Budlightenment: How to go from Buddy to Buddha in 60 Life Years

I believe in Jesus. I believe in me. I believe in God and the Holy Trinity. I believe that someday I will succeed in seeing Jesus, the guardian of the free. Some things I can accept, as history in time. Some things I can see as ordered in a line. What came first, does it matter? Were all in a field, observing certain casualties of living, like playing a game. If I could get whatever I wished for instantaneously it appears, wouldn't it be boresome to be certain of this fact? Isnt experience nothing more than a taste of duality, oppositions fighting for the right to be sensed? Is knowledge something to be gathered colledting dust, or should it be more likely tasted, used then discarded?

So now I stand in line, waiting to be served salvation only to find that I may have to fix some broken bridges before I reach my final destination. No biggie as I tend to take it for granted that I am an architect of my life, with no destiny left unchallenged and if as fate would have it some enlightened being crossed my path then i would've stumbled upon him unseeingly irreverently cursing his invisible presence. Of course the intention may have been for good, slowing me down enough to prevent some horrible accident.

Who to believe, but yourself. Life is funny, but its only fun because you can change. Rules bend, and reality breaks as you allow yourself out of your box. From time to time it serves you right to get a slap in the face, but whats a little hurting do to you anyway? So no matter what religion are you, or even if you dont believe in religions the buddhameister is your buddy.

The world is a musical place full of lights and sounds and a whole lot of nothing. Yet emptiness like limbo fills every space, where the elements roll together, close enough so we detect their aggregative existence solid as a rock. Like a rock, the religion superstructure, the megalithic spiritual monstrosity solid as time, created by man to survive as a tradition is yet a part of this new dawn of information reconstruction. If man is a weapon, then religion is the atom bomb of weapons. But over time people have forgotten that the ultimate purpose of weapons is not to kill but protect. Perhaps religion is what was meant by the tower of Babel. Man was a sleeping giant baby yet immature in the true purpose of such weapons, therefore his kind was struck by many languages not to confuse his wisdom but to awaken the inner knowing that he is himself god, there is no need to hurt his self.

And so a long time ago Babel fell as the story goes, now we know the universe is vast but its a small world once again for life proper. Technology has given me the ability to write this modified report on happiness based on a book report i once did about: The Mind's Journey to Ultimate Happiness by Damchoe. I was hoping to put all 13 pages here on hubpages but that eventually did not make much sense. So in the spirit of having something to edit for a change about half of the report remained intact with some additional subject matter included based on more current information I've collected.

Main Ideas of Buddhism

The term Buddha does not apply to just one man, Siddhartha Gautama, but to all man who has discovered what it is like to really be awake. According to the lecturer at the Universal Wisdom building in Gilmore, Philippines there have been many enlightened ones that have achieved full wakefulness before and after the time of Siddhartha, but in actuality the time of the Buddha's is very rare. More often than not there are countless eons when mankind has lived in the dark and a Buddha appears during a storm in time as if a lightning bolt hit the ground illuminating all around. For now we are living in the afterimage of many Buddha's and so are very fortunate to receive their message.

Gifted, a genius with a mind for greater things - he could have been anybody and he had the means to get whatever he lacked. But it was not for his lack that Siddhartha realized he must work for. After crossing the threshold of the world beyond the comparative excesses of the palace prison he had spent most of his life in, he beheld what he missed from his life: youth comes with age, joy comes with suffering, love comes with hate, life comes with death, and wisdom comes with foolishness. Everything has its opposite, karma cycles relentlessly over all, but to each his own burden. The time was ripe for a Buddha and Siddhartha was in the right place. Having perceived suffering as the fallen fruits of a great tree, he undertook a quest of ideals to pick out those fruits which were the sweetest, forsaking his worldly riches for rags. Throughout his training with many spiritual masters, Siddhartha endured intense discipline and extreme fasting until he almost died. His experiences took him to the edge and back again with knowledge that the extremes of radicalism and moderation are neither a solution to any problem. The path must be tested by every man according to his belief. As the Buddha, he is now equipped to help those in need. Most notably he did not forget his son, who became a Buddha himself.

Personal Evaluation:

What have I learned? I have learned that becoming a Buddha does not have to be so hard. One may begin with little steps such as being generous and good karma will reflect good credit back to you. Then with good attitude one can improve ones practice, help others to be happier and being happy makes one more attractive as well so the cycle reciprocates. Buddhism does not believe in a god except for man unleashed, my religion believes that God came down as a man and he is the only sure path to salvation, and I do not know of such higher purposes for sure except by faith because I am neither enlightened nor a saint with the gift of revelations. But I desire to be both and that is perhaps all that God asks for permission to change a person to who he really is meant to be.

Is the lesson clear? The book is pretty straightforward and fun to read. The many anecdotes are highly relevant. Some are fantastic tales of the Buddha's past lives meant to illustrate certain principles. Others are of other Buddha's and how the teachings eventually came to be written and passed from generation to generation. There was one story in there of a certain Buddha who came to live for 600 years in an age where everybody's lifespan were considerably shorter. I should not find it surprising that Buddhism should exhibit many of the same miracles as the Bible since advanced practitioners are said to possess otherworldly powers, but are forewarned not to show off in order not to inflate the ego. Although there were so many lessons in lists and plenty of meanderings to side notes, I appreciate the compactness of the book. The other thing I didn't really like is how they failed to explain some things in plain English, of course some foreign terms were nice, but some of the terms had more than one meaning then it was not so clear what the author meant. In any case the book cleared a lot of things up for me about Buddhism.

Is the message reasonable? I assume it is quite safe as far as reason goes. There is some danger in the unknown but surely man will have gotten nowhere without taking some risks. There are plenty of reasons to support trying Buddhism other than being plain bored. This book outlined some of those reasons, but there is no need to convince me as I already am inclined to practice such methods my own way. I'm already sold on the medicine I just have to take my daily dosage. So I read the book not so much to become convinced but to figure out better exercises with which to practice with.

Explain the Lessons

Knowledge. There are three types of defilements that are common knowledge in Buddhism: ignorance, desire, and hatred. Based on this there are four types of people, the first three types depending on which defilement they exhibit most, and the fourth exhibits equal amounts of defilements. Good practice avoids all defilements. In any case, without practice it is hard to be practical. Deeds and discipline are required for the next life if one is still on the road to a cyclical existence. It's only common sense to be generous in this life because it pays off whether in the short run or in the long or even in the next life. And keeping good character allows one to stay resurrected as a human or better with knowledge of Buddha's. Only no amount of kindness will help those with bad moral conduct as they may be born an animal or worse who might not know what use a good deed is for.

Attitude. There is no room for blind faith in Buddhism, one should test everything, try it out for yourself and see if it's good for you. There are certain rules though that are based on natural law - it makes sense that one should avoid evil, do good deeds, and purify the mind in order to attain enlightenment. Also in order to keep a good discipline one should avoid the ten non virtuous deeds, three of which are of the body: killing, stealing, disrespectful sex. Four non-virtuous deeds are of speech: lying, gossip, harsh language, meaningless speech. The last three are of the mind: coveting, wishing harm, holding wrong views. Truth is not the exclusive property of any one religion, so one should be able to arrive at some kind of truth whether absolute or relative upon further investigation of its component perfections.

Values. There are six perfections or vehicles to get to the other side: the first is giving of property, knowledge, and protection. The second perfection is morality by abstaining from bad behaviors, morality through the integration of virtue, and morality for the welfare for others. The third perfection is patience of willing endurance of suffering, patience from discriminative awareness of true causes, and patience of non-retaliation. The fourth perfection is un-distractible effort, joyful effort in virtuous conduct, effort for the welfare of others. The fifth perfection is meditation and the last perfection is wisdom. Before others can benefit from the teachings they must be skillfully brought into the fold through the four means: kindness with no strings attached, pleasant teaching, helping others, consistent in word and deed.

Skills. The secret to enlightenment, powers, and greater than normal awareness is correct meditation. Regardless of whether we choose to meditate or not, we have a mental state somewhere between confused, scatterbrained, or tightly focused able to cut through any dilemma. One can sit, stand, walk, run, and even "sleep" and still be intensely aware. More important is how we focus our mind to meditate at all. There are ways to clear the mind from distractions by focusing on a single object or emotion such as a headache I might be experiencing from writing this paper. Only meditation is different from having a psychic episode where one, becomes a medium for a spirit, becomes entranced, and loses control of the senses. Rather performing an exchange of my happiness for all the writers block in the world meditation would not only increase my awareness, but allow me to unblock in the process to move on with the paper. One can also meditate with compassion for our mothers, other creatures, or enemies to release the pent up energy we have inside. Lastly we can meditate on limbo rock, a solid foundation of emptiness beyond the four philosophical threshold of reality which is existence, nonexistence, neither, and both.

What Do I Want to Know?

I want to know just how compatible Buddhism is with my religion. I want to know how much of an influence has Buddhism had with me. I want to know what kind of help Buddhism really offers people. I want to know if it would be less threatening for other religions to make like Buddhism and take a try before you buy stance with their approach. This makes me wonder whether this kind of thinking would only lead to a more dangerous though efficient one world government. I also want to learn more about reincarnation and what it takes to be human. I want to know how Buddhism can fit with current religions with no contradictions. Lastly, I want to know how I can improve myself and help people now.

Why Am I Interested?

I want to be happy, plain and simple. Not that I'm really unhappy, life has its moments, but I figure if I'm truly happy then I will be able to share my happiness. This book must have some practical content other than inspirational or exceptional tales of how the Buddha originally lost his way but finally got back on track again. This book must have some memorable gist for me to recount to some stranger just to say I know something about Buddhism that you don't. There must be something more to meditation than just emptying the mind because millions of people find satisfaction with it. And if continual practice of simple looking exercises would eventually open the door to greater wisdom and perhaps even awareness then count me in, I love this book already.

Being born into a pattern in time where opportunities to become enlightened come from many places, can I consider myself lucky, fated, or confused with the drama of life's conflicts? I am convicted and convinced by this world to act according to a plan of salvation, whether by Buddha, Krishna, Allah, God, or Jesus, the last being my favored method. Other than the religion I was born with, there are simply some things I have tried for myself, tested, and not taken for granted. I beg to differ with the world by establishing my own path.

Only my path is not unique. Countless millions of people have walked the confusing mire of life towards the high road of enlightenment. Whether one calls these people a potential Buddha or saint or whatever other religious term, their intention is the same. We all begin with desire and the perfection of that desire is to want what's best in others as well as the self. The way to begin to achieve a state of perfection or really non-desire is first to be generous, then be disciplined, then patient, then meditate, and finally be wise. Once you understand these lessons passing them on is as easy as showing kindness, teaching kindly, being helpful, and being consistent with what you say and do.

According to the lecture, a Buddha is no longer a man, not a god, not a spirit, but awake. Being awake allows one to see things as processes, the water falling instead of a waterfall, action verbs instead of empty nouns. A Buddha is also one who is empty of defilements. So being a Buddha is quite an aspiration to live by.

According to the book there are many things one can do to attain Buddhahood. The practice when taken steps by step are simple enough to accomplish. The book is very entertaining and even left me hanging. Some information is worth some further explanation, and should be written in common terms. This kind of book falls in line with the kinds of books I buy so I have no problems accepting the message.

Damchoe, Khenpo Ngawang. The Mind's Journey to Ultimate Happiness: A Meditaion on Tibetan Buddhism. Taipei, Taiwan. The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation. 2005