Since FireIce or Jason has been so insistent on closing threads on Pastor Rony in this forum for reasons they have not explained, I'll just put a read only thread for clarifying the errors of Pastor Rony videos.
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Buddhists aim to be more powerful than God
He has a misconception that Buddhist aims to become more 'powerful',
which is totally besides the point. Buddhism only seeks to end
suffering.
Karma is fatalistic
He mistakens that karma is predeterminism or fatalism which the Buddha
clearly rejected as false views. Whereas the Buddha taught very clearly
that not everything is caused solely by karma as there are many other
types of conditions. You definitely can't blame on karma if you get
cancer when you continue smoking - that is your current life conditions
and not everything is the result of karma.
There are also ways to remedy bad karma, like repentance and dharma
practice. Repentance and dharma practice can lighten one's karma. It can
even lead to liberation.
A person by the name of Angulimala killed almost a thousand men, but was
converted by Buddha while he was chasing the Buddha to kill him. Buddha
used his psychic powers and appeared to be walking at normal speed yet
Angulimala could not catch up with Buddha no matter how he ran.
Angulimala shouted to Buddha to stop, and the Buddha told him, I have
stopped, how about you? Angulimala was puzzled, and the Buddha explained
that he had stopped, having compassion for all beings, he stood still
and never brought harm to beings.
After being converted, he was not only guaranteed freed from rebirth in
lower realms, but he transcended rebirth in all realms, having attained
Arhatship, enlightenment, liberation, he is freed from any further
uncontrolled cycles of rebirth.
The Buddha said that if it were not for having entered the path, he
would have suffered terribly (like in the hell realm), but his only bad
karmic consequence in that life was being shunned by people and not
being able to receive much alms.
There is no rebirth
The pastor have not read of the countless cases of children who remember
past lives. Which is scientifically documented. (search: Dr Ian
Stevensons)
Man > Woman > Cow
It's funny how some people are mistaken that woman have lower stature in
Buddhism, which has no scriptural basis. We recognise the potential of
all beings for attaining Buddhahood. There is no difference of sex,
race, whatever, when it comes to Buddha-Nature.
Blind leading Blind
Even if the temple head has not attained Nirvana, doesn't mean there
weren't people who attained enlightenment... in fact many did even
today, even some in this forum. The point is, not everyone is blind, and
there are in fact those who have 'seen' and is leading the rest.
Conclusion
Basically that guy did not understand Buddhism well, was probably and
unfortunately not properly guided or not guided enough, and it is
unfortunate that the pastor is relying on faulty 'testimonials' and
understandings of Buddhism.
............
Next video
What is your counter-argument for the pastor's claim that all animals do
not possess a moral compass, thus his basis for the rejection of the
reincarnation theory.
I just found the video you were refering to: Pastor Rony continues
criticism of non-christian religion.flv
About the tiger: a tiger will be stuck in the tiger realm for many many
lifetimes before being reborn again in another realm. Could be millions
of lifetimes, never know.
It does not however contradict the existence of rebirth.
Also those who think that tiger has no moral compass and is incapable of
being good or loving, please watch this video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69...-temple_travel
There were no past lives before 5 lifetimes ago because that is all she
remembers
If you had any basic knowledge of Buddhism at all, you will know that
samsara is beginningless and there is no such thing as a 'first
lifetime'. We all had countless past lives though it is not often the
case we remember them, much less remember many of them.
She remembered just 5 lifetimes. So of course she cannot know the whole
story. The number of lifetimes you can remember depends on you deeply
you enter into meditation. Some people remember only 1, some 5, some
hundreds, etc. It doesn't mean there is no more past lifes after that.
Some forummers in this forum remember many many more lifetimes than
that. You can remember hundreds, thousands, millions of lifetimes if you
enter deeply into meditation. Buddha personally remembered 91 aeons of
past lives.
Buddha's said while dying that he was still searching the way, while
Jesus said I am The Way
It is ridiculous he said that Buddha is still searching the way, when
the Buddha is adamant in having found what he sought for -
enlightenment, liberation from suffering. He then set out to show The
Way to enlightenment, and many people have as a result, till this day,
attained enlightenment and nirvana. He has totally ended suffering right
there and then.
His actual final words were: "All conditioned things are impermanent.
Strive on with diligence."
What is the difference between Rebirth in Buddhism and Reincarnation of
other religions?
Continuing consciousness after death is, in most religions, a matter of
revealed truth. In Buddhism, the evidence comes from the contemplative
experience of people who are certainly not ordinary but who are
sufficiently numerous that what they say about it is worth taking
seriously into account. Indeed, such testimonies begin with those of the
Buddha himself.
Nevertheless, it’s important to understand that what’s called
reincarnation in Buddhism has nothing to do with the transmigration of
some ‘entity’ or other. It’s not a process of metempsychosis because
there is no ‘soul’. As long as one thinks in terms of entities rather
than function and continuity, it’s impossible to understand the Buddhist
concept of rebirth. As it’s said, ‘There is no thread passing through
the beads of the necklace of rebirths.’ Over successive rebirths, what
is maintained is not the identity of a ‘person’, but the conditioning of
a stream of consciousness.
Additionally, Buddhism speaks of successive states of existence; in
other words, everything isn’t limited to just one lifetime. We’ve
experienced other states of existence before our birth in this lifetime,
and we’ll experience others after death. This, of course, leads to a
fundamental question: is there a nonmaterial consciousness distinct from
the body? It would be virtually impossible to talk about reincarnation
without first examining the relationship between body and mind.
Moreover, since Buddhism denies the existence of any self that could be
seen as a separate entity capable of transmigrating from one existence
to another by passing from one body to another, one might well wonder
what it could be that links those successive states of existence
together.
One could possibly understand it better by considering it as a
continuum, a stream of consciousness that continues to flow without
there being any fixed or autonomous entity running through it… Rather it
could be likened to a river without a boat, or to a lamp flame that
lights a second lamp, which in-turn lights a third lamp, and so on and
so forth; the flame at the end of the process is neither the same flame
as at the outset, nor a completely different one…
(Rizenfenix)
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Originally posted by likeyou:
When one is dreaming, will one be back to the past?
No.
You need to enter into meditation, and you will remember your past lives
with clarity.
Sometimes, but not always, you can remember in such clarity that you
actually 're-live' the whole scene. Like you are really right there with
your whole body. Sometimes it can be traumatic as Longchen told me (he
remembered for example, fighting in WW1 in France). He also used to be a
monk, a Tibetan lama 2 lifetimes ago. He also lived in Japan, China,
and many other places. When I met him he told me in detail about many of
his past lives and the consequences it had on his current life, which
was actually quite interesting, but I digress.
If you can remember past lives with such clarity, you will become
doubtless about your past lives, just as you cannot possibly doubt your
having had a cup of tea just an hour ago.
......
Originally posted by Fantagf:
Rony is indirectly hard selling his religion la. Every christian is
expected to be salesman, saleswoman selling the product called
chrisitianity.
To date, I received news that 2 of the people i know of gave up on
christianity. hahaha
I am thankful that buddhism is not condeming others and other religion
and the buddhists are not pushy, proud and quick to judge.
You're right that pastors felt the obligation to lead people to
Christianity including by ways like putting down other religions.
That is precisely what my Buddhist master did when he was still a
pastor. He was very active in preaching, and even wrote a book on the
bible.
My Master used to be a Christian pastor who insulted Buddhism (claiming
it is superstitious and demonic which is due to a gross misunderstanding
of what Buddhism is) wherever he go because of the pressure by other
Christian pastor friends who did the same thing.
When his university lecturer asked him to stop his blatant insult which
is very unwelcome and unlikeable by people and do something more
professional like researching on what Buddhism is about to write a
proper thesis on the faults of Buddhism that he actually went to the
libraries to find out what Buddhism is about.
After he read through the books, he converted to a Buddhist monk. He
found what he wanted.
.........
Anyway what Pastor Rony did is probably much much more common in
Christian circles, and has been so for a long time. I am in fact a
little surprised that such videos only surface recently.
For me: obviously, spreading of total misunderstandings of Buddhism, and
spreading intolerance such as these, have to stop.
Please keep these videos coming, this is the internet age.
We need all such videos publicized and correct them so people can be
informed of the right information and not given blatant misinfo about
Buddhism.