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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: hope rainbow on December 09, 2012, 07:53:15 AM
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HYPOTHESIS:
If your mother, on her death-bed, and at her last hour, begged you to convert to Christianity (her faith) so that, she says, she could leave this world with a mind at peace?
Would you do this for her?
Would you thus take refuge in a God and break one of your refuge commitment?
YES?
NO?
Why?
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Personally i wouldn't convert because changing faith is not about pleasing others and blindly following just because someone ask you to. If it would make my mother happy to say yes and let her go in peace i would say yes just to let her let go and go in peace but i will stay firm in my practice not due to peer pressure not based on conditioning rather based on knowledge. Knowing and having vast knowledge about your religion is the best way to practice. Embracing a religion becuase it is popular and maintsream does not mean you are religious or learned.
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Totally agree with sonamdhargey!
I would not convert but for the sake of letting her go in peace I would say so but not convert. What we learn in our spiritual practice is to benefit others and we have seen or read about lamas that have to endure so much pain and suffering to benefit others. Practicing in spirituality is gaining the knowledge and from what ewe understands we put it into practice. We will endure all the suffering to benefits others and not asking others to suffer for our convenient.
If we practice correctly we should able to bring harmony and not suffering.
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Luckily for me my late mum did not have any such request. I would say YES to let her take her last breath in peace if that would ensure that she goes away with a mind of peace but that does not mean that I will convert to another religion after she has gone.
I would say do whatever we can so that her mind is not disturbed at time of death. That little white lie of telling her your acceptance of another religion may just be the last thing she wanted to hear before she went away.
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If my mother is dying and it's her last hour, I don't think she has the time to witness your "conversion" to Christianity. To please her, so that her mind will be at peace, there is no harm saying that you are a believer of Christ. After all, Jesus was a bodhisattva! Bodhisattvas do not have to be Buddhists.
But do not surrender your religion. The Buddha taught us to be respectful and tolerant of other religions. Let us remain Buddhist but follow the Buddha's teachings regarding other religions. The Buddha never allowed his followers to condemn other religions. He promoted religious harmony and set a good example by his stand on respecting others' religions. The Buddha said, " If you find the Truth in any religion, accept that Truth."
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Agreed with Sonamdhrgey that we shouldn't convert just to please others.My Mom will not request as such because she respects all religion and cultures.
Why take refuge when we can't keep it?The idea behind taking refuge is that when it starts to rain,we like to find a shelter.The Buddha's shelter from the rain of problems and pain of life is three fold.The Buddha,his teachings (the Dharma)and the spiritual community (the sangha)The Buddha taught to be tolerant of other religion.If my Mom requests me to embrace Christ on her death bed,I will agree just to let her be' happy 'and let her "leave" this world peacefully.I will definitely not convert and surrender my refuge vows.
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If my mother is dying and it's her last hour, I don't think she has the time to witness your "conversion" to Christianity. To please her, so that her mind will be at peace, there is no harm saying that you are a believer of Christ. After all, Jesus was a bodhisattva! Bodhisattvas do not have to be Buddhists.
But do not surrender your religion. The Buddha taught us to be respectful and tolerant of other religions. Let us remain Buddhist but follow the Buddha's teachings regarding other religions. The Buddha never allowed his followers to condemn other religions. He promoted religious harmony and set a good example by his stand on respecting others' religions. The Buddha said, " If you find the Truth in any religion, accept that Truth."
Exactly...
Just to please her mind at her moment of dying, it is no harm to tell her you WILL embrace Christ and be a Christian. We can consider this as a 'skillful mean' to pacify the mind of a dying mother.
Changing one's religion is a very personal thing. No one should set any conditions.
Not that I want to condemn other religions but seems some religions have this 'pre-requisite' that one must embrace its faith if one is to marry its followers e.g. a Christian or a Muslim.
I knew quite a numbers of men and women convert to religion of their spouse just for the sake of getting married. And after a while, these people will not follow their newly embrace religions' practices anymore. So sad because they treat the religion just like a ticket for getting married to the person they love but not giving any due respect to religion itself. It is a waste of time and effort...
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I am of the same opinion with sonamdhargey on this matter. I can promise my mom to be a good person and I would also let her know that my guru, who is a Buddhist was the one who taught me to always be kind and grateful to my mother. For now, I will continue to accumulate lots of merits and dedicate to her so that she could be at peace and not feel the need to convert me into her religion.
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I agree with the others’ view of merely satisfying our mother’s last wish but in actual fact we won’t convert. We should never forsake our refuge with the Three Jewels even at the cost of our lives. The promise to convert is done out of our love and compassion for her. We do not want to disturb her so that she can die peacefully and also for her to take a good and swift rebirth.
Our mother will become a bardo being upon death before taking the next rebirth. Here we assume that our mother does not take immediate rebirth upon death. As a bardo being, our mother will have strong sensory perception and she could still perceive us. If we didn’t proceed to become Christian, the effect on her will be disastrous as our mother will be angry and unhappy with us because we had cheated her! That will trigger the ripening of karma in her mind that propels her to become a hell being! When that happens it would be very unfortunate for her!
Is there a way to help our mother in the best possible manner?
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I think everybody who understands how crucial the mind is at the point of death will definitely do whatever it takes to ensure the mother's wishes.
An important note to deal with any deaths. Even if we are Buddhists while the dying person is Christian (or vice versa), it's crucial to tell the dying person and the moment the person passes on to follow the religion they take refuge is. This is because if the person is Christian and we tell them to go with Buddha, it will confuse them and disrupt their mind!
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I would agree to "embrace Christ" for the following reasons:
(i) If it means that the person dying would have a peace of mind which is extremely important at the point of death and I am fine with my motivation, why deny that person that peace? I was a Christian before and when I became a Buddhist a lot of well meaning Christian friends went on a crusade to "save" me. They insisted that Jesus is the Son of God and i remember thinking, yes he is but what of that? How does that help me? How can merely believe in something make it happen?
(ii) Merely by saying we are Buddhist or Christian does not mean that we actually practice that religion and conduct our lives in accordance with the doctrines of that particular religion. I do not see how merely saying I accept Christ tantamount to breaking my refuge vows (I might be wrong which i doubt) and neither does not saying I am Buddhist mean that I am keeping my vows. I would only break my vows when I take refuge in other than the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and break the precepts that I took oath to uphold.
(iii) We also have examples of high practitioners who appear to have given up a belief or deity in order to maintain peace but quietly continue with the practice. The 101st Ganden Tripa himself was thought to have given up the practice of Dorje Shugden because it was required of him to do so at that time but as soon as his duties of as the lineage throne holder was dischaged, he immediately went to Shar Garden to openly practice again. Similarly Pabongkha Rinpoche was under pressure form the 13th Dalai Lama to curb his Protector practice which he immediately resumed when he could without provoking the ire of the Dalai Lama that would have been counter productive to his being able to benefit many more students by being able to continue teaching. So again, it is not what we say but actually what we do and with what kind of motivation.
I concede that if we take the meanings of the Buddha's precepts in their absolute form, then cheating and lying are terrible acts that will yield negative karma. But the Buddha also taught that here are no good or bad actions per se, only skillful or unskillful ones. And our intent and motivation is of paramount importance and it is the motivation that creates the karmic consequences. There is always a danger that our untrained and untamed minds begin to conjure up good motivations to justify our sinful acts but at the end of the day we cannot trick karma.
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If my mum is dying and asked me to do so, I will. I would rather my mum die in peace than be attached to something like this. All religions teach us to be better and not the opposite. Converting is just a word for me. I can be a Christian and a Buddhist at the same time. We all say that we are Buddhists but are we really behaving or practicing like one? My motivation is for my mum and I do not have to answer to anyone else but myself. After she has passed on, I can still chant the holy mantras for her and pray that she have a good rebirth and have the 3 Jewels bless her always. Look at HHDL... He can visit mosques and temples of different religions but inside, we all know he is Avalokiteshvara... ;D
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I would have agree to fulfill my mother wishes as we should always be compassionate no matter what are the circumstances. Set our motivation right, i don't think it matter that much to Buddha. Maybe all religion is the same manifestation of a Buddha as Buddhism is the truth and we all knew that. Buddhism just manifested in different form in order to appeal towards different types of characteristics and forms only.
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I vote yes because there is no "but" in the choices.
I will tell her yes so that she may leave in peace. It is of utmost importance that she leave in peace as Buddhist teachings teaches us where one goes after death is 100% depending on one's last thought at the point of death. So I would lie. Yes lie. So that she may have peace.
At that instance the lie is actually a compassionate act because the results is good. It will break one of the 46 secondary downfalls of the Boddhisattva vows not to do that. I quote vow no.11 of the secondary downfalls:
(11) not committing one of the seven negative actions of body, speech and mind when universal love and compassion deem it necessary in the particular instance
In this instance the negative action associated is lying. With compassion as motivation we must lie to give peace to our mother. It is not a choice actually because we break a vow if we do not.
Even for those not taken the Boddhisattva vows like myself we need to start keeping the vows. This will create the cause for us to be able to take the Boddhisattva vows.
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On my mother's death bed she did express this and out of compassion I spoke to her in double meanings saying things that meant one thing to her but something completely different to me.
Buddha once told a disciple to kill his mother. The disciple then read the disadvantages Buddha taught about killing, especially our parents. He asked Buddha why he told him to kill his mother and Buddha replied 'I meant kill the mother of all your suffering: self-grasping ignorance'
I said to my mother: 'seeing your faith and how peaceful you are facing your death, how can I not have deep faith in the Lord'. To me, I meant my Guru, but even if she said Christ, knowing it would aid a virtuous death, I would take refuge in Christ regarding him as the same nature as my Guru who is the Dharmakaya inseparable from all appearances.
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Perhaps embracing Christ is a bit difficult to relate for Buddhists. How about something closer to home. What if your mother, on her death bed, asked you to give up Shugden practice because she believes it’s wrong and the Dalai lama says so? Would you say ‘yes’ just to appease her at the time? I have spoken to a couple of monks online who shared about swearing at their monasteries that they do not do DS practice. Their points of view were the same – they refused to swear on a lie. Perhaps you may think that promising your mother is not as ‘serious’ as swearing in front of the monastery but a promise is still a promise, isn’t it?
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Yes, I would do it, I would convert if it eases my mother's mind in her last hours.
I would convert to Christianity, even if she wants to witness it in front of a priest.
I would convert, and after she has passed away I'd take refuge in Buddhism once more.
My motivation was clean.
Though this is unlikely to happen, my mother is more likely to ask me to renounce any type of religious binding on her death-bed, she would do that because she is worried about me, thus out of compassion, and thus also for her to have a "peace of mind", knowing that I'll be "ok" after she's gone...
Go figure...
So my vote is YES.
I am actually surprised to see the "NO" is winning, as yontenjamyang stated, bodhisattva vows call for intelligence and skills when dealing with our actions, well, that is under the bodhisattva's vows.
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Perhaps embracing Christ is a bit difficult to relate for Buddhists. How about something closer to home. What if your mother, on her death bed, asked you to give up Shugden practice because she believes it’s wrong and the Dalai lama says so? Would you say ‘yes’ just to appease her at the time? I have spoken to a couple of monks online who shared about swearing at their monasteries that they do not do DS practice. Their points of view were the same – they refused to swear on a lie. Perhaps you may think that promising your mother is not as ‘serious’ as swearing in front of the monastery but a promise is still a promise, isn’t it?
At my mum's deathbed, I have only one thing which I will do, I will distract her by saying I will do it but at a later time. I agree with the monks that we shouldn't take swears so lightly by going back and forth with the wearing against such a powerful practice. I would also do the same with the conversion of religion to Christianity.
I have nothing agains't Christianity but I can never see myself to be ever a practicing Christian. The belief in God is too simplistic and lacking in evidence of the true nature of our minds. On top of that, the last minute convertion would never be able to wipe a whole lifetime of selfishness, negative actions and negative speech.
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Luckily for me my late mum did not have any such request. I would say YES to let her take her last breath in peace if that would ensure that she goes away with a mind of peace but that does not mean that I will convert to another religion after she has gone.
I would say do whatever we can so that her mind is not disturbed at time of death. That little white lie of telling her your acceptance of another religion may just be the last thing she wanted to hear before she went away.
I agree with you Jessie, I will just say yes to anything that pleases my mother so she can pass away peacefully and that is the best that i can do to make sure her mind not disturbed. I came to aware of that it is very important that one has a peace of mind especially when they are undergoing dying process for this will take a major role in determining how they leave the body. How they leave the body will determine where they also end up in.
For me, if i can't be a filial son when she's still alive, i should abide in whatever her ideas so that i can please her mind and at the same time i do not have to really break my commitment. with this pure motivation, i think it is only safe for me to say yes i did lied, but its a white lie and my mom deserves a better place to be in.
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I will "embrace" christ if she can leave and let go peacefully because of this. I can visualise the triple gems even if i uttered christ or lord. To me, tats just temporary, most importanly is for the person who is dying to let go and not hold on to any attachment. I think thats one gift the dying person needed most 'to let go'. They might not understand but its very logical to think that detachment is one of the medicine they will need when they gone to the state of bardo.