your thoughts :)

hi :) i prefer to follow my heart and everything that feels right to me, having said that alot of my beliefs fall with Buddhism but i dont fully know what it means to be Buddhist so i dont know that i could call myself one....i started reading into it and i must say i do believe a great deal of it, i also have a number of book by/on the Dalai Lama and i was very inspired by them :)

so my question is, what does it mean to be buddhist? just for clarification as i know in my self what i am and what i believe and i feel a strong pull and interest towards Buddhism. I believe i am.

looking for ward to your responses :)

Hello New hope. I myself have thought this but I gave up labeling myself into one religion. Most of them have relations to the others in many different ways. I follow my intuition most of the time and I know the path doesn't have to be directly one way or the other.

[BlueSky]

Good question. Like you I find the teachings and ways of The Buddha to be appealing. I doubt that he came up with the term Buddhism though and I wonder if he would like it much.
My thoughts are that those who call themselves Buddhists have taken a vow of some sort.
I may be wrong.
Blessings........James

[Samana]

Hi New Hope,

Have you read this ..."What is Buddhism" and/or listened to the MP3 with it?

http://www.dhammasukha.org/Study/Talks/Transcripts/WHAT-MAR03-TS.htm

It's very worthwhile.

For me being a Buddhist is learning about myself and my relationships with others and the world in general through the practice of The Four Noble Truths which are the core teachings given by the Buddha. Im conjunction with this I practice meditation and visit an offline Theravada Forest Tradition monastery for teachings and instruction. Before that I was an offline Tibetan Buddhist practitioner but eventually found that the Theravada tradition suited me better.

Anyway, being a Buddhist to me also means to learn to deal with my own ignorance and stress and gradually have a more peaceful, open, and aware mind. In this way I can hopefully interact with other sentient beings on a more efficient and compassionate level. I also have my own Buddhist website which was created for the benefit of others who are practising or interested in Buddhism.

With metta (loving kindness)

Samana

wow, im feel i relate you what you said, im dealing with my inner issues much the same as you are and i too meditate on alot of things, i believe what comes from within, much like buddhism teaches and i too am doing my best to practice the four noble truths, although it will require alot of work/patience, its hard to rewrite your conditional behaviouring. and im looking forward to checking out your link... :)

Not having the sort of issues Christianity has in a charm's twist in the way pleasure and pain are taken, the way sticking to things is cleaner and using things differently are taken as 1ups in Buddhism.