Buddhism is one of the first world philosophies. By preaching and studying Buddhism, people learn kindness and tolerance towards others. In addition, they learn to find in themselves love for the whole world. This is the most peaceful religion. If a person is ready to go through some tests and can further comply with the principles preached by Buddha, he can become an adherent of Buddhism.
It is necessary
- - an audience with the Lama;
- - Zhe Tsongkhapa's book "Lamrim";
- - Patrul Rinpoche's book "Words of My All-Auspicious Teacher"
Instructions
Step 1
Before accepting Buddhism, one should study and understand its tenets. The texts of "Lamrim" by Zhe Tsongkhapa, "Words of My All-Auspicious Teacher" by Patrul Rinpoche can help in this.
Step 2
A person who decides to become a Buddhist must assimilate for himself the basic Buddhist truths. There are four of them. Truth # 1
The life of any creature - animal, human, god - is endless suffering. People suffer from cold, heat, depression and many other unpleasant aspects of life. While receiving pleasure, a person, in fact, also suffers. After all, he is afraid of losing the pleasant sensation and its source. Truth # 2
The ability of people to hate and desire is the cause of all their troubles. A person, experiencing these two feelings, commits acts that burden his karma. Truth # 3
For a person to learn to get rid of suffering, he needs to learn to improve his karma. To do this, you need to do only good deeds, get rid of passions, hatred, resentment and desires. Truth # 4
The main goal of Buddhists is to achieve enlightenment and nirvana (liberation from suffering). Wisdom and morality are what will help you achieve this. A person must focus on achieving these two states, and to help him there is an eightfold path that must be traversed.
Step 3
The stages of the eightfold path. Stage 1. True understanding.
To gain a true understanding of the nature of things, it is necessary to constantly reflect on the basic four concepts. They contain the whole truth of being. Stage 2. True determination.
A person who wants to become a follower of Buddha must make a decision to firmly follow the chosen path. The difficulty lies in the fact that everything that happens to a person in the ordinary world should neither make him happy, nor upset him. Stage 3. True speech.
It should be remembered that karma is not only actions, but also words. It is necessary to strictly monitor your words. Adepts of Buddhism are forbidden to lie, gossip, swear. All of this burdens karma. Stage 4. True Behavior.
To improve karma, one should constantly do only good deeds. It is forbidden to kill (even insects), offend anyone, engage in theft and adultery. Stage 5. True life.
It should be remembered that drugs and alcohol spoil karma only because they distort human consciousness, and it should be pure and clear. If a person does not want to be reborn in the next incarnation in the animal world, he should forget about prostitution, gambling and fraud. Defending your country and justice with arms in your hands is a good thing, but selling arms for your own profit means burdening your karma. Stage 6. True effort.
The eightfold path is not so easy for a person, since Samsara (real life), with his sufferings, does not let him go. It takes an effort to walk this path to the end. Stage 7. True Thought.
A person needs to realize that what he considered his own "I" is a rather illusory concept. There is not everything that is associated with personality, all this is ephemeral and not eternal. Stage 8. True concentration.
When a person does only good deeds and improve, he will achieve purity of consciousness, followed by a state of complete peace and equanimity. All this should lead him to complete enlightenment. Having become enlightened, a person will decide what to do and what further path to choose. And there are two ways - to go to nirvana or to become a bothisattva.
Step 4
A person who has chosen the path of a Buddhist should understand one important thing. To be born as a human is the highest grace in the world. Only in the world of people (and not animals or spirits) there is free will and, as a result, freedom to choose a path. But it was not for everyone to be born as a human. According to Buddhists, this chance is equal to the fact that a turtle, rising from the depths of the sea and protruding its head to the surface, falls with its head into a small lonely wooden circle thrown on the surface of the great world ocean.
Step 5
In principle, as soon as a person, realizing all of the above, accepted all the truths and followed the eightfold path, he can safely consider himself a Buddhist. If the follower of the Buddha needs official recognition, then a meeting with the Lama is necessary. It is best to know where and when there will be a meeting or lecture with the teacher. After that, one should ask for an audience with the Lama. After the conversation held during the audience, the Lama will decide whether the person is ready to be a follower of the Buddha.
