"Who is the Dalai Lama?"

Buddhism is the fourth largest of the world’s religions, with about 375 million followers. The religion of Buddhism is made up of several sects, philosophies, or schools. One of these is Tibetan Buddhism which is a religion-in-exile, forced from its homeland when Tibet was conquered by the Chinese. The leader of Tibetan Buddhism is the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since he fled the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959.

Partly because of the worldwide prominence of the Dalai Lama, most people have heard about Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan form of Buddhism is one of the most complicated because it is tied to the ancient spirit-oriented religion of the Tibetan plateau. The essential goal of Tibetan Buddhism, however, is unchanged: to realize enlightenment and enter “nirvana,” or the freedom of one’s spiritual self from the attachment to or affection for worldly things.

Tibetan Buddhism focuses on its monks, called “lamas.” Correspondingly, it also recognizes a multitude of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (a deity or being who has attained enlightenment worthy of nirvana but remains in the world to help others), as well as their consorts. Lamas use different meditation techniques, which include what is called “mandalas” (spiritual diagrams) and prayer wheels. The Dalai Lama is the highest lama. What is most interesting is that whenever the Dalai Lama dies, Tibetan Buddhists believe he is reborn as an infant, and officials of the religion search for the child—who is supposed to bear certain distinguishing marks—and when he is discovered, he then becomes the new Dalai Lama.

The current Dalai Lama is named Tenzin Gyatso and is the 14th Dalai Lama. His real name is Lhamo Thondup. Born in 1935 and “discovered” in 1937, he was given the name he now bears, Tenzin Gyatso. He became the political head of Tibet in 1950. However, he left Tibet to establish a government-in-exile in 1959 when the Chinese took over that country. In 1989, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Most Buddhists consider Jesus to be an “enlightened master” but not the Son of God. During an interview with “Christianity Today,” the Dalai Lama said that Jesus had lived previous lives and His purpose was to teach a message of tolerance and compassion, to help people to become better human beings. And this is the primary problem with the Dalai Lama and all of Buddhism. While some aspects of the Dalai Lama’s message are undeniably positive, and while most Buddhists are indeed kind-hearted “good” human beings, their denial of the biblical Jesus infinitely outweighs any positive aspects of Buddhism.

The Scriptures reveal that Jesus is God in human form, slain for the sins of the world (John 3:16). Yes, Jesus taught tolerance and compassion, but that was not the primary reason for His coming. Jesus came to provide salvation for all those who receive Him as Savior. Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus provides salvation for us because we are absolutely incapable of saving ourselves. Due to their explicit rejection of this truth, the Dalai Lama is a false prophet and Buddhism is a false religion. On the most crucial of issues, the Dalai Lama is, sadly, not enlightened.

"What is Buddhism and what do Buddhists believe?"

Buddhism is one of the leading world religions in terms of adherents, geographical distribution, and socio-cultural influence. While largely an “Eastern” religion, it is becoming increasingly popular and influential in the Western world. It is a unique world religion in its own right, though it has much in common with Hinduism in that both teach Karma (cause-and-effect ethics), Maya (the illusory nature of the world), and Samsara (the cycle of reincarnation). Buddhists believe that the ultimate goal in life is to achieve “enlightenment” as they perceive it.

Buddhism’s founder, Siddhartha Guatama, was born into royalty in Nepal around 600 B.C. As the story goes, he lived luxuriously, with little exposure to the outside world. His parents intended for him to be spared from the influence of religion and protected from pain and suffering. However, it was not long before his shelter was penetrated, and he had visions of an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse. His fourth vision was of a peaceful ascetic monk (one who denies luxury and comfort). Seeing the monk’s peacefulness, he decided to become an ascetic himself. He abandoned his life of wealth and affluence to pursue enlightenment through austerity. He was skilled at this sort of self-mortification and intense meditation. He was a leader among his peers. Eventually, his efforts culminated in one final gesture. He “indulged” himself with one bowl of rice and then sat beneath a fig tree (also called the Bodhi tree) to meditate till he either reached “enlightenment” or died trying. Despite his travails and temptations, by the next morning, he had achieved enlightenment. Thus, he became known as the 'enlightened one' or the 'Buddha.' He took his new realization and began to teach his fellow monks, with whom he had already gained great influence. Five of his peers became the first of his disciples.

What had Gautama discovered? Enlightenment lay in the “middle way,” not in luxurious indulgence or self-mortification. Moreover, he discovered what would become known as the ‘Four Noble Truths’—1) to live is to suffer (Dukha), 2) suffering is caused by desire (Tanha, or “attachment”), 3) one can eliminate suffering by eliminating all attachments, and 4) this is achieved by following the noble eightfold path. The “eightfold path” consists of having a right 1) view, 2) intention, 3) speech, 4) action, 5) livelihood (being a monk), 6) effort (properly direct energies), 7) mindfulness (meditation), and 8) concentration (focus). The Buddha's teachings were collected into the Tripitaka or “three baskets.”

Behind these distinguishing teachings are teachings common to Hinduism, namely reincarnation, karma, Maya, and a tendency to understand reality as being pantheistic in its orientation. Buddhism also offers an elaborate theology of deities and exalted beings. However, like Hinduism, Buddhism can be hard to pin down as to its view of God. Some streams of Buddhism could legitimately be called atheistic, while others could be called pantheistic, and still others theistic, such as Pure Land Buddhism. Classical Buddhism, however, tends to be silent on the reality of an ultimate being and is therefore considered atheistic.

Buddhism today is quite diverse. It is roughly divisible into the two broad categories of Theravada (small vessel) and Mahayana (large vessel). Theravada is the monastic form which reserves ultimate enlightenment and nirvana for monks, while Mahayana Buddhism extends this goal of enlightenment to the laity as well, that is, to non-monks. Within these categories can be found numerous branches including Tendai, Vajrayana, Nichiren, Shingon, Pure Land, Zen, and Ryobu, among others. Therefore it is important for outsiders seeking to understand Buddhism not to presume to know all the details of a particular school of Buddhism when all they have studied is classical, historic Buddhism.

The Buddha never considered himself to be a god or any type of divine being. Rather, he considered himself to be a ‘way-shower' for others. Only after his death was he exalted to god status by some of his followers, though not all of his followers viewed him that way. With Christianity however, it is stated quite clearly in the Bible that Jesus was the Son of God (Matthew 3:17: “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’”) and that He and God are one (John 10:30). One cannot rightfully consider himself or herself a Christian without professing faith in Jesus as God.

Jesus taught that He is the way and not simply one who showed the way as John 14:6 confirms: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” By the time Guatama died, Buddhism had become a major influence in India; three hundred years later, Buddhism had encompassed most of Asia. The scriptures and sayings attributed to the Buddha were written about four hundred years after his death.

In Buddhism, sin is largely understood to be ignorance. And, while sin is understood as “moral error,” the context in which “evil” and “good” are understood is amoral. Karma is understood as nature's balance and is not personally enforced. Nature is not moral; therefore, karma is not a moral code, and sin is not ultimately immoral. Thus, we can say, by Buddhist thought, that our error is not a moral issue since it is ultimately an impersonal mistake, not an interpersonal violation. The consequence of this understanding is devastating. For the Buddhist, sin is more akin to a misstep than a transgression against the nature of holy God. This understanding of sin does not accord with the innate moral consciousness that men stand condemned because of their sin before a holy God (Romans 1-2).

Since it holds that sin is an impersonal and fixable error, Buddhism does not agree with the doctrine of depravity, a basic doctrine of Christianity. The Bible tells us man's sin is a problem of eternal and infinite consequence. In Buddhism, there is no need for a Savior to rescue people from their damning sins. For the Christian, Jesus is the only means of rescue from eternal damnation. For the Buddhist there is only ethical living and meditative appeals to exalted beings for the hope of perhaps achieving enlightenment and ultimate Nirvana. More than likely, one will have to go through a number of reincarnations to pay off his or her vast accumulation of karmic debt. For the true followers of Buddhism, the religion is a philosophy of morality and ethics, encapsulated within a life of renunciation of the ego-self. In Buddhism, reality is impersonal and non-relational; therefore, it is not loving. Not only is God seen as illusory, but, in dissolving sin into non-moral error and by rejecting all material reality as maya (“illusion”), even we ourselves lose our “selves.” Personality itself becomes an illusion.

When asked how the world started, who/what created the universe, the Buddha is said to have kept silent because in Buddhism there is no beginning and no end. Instead, there is an endless circle of birth and death. One would have to ask what kind of Being created us to live, endure so much pain and suffering, and then die over and over again? It may cause one to contemplate, what is the point, why bother? Christians know that God sent His Son to die for us, one time, so that we do not have to suffer for an eternity. He sent His Son to give us the knowledge that we are not alone and that we are loved. Christians know there is more to life than suffering, and dying, “… but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).

Buddhism teaches that Nirvana is the highest state of being, a state of pure being, and it is achieved by means relative to the individual. Nirvana defies rational explanation and logical ordering and therefore cannot be taught, only realized. Jesus’ teaching on heaven, in contrast, was quite specific. He taught us that our physical bodies die but our souls ascend to be with Him in heaven (Mark 12:25). The Buddha taught that people do not have individual souls, for the individual self or ego is an illusion. For Buddhists there is no merciful Father in heaven who sent His Son to die for our souls, for our salvation, to provide the way for us to reach His glory. Ultimately, that is why Buddhism is to be rejected.

Top 10 Buddha Quotes

 1. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
   2. “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
   3. “It is better to travel well than to arrive.”
   4. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
   5. “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”
   6. “The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”
   7. “There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.”
   8. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
   9. “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
  10. “What we think, we become.“

Body Dharma Work and Health

Physical labor has become a shameful act.

A Western thinker, Albert Camus, has written jokingly, in one of his letters, that a time will come when people will start asking their servants to make love for them. If someone falls in love with somebody, he will appoint a servant to go and make love on his behalf!

This can happen some day. We have already started getting everything done by others; love is the only thing which we still do ourselves. We appoint others to pray for us. We employ a priest and tell him to pray on our behalf, to do the rituals on our behalf. We appoint a priest in the temple and tell him to worship on our behalf. Even the things like prayer and worship we are getting done by our servants. So if we are getting our servants to worship for us, it is not unthinkable that some day wise people will tell their servants to make love to their beloved on their behalf. What is the difficulty? And those who will not be able to afford servants to do their job, will feel ashamed that they are so poor that they have to make love themselves.

It is possible someday because there is so much in life which is significant but which we are now getting done by our servants! And we are not at all aware of what we have lost by losing the significant things.

All the strength, all the vitality of life is lost because man’s body and man’s being have been created for a certain amount of labor, and now he has been spared from all that work.

Right labor is also an essential part in the awakening of man’s consciousness and energy.

One morning Abraham Lincoln was polishing his shoes in his house. One of his friends who was visiting him, said, “Lincoln! What are you doing? You polish your own shoes?”

Lincoln said, “You surprise me! Do you polish other people’s shoes? I am polishing my own shoes; do you polish others’ shoes?”

The friend said, “No, no, I get my shoes polished by others!”

Lincoln said, “It is worse to get your shoes polished by others than to polish others’ shoes.”

What does it mean? It means that we are losing our direct contact with life. Our direct contacts with life are those that come through labor.

In the time of Confucius, about three thousand years ago, Confucius once went to visit a village. In a garden he saw an old gardener and his son pulling water out of a well. For the old man the work of drawing water out of a well was very difficult even with the help of his son. And the old man was very old.

Confucius wondered if this old man did not know that bulls and horses were now being used to draw water out of the well. He was drawing it himself. He was using such old methods!

So Confucius went to the old man and said, “My friend! Don’t you know that there has been a new invention? People are drawing water out of wells with the help of horses and bulls. Why are you doing it yourself?”

The old man said, “Speak softly, speak softly! For me, it does not matter what you say but I am afraid my young son may hear you.”

Confucius asked, “What do you mean?”

The old man replied, “I know about these inventions, but all inventions like this take man away from labor. I do not want my son to become disconnected, because the day he becomes disconnected from labor, he will be disconnected from life itself.”

Life and labor are synonymous. Life and labor have the same meaning. But slowly, slowly we have started calling those people who do not have to do physical exertion, fortunate, and those who have to do physical exertion, unfortunate. And in a way it has become so, because in a way many people have dropped doing labor so some people have to do too much labor. Too much labor kills one. Too little labor also kills one.

Hence I said “Right labor. Proper distribution of physical labor.” Each person should do some physical labor. The more intensely, the more blissfully, the more gratefully a man enters the labor part of his life, the more he will find that his life-energy has started moving down from the brain closer to the navel. For labor neither the brain nor the heart is needed. The energy for labor is derived directly from the navel. This is its source.

Along with the right diet a little physical labor is very essential. And it is not that it should be in the interest of others – that if you serve the poor, it benefits the poor; if you go to a village and do farming, it benefits the farmers; if you are doing some labor, you are doing a great social service. These are all false things. It is for your own sake, not for anyone else’s sake. It is not concerned with benefiting anybody else. Someone else may benefit by it, but primarily it is for your own good.

When Churchill retired, one of my friends went to see him at his house. In his old age, Churchill was digging and planting some plants in his garden. My friend asked him some questions about politics. Churchill said, “Drop it! Now it is over. Now if you want to ask me something, you can ask me about two things. You can ask me about the Bible, because I read it at home, and you can ask me about gardening because I do it here in the garden. Now I have no concern about politics. That race is over. Now I am doing labor and prayer.”

When my friend returned he said to me, “I do not understand what kind of man Churchill is. I thought he would give me some answers. But he said he was doing labor and prayer.”

I told him, “Saying labor and prayer is a repetition. Labor and prayer mean the same, they are synonymous. And the day that labor becomes prayer and prayer becomes labor is the day that right labor is attained.”

A little labor is very essential but we have not paid any attention to it. Not even the traditional sannyasins of India paid any attention to labor; they refrained from doing it. There was no question of their doing it. They simply moved in another direction. Rich people stopped laboring because they had money and they could pay for it and sannyasins stopped because they had nothing to do with the world. They neither had to create anything, nor did they have to earn money, so what did they need labor for? The result was that two respected classes of society moved away from labor.

So those in whose hands labor remained, slowly, slowly became disrespected.

For a seeker labor has great significance and usefulness...not because you will produce something from it but because the more you are involved in some kind of labor, the more your consciousness will start becoming centered. It will start coming downwards from the brain. It is not necessary that the labor has to be productive. It can be non-productive also, it can be a simple exercise. But some labor is very essential for the agility of the body, complete alertness of the mind, and total awakening of the being. This is the second part.

There can be a mistake in this part also. Just as one can make a mistake with one’s diet : either one eats too little or one eats too much, so a mistake can happen here also. Either one does not do labour at all or one does too much. Wrestlers do too much labor. They are in a sick state. A wrestler is not a healthy person. A wrestler is putting too much of a burden on the body ; he is raping the body. If the body is raped, then some parts of the body, some muscles, can be developed more. But no wrestler lives long! No wrestler dies in a healthy state.

Do you know this? All wrestlers – whether he is a Gama, or a Sandow, or anybody else with a great body, even the greatest in the world – die unhealthy. They die earlier and they die of violent diseases. Raping the body can swell the muscles and make the body worth looking at, worth exhibiting, but there is a great difference between exhibition and life. There is a great difference between living, being healthy and being an exhibitionist.

Each person should find out according to himself, according to his body, how much labor he should do to live more healthily and more freshly. The more fresh air there is inside the body, the more blissful each and every breath is, the more vitality a person has to explore the inner.

Simonbel, a French philosopher, has written a very wonderful thing in her autobiography. She said, “I was always sick until the age of thirty. I was unhealthy and I had many headaches. But it was only at the age of forty that I realized that until the age of thirty I was an atheist. I became healthy when I became a theist. Only later did I see that my being sick and unhealthy was related to my atheism.”

A person who is sick and unhealthy cannot be full of gratitude towards existence. There can be no thankfulness in him towards existence. There is only anger. It is impossible for such a person to accept something towards which he is full of anger. He simply rejects it. If one’s life does not attain a certain balance of health through right labor and right exercise, then it is natural that one will have some negativity, a resistance, an anger towards life.

Right labor is an essential rung on the ladder to ultimate theism.

Life Love Laughter DROP THE PAST EACH MOMENT

Death is already happening. Whether you face it or not, whether you look at it or not, it is already there. It is just like breathing. When a child is born, he inhales. He breathes in for the first time. That is the beginning of life. And when one day he becomes old, dies, he will exhale.

Death always happens with exhalation and birth with inhalation. But exhalation and inhalation are happening continuously. With each inhalation you are born; with each exhalation you die.

So the first thing to understand is that death is not somewhere in the future, waiting for you, as it has been always pictured. It is part of life; it is an ongoing process-not in the future, here, now.
Life and death are two aspects of existence. simultaneously happening together.

Ordinarily, you have been taught to think of death as being against life. Death is not against life-life is not possible without death. Death is the very ground on which life exists. Death and life are like two wings: the bird cannot fly with one wing, and the being cannot be without death. So the first thing is a clear understanding of what we mean by death.

Death is an absolutely necessary process for life to be. It is not the enemy, it is the friend. And it is not there somewhere in the future, it is here, now. It is not going to happen, it has been always happening. Since you have been here it has been with you. With each exhalation it happens-a little death, a small death-but because of fear we have put it in the future.

The mind always tries to avoid things which it cannot comprehend, and death is one of the most incomprehensible mysteries. There are only three mysteries: life, death and love. All these three are beyond mind.

So mind takes life for granted; then there is no need to inquire. That is a way of avoiding. You never think, you never meditate on life; you have simply accepted it, taken it for granted. It is a tremendous mystery. You are alive, but don't think that you have known life.

For death, mind plays another trick: it postpones it. To accept it here and now would be a constant worry, so the mind puts it somewhere in the future-then there is no hurry. When it comes, we will see.

And for love, mind has created substitutes which are not love. Sometimes you call your possessiveness your love; sometimes you call your attachment your love; sometimes you call your domination your love-these are ego games. Love has nothing to do with them. In fact, because of these games, love is not possible.

Between life and death, between the two banks of life and death, flows the river of love. And that is possible only for a person who does not take life for granted, who moves deep into the quality of being alive and becomes existential, authentic. Love is for the person who accepts death here and now and does not postpone it. Then between these two a beautiful phenomenon arises: the river of love.

Life and death are like two banks. The possibility is there for the river of love to flow, but it is only a possibility. You will have to materialize it. Life and death are there, but love has to be materialized-that is the goal of being a human. Unless love materializes, you have missed-you have missed the whole point of being.

Body Dharma This very body, the Buddha: yes, you.

“If everything is okay [with your body] you remain completely unaware of it and, really, that is the moment when contact can be made – when everything is okay – because when something goes wrong then that contact is made with illness, with something that has gone wrong and the wellbeing is no longer there. You have a head right now; then the headache comes and you make contact.

“But we have almost lost that capacity. Try to make contact with your body when everything is good.

“Just lie down on the grass, close the eyes and feel the sensation that is going on within, the wellbeing that is bubbling inside. Lie down in a river. The water is touching the body and every cell is being cooled. Feel inside how that coolness enters, cell by cell, and goes deep into the body. The body is a great phenomenon, one of the miracles of nature.

“Sit in the sun. Let the sunrays penetrate the body. Feel the warmth as it moves within, as it goes deeper, as it touches your blood cells and reaches to the very bones. Sun is life, its very source. So with closed eyes just feel what is happening. Remain alert, watch and enjoy.

“By and by you will become aware of a very subtle harmony, a very beautiful music continuously going on inside. Then you have the contact with the body; otherwise you carry a dead body.

“Your body can be used as a mechanism; then you need not be very sensitive about it. The body goes on saying many things you never hear because you don’t have any contact. So try to be more and more sensitive about your body. Listen to it; it goes on saying many things, and you are so head-oriented you never listen to it.

“Whenever there is a conflict between your mind and body, your body is almost always going to be right more than your mind, because the body is natural, your mind is societal. The body belongs to this vast nature, and your mind belongs to your society, your particular society, age and time. The body has deep roots in existence and the mind is just wavering on the surface. But you always listen to the mind, you never listen to the body. Because of this long habit contact is lost.

“The whole body vibrates around the center of the heart just as the whole solar system moves around the sun. You became alive when the heart started beating, you will die when the heart stops beating. The heart remains the solar center of your body. Become alert to it. But you can become alert, by and by, only if you become alert to the whole body.”

OSHO Mystic Rose

Osho created this powerful meditative therapy saying, -I have invented many meditations, but perhaps this will be the most essential and fundamental one ... it is the first major breakthrough since Vipassana 25 centuries ago.-

It is a 3-week process:

First week: laughing for 3 hours for seven days. This removes all the inhibitions and repression that hinder our spontaneous laughter and natural joy.

Second week: crying for 3 hours for seven days. This uncovers the next layer of repression, all the agonies and tears, and provides for a great unburdening of pain and suffering.

Third week: the -watcher on the hill.- With a thoroughly cleansed heart, just sitting silently in meditation.

Tears take out all the agony that is hidden inside you and the laughter takes away all that is preventing your ecstasy. Osho

A 21-Day Course

Dates:

    * Jan 11 - 31 ~ Veet Mano, Sindhu
    * Feb 11 - Mar 3 ~ Radhika, Ankur
    * Mar 11 - 31 ~ Nisargan, Sindhu
    * Apr 11 - May 1 ~ OSHO Multiversity
    * May 11 - 31 ~ OSHO Multiversity
    * Jun 11 - Jul 1 ~ OSHO Multiversity
    * Jul 11 - 31 ~ Satyam
    * Aug 11 - 31 ~ Asmita
    * Sep 11 - Oct 1 ~ OSHO Multiversity
    * Oct 11 - 31 ~ Bijen, Ranjana
    * Nov 11 - Dec 1 ~ OSHO Multiversity
    * Dec 11 - 31 ~ OSHO Multiversity