Very nice book with beautiful illustrations.
Nowadays, most people in my country (Thailand) have forgotten about the Buddha’s teachings. They call themselves Buddhists but they are merely doing the rituals and follow established tradition created by organised religious leaders. They are both stuck in materialism and the pursuit of riches and wealth.
Only serious practitioners of Buddhism would be found in remote area such as forest monasteries with simple lifestyle. Most monks in big cities are just people in monk uniforms to me!
The demise of Buddhism came after the Second World War and the first coup which overthrew the monarchy. New power structure supervised by outsiders had been implemented to change our education system, traditional health care, and the centralised control of monks and temples. Brave monks were thrown into jail while some were banished as communists.
However, there are black sheep monks who broke away to form new sects. But they were often manipulated by outsiders as pawns in political games. Some monks realized later they had been used.
Fortunately, some nice aspects of Buddhist teaching had been embedded into people’s belief system from their ancestors. That’s why Thai people are mostly kind, helpful and afraid of bad karma. There’s so many paradoxes in our culture as it has always been influenced by Hinduism over thousands of years ago. So, you would see statues of Indian gods in Buddhist temples! Some strict head monks had removed these Hindu statues from their temple. But most temples used them to attract devotees and donation. People would pray and perform
Hindu rituals to ask for help and favour from Hindu gods and goddess. This sort of thing had been discouraged by the Buddha’s teaching. Self-reliance and critical thinking are fundamental to Buddhism. The Buddha taught people not to belief in his teaching and they should use their own critical thinking and investigation for reasons that his teaching might be correct and reasonable.
https://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/kalama1.htm
But most people forgot about Buddhist teaching and went along with the deadly jabs.
Have a nice weekend.
Am sad to hear that Buddhism in its purest form only exists now in mountain monasteries! Thank you for explaining this part of the story which I evidently missed. My time in Thailand presented a very authentic view of the Buddhists there. But what do I know? Perhaps they all had mobile phones in their back pockets!
But as you say, something must have stuck from the period in which this way of living was prevalent, because yes, the Thai people were very kind and friendly. Way more than the French are, with their predominantly Christian roots!
As for the deadly jabs, this alone is evidence enough that Buddhism has drifted from its original course because true Buddhists wouldn't just follow blindly. They would do their due diligence! That's my perception anyway ;)
Have a great week!
Thanks for your nice words. I guess things are evolving towards the time of ‘destruction’ or another big flood predicted in old books.
According to the Buddha’s words to his monks: Buddhism would last for five thousand years. Then there would be something like the apocalypse on earth. Time will past, then the fifth Buddha would appear, he would be the last Buddha. But we don’t have the words about what would happen later. I guess something drastic will occur, perhaps everything would be sucked into the black hole one day! 🙀😎
https://odysee.com/@III:6/rtbic:f
Fuck the Agenda2030 covid19 fraud.
Bad karma will catch them eventually.
But right now its our collective karma to go through all this...and for those that died due to the jabs...it was also in their karma to be deceived and poisoned to death.
Did you get to watch the link i sent you?
Yeah. I had to find the spare time to catch up with things.
Collective karma seems very strong at the moment. This reminds me of the Mahabharata.