What is the exact belief of the Buddhists?

In one God they are believing or not?

Brother asked a question, What are the teachings of Buddhism? Do they believe in one God? That's far the questionis. As far as Buddhism is concerned, if you read the teachings of Buddha. Buddhadid not comment on God. Buddhism is an agnostic religion. Agnostic means neitherdoes the person believe in God neither does he deny God. The person who believes in God is called Theist. 

Person who does not believe in God is atheist but aperson who's quiet, is silent on the existence of God. Neither does he saythere is a God neither does he say there's no God is called an agnostic and Buddhismis an agnostic religion and the scholars of Buddhism they say that Buddha did notcomment on God because when he came polytheism was very much prevalent andhe thought that if we spoke about the oneness of Almighty God people would notaccept him that is the reason he was silent. Neither did he say there was Godneither did he say there was no God so he was quiet but the scholars say thatactually he believed in one God but did notpreach it because people would not agree with his teachings. This is the basis ofBuddhism.

 Look, the idea of like a creatorall-powerful all-loving God is totally illogical because if they're all-powerfulthey can't be all loving if they're all loving there can't be all-powerful.Why? Because there's suffering. If there is suffering if there was all-powerful andall-loving why didn't he do something about it and it's one of the obviousconcerns and one that which a lot of times people do so faith an all-powerfulall-loving God because you just have cancer you see your mother with dementiaor you have you know see earthquakes you see so tsunamis you see or just theordinary pain in in this life. Kids with cancer. Kids dying. 

So why does thathappen? and they from even this was 1500 yearsago and they said well look if there is a God which is all-powerfulit's obviously not kind because if it's all-powerful II could do something butdoesn't. You know if they are all kind and all-powerful they want to dosomething but they can't. The great little argument!  But in Buddhism we put thataside because that is a person. And as far as the basic teachings areconcerned. Buddha spoke about the  Four Great truths.The first great truth was - There is sorrow and misery in this world. SecondGreat Truth - The cause of sorrow and misery is desire. Third Great Truth - sorrow and misery can be removed by removing desire. And the Fourth Great Truth was that desire can be removed by following the Eight-fold Path and the Eight-fold Path is - Do not tell alie, do not rob, many of which are same as theteachings of Islam but if we analyze the four great truths of Buddha the firstone says there is misery and sorrow in this world, which there's no problem inaccepting. 

The point number two - The cause of sorrow and misery is desire, noproblem with that. The third says that sorrow and miserycan be removed by removing desire, okay. And the last one says that desire can beremoved by following the Eight fold paths. Now, if we follow all these Four Truths if weanalyze the last two truth - they're contradicting.The third truth says thatsorrow and misery can be removed by removing desire and the fourth one saysthat desire can be removed by following the eight-fold path. Now, once we followthe Third Great Truth that sorrow and misery can be removed by removing desire.Now once we remove desire the fourth great truth says that desire can beremoved by following the eight-fold path. To follow the eight-fold path we should have a desire. So the moment you ever a desire to follow the eight-fold part, where is thequestion of removing desire? So it's contradicting.

 If you analyzethat with logic, the third great truth say that sorrow and misery can beremoved by removing desire. Okay fine, we remove desire. Desire can be removed byfollowing the eighth-fold path but to all of these Eight-fold Path we should have a desire.So you have to have a desire to remove desire. This is contradicting.So therefore, if we analyze analytically, logically, these four great truths cannotstand on its own. Our sense of the world is dependent on our desires.Our sense of who we are is also dependent on our desires and what theBuddha is telling us with the Four Noble  Truths is this - you have to look at your desires arethey leading to happiness or are they leading to suffering. Now we all knowthat the Buddha said that suffering is based on craving (desire). It's craving forsensuality, craving for becoming, craving for not becoming.

 Sensuality is what Italked about just now is thinking about sensual pleasures. Ourfascination with planning our next meal, our next trip, our next whatever thesensual pleasure is going to be. The problem is not the pleasure itself, theproblem is our fascination with thinking about it. Again you can think abouttonight's meal for the whole hour and make different changes to what you'rekind of do or where you're going to eat it. The meal itself is not so much theproblem. It's the matter of amount of time that's put into thinking about it. 

Asfor craving for becoming the word "becoming" basically means your sense ofwho you are in a particular world of experience. That's gonna be based on adesire but again if you have a desire for a pizzawho you are is one the person who will enjoy the pizza and to the person whohas the ability to get the pizza. In other words you as the consumer and youas the provider that's your sense of who you are and then the world around you iswhat is going to be helpful in getting the pizza and what's going to be gettingin the way and anything that's not related to pizza is totally irrelevantin that world. once you've had the pizza then the Mindwants the next desire okay you have other desires and there'll be adifferent you and a different world. Now sometimes you haveconflicting desires at the same time which is why we think we have conflictinside and also have conflict in the world outside. Or basically this is whatthe Buddha means by the word "becoming" and it's your sense of who youwant to be in the world do you want to have. 

That's a kind of cravingthat will lead to suffering then there's a craving for no becoming, you get into aparticular sense of who you are and you don't like it, you want to abolish it. Inthis way and then that's craving for it not becoming now the Buddha says wesuffer because of these different kinds of craving but not all craving is bad. Is It?The craving to gain awakening is actually part of the path, the craving toget rid of unskillful thoughts in your mind, that the craving to develop skillfulthoughts in your mind, this is all part of right effort which is part of thepath. So what the Buddha is doing is with the Four Noble Truths is teaching us tolook at our desires realizing our desires are going to shape our sense ofwho we are the world that we live in and they can go in two very differentdirections either leading to happiness or leading to suffering. Now when theBuddha explained as part of the Four Noble Truths, he came down with thedesire (the crave) the three kinds of craving kill those are the cause thesuffering that comes from the Britain is a result on the other side the desirethat's part of right effort these two the end of suffering the end ofsuffering is the result so you've got Four Noble Truths. 

Now out of thoseFour Noble Truths each one has a duty. The duty with regard to sufferingis to comprehend it. In other words to understand it.That's to understand it sothoroughly that you finally don't feel any passion for it anymore.We don't think that we're passionate for suffering but you look how people sufferagain and again they keep going back to thingsthat make himself suffer there's a passion there. When the Buddha talksabout clinging is basically talking about our addiction to thingsthat we've suffered from before but we keep going back. So that's the duty thereis to comprehend that the fact that there really is suffering in thatclinging the things that we hold onto. The duty with regard to the cause is toabandon it. We see the craving arise we should see it as something we shouldget rid of. These are activities that we have to do. 

Our problem with these twocauses is these two Noble Truths is really getting backwards we think thatsuffering is our enemy craving is our friend and as it Ajahn Suwat used tosay no it's you've got it backwards you have to see craving as your enemy andsuffering as your friend. A friend in the sense that you want to get to know itwell to understand it and then when you understand it then it and you can gobeyond it but for most of us we see suffering and we won't try to get rid ofthe suffering right away that's the wrong duty it's like going into yourhouse see your house is full of smoke and you put out the smoke.

 If you don'tlook for the fire you just keep putting out the smoke, putting out the smoke, it'snever going to end the the some. Smoke is gonna keep on coming you have to findthe fire that's what you let go of. You let go of the craving. On the other sideyou have the end of suffering and the duty there is to realize that you dothat by developing the path as something you actually have to bring into being. Sothese are the four of duties we have with regard to the Four Noble Truths andwhen the Buddha taught the three characteristics. One he didn't call themthree characteristics, he called them perceptions. Ways of looking at thingsand the purpose of looking at things in these ways is to help with these dutiesfor the Four Noble Truths.

 In other words you see that they're suffering you wantto see that this is the suffering is something that's inconstant becauseit's inconstant you want to perceive it asand when you can perceive it as stressful you realize it's not worthholding on to as your self. In other words this is a value judgment it's notworth clinging to, it's not worth holding on to, you should let go of it. Similarlywith the causes of suffering you see looking these things lead to somethingbad so we have to see them as inconstant or either undependable they're stressfulsomething that you should not identify with. Do you think of your mind like acommittee and that's you some members of the committee you don't want to identifywith as for the path you don't apply the three character or the three perceptionsquite yet you actually trying to develop the path you apply the perceptions twothings that would pull you away from the path for instance part of the path isvirtue and as the Buddha said sometimes we are afraid to follow theprecepts because we think we feel our health will be at stake or our wealth orour relatives when the Buddha says you have to realize these things areimpermanent. 

If you break the precepts and then they take you down to hell yousay wait a minute I did this for I broke this precept because of my mother.I broke this precept so I could make more money and give it to my mother andwhat do you think the hell guardians were gonna say? That's your mother'sbusiness you've got to go to hell. We don't care how noble your motive wasyou broke the precepts. And so to say even in cases like that you have to sayI can't lie for the sake of my health, I can't lie for the sake of my wealthI can't lie for the sake even of helping my relatives. You have to see thesethings as inconstant, impermanent stressful, things that you cannot are notreally yours. Similarly when you're practicing concentration you apply thethree perceptions to things that would pull you out of concentration. And things that would get in the wayevery two sermon so you have to be skillful in how you use these threeperceptions so in basically it's important that you see could the fournoble truths come first these three perceptions come within the context ofthe Four Noble Truths and so instead of just simply accepting things coming andgoing the Buddha is saying - look at your desires. There are desires that willactually lead to the end of suffering. The desire for awakening is a good thingthe belief that you can do this that the Buddha calls actually kind of conceitlike other people who do this Ajahn can do this why can't I? That's actuallya skillful form was conceived. 

Something that you should encourage andso what we're doing is they're not just simply accepting things that was okaywaves are coming in off the shore good waves are coming in bad waves areare coming it doesn't matter I'll just sit here and accept the waves what'sgonna happen of course is someday the waves are going to cover Bhooh! You're gone. and who knows where they're gonna washyou up again and the image the Buddha gives some of the practice is not justsitting there accepting things is there's a dangerous river you have tocross but you can get across the river and you do that by holding onto the pathand you by making an effort you have to paddle with your hands and your feet youhave to make that effort but there is a place of safety that should get you. Ifyou get up on the raft and say look I'm not holding on what's gonna happen ? Youfall off and get swept down the river.~The End~