Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
I must admit that yamizi has a better grasp of the many different concepts and the prevailing environment. I was referring to the philosophical ID ego which something that Freud came up with years ago. (Buddhism can be broken down into the religious side and philosophical side so it seems.) That is different from the word identity.
Buddhism certainly has good ideas and bad ideas but it relies solely on faith and hope, somethings not everyone has. Thus you can see, it is not the ultimate teaching as transmission must be from person to person. If it is an ultimate teaching, then it doesn't even rely on a person to transmit the teachings.
Hello HZ,
Just to share how
I see and understand Buddhism, because I always find what the mass and the norm to believe to be kind of
weird =P
I think the pre-requisite for anyone to enter a religion is by faith and that is because the religion provides the hope for the people who chooses it.
However, what faith is needed; what hope is there? These varies too.
In a theism (the belief in a god or many gods), the faith is to believe in god/s! And the hope would have most probably be that to enter a certain paradise after death.
However, in non-theistic religions, like Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucious, etc. The faith is often directed to oneself. The believe that there is a possible transformation from an older self to a new one (which is suppose to be a positive change too).
The hope is that through one's effort in the transformation, one is liberated from the short-comings of life.
The disciples of the Buddhas had compiled the Tipitaka and it is open to all who are interested in the Buddha's Teachings.
I'm not sure which ultimate teaching you're refering to or what transmission you're talking about.
I assume your ultimate teaching refers to teaching that liberates sufferings, well I think for starters, you can consider buying the Pali Canon and study them! It's all in there. I can lend you if you want to =)
For transmission, I assume on two parts.
First is that in the earlier days where no written sutta was done yet. Oral tramissions became an important tool to pass the Teachings of the Buddha down the generations, which made the morning puja much more meaningful than they are performed now (buddhists keep harping on the 'merits' they gained from morning puja..sighs...). Eventually these oral transmissions were then put into writings. Nothing was hidden in anyway.
Another is that you might refer to the tibetan or esoteric tradition. That is a much latter development of Buddhism which is integrated with brahmanistic practices of reciting of dhrani and tantrism for some 'secret rituals'. Well those transmissions...are not important at all so you can skip that anyway.
