define it, I guess not, or some ways useless ... or not?

what about Japanese Zen, do Japanese consider Buddhism as a religion ?

well, I just would like this talk to go on ... ouside the HillTribes's life conditions ..

francois

[Guest IT Manager]

Buddhism is a WAY OF LIFE, and a lifestyle. It is a method of managing ones tme to be in harmony with ones surroundings. As a way of life it is a religion, but not in the same sense as xtians think about it.

Good idea new thread. The other was hi-jacked.

[Bluecat]

Buddhism is a WAY OF LIFE, and a lifestyle. It is a method of managing ones tme to be in harmony with ones surroundings.

This is a way of life but not a religion. A religion "believes" in a superior being who is both our "creator" and an answer to our miserable life on earth, i.e., by following the "head" of whatever religion you are considering, you will join the superior being, with all the rewards (ask the terrorists who bombed quite a few places on this earth, they know the difference,...)

[Ajarn]

Buddhism is a WAY OF LIFE, and a lifestyle. It is a method of managing ones tme to be in harmony with ones surroundings. As a way of life it is a religion, but not in the same sense as xtians think about it.

I also think Buddhism is a way of life, as I think Christianity can also be a way of life for the christians...

One is based on a religion, the other is based on, well...common sense

[Guest IT Manager]

Whih is which Ajarn?

[Ajarn]

?

[francois]

The other was hi-jacked.

hmm hmm a bit yop

This is a way of life but not a religion. A religion "believes" in a superior being who is both our "creator" and an answer to our miserable life on earth, i.e., by following the "head" of whatever religion you are considering, you will join the superior being, with all the rewards (ask the terrorists who bombed quite a few places on this earth, they know the difference,...)

I do think the same way, but why so many interpretations of a single book as we can find in Christianity and Islam?

I do understand that one can understand words in a different way that his/her neighbour,

but how can a single difference in giving a meaning to a sentence can drive to so may form of extremisms ?

isn't it scary to think that s single man can drive others to war and murders for a "religion"?

Aren't religions built on love and understanding?

I also think Buddhism is a way of life, as I think Christianity can also be a way of life for the christians...

One is based on a religion, the other is based on, well...common sense

I agree some ways, but I can put faith beside way of life just like this ...

well, I would rather say, my way of thinking might reveal some sides of my faith ...

my way of life is far to be the way I would like it to be

I saw (sure same as many of us), a text painted on a stone in Wat Umong, it's about

the way people live their faith ...

it's entitled " why is it so?"

>Buddha Dharma is not the religion of

>everyone who calls himself a Bhuddist,

>for many are found who call themselves

Bhuddist but do not conduct their lives

>according to the Dharma as thaught by

>Gotama Bhudda.

>Christianity is not the religion of everyone

>who calls himself a Christian, for many

>are found who call themselves Christian,

>but do not conduct their lives according

>to the Dharma as thaught by Jesus-Christ

>People of all other faiths fall

>into this category

>but all human beings deserve love,

>compassion and understanding,

>regardless of opinion and faith,

>all human beings are looking for peace

>and happiness, and avoid hate and

>suffering

>That is why people follow religion

>in which they take refuge.

> This being anywhere in the world

>men have prejudices against one another,

>all, just because of the difference

>of name of their religion founders.

I find this way to look at the world is so right

francois

[sabaijai]

In response to the first post, all world religions contains elements of animism. The Christmas tree, for example, sprang from a pre-Christian celebration of winter solstice. The eating of communion wafers can be considered a type of animism (not to mention cannibalism! just kidding).

[francois]

In response to the first post, all world religions contains elements of animism. The Christmas tree, for example, sprang from a pre-Christian celebration of winter solstice. The eating of communion wafers can be considered a type of animism (not to mention cannibalism! just kidding).

might be right some ways, so do you think that we could consider any kind of ritual , linked to a religion or not, like containing a part of anamism in them?

I could find this easily in Hindhuism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, some basics roots

that they could have in common.

mankind needs rituals to get the feeling that he belongs to something "outside or elsewhere" that the world he/she knows, this could be a primary form of anamism.

a kind of unknown, unreachable "great spirit".

I noticed also, that even if the main knowledge of a ritual (the why, the meanings) are partly lost along the years, the ritual remains the same and a part of the meaning too.

it might be in human nature to keep closer to daily details of life than acting with a constant big thought in mind about the nature of the world.

humble thoughts

francois

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The Lord Buddha never claimed to be a God.

[Guest chingy]

Lord Buddha is a man, flesh and blood, he's not a super natural being, he does not have any super natural power, he live on earth not in heaven, he teaches and not command, he does not ask one worshiper to over take another, he respect other religious, you can be other religious and be able to contemplate in his temple, he teaches peacefulness.

correct DR. The Lord Buddha never claimed to be a God, he is just a man.

[englishoak]

The Lord Buddha was just a man, a wise one certainly, but just a man. He also encouraged people to question EVERYTHING. A very wise man.

[Darknight]

"Buddha is not to be worshipped, one has to become a buddha. Except for that, there is no worship, no prayer. You don't need any priest, you don't need any scriptures, you don't need to be in any religious organization, you have to be just yourself -- silently, peacefully settling within your home."

My message to humanity is: Enough is enough. Awake! See what man has done to man himself. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. You cannot call this humanity healthy. And only once in a while has a Buddha bloomed. If in the garden only once in a while a plant brings a flower, and otherwise the whole garden remains without flowers, will you call it a garden? Something very basic has gone wrong. Each person is born to be a Buddha: less than that is not going to fulfill you.

To destroy man, to destroy his power, a great strategy has been used ― and that is to divide man in two. Man has lived with the concept of either/or: either be a materialist or be a spiritualist. You have been told you cannot be both. Either be the body or be the soul ― you have been taught you cannot be both.

Up to now, humanity has been schizophrenic ― because you have been told to repress, to reject, to deny, many parts of your natural being. And by rejecting them, by denying them, you cannot destroy them ― they simply go underground. They go on functioning from your unconscious; they become really more dangerous.

But your so-called religions have been teaching you ways of disharmony, ways of discord, ways of conflict. And when you are fighting with yourself you go on dissipating your energy. You remain dull, unintelligent, stupid ― because without great energy nobody is ever intelligent. When energy overflows there is intelligence. Energy overflowing is what causes intelligence to grow. And man has lived in an inward poverty.

My message to humanity is: Create a new man ― unsplit, integrated, whole.

The old man lived through ideologies. The new man will live not through ideologies, not through moralities, but through consciousness. The new man will live through awareness. The new man will be responsible ― responsible to himself and to existence. The new man will not be moral in the old sense; he will be amoral.

The new man brings a new world with him. Right now the new man is bound to be a mutant minority ― but he is the carrier of a new culture

The new man is open and honest. He is transparently real, authentic and self-disclosing. He will not be a hypocrite. He will not live through goals: he will live herenow. He will know only one time, now, and only one space, here. And through that presence he will know what god is.

" another wise man"

[Johpa]

I also think Buddhism is a way of life, as I think Christianity can also be a way of life for the christians...

Allow a new member to add a few thoughts.

My father-in-law, who dwells up in the hills above Chiang Mai, is a devout animist whose beliefs are every much a way of life as is Buddhism or Christianity is to their adherents. For one to proclaim a belief system as a way of life is to proclaim nothing unless you are trying to elevate your beliefs above another's beliefs. It is all "amen," I believe, in the end and some I know believe in the Tooth Fairy. Bottom line is that there is no difference between believing in Jesus and believing in the Tooth Fairy or believing in the enlightment of Buddha.

My two decades worth of connections up North leads me to believe that all Thais are fundamentally animist. The spirits, the phiis, the riak khwaan ceremonies are far more important to their daily lives than is "bun" and "baap." What matters to animists is the rote expression of their beliefs in the form of specific prayers or chants. Failing to perform the ceremony correctly can lead to suffering. And the Thais who convert to Christianity are animist to the core. For them the profession of their belief is all that matters, no different than my in-laws profession of their concerns towards the spirits, the ta mu x'a of their religion. I mean have any of you ever tried to engage in a religious conversation with a member of the Hope of Bangkok Church?

The funny thing is that most of my in-law's peers in the neighboring village are Christian and get semi-annual visits from Dr. Amnuay's ( a very good man) minions from Phayap Univ. But whenever life gets tough, they always sneak off to my in-laws house outside the village ( a baan lang diow) and ask my father-in-law to do some of that old time animist routine as he is the last of a great tradition, a minor tradition to the anthropologists, of Karen animists.

And it is not just the pure hill folks. In the local Khon Muang village where we maintain a homestead, the people do support a small wat, but it is to old Uey Khiow they go to first to relieve both their psychic and spiritual pains using the old K'mu animist techniques once common to the region. (The other contribution of K'mu culture in the "hood" is an abundance of slang terms used by the local men that is not easily understood by both this poor farang, not to mention the rare city Khon Muang visitor.)

Happy Trails

Johpa

[Wisdom]

What is buddhism ?

Teaching of mind,

so simple that taught by great teacher ,

Lord Buddha that he is a human being

[ThaiPauly]

Since arriving in Thialand I have found a new meaning to life by trying to understand Bhudism, I find it far more beleivable than Christainity and I find that Temples give me a spiritual uplift that a church fails to do

I have studied a lot, as I knew nothing about Bhudism when I first came here, but I must say that now I have embraced it my life is better for it. Anyone else feel the same?

[Johpa]

Since arriving in Thialand I have found a new meaning to life by trying to understand Bhudism, I find it far more beleivable than Christainity and I find that Temples give me a spiritual uplift that a church fails to do

I have studied a lot, as I knew nothing about Bhudism when I first came here, but I must say that now I have embraced it my life is better for it. Anyone else feel the same?

Yea, I felt that way for the first six months in Thailand back around 1981. Then I learned to speak Thai and began to hang around with Thai folks and began to talk to monks and realized that they all were no better or worse than other believers. One of the funniest moments in all my years spent in-country was watching the local monk with yellow robe flailing in the wind being literally chased down the dirt road by angry villagers after being caught doing the nasty with a village lass.

So now I do like most of my Thai peers and worship the Holy Mother, Mae Khong, in her most revered bottled form.

[Darknight]

Since arriving in Thialand I have found a new meaning to life by trying to understand Bhudism, I find it far more beleivable than Christainity and I find that Temples give me a spiritual uplift that a church fails to do

I have studied a lot, as I knew nothing about Bhudism when I first came here, but I must say that now I have embraced it my life is better for it. Anyone else feel the same?

Yea, I felt that way for the first six months in Thailand back around 1981. Then I learned to speak Thai and began to hang around with Thai folks and began to talk to monks and realized that they all were no better or worse than other believers. One of the funniest moments in all my years spent in-country was watching the local monk with yellow robe flailing in the wind being literally chased down the dirt road by angry villagers after being caught doing the nasty with a village lass.

So now I do like most of my Thai peers and worship the Holy Mother, Mae Khong, in her most revered bottled form.

indeed most religions have become stale and are just a show front for your neighbors. Does any think that thailand may be different . Most people go through the motions of religion because they have been thought by their parents, not because they percieve a higher goal or fulfilment.

See my previous post in this thread , Time for organized religion in this world is over, they will die out in the next couple of century's.

[ThaiPauly]

Why is it that Churches in the west are failing to attract worshippers and that the temples in LOS always seem to be busy,? it's far more beleivable to live your life beleiving that right is right and wrong is wrong and standing by the principles of the four noble truths than it is to follow in blind faith as far as I am concerned.

I have also heared stories about wayward monks, but this is no surprise there will always be rouges in every religion, I had a pheodophile Church minister living next door to me once in the UK when my kids were very young, he used to offer to babysit them but we never got round (or could afford) to go out, press and everything were round when he got busted.

Anyway, it suits me, as I have something in my life that was missing before I came to live here, I am not saying it's for everyone, and will not preach it to anybody, each to his own.

[francois]

Time for organized religion in this world is over, they will die out in the next couple of century's.

a bit fast prevision of what could happen, don't you think?

just look at all the religious stuffs happening in the world of now, do you think that this could effectively disapear in a couple of centuries?

and if disapear for good, what will replace such a need of refuge for the heart and the mind for so many people in this world?

I was thinking about a future full of technologies and where the human emotion has just a little place in there, will it be our future?

are we going to slave the machines and turn our eyes away from reality ...

we are still human, don't we?

we all cherish life for all it's wonderful values that no money can buy, so where is the point to turn the back to some beliefs that for most of them don't belong to the world we know, to replace them by something that don't even belong to us as nothing in this wolrd last forever, we all know this, don't we?

don't missunderstand me please ...

it's just a question that is coming up following this post ...

just this question that you put in my mind ...

if religions disapear, what else will or would replace them ..?

but we could open another thread for this ... it does concern Thailand too

francois

[Ajarn]

Time for organized religion in this world is over, they will die out in the next couple of century's.

a bit fast prevision of what could happen, don't you think?

just look at all the religious stuffs happening in the world of now, do you think that this could effectively disapear in a couple of centuries?

and if disapear for good, what will replace such a need of refuge for the heart and the mind for so many people in this world?

Good point! I've met plenty of nutty people who would be A LOT nuttier without their religion to help center them....

[francois]

hi'

Time for organized religion in this world is over, they will die out in the next couple of century's.

I thought about this a bit more and then come s a point that we probably forgot ...

talking about organizes religions ...

what about Tibetan Buddhists?

this is a well organized one, often called Lamaism, in fact a main branch of Mahayana,

they are growing more and more everyday, they just offer what Buddhist can offer you.

A lot of people rely their life on this way of life, now, how can such a human's movement

disapear? ... I wonder

just not to talk about the main "organized ones" ...

francois

[Snark]

deleted

[Darknight]

hi francois,

it's just a question that is coming up following this post ...

just this question that you put in my mind ...

if religions disapear, what else will or would replace them ..?

but we could open another thread for this ... it does concern Thailand too

No need to open another thread in the main forum as yet , it will go wayward in three reply's i guess.

What i mean is not religion will dissapear but that today's organized ones will dissapear. As people become more informed, educated, organized in to ever larger communtities. It becomes harder and harder to keep them in the old form of religion where they have accept certain fixed structures "no questions asked" or rely on old scriptures written in an "image language" some thousands of years ago.

The reason ,as stated here, i feel that western religions are losing their people in church is exactly because of that. Most people from my generation move away from it just because the "it's something you have to do because..." argument just doesn't cut it anymore.

I mean by this that for millions in this world religion is pure "TRAINING and CONDITIONING". Most people can't even see that fact. They get angry when you even mention it and suddenly you are , "unholy, sacreligeous, ect".

Religion can only exist by indoctrinating children.

I know this is a harsh statement and this will get people jumping but hear me out first.

If we agree to a basic western concept called " freedom of religion" , Why do we teach (force) our children to become and believe what we believe? It happens in every religion and household? Are we afraid they might believe another thing and upset Ourselves ??? Since we take away the choice of our children , which by the way they can only fully take when they out of puberty, we saddle them with a lot of religious rules, gestures, and other cr*p. If they get older and start to think for themselves about meaning of life , death, pain, happyness ect. They maybe find that their thought religion doesn't conform anymore to their present world view. They will abandon them as they realize it doesn't give all the answers.

Mainly because they are not satisfied with the traditional answer "it's gods wish, or allah wish or whatever"

This Century will be the WHY? century in my view.

Maybe new religions will emerge, maybe old ones will reinvent themselves ? I don't know. But the first post i made is a view i can see myself in since i was a child. I Feel to that religion will become more and more a personal matter instead of an organized ceremonial one.

I see in every religion people "going through the motions" of their religion. Be it catholics having to go to church every sunday, Buddhists wai'ing every tempel they drive by, muslims praying every so many hours.

They just as happilly forget all their rules from the moment they walk out of the door and slash their fellow man for all he's wurth or even worse....... But they are still very good catholics, buddhists, muslims, or whatever.

Hopefully more people can start to see the inner religion instead of the outer one.

All the buddha's, mohammeds, jezusses ect said almost the same thing in fact. They just said it in reflection to their period in time, location, culture.....

Only their followers have added traditions, dogma's, rules, habits. It's not important to what their icons have said.

I was actually a litlle dissapointed to come to thailand and see that most people are buddhists in their motions but not in their hearts anymore. if you understand what i mean.

Maybe now you know also why i'm a litlle rebellious in my posts and conversations

To fully know yourself, in all aspects, and by knowing assuming control, no longer being a victim of the desires and cravings, is to become a Buddha

It's actually giving up your control , snark

[Darknight]

addendum .....

If you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don´t believe. That does not mean to disbelieve, because disbelief is another kind of belief. Don´t believe, but experiment. Go into it yourself, and if you can see, if you can feel, only then believe. But then it is no more belief; then it is trust. That is the difference between trust and belief: trust comes out of experience; belief is just a prejudice without any experience to support it.

Don´t believe because scriptures say so, and don´t believe because respectable people say so, because they may be saying it only because by saying it they become respectable. Don´t believe because priests say so, because priests are just doing a kind of business. They have to say so; they are salesmen. They are selling some invisible commodity, which you cannot see but you have to believe.

Experiment, go into the existential experience of it all. Become a lab - your own lab. And unless it has become your own understanding, don´t believe. Unless it has become your own understanding, don´t believe, and then only can you come to trust. Truth believed is a lie. Truth experienced is a totally different phenomenon. This is the approach of a scientific mind.

[francois]

hi'

All the buddha's, mohammeds, jezusses ect said almost the same thing in fact. They just said it in reflection to their period in time, location, culture.....

Only their followers have added traditions, dogma's, rules, habits. It's not important to what their icons have said.

I was actually a litlle dissapointed to come to thailand and see that most people are buddhists in their motions but not in their hearts anymore. if you understand what i mean.

I can only agree with this point !

when you read what has been written in either Bible or Coran or even the "original" Gautama teaching, you may find that the actual "religion" is really far away from the origin of it, and this is pretty disapointing.

Churches would say that without laws and regulations mankind turn wild ...

I would just say that rules and regulations are not here to control the minds of people, neither the hearts ... but history is written already!

as I said earlier in this post with this text from a temple, not many christians or Buddhists, or muslim can pretend to be following their original religious teaching, not only because the world is changing but because some (like you said) changed the way to undestand and to live it.

so, in many ways major religions are disapointing!

this does not mean for me that they have to disapear neither that they would.

francois

[NaiGreg]

Many good posts here (and some half-baked )

I like to advise inquiring (about buddhism) minds this:

If you want to know about creation, read the Steve Hawking's book "The Universe in a Nutshell"

If you want to know about practical philosophy, read "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau.

If you want to know *everything*, walk the path to Enlightment for about 500 lifetimes. A good dharma book has instructions.

It is all about the path. Your milage may vary.

Peace.

[john b good]

Buddhism is a WAY OF LIFE, and a lifestyle. It is a method of managing ones tme to be in harmony with ones surroundings. As a way of life it is a religion, but not in the same sense as xtians think about it.

Good idea new thread. The other was hi-jacked.

I accept that I am a bit slow (speak slowly like the people from Queensland) but then again I am in good company as the Oxford dictionary (my copy anyway) does not have an entry for "anamist" so would some learned scholar perhaps enlighten me as to what the f..k an anamist is...........

And whilst at the keyboard I might add that it's nice to see that whilst you may not be here in person you are keeping a watch on things here in the realm.

[Lioneric]

I wonder "Darknight" is so great of understanding Buddhism but posting a half naked woman on the holy side.Is this what we called under"standing".

[Darknight]

It's maybe a lot more understanding then you think lioneric.

maybe you can only draw attention to more difficult concepts if it's mascaraded as something else? Maybe i don't agree with the buddhist concept of celibacy? Maybe i'm just a "kind of buddhist" as i am "a kind of catholic" as i am "a kind of muslim"?

Maybe you just don't understand yet ?

Maybe you find here what i mean?

http://www.osho.com/Topics/TopicsEng/Zorba1.HTM

Maybe i like a current version of buddhist scriptures instead of the one's written for people some 4000 years ago?