First Two Buddhists Elected to Congress as well

[liberalpragmatist]

Lost in the hubbub over Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, a Muslim, is the fact that TWO Buddhists were elected to Congress in November. They are, Rep.-elect Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Rep.-elect Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) (the guy that replaced Cynthia McKinney).

http://politicalinsider.com/2006/12/islam_not_the_only_new_religio.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Thanks for this

I had read about them, but couldn't remember where to find the link. Wonder if Goode will freak out over them if they, say, decide to have their photo op with the Dhammapada, or maybe a statue of the Buddha?

[Warpy]

2. What would really cause Goode's head to pop

like an overripe pimple is knowing that Buddhists recognize no gods.

That's right, kiddies, two ATHEISTS have sneaked into that august Christian body!

[sam sarrha]

5. Buddhists are not Atheists, in the Wheel of Life..LINK>.. you will notice that the gODs have their

own realm of existence.. they are probably to prideful and blissed out to get involved with humans.
the gODs also reside in Samsara:world of cyclical rebirth, suffering and death, even tho they do have unimaginable powers they cant free themselves from Samsara, so it follows that they cannot free us either.

the Demi-gODs on the other hand, whose bindings to Samsara is Jealousy..ever hear that before.. are well known to F*uck with the humans and gODs alike, always causing trouble and as much suffering as possible..

here is a link,

http://www.buddhanet.net/wheel1.htm

[Warpy]

10. That's exactly what makes me such a bad Buddhist

I can't stand all those religious trappings.

Part of Buddha's awakening was the realization that all the fearsome gods he encountered while meditating under the bodhi tree were created by his own mind.

[sam sarrha]

11. well.... Buddhism isn't a Religion. and it is a visual practice, there are no fearsome gods,

there are Wrathful Protectors and they represent very deep things.. like the Tara's, who sprang from where tears from Avalokiteshvara fell to earth, from his pain of deep compassion for others sufferings. i believe you are referring to the Tibetan Tradition of wrathful deities.. he did meet Mara.. but then he told a story about Braman who told him to tell the humans he isnt the reason their children got sick and died, he couldnt help them, and asked him to tell the humans he isnt to blame and cant fix it. ..Samsara is where all the the shit that happens begins.... but Buddhist Symbolism evolved over the centuries teaching to illiterate peoples. and we as westerners are are also illiterate when it comes to freeing ourselves from samsara and domination of the comventional mind

the Wheel of Life was actually dictated to people by the Buddha in order that they could create the painting i linked to you as a teaching tool. it is a map on many levels about Samsara, how you get trapped and how you get out.

me thinks you may not know enough of what you speak to justify being such a harsh judge of what means so much to many others though out the centuries, which is a vast source of compassion for others who are suffering. it is art. it represents what can not be spoken or mentalized into even thoughts.. but becomes cosmically evident with practice.

[Warpy]

12. Sounds like you're really into the whole religious thing

Sorry, but I'm not.

I told you I'm a bad Buddhist. I think all those legends are silly and haggling over doctrine is the worst waste of time I can imagine.

Oh, and don't try to criticise my level of practice.

[sam sarrha]

13. i didn't criticize you level of practice.. just your apparent cynicism and Buddhism isn't a Religion...

it is whatever it is to you.. and what i have discovered is one's 'Aversion' to something is equally as bad as one 'grasping or Desires' for something that causes suffering..

I have Aspergers Syndrome, i precieve things in visual images to begin with.. they apparently mean more to me than to you, because i see the world in metaphor and symbolically to begin with.. ..soooo when you dismiss my perceptual format as trappings of ignorance, maybe i have the right to start a conversation to try to inform you that you are craping on something that is maybe beyond your perceptual format.. 'Aspies' refer to people that say things like you did as NT's, 'Neurologically Traditional'. and much of the world may not agree with you and would be amused by you calling Buddhism a Religion, many just dont care knowing that trying to inform you isn't going happen and would just cause you more suffering. i can not see the Four Noble Truths as Dogma for a religion, religion essentually involves a gOD that creates the universe and all in it and rules it with savage penalties for transgressions of their laws.. i always thought it extortion

i am sure you have seen the 'Cave Man' commercials.. to some those commercials are all toooo real.

[Kber]

30. Not so much atheists exactly

but I believe Buddha thought that obsessing over the existence or nature of god was counter productive to the work we have to do here and now.

If belief in a god or gods helps you in your work, great. If not, that's fine too. But it's generally a distraction to too many people.

So you can be a Buddhist atheist, or a Jewish atheist, or whatever.

Mind you, I'm not a Bhuddhist, but my aunt is (of the atheist variety).

[kittykitty]

4. Or, the 'Tibetan Book of The Dead". . . . . . .

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol

[sam sarrha]

6. it is actually the "Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", it isnt about the dead, it is about the Bardo

.. the transition between.. and living is one of them

[sweetheart]

16. The book is about every moment of life

Buddhism has sutra and tantra. Sutras is like the origin of the word
for stitches, sutures(sp), and are more linear religious understandings,
like written truths.

Tantras, however, are experiential, like say meditating for long hours
on a particular breathing or energy center, resulting in an awesome
indescribable experience of awakening that has no written reflection.

Each moment, the last moment dies, and the razors edge is described in
the book of the dead, as the dying process, and in it, the awakening secret
that the clear light of truth is already there in every moment if we
submit to it totally... then our egoic machinations and illusory thoughts
are seen to be what they are, ephemoral and dead with the last passing
moment and the egos death with that dying.

Buddhism, were it to find a western word, might just be called 'enlightenment'.
And a buddhist might just be someone who believes that a human being can realize
that they are not their thoughts; that the world is filled with suffering rooted
in attachment to desire; and that the individual choice to awaken is sacred.

The mystical schools of buddhism contain some of the world's most enligthened
souls, not just brilliant 'understanders', or people who repeat witty phrases
from lao tzu, but earthmovers, real bodhisattvas who can, if a person chooses and
asks; prays from a deepest heartspace, transmit immaculate awakeness, induce it,
and assist by lighting the lamp. Such an awakener is called one's 'root guru',
the mystical foundation for the esoteric seat of knowledge that is ones life.

It's got fuck all to do with a buddha statue or a book, is part of what i'm saying,
in that buddhism treats idolitry with the same shrug most other religions do...
But buddhism is more like a plural christianity. Many people claim a personal relationship
with jesus christ and how it's awakened them to love and all that's important. Buddhism
accepts this truth, except that jesus christ is just one of the enlightened, and that there
are profoundly enlightened people who can transmit deep and radical awakenings. This idea
that anyone needs a transmission, grates upon people who've twisted buddhsim in to a new
defense of secularism, who've taken parts of buddhism and often zen in particular, to
construct a new secular buddhism that is 'not' a religion, where there are no gurus
greater than one's self who one should bow to.

That is not my experience of a buddhist life at all. I'm wholly aware that there are
profoundly liberated persons on this earth... and that the real truth, sadly, is that
hardly anyone is interested in becoming awake... really awake, for the perceived loss
of identity, material life, class identity, party identity, as awakeness eschews identity
by its very stomping of now over the bloated destiny of ego.

[ellisonz]

19. I agree with much of what you say but I must take issue with one point:

"But buddhism is more like a plural christianity. Many people claim a personal relationship
with jesus christ and how it's awakened them to love and all that's important. Buddhism
accepts this truth, except that jesus christ is just one of the enlightened, and that there
are profoundly enlightened people who can transmit deep and radical awakenings. This idea
that anyone needs a transmission, grates upon people who've twisted buddhsim in to a new
defense of secularism, who've taken parts of buddhism and often zen in particular, to
construct a new secular buddhism that is 'not' a religion, where there are no gurus
greater than one's self who one should bow to."

"Mahayana is an inclusive faith characterized by the adoption of new texts, in addition to the traditional Pali canon, and a shift in the understanding of Buddhism. It goes beyond the traditional nontheist Theravada ideal of the release of suffering and personal enlightenment, to instead elevate the Buddha to a God-like status (see God in Buddhism) and to create a pantheon of quasi-divine Bodhisattvas (??) that devote themselves to personal excellence, ultimate knowledge and the salvation of humanity and all other sentient beings (animals, ghosts, etc.). In Mahayana, the Buddha became an idealized man-god and the Bodhisattva came to represent the universal ideal of excellence." - Wikipedia

"Traditionally, Theravada Buddhism has observed a distinction between the practices suitable for a lay person and the practices undertaken by ordained monks (and, in ancient times, nuns). While the possibility of significant attainment by laymen is not entirely disregarded by the Theravada, it occupies a position of significantly less prominence than in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. This distinction - as well as the distinction between those practices advocated by the Pali Canon, and the folk religious elements embraced by many monks - have motivated some scholars to consider Theravada Buddhism to be composed of multiple separate traditions, overlapping though still distinct." - Wikipedia

Zen (import: Japan), or Ch'an (origin: China), is of course in some sense very much an elite reaction to the syncretism of the common Mahayana practice in China, so the fact that elites in modernity fetishize the "self" in relation to practice (very much not the Budda's intent) is not surprising. The creation of a Buddhist elite scholar class is very obviously not the intention of the Buddha who scorned rigid, or perceptually rigid, structures of authority in interpretation.

"I'm wholly aware that there are profoundly liberated persons on this earth... and that the real truth, sadly, is that
hardly anyone is interested in becoming awake... really awake, for the perceived loss
of identity, material life, class identity, party identity, as awakeness eschews identity
by its very stomping of now over the bloated destiny of ego."

You should not be so pessimistic. You seem to want to embrace Mahayana or "Great Vehicle," but have significant difficulty reconciling the presence of the Thervada or "Way of the Elders." I am biased of course towards the former and do not let the elite nature of the latter trouble me so much. Mahayana is extremely optimistic, and frankly I much prefer that approach because it is egalitariann and does not abandon people to materialist travails. Life is good, even if it is suffering.

[sweetheart]

21. Life is dukkha

Heck, i don't know. Its all about meditation for me, and i can't really fit that in to any sentences.

I don't know if i care about reconciling anything particularly... rather the profoundly awake persons i
know and know of, in the USA particularly, don't fit in to any buddhist ideals. Aldus Huxley says in this
interview, very wisely indeed, that awakening breaks through all the boundaries of culture, and so i believe
with enlightened awakeninng breaking through the stuffy confines of buddhist patriarchy and convention.
&t=OEgsToPDskI-vp3gcGRG4VxaoU2ajgXw
&t=OEgsToPDskJ2Gj3HSBRTiUePOJPc6QRz
&t=OEgsToPDskLmQ4BDXEaFDXr4m3E_1ObD

These 2 esoteric traditions of enlightenment both fit with that:

http://www.ripaladrang.org/
http://www.gangaji.org/

[ellisonz]

24. Well...

The Beatniks pretty much definted Ameribuddhism - so check out Kerouac's more Buddhist stuff, Gary Synder and Phillip Whalen.

Don't overread "profound awakening," englightenment is a much better translation IMHO, because it has a better connotation of modesty.

[sweetheart]

29. enlightenment

The term is indeed better, but then its reduced to semantics we 'understand',
and can be modest or immodest about, controlled by the ego and intellect,
that by comprehending the term, it is lost.

Buddhism is faced with this conundrum, as by the very nature of awakening,
convention and thought are overturned, even the conventions and thoughts of
buddhism, however noble... to the point where the esoteric traditions with
living bodhisattva's can appear to have nothing to do with buddhism.

Buddhism is all about enlightenment, but Enlightenment is nothing about Buddhism,
yet Enlightenment 'is' buddhism.

Living bodhistattva's define american buddhism, not some authors.

[jwirr]

3. The constitutional right to freedom of religion is certainly getting

a workout this year. Of course the idiots who have been running this country do not care about the constitution so they will continue on their merry path to fascism.

[Lisa]

23. A couple of Buddhists, a Muslim, and a bunch of Christians and Jews walked into a room

... and the new session of Congress started!

[jwirr]

25. Absolutely.

[sweetheart]

7. cool

om tat sat

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. My boss's head is going to explode when I tell him about this...

How fun! :evilgrin:

[Virginia Dare]

9. Awesome, I did not know this...

thanks for the heads up!

:kick:

[rosesaylavee]

14. Wonderful.

The diversity is most welcome and long overdue.

[deutsey]

15. Wow...that's interesting and edifying

Thanks!

[progressoid]

17. Uh oh, I hope this doesn't bring on the rapture...

again.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. in my understanding

Buddhism does not have gods that you have to worship.

There are enlightened beings (like Kwan Yin) as examples but no gods you have to worship.

In fact I was told by a Mahayana Buddhist nun that she used to pray to Buddha and that that was a mistake, and a wrong thing to do. This was during an English discussion group at a Mahayana (chinese) buddhist temple. Buddha is not a god, he is considered to be one of numerous enlightened beings.

It is possible to not believe in any gods and be a Buddhist, in my understanding.

I've been studying Asian religions for many years and find them far more fascinating than the Abrahamic ones.

Namaste to all.

[ellisonz]

20. I've met Mazie Hirono...

She appeared to be a smart, considerate woman, although certainly not a firebrand, but hey, the Aloha state already has Abercrombie. We seem to hae done well...

[Lisa]

22. thanks for posting! I was feeling kind of depressed ...

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had a news item last week where one of their reporters talked to some Christian fundamentalists in the US, and one of the pastors was sneering about how "some people actually think Buddhists are wise" -- and his congregation laughed and applauded him. I felt kind of sick, because one of my professors is a Buddhist, and my family was Shinto-Buddhist before they moved from Japan to North America. I know that there are plenty of Americans who respect other faiths, and in fact I'm in touch with a nice woman in Austin who does volunteer work for the Tibetan Buddhist community there ... but the guy's flippant, mean-spirited tone made me sad. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of Christian viewers were embarrassed and upset.

So it'll be wonderful to see these two newly-elected representatives taking their place in Congress, and doing a great job!

[hayu_lol]

26. Buddhism is an intensely personal religion/philosophy...it deals primarily...

with you as an individual. Thence the validity of the Noble Eight-Fold Path.

A guideline to keeping one's life on the rails.

It is personal.

It does not care what your neighbors do.

It is an intensely Liberal philosophy.

[Lisa]

27. yes, but I still feel sorry when I see people bad-mouthing each other

Even if the targets say it doesn't bother them. In a similar vein, some of my co-workers were upset on my behalf when someone made racist remarks about me, even though a) I'm kind of used to it by now, and b) I knew where it was coming from and I figured that person was the one with the problem, not me.

[Yukari Yakumo]

28. Someone should point this out to the Freepers

For the sole purpose of entertaining ourselves as many of them make asses of themselves... again.