The Fallen Prince! A Machiavellian insight into Gautama Buddahs Descent into Peasantry!

reply to post by TripleLindy


Shakyamuni Buddha did not "earn" the position of prince, nor was there any room for others to attain such royal status. A superficial, illusionary fallacy of superiority based upon one's descent, lineage, family, or tribe produces the concept of royalty. This crooked concept of caste/class supremacy is what Siddhartha walked away from.

"The term Prince to me means to BE principled."

All principles, ideals, concepts, and rationalizations are both relative and subjective. You may be principled, but so to was Gautama Buddha principled.

Your understandings and strivings are your own. Anekantavad





Beyond any doctrine, teaching, or discipline contained within the religion, Buddhism is one path which bears the fruit of a liberated mind. The Buddha taught the mindfulness of our emotions, thoughts, desires, and sensory perceptions. When we are truly mindful and understanding of the arisings, origins, and causes of our awarenesses, there is none who can control the mind of one who is present in their consciousness.

For the sake of discussion,... if any totalitarian agenda is using Buddhism to lull the populace into subjugation,... then why has Buddhism been attacked by Communism and Radical Islam?

"... BECAUSE technology can free all of us to live like princes......"

"AND we can all suffer far less if we are all on an equal HIGH level technological standing..."

"Why can't all children be princes?" ...

Some of the most wealthy, most beautiful, and most privileged people still turn to counter-productive addictions, experience depression, commit suicide, have nervous breakdowns, become selfish, apathetic, cruel, and cultivate superiority complexes. There is great suffering to be found by those who enjoy the utmost in technology, comfort, and luxury.

Without cleaning the inner,.... no amount of outer technology, comfort, luxury, agendas, or ideals will solve mankind's sufferings. Cultivating the inner world to ease suffering is the essence of Gautama's teachings.



May Peace be upon you.

reply to post by TripleLindy


The part of the equation you're missing is that we're here to suffer/atone for past karmic mistakes. But we are certainly NOT here to continue accruing bad karma ad infinitum.

This material world is just a school of hard knocks, where you need to learn all your moral and ethical lessons before moving on to the next evolution of spiritual existence. Buddhism is one key to dissolving old karma, learning those lessons, and releasing yourself from this--and potentially all!--levels of this cosmic university.

I mean... I know a lot of people who openly profess to hoping this life goes on forever, wishing they could remain in this world for all of time. Supposed "visionaries" like Ray Kurzweil are obsessed with finding some way to become immortal and remain living here forever. But that's a rather shortsighted approach.

If these supposed visionaries can't imagine a better world than the warmongering, inequitable, injust reality we've set up on earth, then they're really not thinking hard enough. Because it doesn't take much vision or insight to see that this planet--with the wars, the miseries, the cruelty of its inhabitants--is rather sitting low on the evolutionary chain. Personally, I'm doing everything in my power to improve my situation and the situations of those around me, bolstering my karma so I never wind up here again.

YMMV.

Aleister
reply to post by TripleLindy

 

No, Buddha seems to have known instinctively the data that Jesus spoke about when talking about rich men and heaven. To get into a place of consciousness about "what everything is" a person has to realize that things are created as images in the mind, and the enjoyment and attachment to and of riches pushes that knowledge aside.

Buddha griped a lot about non-attachment, and suffering tied to attachment, so probably he saw lots of psychological upsets in his own family centered on things, money, and power, and somehow came to the conclusion that all those things were illusion and distractions.

I have to disagree on grounds that Jesus, although though to be, wasn't teaching poverty as a necessary concomitant to finding a fuller spiritual nature. On the contrary he was very clear that the motivation for divesting ones self of attachments to the kingdom of mammon had to do with the conflict between the two kingdoms.

Buddha simply looks like a man that found no ultimate fulfillment in status, power and wealth and came to the conclusion that maybe fulfillment was found in the opposite which is not what Christ preached or why he taught divesture.

Sahabi
reply to post by TripleLindy

 

Some of the most wealthy, most beautiful, and most privileged people still turn to counter-productive addictions, experience depression, commit suicide, have nervous breakdowns, become selfish, apathetic, cruel, and cultivate superiority complexes. There is great suffering to be found by those who enjoy the utmost in technology, comfort, and luxury.

Without cleaning the inner,.... no amount of outer technology, comfort, luxury, agendas, or ideals will solve mankind's sufferings. Cultivating the inner world to ease suffering is the essence of Gautama's teachings.

edit on 11/19/13 by Sahabi because: (no reason given)

There is nothing to suggest that poverty provides the opposite or has a salt of the earth effect. Rather a decent dichotomy is found among the middle earth people if you will. A working farmer that is not seeking to be wealthy for example.

reply to post by Astyanax

I certainly have and so I know its all about exploiting all you assets!

Glad to hear it. The Prince is really more about what we now call Realpolitik.

Kings don't have friends!

Or, as Bismarck put it, 'In politics there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent interests.'

The Buddha makes it easy for TPTB to exploit the sheeple and shear them!

You could say the same of any religion, except possibly Islam. Some majority Buddhist countries, like my own, tend to bear out your claim, though.

Do you disagree! Or do you agree with me that he was a false prophet?

I suppose someone with an extremely narrow and venal way of looking at life might think that.

reply to post by TripleLindy

I certainly have and so I know its all about exploiting all you assets!

Glad to hear it. The Prince is really more about what we now call Realpolitik.

Kings don't have friends!

Or, as Bismarck put it, 'In politics there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent interests.'

The Buddha makes it easy for TPTB to exploit the sheeple and shear them!

You could say the same of any religion, except possibly Islam. Some majority Buddhist countries, like my own, tend to bear out your claim, though.

Do you disagree! Or do you agree with me that he was a false prophet?

I suppose someone with an extremely narrow and venal way of looking at life might think that.