When Can You Say You're a Buddhist?
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
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I generally either say "I practice Buddhism" or, if Buddhism is a focus of the situation- like me leading a meditation class, workshop, or lecture- I'll say something like "I lived in a Zen temple for 4 years" or "I've been teaching meditation since 2008" or such. It gets the point across without technically being a label.
I always think when you really feel the 3 Jewels are your Refuge you're a Buddhist, Jukai formalizes that you'll practice that.
Agreed. Seeking refuge in the triple gems feels like the moment! Buddha Sasana!
Thank you for this video -- I had the same question, so I'm glad to hear your thoughts. It's validating to know that I agree with what you said. I'm a little confused by people who talk about being a Buddhist, even if there's no context for it. It reminds me of people who newly converted to a religion and are so deeply enthusiastic about it and identified with it that they have to tell everybody.
Being Buddhist is a bit of oxymoron. I consider Zen the best available somewhat defined teaching. So I am a FAN ?
Ceremonies are just that, ceremonies. Nothing more nothing less. I call myself a Buddhist even though I have yet to take Jukai ceremony.
"My advice,
don't be a Buddhist.
In the end it's all about personal gain,
fame and business.
Just be a person with a good heart,
that's the meaning
of a truthful Dharma practitioner.
We live in illusion
and the appearance of things.
There is a reality. We are that reality.
When you understand this,
you see that you are nothing,
and being nothing, you are everything.
That is all."
~ Kalu Rinpoche
that's beautiful
interesting wikipedia entry on him
That sounds very Humanist
People who are seeking nothing often has a good heart.
But they are not interested in a spiritual path.
@@skyjuke2006 somewhat along the lines of charles bukowski's poem "lifedance"
the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience -
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.
Hey Brad! It's been while since I've commented but I'm still listening and processing :) I do want to start writing and chiming in more..as always thank you for what you're doing. I was thinking particularly about what you said about being (kinda) persuaded to become a teacher and yeah, experienced teachers who see the big picture know that the responsibility of it all is a pain in the ass at times but worth it. There are a lot of a-holes out there doing it wrong and for the wrong reasons, so in order for the next round of students to uphold the precepts and let the rules continue to evolve in an ethical and rational direction, those who see the forest for the trees should be the ones to take on the responsibility. It's funny, as I was writing this my 4 yr old dumped out a little container of paint on my desk and she's probably climbing something in the kitchen now. I imagine teaching to be similar to that sort of thing, but fun and rewarding at the same time. I think having a good sangha is key.
you're dumping a container of paint into the comments section
Saying you're not something, in medieval Japan, I can imagine, wasn't easy. Labels, like signs, help with directions. Feudal society, everywhere, was big on nomenclature. Even in Islamic society, the fours schools of sunni law, then the shias, then ibadhis;then the many sufi schoos, let you know who was who. Same with the various Catholic spiritual orders. Easch offered you a different type of spiritual path, and so you needed a label to help you know which one you were joining ☺
I was there when Tim McCarthy said that if someone held a gun to his head and tell him what religion he was he would say he was a Buddhist.
When I joined the Navy the place was called MEPS (I don't remember what that stands for). It's interesting they were nice to your friend, I had a couple people back out in my cohort and they got an earful.
Anyway, my military experience is the reason I'm hesitant to join anything, including jukai.
That's understandable.
Of course, declaring one a "Buddhist" encompasses more than just Soto Zen Buddhism.
There is also Tibetan, Theravada, Pure Land, other schools of Zen, etc, etc.
I always thought of being a Buddhist is having a shared set of beliefs - specifically in the Buddha's 3 characteristics of existence.
Anatta (nonself), Annica (impermanence) and Dukkha (dissatisfaction)
If someone doesn't believe those are fundamentally true, then I'm not sure why anyone would want to be called a Buddhist
Dont you need a self to be a Buddhist?
Who is the Buddhist?
@@Teller3448 Which always got me ☺ ☺
In Kwan Um you get two names, essentially a first and last. You're teacher basically just has two lists and picks a name from each. You share the same "first" name with everyone you take 5 precepts with and then the "last" name is just yours. It theoretically has some meaning, but not always. For example, I am Haeng Ji (Wisdom Action) and the woman who took 5 precepts with me is Haeng Ja. No one actually uses their Dharma names, though, unless they become monks or receive transmission, in which case they get new new name. Monks use their new new name all the time, Zen Masters use theirs pretty much only for official functions.
I've noticed some different styles regarding using Dharma names. People in Sanbo Kyodan tend to use them like a middle name, for example John Daido Loori. In SFZC they often, but not always, use them before their first name. Some people even legally change their names.
@@HardcoreZen Yeah, I've noticed that as well. I don't really understand people who go all out with it. For me, a white American who's never even been to Korea and who's only experience with the culture is what I see in the Zen center and what I can glean from conversation, it would feel disingenuous to run around telling people to call me Haeng Ji.
@@HardcoreZen so you're Brad Odo Warner...
I liked that intro. Your friend/associate? went to a recruiter’s presentation. Afterwards, what happened was typical indoctrination/orientation stuff. Upon reflection, it is important that one carefully considers their public oath before taking it. I will not say that I am a Buddhist unless someone asks. Really, who cares? My sister (SUPER-Catholic) asked and I told her that I was. She promptly told me: “You’re going to hell.” Then muttered some weird insulting things, giggled, and then walked away. I found that moment liberating. For me, she drank the veritable Jim Jones Kool Aid. Anyway, thank you for the video.
Thanks! See you in hell!
Ha, that's funny and familiar. One of my relatives worries about me going to hell and frequently tells my wife how worried she is about me.
When Can You Say You're Ten Feet Tall?
When you’re that high.
Lol, when you're high on angel dust
My first thought at the title of this video was “I’m a non-Buddhist Buddhist.” 🤷♂️
Good video. I mostly feel the same way. As a white guy in Japan, everyone assumes I'm Christian. I'm sure you probably got that too when you were here. So probably the biggest occasion for me to say I'm a Buddhist is when I correct them "no, I'm not a Christian, I'm Buddhist". But otherwise, yah, I don't talk about it a lot.
When I was a white guy in Japan I was a Buddhist who worked for a company run by Japanese Catholics!
@@HardcoreZen THAT would have been a fun group to watch Scorsese's Silence with!
I would say that like anything if you practice it that's just what you are and how you live. You can go through all this ceremony, make speaches, or bring up in conversation of what a great, say for example wrestler you are, but if you don't do any training or exercise then it's not really true.
I started watching this, but had to pause to go watch the video for Green Mind
Tim McArthy Myfirstteacher is an interesting last name. Surely, you can’t be serious.
I can relate to this quite a bit since these days I basically view religion and politics as something you do, not something you are
The Buddhist Temple of Toledo has Jukai after which a raksu and name is given. The Abbot who goes by Rinsen says as long as you consider yourself taking refuge in his eyes you're a Buddhist, but in the tradition of the temples Zen lineage, there is Jukai
The same thing happens with people in the Vajrayana, after they take their precepts and bodhisattva vows. They, as you would say in your tradition Brad, "Stink of Zen" or in the above case "Stink of Vajrayana". I tell don't tell people I'm Buddhist either as I despise any kind of "Proselytizing Missionary Fervor" of any kind, but most especially among the Abrahamic traditions.
I call myself a half-assed zen buddhist
damn i like beer to much but i try to follow all the other stuff
M.E.P.S.? Military Entrance Processing Station
Great, now I have an earworm of a song no one seems to know where it's from! And I don't find anything when goolging the lyrics!
It's been stuck in my head since the 80s! I even have a demo I made on cassette of a re-arrangement of it in rockabilly style (not very good) that I made around 1990. I swear I didn't write it, though!
Very cool video.
Odo, like Star Trek Deep Space Nine shapeshifter...cool..😎
Maybe Nishijima was a trekkie; I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens..😁
Rad. Within the first weeks of learning about Buddhism I too saw the paradox in the title a lot of other commentators are getting at. The answer I came up with then was - if Buddhism is a practice, how much Buddhist stuff do you have to do to be one? I think it’s impossible to find an answer. Good exercise in realizing the emptiness of language.
"The answer I came up with then was - if Buddhism is a practice..."
Not just a practice. Other traditions primarily practice sitting meditation...but are not Buddhist.
@@Teller3448 What would you say is outside of practice within Buddhism?
@@jaked5144 "What would you say is outside of practice within Buddhism?"
The practice is not what defines Buddhism because many other traditions use the same practices Buddhists do. What makes Buddhism unique is its dharma. But which dharma? The dharma of the founders is radically different than the later Mahayana.
Can you be a footballer without playing football?
How does this relate to taking refuge?
Part of the Jukai ceremony is taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It's the first of the vows that I outlined in this video.
If you're filling in a form, you still check the box that says Buddhist; assuming you're filling it out honestly.
I did jukai mostly as a public expression of gratitude for what Zen and my teachers had given me. I didn't feel 10 ft tall and I didn't feel changed ... but I didn't feel like I'd joined a cult or downed the Kool-Aid, either. It was a good experience.
the kool-aid wasn't what you thought it was
"I did jukai mostly as a public expression of gratitude for what Zen and my teachers had given me."
Can you keep all the precepts without being a Buddhist?
Im a non practicing Taoist
What do Taoists practice?
@@Teller3448 they practice not practicing of course.
@@iansmith8783 You mean they just lay around all day...drinking beer and eating potato chips?
@@Teller3448 that would probably require too much effort. It takes a lot of discipline to be truly lazy.
@@iansmith8783 Well if you made NO effort at all, not to eat or drink or even to inhale and exhale...I imagine you would just die.
Very well said, Brad. Could not agree more.
A Buddhist is a follower/practitioner of the Buddha's teachings. It has to do with the Buddha's dharma (teachings). Not because you "meditate" you are already Buddhist. Remember that even Sanatana Dharma traditions of Hinduism and even Jainism and Sufism do meditation.
The "Refuge Taking" or "Jukai" is just a ceremony to testify in witness of the sangha that you will follow/practice the Buddha's teachings (plus you get to receive a certification and Dharma name).
It's simply like being a "Putinist" when you start to follow/hail/support Vladimir Putin, and you become a "Bidenist" when you defect and follow/hail/support Joe Biden.
Did that answer your question, Dogenist? I mean, Zenist? Er, Buddhist? 😊
What about "Buddhism before Buddhism", or "anonymous Buddhism", or "Post-Buddhism"? Seen in an integral mode, they also seem to be part of the World of Buddhism.
@@gunterappoldt3037 What "dharma" did the follow and practice, tell me then? 🤔
Also, there is no such thing as "World of Buddhism".
@@nettinetti8465 Well, if one takes to mean "World of Buddhism" something like Buddhism as a life-world phenomenon in the broadest sense, the label "WoB" seems quite useful as signifier, analogue to, e.g., the "world of sciences", and the "world of sports" (one may as well speak of the Sangha in the broadest sense, then it would even seem like an all-inclusive all-quantor).
What regards the "dharma", it seems to be a very general lable and applicable for constituting a multitude of sense-worlds in many different ways.
And Gautama Siddharta, what was he, then in old India: Proto-Buddhist, Ur-Buddhist, anad/or Post-Buddhist?
Again, the Four Noble Truth are formulated in such a general way that one can find them, mutatis mutandis, in nearly all religio-philosophical systems we know. People who orient their thoughts, talks and works on this "axiology", are they then "anonymous Buddhists"? One might see it this way.
Means, in sum, the natural hermeneutic circle keeps on turning, and sometimes, maybe, even spiraling...
@@gunterappoldt3037 Buddhist is just a term assigned to recognize one or those who follow the Buddha's teachings.
Remove the Buddhist term if you want, still many who sincerely practice the Buddha's teachings remain -- follower of of the Buddha's teachings.
@@nettinetti8465 Karl Barth differentiated between religion and belief; I think the argument approximatively follows this fault-line.
The live singing is nice. I'd say don't be an anything "ist". Isms are too narrow and confining.
"Isms are too narrow and confining."
That's where the hippies come from.
How did that work out?
@@Teller3448 Real well. I'm a proud hippie, we could use more of us.
@@brookestabler3477
Hippies aren't usually interested in Zen...because its very austere and highly disciplined.
Hippies seem to prefer Daoism or some vague Hindu ideas....sprinkled with perceptions gleaned from psychedelic experiences. Is this where you're at???
ruclips.net/video/Zft_60mMSWQ/видео.html
See that girl, barefootin' along,
Whistlin' and singin', she's a carryin' on.
There's laughing in her eyes, dancing in her feet,
She's a neon-light diamond and she can live on the street.
Well everybody's dancin' in a ring around the sun
Nobody's finished, we ain't even begun.
So take off your shoes, child, and take off your hat.
Try on your wings and find out where it's at.
Thank you!
@@Teller3448 Show me where it's at. I assume a short RUclips isn't going to send me dancing around the sun.
I don't drink alcohol, I used to. I stopped because I just see how useless and harmful it is. That feels different than not drinking because a precept forbids. I know Buddhists doing it that way. But then, I think, alcohol is still there, in their thoughts "would be so nice to have a drink, but I am Buddhist". On the other hand, if thanks to a precept sb drinks less, that doesn't seem like a bad thing.
✨ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴏsᴍ
If you are serious you take jukai like all the patriarchs.
I thought it was funny you don't call yourself a Buddhist because your (endearing) nickname in our house is "Buddhist Guy"
Oh my!
When are you a Buddhist?
A better question would be....do I personally get to define what Buddhism is?
Its very popular among people under 30 to believe that reality is whatever you want it to be.
ruclips.net/video/Srfcdq8X-no/видео.html
Suppose I wanted to replace one of the three jewels for taking refuge...with cupcakes!
Am I still a Buddhist...just because my personal preference for cupcakes defines reality?
And this is what happened throughout Buddhist history.
For example, the founders would never have agreed that Samsara and Nirvana are identical.
And yet, this drastic change in the Dharma was accepted by the Mahayana.
Not because there's any evidence for it...mind you.
But simply because their writers were extremely eloquent.
In ancient times, eloquence could pass for truth...with the greatest of ease.
It may also reflect Eastern style "bureaucratism" and "parentalism", which put much emphasis on the collective being, from the family up to the state -- and even farther, to the "Heavenly bureaucracy", which, e.g., thoroughly permeates Sinitic folklores. Not that there is no "spirit of collectivism" in India or Southern Asia, but, all in all, these societies seem to have left more free space for virtuosity, if only for climatic reasons, which make it easier for "virtuosos" doing their "free wandering".
PS.: Some scholars suppose that this "climatic" difference is echoed in the "Southern Flourishing Country..." of Master Zhuang, who lived nearer to "aboriginal" societies, still dominated by "organic solidarity" -- I think this was the term, created by E. Durkheim, which points to some organic holism (where to "allrounder" was the ideal type of person) or, with other words, a stage in evolution, when specialization had just barely begun to evolve, leading, at some times at some special cultural "hot-spots" (and out of reasons, which are still heavily debated: Was it "bear"[sic!], was it "brain overfunction", was it "water regulation", was it ...?) to the creation of societies, which were to a significant degree "mechanically" organized, like the Zhou-dynasty, which Master Kông and later Ruists idealized as "golden age".
@@gunterappoldt3037 "It may also reflect Eastern style..."
What does IT refer to?
@@Teller3448 Well, it refers to the paradigm shift, which already bewildered Theodore Stcherbatsky (an early Buddhologist from Leningrad, whose writings I studied with great interest).
@@gunterappoldt3037 "Well, it refers to the paradigm shift, which already bewildered Theodore Stcherbatsky"
Thanks for mentioning that name Gunter...excellent tip!
I'm just starting to read a PDF of one of his writings.
lirs.ru/lib/theodor/Papers_of_Th.Stcherbatsky,Gupta,1975.pdf
Just the opening paragraph is outstanding...
"It is known that Buddhism is an atheistic religion, which negates the existence
not only of one God but also of all substances and facts in general which are not
subject to the laws of samsara, i.e. which are not subject to that causal relation
which unites the entire world into a single whole. According to the Buddhist view,
everything in the world is determined by necessity. The law of cause allows no
exception and no freedom of self-determination. The only exceptions are the Buddha
himself and those many Buddhas who preceded him or may come after him. But
the Buddhas, liberated from the fetters of the samsara, do not have any influence
on the world of phenomena, which continues to flow as before. As a French
orientalist puts it, if the Buddha is something divine for the Buddhists, this divinity
is a dead one."
Question: What paradigm shift did Theodore find so bewildering???
@@Teller3448 Thanks for Your reply. The one paradigm-shift T.S. mentioned and I pointed to, was (in paraphrase) the one from -- formulated as idealtypes -- the extremely "individualistic" Theravâda(-methodology) to the extremely "collectivistic" Mahâyana(-methodology).
One special "fault-line", for example would be: the shift from one-dimensional karma-"bundles" (which means: no "merit" can be transferred) to multidimensional karma-"bundles" (which means: "merits" can be transferred, therefore Bodhisattva-ship is possible).
When asked, I just say, I am atheist but subscribe to few ideas of Buddhism.
to me, any claim to be an "ist", "ian", "an" or "ean" of whatever religion is so meaningless as to make me wonder if they are sane
how can they say they are something like that ?
that they are "measured" like that
a bunch of incoherent twaddle
You still didn’t talk about your European tour in September. Is it secret tour, about secretly being a Buddhist? 😉😁