Buddhism Is A Self-Reliant Religion

 

If a person wants to follow the genuine path of practice of Buddhism, he/she has to understand clearly that the life of a human being from birth to death is full of sufferings, the sufferings are true, one suffers because the mind and body are full of sorrows due to greed, anger and ignorance, and because people related to one have different thoughts, because of troublesome circumstances as well as ups and downs, because of hardship for livelihood. Only when we have this right view and know that sufferings as such, dare we choose the Buddhist path of practice. Otherwise if the person does not see the sufferings of life are true and still see that the life has happiness, peace and pleasures, he/she should not choose the practice path of Buddhism.

Why so?

Because the way of practice of Buddhism is a path of opposite direction from that of human life. Moreover, the Buddhist practice is a way in which practitioners have to use their own power, always have to cultivate the minds and bodies and practice at their best to let go of the thoughts which are full of desires and evilness covering their minds. In order to do such let-go, practitioners have to be dauntless, dogged, perseverant, enduring, patient etc. and also must have sufficient fortitude to bravely break with the vice and bad habits instead of going to Buddhist shrine to kowtow, beseeching and asking for the power of the Buddhas, Bodhisattas to support and help to save them from accidents, sorrows, mishaps, diseases etc. or emit rays of light to welcome and escort the souls of the dead to the Pure Land.

The practice is also not by chanting suttas, reciting the Buddha’s name, reciting mantras, sitting in meditation, practicing incantation and amulet etc. or by wishing to gain rebirth to the Pure Land, Nibbana with the power and authority of the Buddhas and Bodhisattas. 

In order to follow Buddhist practice to escape the sufferings of human life, one has to use his/her own power instead of other power as taught in the expanded canons of heresy. 

Reading the Original canons, we see that the Buddha taught us to practice with self-reliant methods, there is no teaching for practicing with other power. Only the expanded canons of heresy taught practicing with other power (reciting the Buddha’s name to gain rebirth to the Pure Land).

A person, when listening to this part, asked us: In Original canons, the Buddha taught us “The Four Objects of Unfailing Purity”, is the method of The Four Objects of Unfailing Purity not to “niệm”^[8] the Buddha’s name, the Dhamma, the Sangha, the Precepts?

Dear Buddhist followers! The Buddha taught us “niệm” (remember) the Buddha means to live like the Buddha instead of repeating or chanting the Buddha’s name; “niệm” the Dhamma means to live in accordance with the Dhamma, practice in accordance with the Dhamma instead of chanting suttas; “niệm” the Sangha means to live in harmony like the Monks without conflicts instead of making offerings or kowtowing to the Monks to gain fortune; “niệm” the Precepts means to live in accordance with the Standard conducts and virtues without even a minor error instead of people together chanting the precepts every lunar calendar 15th and 30th. Reading the teaching of “niệm” the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, the Precepts, the scholars based themselves on the words to interpret with their own opinions and considered “niệm” as to repeat the name of a Buddha inaudibly in the mind, like in this: “Namo the Original Teacher Sakyamuni Buddha” or “Namo the Worthy of Worship One, the Fully-Enlightened One, the One with Perfect Knowledge and Good Conduct, the Well Departed One, the Knower of the World, The  Peerless Nobleman, the Master Who Tames and Controls the Passions of Humans, The Unequaled Teacher of Humans and Heavenly Beings, the Enlightened One, the World’s Honored One”. Such kind of reciting does not have any meaning and results in no liberation. Here, the Buddha taught us “niệm” means to contemplate the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, the Precepts so that we thoroughly understand how the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, and the Precepts imply the liberation, so that we accordingly follow to live and practice like the Buddha, in accordance with the Dhamma, like the Sangha, and in accordance with the Precepts.

With such understanding and practice, you will have true liberation, while people recite the Buddha’s name, chant suttas, offer food and kowtow to the Monks, and chant the Precepts, with such way of “niệm” the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, the Precepts, even for innumerable lives they will have no liberation. People have been wrong, they think such repeating or reciting are to make the mind become one mind unconfused i.e. no unintended thought to occur and only the repeating of Buddha’s name, and by that, they will gain rebirth to the Pure Land, this is according to Sukhavati sect (“Seven days with one mind unconfused, when the person approaches the end of life, Amitabha Buddha and all the assembly of holy ones will appear before him to guide…”). But according to Zenism, one mind unconfused means the mind without both good thoughts and bad thoughts, the mind without both good thoughts and bad thoughts is Concentration and the Buddha nature. However, all such practice is wrong! Your one mind unconfused will make you fall into the world of the khandha of imagination, this is the labyrinth of heresy. In your practice you have to be watchful against this dangerous place. If your practice leads you to into this place, you could have nerve disorder and put your life at risk, you would become crazy and lose your mind. 

For a newcomer of Buddhism, it is confusing with a huge number of canons of expanded Buddhism. Reading some canons, people will see that in these canons all the practice relies on other power in the path to liberation e.g. the Sutta of Infinite Light, the Amitabha Sutta, the Returning to One’s Origin Sutta, the Lotus Sutta etc.

Such canons make the practitioners disheartened and lose their fortitude, they turn Buddhism into a religion of other power, and a religion of superstition that makes practitioners of next generations rely on others, due to this wrong practice, no one could attain full enlightenment in Buddhism. 

They argue that newcomers in practice have to recite suttas, bowing in repentance, repeating the Buddha’s name, kowtowing to the Buddha’s great names, beseeching other power, and practitioners with longer time in practice have to be self-reliant to sit in concentration by contemplating the breath. Practitioners with such way of understanding do not understand Buddhism at all. It is the understanding of the expanded Buddhism. 

For people starting practice, like the lay followers at the first step in Buddhism, the Buddha taught the first lesson of self-reliance of giving up the six evil occupations that they were doing for livelihood. It means if we want to follow Buddhism to practice, we have to change from evil occupation to good occupation. 

From the sutta of giving up the six evil occupations, we clearly see the self-reliance of Buddhism starting at the very step. 

At the first step following Buddhism, we have his teaching: “Thoroughly understand what need to be thoroughly understood, renounce what need to be renounced, practice what need to be practiced, cultivate the mind and body with what need to be cultivated”. These could not be done by beseeching other power. 

Buddhism is a religion which is established on the foundation of goodness, all evilness must be eliminated. Thanks to eliminating the evilness and developing the goodness, one has peaceful and happy life in liberation for oneself and for others. 

In order to eliminate the evilness, only self-reliance can do it, other power cannot help, we have to get rid of our own evil deeds by ourselves and cannot ask others to do it for us. 

For example if you go stealing or burgling, can you ask others to help you not to steal or burgle? No, you cannot. You yourself have to know that it’s an evil deed that brings misery to others and thus you give up. Similarly for the six evil occupations, you cannot ask the Buddhas to get rid of them for you. You yourself have to give up and stop these occupations. 

From this, we clearly understand that Buddhism is a self-reliant path. The canons of other power are not the Buddhist canons. 

Buddhism sees the life with the eye of cause-and-effect, and only self-reliance can deal with causality by giving up evil deeds. Even if there is an Almighty, the Almighty also cannot help us with this. 

Therefore, Buddhism is a religion which is non-religious; a religion without an Almighty as savior, a religion where human beings save themselves by their self-reliant power, as such, Buddhism is also called “The Path of Living Alone, Walking Alone, and Doing Alone”.

Buddhism is also called the moral foundation which is based on the causality law and considers humans as its centre for development so that people will live without creating sufferings to themselves, to others and to all living beings. 

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[8] [Translator] Vietnamese “niệm” has several meanings e.g. to repeat, to recite, recitation, to remember, remembrance, mindfulness, to think, thinking etc. Many people regard “niệm” as to repeat or recite or recitation.