Yes, a Buddha

[joedoe]

Well, I am fat and I laugh a lot, so I guess I could be the laughing Buddha

Seriously, I understand that we all have the potential to be a Buddha, but I think we have a tendency to be too free with awarding titles (too many sifus & sigung around ). While I accept that I have the potential, I know that I am a long way from achieving enlightenment.

[prana]

joedoe,

you're also a smelly Buddha !

All sentient beings are, just some wear more clothes than others.

KL, a ch'an twist

Mr Rogers, where is ?

ok ok, I'm gonna get banned soon if I carry on

[GeneChing]

...we all have Buddha potential - every sentient being does. But that doesn't mean we've acheived that potential yet. As for Mr. Rogers, there are many other Buddhist analogies that might be more appropriate like a bodhisattva or something, but he was a heavy Christian, so it's sort of like defining a pear like a 'funny shaped apple." Don't get too caught up in the terminology - it's not very Chan. Dear Mr. Rogers was a good man. Leave it at that.

As for jd's title thing, did you know that in mandarin, the term "shifu" can be used as nickname for anyone who provides an authoritative service - like your taxicab driver? I agree that CMA gets pretty bogged down with all of it's titles, but sometimes we sanctify those titles too highly as well.

[prana]

with all due respect Gene,

It's not like me to pick with fine prints, but potential "may" imply 'not borned with', whereas, maybe buried potential is more accurate.

My apologies, picking words are not wise....

[joedoe]

Originally posted by GeneChing
...we all have Buddha potential - every sentient being does. But that doesn't mean we've acheived that potential yet. As for Mr. Rogers, there are many other Buddhist analogies that might be more appropriate like a bodhisattva or something, but he was a heavy Christian, so it's sort of like defining a pear like a 'funny shaped apple." Don't get too caught up in the terminology - it's not very Chan. Dear Mr. Rogers was a good man. Leave it at that.

As for jd's title thing, did you know that in mandarin, the term "shifu" can be used as nickname for anyone who provides an authoritative service - like your taxicab driver? I agree that CMA gets pretty bogged down with all of it's titles, but sometimes we sanctify those titles too highly as well.

But a title is supposed to represent something, otherwise why do we bother with titles? I know that we often use titles jokingly or in levity, but when you seriously hand someone a title it should be representative of the esteem that you hold that person in.

I hold a Bachelor's degree in Economics. Does that mean that I have to right to call myself a Doctor of Economics? No. I have not earned that.

IMO, too many people in MA call themselves masters. Very few of them are truly deserving of the title. Similarly, to label someone a Buddha is fairly careless unless they truly have earned it.

[richard sloan]

...but everything has the buddha nature...

[GeneChing]

The necromancy? Nah, it's reincarnation in this case.

China launches system to check authenticity of living buddhas
Updated: 2016-01-18 15:29
(Xinhua)

BEIJING -- China launched an online system to check the authenticity of living buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism on Monday, as a growing number of fraudulent buddhas swindle money.
The inquiry system can be found at the official website of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, www.sara.gov.cn, and www.tibet.cn. The first group of 870 verified living buddhas was published on Monday.
It is the first time information on the country's religious leaders is accessible via the Internet.
"As a living buddha, I feel genuinely happy about it," said the 7th Drukhang living buddha Drukhang Thubten Khedrup, vice president of the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) at the launch ceremony.
He said it is an effort to promote transparency at the association and regulate reincarnation issues for living buddhas.
The system was put in place to counter fake living buddhas who have been found cheating believers for money and undermining the reputation of living buddhas and Tibetan Buddhism.
One of the most renowned cases involved Wu Darong, who pretended to be a living buddha and was worshipped by the famous Chinese artist Zhang Tielin. Wu was later exposed as a fake living buddha.
The BAC said the system, which can be used both on computers and mobile phones, publishes detailed, accurate information on living buddhas, including photos, names, religion names, monastic titles, date of birth, religious sects, numbers of living buddha certificates and resident monasteries.
The association is continuing its verification of other living buddhas in hopes of creating a complete database.
Originated in the 13rd century AD, reincarnation of living buddhas is a unique inheritance system in Tibetan Buddhism. Since 2010, the BAC began to issue certificates to living buddhas.

[David Jamieson]

Not surprisingly, overly religious types are not too difficult to fool.
Humans are fairly self serving by nature. That's what made Mahayana so popular after all. People actually thought they could buy their way into Nirvana.

Same as people who think that charity will get them a seat on the bus to the pearly gates or whatever.

Wait til they find out they're coming back as 18,000 blades of grass on a lawn getting mowed every weekend.

I'm perfectly content in a rudderless world with new choices to be made every day.
If you do good things, you serve a purpose.
If you do bad things, you serve a purpose.
If you do nothing at all, you serve a purpose.
Such is life.

[Faux Newbie]

That's what made Mahayana so popular after all. People actually thought they could buy their way into Nirvana.

Wait, how does Mahayana do this?

Otherwise, I'm willing to say that, as far as anyone knows, Fred Rogers could have been a buddha. Finding who is not a Buddha seems like a dangerous path for a buddhist who is not a buddha, and a fruitless path for a buddhist who is a buddha.

[David Jamieson]

Wait, how does Mahayana do this?

Otherwise, I'm willing to say that, as far as anyone knows, Fred Rogers could have been a buddha. Finding who is not a Buddha seems like a dangerous path for a buddhist who is not a buddha, and a fruitless path for a buddhist who is a buddha.

why with merit points of course. Or accumulative karma as it s called. Do a good deed? Get karma. Give money to the temple? Get karma.
That's how Mahayana did that.

Now, one could easily look past that rubbish and simply sit, meditate, see the world as it is and to hell wit the doctrine and dogma right?

But you, me and the dbase server lamppost here know that people are far more superficial than that in a big way.

Which is why adepts at zen, yoga, what have you are nearly as rare as hens teeth.

Anyway.

[Faux Newbie]

why with merit points of course. Or accumulative karma as it s called. Do a good deed? Get karma. Give money to the temple? Get karma.
That's how Mahayana did that.

Now, one could easily look past that rubbish and simply sit, meditate, see the world as it is and to hell wit the doctrine and dogma right?

But you, me and the dbase server lamppost here know that people are far more superficial than that in a big way.

Which is why adepts at zen, yoga, what have you are nearly as rare as hens teeth.

Anyway.

Okay, gotcha!

In fairness, karma cannot lead to enlightenment, only enlightenment can lead to it, but you are right, karma has its down side as a principle.

[GeneChing]

"...unregulated religious economy of fake Buddhas" eh?

If only America could do something similar with Christian false prophets.

I don't think it's on America to sort people out in the spirituality department.

[GeneChing]

In China, the state decides who can live after death


Delegates from China's Tibet autonomous region arrive before the opening of the fourth Session of the 12th National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, 2016. (Wu Hong / European Pressphoto Agency)

Jonathan Kaiman

In China, it's not easy to become a “living Buddha.” First come the years of meditation and discipline. Then comes the bureaucracy.

“The highest level of living Buddhas must be approved by the central government,” Phurbu Tsering, the abbot of Sera Monastery near Tibet's capital, Lhasa, said at a meeting of China's rubber-stamp legislature on Monday. “Other Living Buddhas must be approved by local governments.”

China is laying down the law on reincarnation, as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama — Tibet’s enormously influential spiritual leader — enters his twilight years with no successor in sight. Although the ruling Communist Party is an officially atheist organization – officials are barred from practicing religion – it is perennially uncomfortable with forces outside of its control, and has for years demanded the power to regulate the supernatural affairs of Tibetan Buddhist figures, determining who can and cannot be reincarnated.


Padma Choling, chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s People’s Congress standing committee, speaks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 7, 2016. (Andy Wong / Associated Press)

The Dalai Lama, 80, fled the Himalayan region in 1959 after a failed uprising; Chinese authorities revile him as a “separatist,” although he claims to only want increased autonomy for the region.

Authorities have framed their bureaucratization of the afterlife as a bulwark against fraudulent, profiteering monks. Yet experts say it's also part of a wide-ranging effort to tighten control over the turbulent region.

“From the point of view of Beijing, the whole apparatus seems to be about giving Beijing control over the appointment of the next Dalai Lama,” said Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibet Studies Program at Columbia University. The Chinese term huofo, or living Buddha, refers to high-ranking religious figures in Tibetan Buddhism, but it has no true equivalent in the Tibetan language.

Communist policy on religion is: You run Tibet by...having a lama who is credible enough to be influential when he says you should follow the Communist Party.
— Robbie Barnett, Director of the Modern Tibet Studies Program at Columbia University

“They want to make sure they control the next Dalai Lama, as they’ve tried to control the current Panchen Lama,” Barnett continued, referring to the second-ranking leader of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. “We think we know about Communist policies [in Tibet], but they’re not what they appear. Communist policy on religion is: You run Tibet by … having a lama who is credible enough to be influential when he says you should follow the Communist Party. They don’t have enough power to control Tibet without a lama to handle it.”

At the meeting — held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the country’s most prestigious venue — Phurbu Tsering, wearing red monk’s robes, spoke softly in Tibetan, while another delegate to the legislature translated into Mandarin.

He recited several points from the State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5, a law that authorities passed in 2007 to govern reincarnation. One must have “recognition from the religious world and the temple” to reincarnate, he said.

The law itself frames reincarnation in terms of national security: “The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups, and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country,” it says.

“Fake living Buddhas” have been in the headlines since November, when a video went viral of Zhang Tielin, a Chinese-born British actor, being “ordained” as a living Buddha at a lavish ceremony in Hong Kong. The ceremony’s host, Baima Aose, a Chinese man from southeast China’s Fujian province, claimed that he had been certified as a living Buddha by a famous Tibetan Buddhist monastery. The monastery later denied ordaining him, and Aose issued a public apology.

On Jan. 18, authorities published online an official registry of 870 licensed living Buddhas, searchable by name, temple and identity card number or “living-Buddha card number,” to cut down on fraud.

Yet experts say that the system of registering living Buddhas has itself become fertile ground for corruption.

“The thing [authorities] are emphasizing is the database — that’s the new hyped up thing,” said Barnett. “The way it works is permits. You get a permit from the local religious affairs office, saying you’re recognized as a so-called living Buddha. Once you have that system, it means you can pay for it.

“Apparently what that means — and I have several personal sources on this — is that each area has a quota of these to hand out, and the officials in each area just sell their quota,” he continued.

The Dalai Lama, in a 2011 statement, called the country’s reincarnation laws “outrageous” and “disgraceful.”

“The enforcement of various inappropriate methods for recognizing reincarnations to eradicate our unique Tibetan cultural traditions is doing damage that will be difficult to repair,” he said.


Tibetan refugees hold placards and candles during a vigil following the self-immolation of two Tibetans in Bangalore, India, on March 5, 2016. (Manjunath Kiran / AFP/Getty Images)

More than 140 people in Tibet and neighboring provinces have burned themselves to death since 2009 as a grim protest against Chinese rule; many have called for the Dalai Lama’s return as they went up in flames. On Feb. 29, an 18-year-old Tibetan died after lighting himself on fire, marking the first self-immolation since August, according to the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly blamed the “Dalai clique” and other “hostile foreign forces” for the rash of self-immolations.

Authorities closed Tibet to foreign visitors beginning Feb. 25, and will probably keep it off-limits until the end of March — an annual occurrence since riots rippled across the region in March 2008. They have not extended the same restrictions to domestic Chinese tourists.

At Monday’s meeting, Baima Chilin, deputy Communist Party chief of the region, said that the Dalai Lama was “no longer a religious leader” after he left Tibet in 1959.

“If the Dalai Lama wants to return to China, he must give up 'Tibet independence,' and must publicly acknowledge Tibet and Taiwan are inseparable parts of China and that the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government,” he said.

Chuan Xu and Yingzhi Yang in The Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

Follow @JRKaiman on Twitter for news from Asia

I wanna know more about Baima Aose.