The Dangers of Secularism

In Pure Land Buddhism, the followers pray and worship Amitabha, who is a bodhisatvva that has his own 'heaven' or pure land. In this pure land he (and I think another 2 bodhisatvvas)will teach devoted beings how to gain Nirvana.Apparently, if you know you are dying and say 'Amitabha' ten times, then you go to his Pure Land, called Sukhaviti.Brian.

But they do believe in many gods, however these gods are inferior to humans as it is only as a human that you can follow the dharma. I would disagree.Samsara sounds supernatural to me, as does the various realms of existence, the realm of hungry ghosts for example.Brian.

Isn't samsara the cycle of birth and rebirth, involving reincarnation? I would consider living many different lives as being supernatural. Siddartha was said to have lived tens of thousands of lives.I toyed with following madhyamika when I was at uni about ten years ago.Brian

I actually did a presentation on this a few years ago. The talk was on Nagajuna's 'sunyata' (emptiness) and how everything is interdependant, nothing has inherent existence.The 'anatman' (no self) is an issue within this philosophy and it tackles the question of what is transient from incarnation to incarnation.The answer is 'consciousness' because Buddhists don't believe that there is a 'soul' to move on. What there is can be described as one long continual existence and each incarnation is a stage within that one existence. It is described as a river that changes constantly but is ultimately still the same river. If I throw a stone into the river, then that river has changed, but it is still the same river.Needless to say, I only took one Buddhist philosophy unit! Brian.

Ah, nice example, consider it plagiarised. Brian