what value does the buddhist teaching have to buddhists? why is it important?

Question

studying rs at AS and would be interested to hear peoples opinions on the value the buddhist teaching has to buddhists?

Answer 1

In Buddhism, it is understood that every living being wants to be happy and none like to be unhappy or suffer. Even though everyone wants to be happy and free from suffering, they are not aware of the causes and conditions to achieve true happiness and freedom from anguish and woe. Buddha Shakyamuni appeared in the world in order to show us how to be free from birth in the lower realms that are marked by suffering and how to attain birth in higher realms that are marked by happiness and joy.

If one does not understand the universal law of cause and effect one would most likely think that happiness and suffering come from the environment, or from the gods, and that everything that happens originates in some source outside of ones control. If one believes this, then it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to eliminate suffering and its causes. On the other hand, when one realizes that the root cause of suffering is karma and the kleshas, eliminating suffering becomes possible. Karma is a Sanskrit word which means "activity" and klesha in Sanskrit means "mental defilement" or "mental poison." Karma produces suffering and is driven by the defilements. The term "defilement" refers mainly to ones negative motivation and negative thoughts, which produce negative actions.



Once one is aware of how suffering takes place, then one can begin to remove the causes of suffering. Since everyone has a different predisposition and varying inclinations, Lord Buddha presented a vast array of Dharma instructions to meet the manifold capabilities and needs of followers who wished to lead a worthy and meaningful life. But it is absolutely necessary to know which causes need to be established in order to be free from birth in lower states of existence and to be reborn in favourable conditions so that one can mature spiritually.

Answer 2

In the natural world wild animals teach their young how to hunt to kill to stay alive. That is their nature and truth and good and bad.



According to the link below here is some of what Buddhism is.



In Buddhism there is not, as in most other religions, an Almighty God to be obeyed and feared. The Buddha does not believe in a cosmic potentate, omniscient and omnipresent. In Buddhism there are no divine revelations or divine messengers. A Buddhist is, therefore, not subservient to any higher supernatural power which controls his destinies and which arbitrarily rewards and punishes. Since Buddhists do not believe in revelations of a divine being Buddhism does not claim the monopoly of truth and does not condemn any other religion. But Buddhism recognizes the infinite latent possibilities of man and teaches that man can gain deliverance from suffering by his own efforts independent of divine help or mediating priests.



Buddhism cannot, therefore, strictly be called a religion because it is neither a system of faith and worship, nor "the outward act or form by which men indicate their recognition of the existence of a God or gods having power over their own destiny to whom obedience, service, and honor are due."



If, by religion, is meant "a teaching which takes a view of life that is more than superficial, a teaching which looks into life and not merely at it, a teaching which furnishes men with a guide to conduct that is in accord with this its in-look, a teaching which enables those who give it heed to face life with fortitude and death with serenity,"[6] or a system to get rid of the ills of life, then it is certainly a religion of religions.



As a Christian I am giving two views why it is believed and why Christians do not accept it.



I hope they help.

Answer 3

"There is no higher instance, no judgement, no divine intervention, and NO GODS that steer man's destiny, but only the law of karma itself, which works on a universal scale. Deeds yield consequences either in the next second, in the next hour, day, month, year, decade, or even in the next lifetime, or in another distant lifetime.



What we are is determined largely by what we THOUGHT, SAID and DID in the past, while what we are thinking, saying, and doing now will form our future.



Wherever the three defilements - delusion, greed, and aversion - are present, they blur the view and increase the level of confusion in the individual. There is a low level of skill in distinguishing between good and bad actions.



As long as there is delusion, greed, aversion, and as long as passions are not extinguished, we generate karma. Because we eventually accumulate unmaterialised karma, there is a next lifetime in which the accumulated karma will take form. Only when all accumulated karma is realised and the generation of new karma is stopped, one can enter the stream that leads to Nirvana."

Answer 4

WHAT value does the Big Bang theory have to physicists? Why is it important (to them)?