Sukihotu,
I caught-up with my friend Hermit (not his real name) for teh tarik lately. As usual we spoke about business. But quickly it turned to religion. I thanked him for loaning me the book "Religion of the world" which I highly appreciate. In fact a lot of information I gathered from this book was used for my Dhamma talk Come and see
The conversation then got interesting when Hermit said "Bugs can I ask you a blunt question?". Which I gladly took. Hermit wants to know what do I think of God. He asked is there a moment in my life where I needed to seek God for help. Bluntly out it by Hermit. Is there a God for me.
After sipping his teh tarik at the end of the question, I then responded. I said this "Hermit. we have been friend and have discussed religion matter for some time now and I normally give you my Theravadian Buddhist view. But today I'll give you two views. One is from the school of Theravada and the other is from the Mahayana sect.
This question that you asked has 2 answers. Base on the Theravadian Buddhist school, there is no God. There isn't an all mighty creator of all. Most compassionate. Most merciful. It is not important for us (Theravadian Buddhist devotee) to believe or not to believe there is a God with capital G. It is not important to us at all. Where else, we believe the existence of many gods.
One of the most popular god among Mahayana Buddhism is the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara . Or more commonly known as Kuan Yin among local Chinese Mahayana Buddhist community. Kwan Yin is a Buddhist deity, the goddess of mercy and people will seek for his help in their prayers. Click here to read some description of Kuan Yin
Hermit looked confused when he heard this. He is not sure whether there is a god or not. He is so confused and asked what do you mean by a god with capital G.
I then explain that in Buddhism, we believe there are existence of many gods. But we do not subscribe to the existence of one single God. This explains why we have many gods but none of them is the all mighty who is the creator of all things.
I further explained that Buddha is not a God neither. He is as just human as him (Hermit) and I. Prince Siddhartha became enlighten under the Bodhi tree. At tat time, him mind was so pure he could emancipate the natural flow of life and energy. Among the many natural phenomena that he discovered was how the universe function. How the natural laws functions. And more importantly he also found the way out from suffering. I explained that the Buddha merely show us the way. He is just a teacher not God.
I hope this conversation also helps some of you to clear the misconception of God in Buddhism.
Wishing you all the best. May you be well and happy always. May you be free from doubts and dust in your eyes. May you gain wisdom and enjoy peace in your mind and harmony in your hearth.
By the way, here is my explanation on how prayers works. You may want to read my thought on this here
Mettacittena
Bugs Tan
11th Dec 2011
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