The lay Buddhist as well as the Sangha, we learned from Burning Quest - Part 17, follow these of their own accord and on their own strength. However, the Sangha has the greater responsibility to more strictly adhere to these moralities.
Sri Dhammananda states on pages 189-190 that the purpose is...
"...leading people to the final goal of ultimate happiness...each individual is considered responsible for his or her own fortunes and misfortunes. Each individual is expected to work out deliverance through understanding and effort. Buddhist salvation is the result of one's own moral development and can neither be imposed nor granted to one by some external agent..."
We have learned that one must use one's mind in all of this; kind of "as you think, so you are". Cause and effect affected. Keeping this in mind, I interject a huge giant question. This question will not be answered straight away even in this blog entry. It is a question upon which to ponder over the next while. What will your thoughts be, having considered the above re: moralities and of the mind governing our actions, concerning this question?
How are the intellectually challenged to help themselves??
I leave that huge giant question hanging and press on...
Although these Buddhist ethics are not commandments, they serve as general guidelines towards wholesome behavior and benefit for self helping him or her self...
"...on their way to final salvation" (Page 190).
One does not need a higher authority to aid one in this important endeavor. One's own self is the "higher" authority to look up to, to make or break one's self. There is acknowledgement though that our actions can give joy or sorrow to others; therefore one is compelled towards good thoughts leading to good actions.
"The morality found in all precepts" alluded to in Part 17 of this Burning Quest series as being summed up in just "three simple principles..."
"To avoid evil; to do good; to purify the mind..." (Page 190)
...can actually be good standard for anyone, even for followers of Jesus Christ, to apply to their daily life. Of course one needs to always go back to God's Word and see it how God sees it. Being "in Christ" means we already have our salvation. We have the Holy Spirit helping us to live a Christ-like life irregardless of society's norms of the times. God has given each believer a new heart and written His will and ways upon it (Ezekiel 36:26-27; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Hebrews 8:1).
Ezekiel 36:26-27 ESV states...
"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."
Have a look at 2 Corinthians 3:3 ESV...
"And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."
When we have a deepening relationship with God through Jesus, out of love and gratitude for HIS salvation and righteousness given (NOT EARNED of our own accord) we will persevere in these three areas of 'morality'.
Wanting to be good, righteous and moral are excellent goals; to live in the right way is very commendable. That was Gautama Buddha's message to point people to the right way. So saying, one could perhaps say that Siddhartha Gautama Buddha was some sort of Indian forerunner of Jesus Christ in loose parallel fashion as John the Baptizer was for his time.
Gautama Buddha lived about 500 years prior to Jesus's coming as a baby to Earth. John the Baptizer was born just a short while before Jesus. Gautama Buddha's message was to "avoid evil; do good and purify your minds" towards righteousness for gaining one's own salvation. John the Baptizer's message was to repent and be baptized to prepare for Jesus's coming (John 1) but did not earn salvation.
Both men preached the need to "get right". John the Baptizer's message was to "get right in God's eyes. Gautama Buddha's injunction was to "get right" in your own eyes. The idea of the need for repentance and salvation was ascertained.
When Jesus Christ came, He took our suffering, our shame, our humiliation, our disgrace, our sin, all that was wrong and unwholesome and made that atonement for our souls, minds, and hearts to be made 100% perfect and assured of salvation. This to be had in our present time. There is no need of rebirth after rebirth to hopefully attain Nirvana as in Buddhist belief.
God's Word explains this in Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV...
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast..."
We can rest assured of righteousness and salvation through Jesus Christ. By faith we can believe that God is and He loves us, cares about us human beings and who, through His Son Jesus Christ, earned that coveted salvation for us. Believe God's wonderful love and take His offer of salvation; His gift, to you, personally.
Jesus took our suffering upon Himself. When we come to Him in repentance for all our wrongdoing we will receive forgiveness of sins; His righteousness; everlasting life and a ceasing of suffering (in Heaven to come).
He offers renewal of mind to be able, with the Holy Spirit's help, to live the moral life according to God's high standards which are good and perfect as mapped out in God's Word the Bible. These have stood the test of time even from before the advent of Gautama Buddha and John the Baptizer's repentance messages.
Incorporate repentance and right living into daily practice, making God's standard of morality our lifestyle. We have His Holy Spirit's help. And when there is talk of repentance we know that with God, He grants forgiveness when we admit and confess to our wrongs to Him.
Talking about repentance and forgiveness, Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda says on Page 207...
"Praying for forgiveness is meaningless, if after the prayer is made, a person repeats the evil action again and again..."
This is so true and shows up the obvious that true repentance was not on the menu. Yes, a person can still falter, it takes time to inculcate a new habit, but the general direction of a person will be proven in due time especially when one is resolved to do what is right in God's eyes.
Sri Dhammananda goes on to state that a person needs to do good deeds towards the affected person and to others. In so doing...
"...the effect of a bad deed will be overcome with a shower of good deeds" (Page 207).
Repentance, resolution, and good deeds are crucially important. However, are we not forgetting something? What about the root from whence the evil/bad deeds spring? There seems to be a constant battle in these noble attempts.
The apostle Paul deals with this. A person who has come to Christ by accepting God's free gift of salvation which Christ attained for mankind by His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, has that forgiveness of sins and will be released from the torture and suffering punishment of an eternity spent in Hell upon death in the world.
We cannot say "Oh this is too easy." No. God's grace does not come cheap. His Son had to die in our place and pay for our sins (bad/evil deeds). Jesus took our suffering and made atonement for us. Live then ever grateful to God. Show that appreciation by living a "holy" life and doing good deeds.
In coming to Christ, we must repent of those sins. Repent and resolve to live for Christ in holiness.
It will help for us to...
"Take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV).
Paul asks...
"...should we continue to sin?" (Romans 6:1-2)
"NO!" he says.
Thank God followers of Jesus Christ have His Word and His Holy Spirit indwelling us to lead and guide us to do what is right in God's eyes.
Don't live life doing what is right in our own eyes. Maybe we will do well but the standard needs to be God's.
Faith says, "Yes, God is."
Faith says, "Yes, God created mankind".
Faith says, "I sin but God is good and sinless."
Faith says, "I need Jesus Christ to save me, I cannot save myself."
Faith says, "Thank-You Jesus for rebirth (being 'born again' into God's family) through You while I am alive here on earth in the human body God originally gave me at conception in my mother's womb. This body with no other mental continuum from any previous human or animal's life."
There is definitely no shame in asking for help, especially God's help! Don't go it alone.
Siddhartha Gautama, the Indian Buddha, was certainly a deeply thinking person. Much of his teachings are very good for mankind to follow to lead a noble, virtuous life upon earth.
He came up with "10 Meritorious and 10 Evil Actions" (Pages 202-207). These each have their consequences: good, bad, respectively; the repercussion upon self and those that ripple effect towards other. Doing good to/for others, helps 'others' and may even "rub off" on the others encouraging them to do what's right and good too. Then there's the evil actions such as...
"...stealing, lying, slander, illicit sexual behavior", harsh speech," all have their negative consequences. Killing anyone or any creature will come back at the perpetrator with "short life span, ill health, constant grief and fear (Page 205), "untrustworthiness", "unfulfillment of ones wishes" (Page 206); and "lack of wisdom" (Page 207), etc.
These can all affect the person in their current life but also the next creature or person at "rebirth"; the consequences of any action will make or break his, her or its life.
This scenario is seen in God's Word...not in rebirth but for our future generations of offspring. Whatever our actions, whether good or bad, the domino effect will be there, not just for ourselves but for others. This should cause a person to think twice.
Exodus 34:6-7 (ESV) puts it plainly...
"The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."
There are many among the Christian faith that refer to the phenomena as a "generation curse". The Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP) concurs with this. (Please click on the link for further insight.)
However, as a Christian who will obey God and His Word, this 'curse' can be broken. Look at what Henry W. Wright says in his book Be In Health, A More Excellent Way in regards to breast cancer, for instance. Pages 235-236 (of Be In Health)...
Wright says that although...
"there are many other causes for breast cancer," the "sins of conflict and bitterness between the female and either her mother and/or her sisters or mother-in-law"...
...are known causes thereof. The same goes for "breast cysts". He goes on to say that...
"bitterness was commonly found in relation to breast cancer and fibrocystic breast disease".
The bitterness was found to be between female and female blood relatives such as "mother, sister, aunt or grandmother". He also stated similar between sisters in Christ in the church. These due to unresolved matters. There were exceptions but "the observation is holding true in over 80% of all cancer cases"...that he dealt with, I presume.
On Page 236 of his book, Wright claims...
"In fact, breast tumors just disappear when that woman forgives another female."
He goes on to remark that being able to forgive and realize that one could be healed by so doing, or even preventing breast cancer, that he has...
"...the faith to believe families now have the ability to prevent cancer in their generation, not just be healed."
That is amazing, heady stuff!
Just a quick note here. Do take note that this Henry W. Wright also believes in seeing doctors and getting proper diagnosis. He says so multiple times throughout his book.
The point is, that starting with our own selves, when we seek God and honor Him with correct Christian living according to His standards that we read of in the Bible, coupled with following the Holy Spirit's leading, we can halt the consequences of wrong/evil behavior in our own lifetime. The buck stops here! That sort of thing.
In Genesis 3 we see what Adam and Eve's actions brought upon, not only themselves, but upon the whole of creation!
"Cursed is the ground because of you..." (Genesis 3:7).
And then we see the sad and terrible story of Cain in his evil actions against Abel his brother.
God further cursed the ground (Genesis 4:11-22) as well as Cain himself. God in His mercy did put a protection around Cain when He put a mark on Cain and said in Genesis 4:15...
"...if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over."
Wrong actions of Adam and Eve begat evil actions in son Cain.
Move on many years later to King David. He was in tune with God most of the time. However for his sin of illicit sex with Bathsheba and murdering of her husband, four of his sons died as consequence: Bathsheba and David's first child, an infant (1 Samuel 12:14); Amnon (2 Samuel 13:14); Absalom (2 Samuel 13:28-29); Adonijah (1 Kings 1:5; 2:25).
God wasn't finished yet with the harsh but just punishment which comes in that apparent form of generational curse: 2 Samuel 12:10-12 NIV informs David that...
"...the sword would never depart from your house...and evil would rise up against you out of your own house..."Yet God is always a merciful God. Repentance and forgiveness touches His heart. God also gave what we could call, a generational blessing of promise to David.
David did repent and he followed after God with his whole humbled and contrite heart. He honored God and in return God honored him and told him he would have an heir on his throne forever; generation after generation (2 Samuel 7:1-17). His line went down for about 18 generations from David to Solomon, etc all the way to Jesus (Matthew 1:6-16).
Of course many of those kings between David and Jesus did not do right in the eyes of God and got served their own respective punishments. Yet God made a promise to David and kept it through thick and thin all the way along to Jesus's birth into this world.
"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jessie; from his roots, a Branch will bear fruit...In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His place of rest will be glorious." (Isaiah 11:1, 10 NIV).
Gautama Buddha's thinking fell along these Old Testament lines of thinking. When we do good, good will come. When we do bad, we receive due justice. Results often passed down and affected the next generations. However, Gautama Buddha's idea skewed at a different tangent from this as he believed in rebirth of one's mental continuum into another being (whether beast or human being) upon their conception and that creature will "inherit" the consequences. It is the same 'mental continuum' bearing the consequences, perhaps tweaked and altered in intensity of those actions of the former or current 'owner' of said mental continuum depending on the number of good deeds to make restitution for the evil ones committed.
In the New Testament we read Galatians 6:7 NIV...
"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."
God's mercy and offer of salvation through Jesus's death and resurrection which provides all atonement, for our own sins, has been paid in full, by Jesus. The buck does stop here! Each individual must appropriate this goodness of God for themselves for their own cache of sins. No amount of good deeds can earn that atonement. Human endeavor to save oneself is useless.
As we put good morality into practice, any good we do, can and does, help others, and can and does help encourage others to make right choices too. But they have nothing to do with attaining salvation or a ceasing of suffering.
According to more of what Henry W. Wright writes in Be In Health, the passing on of sickness and disease from one generation to the next is scientifically proven in that hormones or cells do change to a tendency or pre-disposition to a certain disease: whether cancer or heart related diseases or others. Thus the importance of seeking God's forgiveness and putting a stop to the passing on of such diseases. Wright believes the body can revert those hormones/cells back to healthy ways through seeking God's forgiveness.
Many diseases have spiritual roots but God can bring health to our bones and body (Proverbs 3:7-8 NIV) when we tend to our spiritual health.
"Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones."
Reach out to God for justification (salvation) through faith in Jesus, and progressive sanctification. He justifies us through Jesus and man's mandate is progressive sanctification; to be "holy as God is holy" (1 Peter 1:16).
Remember, this is NOT to earn our way to the ceasing of what Buddhists term "rebirth" attaining Nirvana and thus ending all personal suffering. This could never be.
Living by putting good morals into practice goes a long way for each and every human being despite what walk of life one lives on or what belief a person embraces.
Being able to repent of wrong doing and keep on a right path is a wholesome universal ethic.
On top of that, being able to forgive another their trespasses against you and accept forgiveness from others for the wrongs you have done to others is another wonderful aspect of putting good morality into practice as a lifestyle.
Just don't forget that doing so with one's own strength will wear one down and not truly benefit yourself towards ceasing of suffering. Do all things through Christ Jesus who gives you strength (Philippians 4:13). The Holy Spirit also enabling the follower of Jesus Christ.
"In Him we can live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:24-28, esp vs 28).
This is living in a good and right way in God's eyes.
~ERC May 2018~
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