The NPC |
I know a few basics about Buddhism, but I had a question for those who know more than me.
The goal of a Buddhist to to eventually escape the cycle of death and rebirth, but say there was an immortal* who was a devout Buddhist before he/she realized he was immortal. Would he/she consider their existence a bane or some such considering they can never die and escape the cycle?
* When I say immortal, the closest they can get to death is dismemberment. Their parts would eventually reassemble or regenerate.
AlgaeNymph |
(I'm an interested amateur rather than a practitioner, so I may be wrong.)
My best guess is that they'd consider themselves forced to be a boddisatva. How the immortal'd specifically deal with that depends on what kind of Buddhist s/he is.
LazarX |
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I know a few basics about Buddhism, but I had a question for those who know more than me.
The goal of a Buddhist to to eventually escape the cycle of death and rebirth, but say there was an immortal* who was a devout Buddhist before he/she realized he was immortal. Would he/she consider their existence a bane or some such considering they can never die and escape the cycle?
* When I say immortal, the closest they can get to death is dismemberment. Their parts would eventually reassemble or regenerate.
One of the things that makes Buddhism, Buddhism, is that in the real world, we're all mortal.
The other thing to remember is that Buddha intended no more than to try to teach others to enlightenment. He never made himself out to be more than that. All that divine baggage was added much later after his death. Now it's more splintered than Christianity.
The point of Buddhism is not the viewing of the life and death cycle as a prison, but to transcend it by removing the baggage that kept a soul from finding enlightenment. The longevity of a person is not a factor.