[Druspills]

Ate to excess.

[NKUDirectory]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ate to excess. Actually, only Chinese and Japanese Buddhas are chubby.

[Blahhhshsh]

Buddha
Buddhism :|
Christ
Christianity

The philosophies of buddhism are wonderful, when you strip the excess layers of superstition away.

[girlsround]

I think the main issue is that we don't exactly get a full listing of everything christ/buddha/etc. did ... just the rosy stuff their followers feel like telling us.

It's quite possible that Buddha owned slaves, had four wives, practiced S&M, etc...

(I am not buddhist and do not know if it is possible to directly disprove the above. It's just an example.)

Also, ask Karl Marx what he thinks of Buddha ... he'd probably say he was horrible for being an agent of class oppression and collaborating with the upper class oppressors...

[slowlexrese]

AFAIK, the Indian sculptures of the Buddha show him to be of typical ideal Kshatriya build - not lean, nor heavy, but with immense strength. Even when he is meditating, it seems he has the power to shake the world.

Here is a nice picture:

[KellyLynchIV]

Originally posted by aneeshm
AFAIK, the Indian sculptures of the Buddha show him to be of typical ideal Kshatriya build - not lean, nor heavy, but with immense strength. That's biologically unlikely. He was probably at least a little overweight as a prince, and substantially underweight as an ascetic and beggar.

[Flirigor]

Originally posted by Arrian
the root of human suffering is desire. Unfortunately for Buddhist philosophy, desire is also the root of human achievement.

[Srewxardsasv]

Originally posted by aneeshm
In a recent discussion on Mohammed, the point came up that all religious leaders and founders are flawed and were barbaric by modern standards. Of course. And we are barbaric by their standards. The question is whether they were barbaric by the standards of their time.

[TimEricsson]

Does anyone here know of anything the Buddha did which could be called barbaric by modern standards? He was Indian

[Mypepraipse]

Buddism definatly seems (to us Westoners) to be the most Pasifist major religion. Certainly Budda set a strong example but I think another contributing factor would be how the ruling classes treated Buddism. The ruling classes tend to be able to distort a religion to serve their purposes, say for example to justify a war or their own position at the top of society. I dont know much of the History here but from what I gather Hinduism has and always was predominent in India, Buddism spread very far but never became the state religion of a War-like nation that distorted it for self-justification. If thats due to an inherent quality of Buddism its-self (Its cant be assimilated like Species 8472, yes I just compared Buddism to StarTrek ) or if its just an acident of history I cant realy say.

[FreeOEMcheapestPHOTOSHOP]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Actually, only Chinese and Japanese Buddhas are chubby.

They're not chubby, either. The fat "Buddhas" you see in American Chinese restaurants are actually statues of Hotei (Jp.), the Chinese god of plenty. I saw plenty of heavyset Buddhas while I was in China in Buddhist temples. But there are also plenty of thin ones. They represent different things. You can usually tell its Buddha by the position of the hands. But I don't have a good explanation off the top of my head at this moment.

[famosetroie]

Hotei's not a Buddha, though. Depending on which explanation you adhere to, he was either an arhat or a Chan monk...

[Svatudjw]

I don't know about China, but in Japan Hotei and the rest of the Seven Lucky Gods are very different in terms of iconography from buddhas, bodhisattvas and other members of the Buddhist pantheon.

[Redys]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ate to excess.

[ttiokjbnhjjillp]

Go read Buddha's teachings and pay close attention to the references to women. Buddha considered women to be inherently treacherous and subversive to a man's soul. He literally gives them less status than livestock. This 'pacifist' teacher condoned the beating of women.

[CDCL7WKJ]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Go read Buddha's teachings and pay close attention to the references to women. Buddha considered women to be inherently treacherous and subversive to a man's soul. He literally gives them less status than livestock. This 'pacifist' teacher condoned the beating of women. That's bad. Really bad. I had no idea he did that. This is the Mahayani Buddha or the Hinayani or the Vajrayani Buddha? Because IIRC, women were allowed to be monks in the Buddhist monastic order in later times in India.

What's the reference, BTW?

[PeterPatrickJohn]

No particular denomination predominates in Japan. If I had to guess, however, I would say that it was probably Jodo Shinshu. They seem to have the most effective proselytizing apparatus, both within Japan and abroad.

[DF9sLGSU]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha

In Buddhism, a buddha (Sanskrit बुद्ध) is any being who has become fully awakened (enlightened), has permanently overcome greed, hate, and ignorance, and has achieved complete liberation from suffering.

In short, buddha is boh fat, skinny, muscular, short wahtever.

Siddhartha Gautama, the founder was a prince. He's thought to be handsome and well fit. If u were rich im sure u could afford to look good.

Hotei, the obese, Laughing Buddha, usually seen in China (This figure is believed to be a representation of a medieval Chinese monk who is associated with Maitreya, the future Buddha, and is therefore technically not a Buddha image.)

[sueplydup]

Zen is vastly outnumbered in terms of practioners by schools like Jodo Shinshu and Nichiren. Zen, along with Tendai and Shingon, has generally been the province of the elites in Japan.

[Gvadelunar]

All the old Buddhist (and Hindu) universities (and attached libraries) were pretty much razed to the ground (and burnt) by the Muslim invaders. Islam finished Buddhism in India, because they destroyed the monasteries, which were the fountainheads of Buddhist thought.

The scriptures probably survive, however, somewhere. It is a pity that they have not been systematically catalogued even today, and have not been translated into English.