What is Buddhism?

[Maitreya-]

I am an Indian Buddhist and is very happy to see this video.
You literally summerised all of our Teachings.
I go with my parents to Buddhist Monastery and all of them teach is I found in your video.

Greetings from India.

[NightDocs]

I devour this stuff it’s so fascinating. I kind of feel bad about how ignorant I am about this topic so I really appreciate this video in particular

[goldcoastj]

"So much of our suffering results from our own ingrained mental habits". Well said!

[zoidsfan]

I was someone that felt burned by religion for most of my life. Then in by far my darkest hour I stumbled upon a few stories from Buddhism. After becoming a Buddhist I found that I stopped being stressed and angry all the time. I started to accept things as they were. Later I started reading the book of the 5 rings by musashi miyamoto and truly started to learn how the world really worked.

I thank you for this video. As the past couple weeks I was in a bad place, this video reminded me of the revelations I'd come to. I suppose that is the wonderful thing about our brains tendency to forget, you get to rediscover wonderful things all over again.

[ricardofranciszayas]

The best version of the Four Noble Truths I have ever heard:
1) Life Sucks.
2) Here’s Why.
3) You can fix it.
4) Here’s How

That is brilliant.

[lshulman]

"Life sucks, here's why, you can fix it, here's how" - I LOVE it! Is that original to you or you get it from someone else? Either way, I will be sure to remember and pass that on to my students. Thanks for that succinct and contemporary way of expressing the Four Noble Truths.

[whatinthesam]

I learned it as: Life sucks, Life sucks cause you want stuff, If you want life to stop sucking stop wanting stuff, follow the eightfold path. A bit more focused on the greed element I suppose but it stuck with me:)

[jesunghwang]

I hope we will get to learn about Korean Buddhism, it is often forgotten or conflated only in the context of Japanese or Chinese Budddhism, when it has its own rich background and history

[shanselena]

I am a Chinese. Even though I am atheist myself, my mom practice some aspect of Buddhism. She has a tea room in the attic with a Buddhist sculpture. She also volunteers for a charity devoted to give free surgery to children with cleft placate and lips. I have plenty of time to observe Buddhism. Some Buddhist monks are just greedy people.

My parents used to donate money to a local temple. And they have a monument in the temple dedicated to them. After the divorce and my dad remarried. My mom visited the temple again and found her name on the monument replaced by the new wife. Needless to say that she never visited there again.

But there are also Buddhist monk who did truly amazing things. In 2008, there was a devastating earthquake in Sichuan china . A local mother and baby hospital was destroyed. Mothers about to give birth have nowhere to go. The head of hospital ask the head monk of a local temple if they could take refuge there. She was nervous because a temple is supposed to be a clean and serene place. Blood are seen as ominous and animal killings are strictly forbidden. There are monks who voiced their objections. But the head monk said, “ there are many taboos in Buddhism, the biggest one, the biggest one is doing nothing to save people in danger”.

The mothers all moved in to the temple. The temple breaks many taboo for them. They put the sculpture away and used the table underneath as make-shift surgery bed. They allow blood in the temple. They even allowed meat to be eaten in the temple by these mothers. Because they needed the protein. All monks in china practice vegetarianism. Some monks in the temple puked at the smell of cooked meat. The head monk went into the kitchen himself to prepare the meat.

In the end, 108 kids were born in this temple. And the temple is dedicated to 108 arhats.

I don’t believe in Devine powers or miracles. But if any story shows you there are good in religion. It should be this one

[marwellus]

This channel is of unprecedented value, it makes the history we went trough as humans so much clearer. Thousand years of cultural development, thousand ideas of "why we are here and what should we do", comprehensively explained and showed. Thank you. :-) It gives me hope.

[jlwcudvm]

I think it’s not too far of a stretch to consider any religion a philosophy
And I’m glad you explained dukha in this way. Rarely do I hear it explained so well outside the Buddhist community

[Webuddhists-zj]

I am a Sri Lankan Therawada buddhist. This video is accurate at many points but there is one single mistake he has done. He said the enlightenment for lay buddhists is almost unachievable. Thats not true. Even in Buddhas life time Kings, queens and lot of normal people achived nibbana . Being a monk will help one to get in to the path with a speed. But everything depends on the intelligense level and the practice of person. So bright lay peolple have achieved nibbana quickly at some points.

[bentoth]

"If you do good things good things will happen to you" makes it sound like karma is a value judgement. Karma is simply cause and effect, no judgement included (it just so happens that bad causes often lead to bad results.) It also leaves out how by making causes you increase your tendency to create similar causes, which is also part of karma.

[KenoticMuse]

This is a fairly balanced and nuanced description of Buddhism, given that it is a 2500 years tradition with diverse practices and views. Kudos.

[piratenpotter]

I've been waiting for an episode on Buddhism as I've always been fascinated by its teachings. Thanks for finally uploading one!

[abdullahhassan]

The centre of Buddhist and buddhism is Bodh the state of Bihar..in eastern India....and i love the place..it's so peaceful ....

[dunnowy]

There's a tendency for Westerners to fetishize Buddhism as some sort of magic Eastern wisdom, but I can kind of see why it happens. Buddhism's basic precepts fit pretty comfortably in our secular, scientific understanding of the world and has enough of a spiritual/community aspect to fill that emotional-social void as well. It's not perfect - no religion or community is - but, even as a non-Buddhist, I totally see why it has so much appeal.

[chej]

Life sucks
Here’s why
You can fix it
Here’s how (guitar shredding sounds)

[scottygordon]

Super excited about this series…I’ve studied Buddhist philosophy in an academic context for some time now, so this is particularly exciting for me

[karlkutac]

Fascinating content. I hope you do as many videos as necessary. I'll watch them all. I have so little knowledge on Buddhism. Thanks for the vid!