A Letter to Buddhist Friends in Eastern Nations

                A Letter to Buddhist Friends in Eastern Nations 

Buddhist teachings written down four centuries after Buddha's death, resulted in many conflicting traditions, beliefs, and practices within eastern nations. Among these nations are Burma, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Mongolia, even Hawaii. Different schools of thought spread to countries at different periods of time. Persons may consider themselves Buddhist and claim other religions as well. Let's look at Buddhism's background, some difficulties of Buddhism, and how Christian beliefs differ.
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                                     The Background and teachings of Buddhism
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Buddha was a reformer rejecting Hindu gods, its caste system, and occultism. He also rejected a personal God, prayer, worship, priesthood, and the human soul. Yet, in some of its many forms, Buddha idols are regarded as god, worshipped, and prayed too. In some Buddhist sects there are Savior gods and  heavens and hells. Persons who say they are Buddhists may be polytheists, atheists, pantheists, animists, or folk traditionalists.
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Siddhartha Gautama (563 B.C-483 B.C.) was born as a Prince of India with all the advantages of wealth, finery, handsome appearance. His father built him three palaces and he married a beautiful girl who bore him a son named Rahula. His parents sought to protect him from the world. But he wasn't satisfied with all that affluence, dancing girls, music and finery. One day he saw four things which aroused his compassion: an old man, diseased man, corpse and a begging monk. Disease, decay, death, makes life so impermanent and futile. Seeing that such great suffering exists, at age 29, he abandoned his family in search of enlightenment.
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He sought satisfaction among Hindu masters for six years eating so little he became skin rapped around bone, and decided asceticism was not the way to enlightenment. One day sitting under a fig tree (later called wisdom tree), he became the Buddha, the enlightened or awakened one. He believed humanity's problem can be explained in Four Noble Truths. (1) Life is without purpose, full of pain, sufferings, anguish, death. (2) Suffering is caused by desire, cravings for pleasure, prosperity, success, existence. (3) The cure for sufferings is to eliminate our cravings. (4) We can do this by following this Noble Eightfold Path.
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The Noble Eightfold Path is:  (1) Right knowledge (the Four Noble Truths). (2) Right intentions. (3) Right speech (truth). (4) Right conduct meaning no killing animals, stealing, lying, adultery, alcohol or drugs to dull the mind or harm the body. (5) Right livelihood. (must not be a slave trader, tax collector, or butcher, (Buddha thought meat-eating is wrong). (6) Right effort. (7) Right self-analysis. (8) Right meditation, Yoga. Buddha called his enlightenment The Middle Way between affluence and asceticism. Wise and wealthy King Solomon, agreed with Buddha that having everything under the sun is meaningless and vanity (Eccl. 1:8).
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Buddhism split over the issue of who can be enlightened, if everyone, or only a few. Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism seem like different religions. Theravada Buddhism is strict and for monks with shaved heads wearing robes. It goes by Buddha's early teachings. It's concern is insight and wisdom. Salvation or enlightenment is wholly self-effort. It's for a saint or arhat. It avoids speculation about heavens and hells. It's atheistic. It uses the original Buddhist cannon, The Three Baskets. It assures one will achieve nivana or release from the cycle of rebirths, sansara.
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Mahayana Buddhism is for laymen. It emphasis Buddha's life. It stresses feeling and compassion. Others can help one become enlightened. Buddha is a Savior or Bodhisattva. It adds many other books to cannon and many sub sects as Pure Land Buddhism. Zen Buddhism stressing gardening and irrationality. Nichiren Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism combined with occult and magical religion. It has many Buddha's and The Dali Lamia is worshiped as one.
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                                  What Might People Find Difficult About Buddhism?
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1. Buddhist's have no authoritative basis for their beliefs. Within Buddhism we have so many different, even conflicting schools of belief. It was four hundred years after Buddha's death before anything was written down about his life and teachings. Some Buddhists claim The Three Baskets as the earliest of the accounts and it was written in the Pali language and translated later and many times into each countries language. Others add many more later books to their canon.The Buddhist canon is a virtual library of books. So, if there is even one way to get off the cycle of multiple whatevers (samsara), to achieve nirvana, we can't be sure which one it is. It's all guesses.
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2. Isn't worship of man-made idols a foolish waste of time? Does it do any good  to bow and pray to gods made of wood, stone, metal as many Buddhists do? Man made gods have no ability to hear our prayers, know our needs, help us in any way. Our power created them and we take them in at night so they won't be stolen or destroyed.
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3. How can Buddha know we have no soul?  If Buddha believed each person consists of five "aggregates" or parts: the physical body, emotions, perception, will, and consciousness, and death causes these parts to come apart. All we can say from appearance is that at death our body becomes cold and stiff, and that life is no longer present in the body. Some persons have even claimed to have out-of-the-body experiences who see things and describe events that took place while their mind was unconscious. So it seems we can't say that our life, soul, or self hasn't gone to some other place.
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4. Is there any visible evidence in Buddhism that there is a cycle of rebirths. If Buddha said whatever exists in another life is disconnected parts "aggregates", then those parts can't tell us anything about there former life. Dreams, birthmarks, injustices in life, natures yearly cycles, and mere claims are no visible evidence of former lives. It seems to require a known person risen from the dead, as 500 people saw Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-8). If we shouldn't help suffers work off their karma, doesn't that immensely prolongs suffering and defeat Buddha's thinking? So, there seems to be no real evidence for reincarnation of any kind.
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                                      Christians Differ from Buddhists in Crucial ways.
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Christians find much to praise in Buddha's path to enlightenment. It's very comprehensive and in depth. It's most relative to real life concerns. It's beneficial to human well-being. It's ethical principles against stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and slave trading are commendable.  But isn't the Noble Eightfold Path the very things we have to desire? And, surely it's good to desire food, drink, sleep, clothes, and good health. And if we abandon our families, wouldn't that be the cause of even their greater suffering? Maybe then, desire is not the basic cause of suffering. Christians believe the real cause is wrong behavior and rebellion against our Creator that results in frustration, emptiness, guilt, shame, and death.
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Christian beliefs have a solid foundation in the Bible. The Bible accounts are not speculative philosophy, myths, or accounts written centuries later. They are true accounts of God acting in our world in ways we can see and recognize. Bible prophets and apostles published shortly after the events while persons living could know that they were true. God's spokesmen predicted detailed events of their day and of centuries later that occurred as predicted. Only an all knowing God can tell us about the future. Further, these events are of healing the blind, lame, deaf, walking on water, raising the dead which only God's known spokesmen with God's power can do. All this may be new and seem strange to you my friends, but please pray for God to give you understanding. There's hope.
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Jesus, our Creator, invites us to an eternal, permanent, love-trust relationship with Him. He came into our world, to bear the just punishment of our guilt and shame that is the real cause of our sufferings, anxiety, futility, disease, and death. If we will believe, trust in, rely on Jesus, we can know the love, peace, purpose, truth, self-esteem, and joy that is: The Jesus Way. It is eternal life and fulfillment God made us to have with Him (John 1:1-3,14; 3:16-21; 10:9-10).
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Friends, I invite you to get a Christian Bible in your own language if you can. In English, I recommend the Life Application Study Bible, NLT, large print. It's virtually a Bible college education. Friends in Christ, pray for the people of Asia, link, and send them these gospel articles WWW as ministers of faith and love. Translate them into their language if you can. God bless you and thank you for your ministry to very needy people. We will meet them in Heaven one day. God's love, peace, and joy to everyone.
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