AUTUMN&WINTER wrote:
Have a deeper thought about this. What is the ultimate good? ...
What I'm saying is for discussion sake and everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. Not meant to offend anyone and certainly not meant for anyone to take it personally.
What I find ironic is, Buddhism in general teaches us to be in the here and now. Not to be attached to the future or what may come. By doing good or doing something so that we can be free from the cycles of rebirth, isn't that too a form of attachment and desire?
My thinking is that I do not know whether there's really such a thing as a next life, but what I can focus on, is to do good in this life, and do as much as I can without being fixated about what I will reap as a result of it, whether I will transcend all these and be able to relieve others from the sufferings of the cycles of rebirth.
Whether I am reborn as a human being with favorable or not favorable conditions, that's for karma and heavens above to decide. I can only focus on right here right now in this life what I chose to do with the time I have.
To do good or to chant sutras and such as a means to an end (to gain something) seems to go against the general principles of buddhism in the first place. Being able to transcend the cycles of rebirth should in theory be a by product of what we do, not as a goal of itself.
If given a hypothetical choice between spending all my time in this life to learn and transcend the cycles of rebirth upon the end of this lifetime, and the choice to spend all my time in this life and stuck in all future lives as a human being henceforth to just live and do good to help others, I will gladly and rather take the latter.
What I find ironic is, Buddhism in general teaches us to be in the here and now. Not to be attached to the future or what may come. By doing good or doing something so that we can be free from the cycles of rebirth, isn't that too a form of attachment and desire?
My thinking is that I do not know whether there's really such a thing as a next life, but what I can focus on, is to do good in this life, and do as much as I can without being fixated about what I will reap as a result of it, whether I will transcend all these and be able to relieve others from the sufferings of the cycles of rebirth.
Whether I am reborn as a human being with favorable or not favorable conditions, that's for karma and heavens above to decide. I can only focus on right here right now in this life what I chose to do with the time I have.
To do good or to chant sutras and such as a means to an end (to gain something) seems to go against the general principles of buddhism in the first place. Being able to transcend the cycles of rebirth should in theory be a by product of what we do, not as a goal of itself.
If given a hypothetical choice between spending all my time in this life to learn and transcend the cycles of rebirth upon the end of this lifetime, and the choice to spend all my time in this life and stuck in all future lives as a human being henceforth to just live and do good to help others, I will gladly and rather take the latter.
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