Religious Misconceptions #1

Religion of the day: Buddhism

i. The Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the original Buddha on earth

Answer: Not quite: The Dalai Lama is actually the reincarnation (or really the 'emanation body') of the deity Avalokitesvara, pictured below:

The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) on the left,  and the deity Avalokitesvara on the right. Since Avalokitesvara is a deity of great compassion, he is often depicted as having many heads and arms to symbolize that he is able to notice and respond to the needs of many people at the same time.                                                                                                           

To many Buddhists, Avalokitesvara is a bodhisattva. Boddhisattvas are beings which, many existences ago, achieved great merit and would have been able to pass into Nirvana, but out of compassion and pity for humanity, delayed their entrance into Nirvana to help other beings achieve enlightenment. However, for Tibetans, Avalokitesvara is not a bodhisattva but a Buddha who attained enlightenment in a previous era and vowed to appear in the future to help bring the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) to the people. And so, according to Tibetan Buddhist belief, Avalokitesvara first reincarnated as Gendun Druba (in 1391), and since then has reincarnated after each Dalai Lama's death. Today, Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth Dalai Lama.

The search for the next Dalai Lama is as follows: When the current Dalai Lama passes away, the search begins to find his reincarnation. This process can sometimes take years. In fact, it took four years to find the current Dalai Lama. When the supposed child is found, he is put through a series of tests to determine if he is in fact the correct reincarnation. In one of these tests he is shown some artifacts belonging to the previous Dalai Lama, and passes the test if he identifies them correctly. Once the reincarnation has been positively confirmed, he begins studying at a monastery, to prepare for becoming the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.

ii. Buddhism originated in China

Answer: No. Even though Buddhism has been practiced for many centuries in China, and is the dominant religion in places like Japan and Thailand, it first formed in India. Buddhism began with the birth of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, who was a prince born at the foothills of the Himalayas (then northern India, but today Nepal) in approximately 563 BCE. He eventually abandoned royal life to find how one can gain freedom from suffering and death. He tried philosophical meditation, bodily mortification, and other extremes, but eventually discovered the cause of suffering, and how it can be avoided, and then gained enlightenment. Thereafter he began to teach his doctrine, or Dharma, and eventually left the world and entered Nirvana.

After the Buddha left the mortal realm, Buddhism began to spread in India (gaining popularity with those who rejected Brahmanism - the ancestor of modern Hinduism), and several different schools/traditions arose. Then, in the first century CE, Buddhism began to spread into China and other parts of Asia, largely because of merchants and missionaries. While Buddhism gained popularity in the rest of Asia over the centuries, it declined in India and basically disappeared by 1200 CE. Today, only about 1% of the population of India is Buddhist.

Happy Mother's Day!

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world, a mother's love is not. Your mother brings you into the world, carries you first in her body. What do we know about what she feels? But whatever she feels, it, at least, must be real. It must be"
 - from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I know this isn't a flowery or sentimental quote for Mother's Day, but I will use any excuse I can to quote my favourite writer James Joyce. But, even though this quote is quite blunt, it is a reminder of how special a mother's love is. So on this Mother's Day, let's remember and honour the love that only our mothers can give us.

Hinduism and the Caste System

"Men are equal. For, though they are not of the same age, same height, the same skin and the same intellect, these inequalities are temporary and superficial, the soul that is hidden beneath this earthly crust is one and the same for all men and women belonging to all climes"
 - Gandhi
 
Okay, so it has been way too long since I've written a post on this blog. I definitely did not keep up with my New Year's resolution of blogging at least once a week. I've only written four posts this year - so about one a month. Yikes! Alright, time to resurrect this thing!

Over the months of March and April I had the opportunity of going to Hindu temples and discussing Hinduism with several different people. But first: I landed up discussing religious studies with a pastor at a church on campus one Sunday in the beginning of March. She said that she was also fascinated by other belief systems, but when I mentioned that I was particularly interested in Hinduism, she immediately criticized this religion because of its caste system. The caste system is a frequent criticism against Hinduism, and ever since this conversation I have been thinking a lot about it.

The caste system is a hierarchical division of society based on birth. It consists of four social classes (or varnas):

1) Brahmans - keepers of the Vedas (intellectuals, priests, ministers, doctors, teachers)
2) Kshatriyas - protectors of the people (kings, warriors, aristocrats)
3) Vaishyas - generate and distribute wealth (farmers, merchants, artisans)
4) Shudras - serve the rest of the hierarchy (labourers, servants).

The caste system is heavily based on purity and pollution: as one goes down the hierarchy, one naturally gains more karma due to one's occupation. The people whose occupations make them the most impure are the Candalas, or Dalits (who consist of tanners, washermen, sweepers, hunters). They are considered to be outside of the class system, and are therefore 'outcastes'. Because of their status they have been vigorously (and sometimes violently) discriminated against.

Where did this hierarchy come from? An important source that solidified the caste system within Hinduism is a text called the Manava Dharma-Shastra, or The Law Code of Manu. I read an English translation of this text in my Indian myth course last semester, and its laws regarding women, Shudras, and outcastes are definitely very harsh and unjust.

The Law Code of Manu and the Hindu caste system has been responsible for inequality towards women, violent mistreatment of Dalits, and inequality within India in general. However, does this mean we should reject Hinduism on these grounds? First, not everyone who follows Hinduism believes in the caste system. Many people who believe in reforming Hinduism reject The Law Code of Manu. Many of these reformists reject Manu on the grounds that it is a smrti (human-authored) text, and not a shruti (divine-authored) text like the Vedas or the Upanishads, which advocate the equality of humans. Gandhi, who was a Hindu reformist, rejected the Law Code of Manu and fought to improve the conditions of outcastes.

As I mentioned earlier, I've had some opportunities to discuss Hinduism and experience it first hand by going to temples. I mentioned the Law Code of Manu to my friend who is the son of a Hindu priest, and he claimed that, at first, the class system was not determined by birth. It was merely a classification of different types of people according to their abilities. He argued that this eventually turned into classification by birth, because, for example, a Brahman priests were not able to accept that their children could possibly be laborers or sweepers if they displayed these traits, and so it was devised that whatever status the father had, the child would be born into. So, the aristocracy was protecting its interests by implementing a hierarchy that was determined by one's birth.

Furthermore, I was at a bar with my roommates one night and I landed up chatting to my roommate who is from Malaysia. He follows the Hindu religion, but he told me that he doesn't believe in the caste system. He said that the idea of women and certain classes having an inferior status is crap.

Furthermore, I investigated Hinduism further by going to my roommate's temple in Burnaby with him and his friends, and also going to the Mahalakshmi temple in Vancouver, where my friend's father is the priest. On both these occasions I saw the genuine faith of my friends, and saw that this obviously means a lot to them. At both temples I was struck by the sense of community. I personally felt welcome, and was invited to join the rest of the community as they ate together after the ceremony.

The truth is, followers of all religions have done some pretty horrible things at one time or another. Just recently, the Catholic church came under fire yet again for more sexual abuse scandals. But although some members of a religion do atrocious things, this does not necessarily reflect the actions or beliefs of everyone following that religion.

So I don't think one should dismiss Hinduism - with its rich variety of scriptures, traditions and beliefs - simply because of the caste system.