No Proofs of Sucessful Rebirths?&Are Pure Land sutras real?
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:49 pm
Hello!
Part of me believes that there is in fact, somewhere, the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, or Sukhavati.
But there is other part of me, the scientific one, that doesnt believe on it.
If Pure Land teaching is real, its the most important one from all the buddhist teachings, because its the only one that may drive someone, in on life time (the one right after dying), to reach Nibbana. And such teaching says that one needs: Pratice, Vows and FAITH [that Amithaba will save us].
Since Faith is so much important, i would like to increase it by:
- knowing for sure that the Sutras speaking on Amithaba are real, that they were really the words of Shakyamuni Buddha; if such sutras were a creation from other sects, that would be a very big shame, and would dimnish the credibility of Pure Land idea; for example, Theravada buddhists seems to be prety sure that Pure Land (as Mahayana or some concepts like "Original Mind"/"Buddha Nature", etc and i cant argue against them; they have some valid points) is not a Buddha teaching;
- having acess to more and more cases of sucessful rebirths in Pure Land; unfortunatly i only know very few (3-4 from some ebooks or the like) and thats strange, because with so many people that pratice Nembutsu, i dont see any reports/readings, movies, pictures, whatever, showing the signals of sucessfull rebirth in Sukhavati...and i already made search on internet (and even contacted 1-2 masters to send me reports/links, etc and no results, altought the answers to my questions were very kind).
So, what i ask is for you to answer (not only to me, but everybody that may read this) to such questions (1- Are Pure Land Sutras the original message of Shakyamuni Buddha? 2- Can you give more cases of sucessfull rebirth in Pure Land?).
I hope to see some nice discussion here , but i must confess that on other forums my task did not give any results
Finnaly, apologise my english.
Namo Amituofo!
Part of me believes that there is in fact, somewhere, the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, or Sukhavati.
But there is other part of me, the scientific one, that doesnt believe on it.
If Pure Land teaching is real, its the most important one from all the buddhist teachings, because its the only one that may drive someone, in on life time (the one right after dying), to reach Nibbana. And such teaching says that one needs: Pratice, Vows and FAITH [that Amithaba will save us].
Since Faith is so much important, i would like to increase it by:
- knowing for sure that the Sutras speaking on Amithaba are real, that they were really the words of Shakyamuni Buddha; if such sutras were a creation from other sects, that would be a very big shame, and would dimnish the credibility of Pure Land idea; for example, Theravada buddhists seems to be prety sure that Pure Land (as Mahayana or some concepts like "Original Mind"/"Buddha Nature", etc and i cant argue against them; they have some valid points) is not a Buddha teaching;
- having acess to more and more cases of sucessful rebirths in Pure Land; unfortunatly i only know very few (3-4 from some ebooks or the like) and thats strange, because with so many people that pratice Nembutsu, i dont see any reports/readings, movies, pictures, whatever, showing the signals of sucessfull rebirth in Sukhavati...and i already made search on internet (and even contacted 1-2 masters to send me reports/links, etc and no results, altought the answers to my questions were very kind).
So, what i ask is for you to answer (not only to me, but everybody that may read this) to such questions (1- Are Pure Land Sutras the original message of Shakyamuni Buddha? 2- Can you give more cases of sucessfull rebirth in Pure Land?).
I hope to see some nice discussion here , but i must confess that on other forums my task did not give any results
Finnaly, apologise my english.
Namo Amituofo!