Updated on jeudi 20 novembre 2003 17:19

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Sâdhana

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Be converted to the Buddhism

Or live in Buddhist?

Copyright © Sâdhana

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To the persons who ask to me very (or too much...) frequently this question

" I wish, (or worse still...) I Want to be converted to the Buddhism! What is there to make(do) and how? "

Believing still that the Buddhism is a religion in the sense(direction) given to our big western religions, I answer them any compassionnellement that this often aggravated desire, this need, often imaginary of conversion translated manifestly the confusion of and in their ignorance; so much she(it) prolongs this state in which their own religion, or quite at least the transmission which one supplied them sacred texts, maintained them, lasting millenniums.

What makes( that I feel sorry with a lot from equanimity to their confusions, in their doubts, in their wanderings, in their researches also.

In front of the increasing dissatisfaction of the believers or regular customers towards the religions, that they are catholic, Protestant, orthodox, Jewish or Islamic, in front of the progressive desertion of the places of cults, in front of the disturbing increase of the number of sects, as atheistic as neo-apostolic and charismatic, in front of fanaticisms and fundamentalisms of any edges, many persons see in the Buddhism a release, a refuge, a last hope. What turns out to be an erroneous sight.

Well, their approach is interesting and valid as far as they do not conceive the inclination of it to the Buddhism by simple rejection of their own tradition. The fact of overturning into an irreparable opposition to its tradition has never given good results, because if one rejects some ideology to go away to look for the other one, one is only transposing its waits or expectations, throwing the requirements on the one that one thinks of that she will bring us the safety.

What taught the Buddha is collectively called Buddhism. Some will consider it as a religion, the others as the philosophy. The others else think that this education is at the same moment religious and philosophic.  It is on no account " a loan to think " to consume in one "  all and instantanously ", or even less one " ready to convert " intended to heighten any " religiaumat "...

The most correct way of calling it would not be finally " a way of Life ", without for it to limit it only to highly-rated ethical sound, by making it a strict code. Far from us this idea. While it is at the bottom(really) this Education ?

It is the way of auto-realization, moral, intellectual and spiritual, leading to the complete and definitive liberation of the mental and the sufferings that it(he) created; what the Buddha he even called Dhamma-vinaya, namely listening of the Education and application of this one according to a discipline which it embodied, disciplines being naturally the art to be a follower, good rather, experimenting by himself a posteriori the valability of this Education and practising her by " sheepbehaviour " conformist !

Those that qualify the Buddhism of religion should always have present in the spirit that it is on no account about an actionnelle or driven method containing a faith, a worship in, a desire to please a divine power reigning over the universe ", or still " of an exercise of ritual practices and observances implying this and it ".

One should rather envisage than the man is a bearer in himself of a certain supreme, invisible potential, to whom, by acquiring his knowledge and his directions for use, if I may say, he owes the deepest of the respects.

Then, as such there, the Buddha is only a boss, I prefer him Enseigneur's word which  contented with showing the Way, accompanying the followers towards their own liberation. What makes that when a Buddhist or quite other person, in research, is going " to take refuge in Buddha ", it is not nor about an action sub-tightened by the hope to be saved by the Boss, some more to be taken care as an abandoned animal, but to grant a full confidence to its Education in the role of vade mecum companion of its progress in the correct Way.

As comparison, I shall take the image of the pedestrian roads: placards mark out your road, your progress towards the purpose which you want to reach; this road exists only by the walker who goes through it by paying attention to these placards not to get lost or get lost.

Then to become a check ( ze ) and true Buddhist, is absolutely imperative to move to Asia? Is it necessary to follow initiations and how much? Is it really necessary to adhere to a centre the convent - root of which is in India, Burma, Thailand, the Tibet, Ladakh or Japan? Is it finally necessary to be converted or not?

I believe, here , with the stream of illusions conveyed among others by Christianity, Judaism, Islam or quite other spiritual movement not theist - as "religious" phenomenon - that a confusion was established between the notions of Faith, Faith and Religion.

Neither the Buddha, nor him Me Jesus, nor the real bosses wanted to convert people, they their breathed essentially the only desire to change their life to reach the happiness, the abolition of the Suffering by waking up to themselves and, reached this state of Awakening, to help the others to reach there by themselves. Nothing else! Obviously, in the concrete and current applications, such as one was able to observe them since millenniums, there is still far from the cup with lips and it did not go by improving in view of the uncountable religious conflicts which shake regularly the world!

Returning to this notion of conversion, she implies the action to turn together towards, but with whom and towards what, if one does not even know who one is. It would be more just to use at first the term to invert or to turn to its inside to know itself; what stopped repeating the Greek philosphes, mystic Christian and soufistes, following the example of the Buddhists masters.

After what, it will be possible to be there " authentic equality " with those that practised the same method in a religious process (monk in the sense of intended to connect people sharing the same philosophy). At first the vertical spiritual reliaison, then the humanely horizontal religion...

The time is not different that that where lived the Buddha, people are not more different, now, with their prize of greediness, hatred, pride, ignorance, ego overflowing everywhere with fears, with affections and with anger. Only the material conditions of life a little changed with their inherent streams of increasing desires, their technico-social requirements, the obliterations according to the economic status, the omnipresence of the competitive profitability, globalization and globalization in premium...!

To be Buddhist does not necessarily want to say to have been born Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Laotian, Sri Lancan, Thai, Vie etc. or even and especially, according to the current craze, to Tibetan. One does not become him because one devoted to the study of the turned pale, the sanscrit, the Tibetan or Japanese, by reaching(affecting) a level of learning, certainly praiseworthy.

One does not become him, further to frequent stays in Far East; one does not become him by means of multiple initiations, seminars, pensions to which one devoted, not without some sufferings, aches, exotic disorientations in premium, currencies sharp and concrets, offerings in any kinds, etc.

The empirical knowledge and the learning do not bring necessarily the spiritual levels of consciousness waited or expected that only the Knowledge based on the aware Experience can bring. Please , do not think about the Buddhist doctrines, about the multiple levels of realizations, would not be for us only introducing the confusion into your mental already invaded by doubts.

You do not have to compare your state to that of a scale of values (that) you would find so-called in a supernatural illegible scrawl(book of magic spells). What is important, it is the knowledge of yourselves whom you go to acquire so that no state of the body or the mental is more foreign to you and maintains you more in the ignorance.

One is a Buddhist by the correctness of its thoughts, the words, small and big acts, in a (current daily, often of a banally astounding and surprising ordinarity, where keywords remain To see and To understand.

" Avoid the Evil, do good and above all cleanse the Spirit "

It is in it that lies the real conversion, she is common in all real and authentic spiritual traditions in their essential verticality.

So, one notices that a lot of people, saying himself Buddhists, is there hundred places; that many of the other, ignorant to behave as such, are there of real...

To us, to know if we want to be master or slave of our life.

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Sâdhana