Sikhism/Buddhism

[jjj]

I have dealth with mahayana and tibetian schools also. I dont like there ways. I say it honestly ! coz thats not the way to meet God. They have generalized God and have tried to bring Him under the different concepts and states of mind, which is not the way it works.

All I know is that in this Kali Yug, nothing will be of help but Bhakti(Devotional Love to God). The rest is not going to work. Jin prem kiyo tin he prabh payio- Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Urj kriyo urjhio sabh he jag , sri bhagavan ko bhed na paio (The entire world is engrossed in useless rituals and ways, they have not found the secrets of God)--Guru Gobind Singh.

A True path must deal directly with God, why go into the non-sense of diety worship and trying to empty your mind and a hundred man-made concepts like in Buddhism. Just bow to God and ask whatever you want and forget the rest !

Chan/Zen is so corrupt these days. More than half of the zen students make themselves Guru after 2 months and start calling themselves enlightened and these zen masters are full of pride, becoz they only experience those satoris and half-enlightenments and are not even able to reach nirvana. If you think sitting all day trying to empty your mind is going to help you is a big error !! Without the Satguru there is no enlightenment.. that is the core-factor !! Do buddhists believe in this? and this factor applies to every human being on earth. Study about Ramana Maharishi who was an advaitic hindu.. he also said the samething that without a Satguru there is no mukti ! no matter what and no matter even if u spend all u r life sitting zazen. Tibetian Buddhists do recognise this, but no zen buddhists to a certain extent.

I read in some sutra that even Buddha said that pure land buddhism will be the last buddhism to rescue mortal beings from samsara and pure land buddhism is mainly aabout chanting the Name of Buddha. So as you can see.

The rest of the Buddhism. I doubt very much that it still maintains its original flavor as it was taught by the Buddha. If you read the vedas or puranans, the prediction of the Buddha has been described as a avatar of vishnu who will come to delude the people who are envious of the faithful theist. In a way atheists are very attracted by Buddhism and in this way Buddhism helps people atheists bring a little bit closer to theism. So Buddhism serves its purpose for atheists.

[vaapaaraa]

SSA ji,

I read the following in a book about Guru Nanak Dev Ji.. I dont have the book now and i read it 4 yrs back.. dont recall the author either, so I will write from memory.

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During one of my visits to Amritsar, I saw a monk to be deeply immersed in reading a book. I approached the monk and asked him what he was reading. He said, It was a book about his Gurus. I inquired more, "Who are your gurus, and what brought you here at amritsar?".

He replied, "All 10 Sikh Gurus had two incarnations, Guru Nanak Dev Ji, also had another incarnation and was known as Guru Rinpoche in buddhism. When Guru Nanak Dev Ji, was present with the sikhs, he was also with present at another place with the buddhists. Same like this all the other nine Gurus had also incarnated with two forms and names. Guru Rinpoche told us Amritsar is the most holy place in the world, and I visit it occasionaly."

I was surprised after listening to the monk. Were their really two incarnations/forms of our Gurus?. I inquired further and tried to get ahold of the book he was reading. I said, "Can I see that book?"

He replied, I cannot give you this book , it's most precious thing and is about our Guru's Teachings." I inquired further, "Where did Guru Rinpoche stay ?" He said, There is a inaccessible place, in tibet. After this the monk left abruplty. I tried to find him, but i couldnt."

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There is a place in Tibet its got a tibetan name but means the Tiger's cage,its on a cliff, and is virtually inaccessible. Im not sure if thats the place where Guru Rinpoche stayed.

Has anyone else read anythin like this before, The books title is about the Centenary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, published in Bihar(If i remember rite)

If I find anythin useful to post, ill post.

SSA

[Ideal Singh]

Sat Sri Akal Ji

Yeah... I have read about this before... here are the extrats from that writing...

by Dr Kanwar Ranvir Singh

If you go to the Golden Temple one of the most interesting things you will observe are some Tibetan pilgrims who come to pray there, bowing down at each of their steps. These people are Buddhists who may belong to one of the numerous sects of Tibetan Buddhism, who regard Guru Nanak as Guru Rinpoche. Guru Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet and they regard the Guru as a reincarnation of the precious one, ‘Rinpoche’.There are many teachings in common – the middle path of living, the importance of congregation called sangam/sangat, the importance of meditation, the individual’s responsibility for their destiny, even the archetypal images of the warrior monk, in Gurmat the saint-soldier tradition.

Sikhs equally have great reverence for Buddhist teachers. It is a matter of no small pride that a Sikh escorted the Dalai Lama to India when he exiled Tibet. Indeed, Punjab, the Sikh homeland, was formerly called Gandhara, the home of Mahayana Buddhism. This goes back to a period when the Dhamma was revered by almost half the people of the world.

The main difference is that whereas the Buddha-nature is held to All Pervasive but people must make efforts to realise it, the Guru-nature is also All-Pervasive but reaches out to everyone. It is a matter of effort against Grace. However, in reality the difference is perhaps a matter of emphasis since the Mahayana tradition lays a special stress on compassion inherent in the universe finding expression in the figure of the Bodhistavva. On the other hand, the Sikh tradition also speaks of the need to choose; otherwise, there is no gift of life, and Universal Amazing Grace is not a gift, but an imposition.

There are portions of the Guru Granth Sahib which have close relations with Buddhist thought. For instance, many of the sloks of Baba Kabir are strikingly similar to Zen koans. Moreover, while he condemns the practise of hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca), he speaks highly of the ‘bald heads’. These may have been shaven Buddhist monks. After Buddhism rose to ascendancy in India, the brahmins (Hindu priests) worked for its elimination through massacres of monks, conversion of Buddhist meditation centres into temples, claiming that Buddha was an incarnation of the god Vishnu with the implication that to revere Buddha one must also revere Vishnu, adoption of some of its teachings such as vegetarianism (unknown to the Hindus who composed the Rig Veda which mentions the sacrifices and eating of horses), and corruption of its techniques such as tantra.

Similar patterns may be seen today with regard to the Sikhs. Attacks on Golden Temple, genocide of Sikhs, targeting of amridharis, creation of myth of Dusht Daman and Hemkunt Sahib (the alleged Hindu rishi who was reborn as Guru Gobind Singh), adoption of principles such as the removal of caste restrictions and, in particular, langar the Sikh communal kitchen, and continual claim that Sikhs are hair-keeping Hindus established to protect Hinduism from Islam through military means which is a distortion of the purpose of the revelation of Khalsa as vanguard of new world order (Akaal Purkh Ki Fauj). At best, the Sikh may be an individual seeker for escape from the world or mukti in which case Khalsa is interpreted as ‘pure’ – Khalis. This, of course, destroys the raj of the Khalsa, the world-transformation which is integral to the Sikh unity of Meeri-Peeri, universal spirituality and spiritual revolution. The present attacks on the Sikh faith shed light on the elimination of Buddhism from Indian soil, and equally the history of Buddhism provides a warning to Sikhs about the techniques which may be marshalled against them.

The destruction of Buddhism in India means that many of the obvious and interesting parallels such as use of terms like “sunnya†(the Void), “nirvanaâ€, “nau nidhs†(nine jewels) have not been explored by the Sikh scholars whose lens are coloured by the jaundiced eye in which the Dhamma was misrepresented in India. There may be even more not so obvious parallels. For instance verses of Gurbani state, “The responsibility of humankind is to walk along the Royal Road of the Law – this message is sent with His sacred horse and proclaimed as the Guru’s Word by beat of drum†(Guru Granth Sahib Ji: 142).

The wind horse (lung da) of Tibetan Buddhism is a horse which brings happiness and good fortune, which is symbolised by the jewel of its back, wherever it goes. This jewel or mani is the philosophers’s stone that transforms people from lead to gold, from self-centred to Life-centred. God and God’s Name is considered as the jewel in the Sikh tradition as the Law is in Buddhism, but in both traditions, Buddha/Guru-bani or Guru’s Word is also the philosopher’s stone, and also the sangat or fellowship. In the sangat one comes to realise the nine jewels of meditation.

The image of the wind horse is printed on prayer flags which as the wind blows sets the horse in motion carrying prayers for happiness and good fortune to the ten directions. It is interesting in this connection that Guru Gobind Singh is depicted in iconography riding a blue horse, with a white hawk on his arm. One difference between Gurmat and Buddhism is the clear monotheism of the Gurus as against the agnosticism or even atheism of some proponents of the Dhamma. “All the Buddhas created by Thee, proclaim Thee.†(Guru Granth Sahib Ji, p.6) It is often said that Buddha was an atheist, but from a Sikh perspective it may be argued that he was simply silent about the existence of a God or not, since he regarded it as irrelevant to his method. In the Sikh tradition, Buddha is regarded as a sincere worshipper since “God†to a Sikh is not simply One Being, but also Universal Consciousness and

[tSingh]

There are also the works of that army officer (I forget his name Col. K.S Grewal maybe??) who was posted up in Sikkim (again I think, it's been a while since I read this book).

From what I recall (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the officer found evidence of an Indian yogi who had travelled to that part of the region back when and has since been worshippped as an incarnation of Guru Rinpoche.

Guru Rinpoche refers to Sri Padamasambhava, the Indian buddhist siddhi-tantric master who reintroduced Mahayana Buddhism/Tantric teachings to Tibet in the 9th century. In particular he is the founder of the Nyingma school, who were eventually pushed out by th Gelug-pa, via Tsongkhapa's reforms. He has since had many manifestations beyond the accepted and traditional eight. The reason he is remembered and believed to have visited these places on the outer-regions of Tibet is because he is accredited with miraculously walking over the entire of Tibet.

As much as I like Kanwar Ranvir's article, the similarities start thinning beyond mere political and social aspects, as at a doctrinal level Mahayana is based on complex tantricism and the vast codification of psychological and mystical states of understanding.