What did the Buddha teach about magic and fortune telling?
The Buddha considered such practices as fortune telling, wearing magic charms for protection, finding lucky sites for buildings, prophesising and fixing lucky days to be useless superstitions and he expressly forbade his disciples to practise such things. He called all these things 'low arts'.
"Whereas some religious men, while living off food provided by the faithful make their living by such low arts, such wrong means of livelihood as palmistry, divining by signs, interpreting dreams, bringing about good or bad luck, picking the lucky site for a building, the monk Gotama refrains from such low arts, such wrong means of livelihood".
Then why do people sometimes practise such things and believe in them?
Because of greed, fear and ignorance. As soon as people understand the Buddha's teachings, they realise that a pure heart can protect them much better than bits of paper, bits of metal and a few chanted words and they no longer rely on such things. In the teachings of the Buddha, it is honesty, kindness, understanding, patience, forgiveness, generosity, loyalty and other good qualities that truly protect you and give you true prosperity.
But some lucky charms do work, don't they?
I know a person who makes a living selling lucky charms. He claims that his charms can give good luck, prosperity and he guarantees that you will be able to pick three numbers. But if what he says is true then why isn't he himself a multi-millionaire? If his lucky charms really work, then why doesn't he win the lottery week after week? The only luck he has is that there are people silly enough to buy his magic charms.
Then is there such a thing as luck?
The dictionary defines luck as 'believing that whatever happens, either good or bad, to a person in the course of events is due to chance, fate or fortune'. The Buddha denied this belief completely. Everything that happens has a specific cause or causes and there must be some relationships between the cause and the effect. Becoming sick, for example, has specific causes. One must come into contact with germs and one's body must be weak enough for the germs to establish themselves. There is a definite relationship between the cause (germs and a weakened body) and the effect (sickness) because we know that germs attack the organisms and give rise to sickness. But no relationship can be found between wearing a piece of paper with words written on it and being rich or passing examinations. Buddhism teaches that whatever happens does so because of a cause or causes and not due to luck, chance or fate. People who are interested in luck are always trying to get something,usually more money and wealth. The Buddha teaches us that it is far more important to develop our hearts and minds. He says:
Being deeply learned and skilled; being well-trained and using well-spoken words - this is the best good luck. To support mother and father, to cherish wife and child and to have a simple livelihood - this is the best good luck
I see that some people do not have to work at all and have a lavish lifestyle simply because they are born into a rich family. Example, Abhishek Bachchan is son of Amitabh Bachchan and is having a comfortable life style just because he was born in a well known family. So is the case of Rahul Gandhi and many other dynasties. If these people get all of the luxuries of life, (it is hard to say that they deserve it because of any personal talent etc.), wouldn't it be called luck?
ReplyDeleteSimilarly,I have read numerous articles where a gruesome accident happens but some folks who are riding the the vehicle get seriously hurt and others just get off with little of no injury. I can understand cause and effect argument, but I wonder why one person got hurt badly and other escaped unhurt. Could this be called luck ?
ReplyDelete@ Rational view
ReplyDeleteAccording to you those who are reach, living luxurious life are very lucky person
but question is that only the money can make the man Happy?
Are they free from all the suffering, desires, lust & Ignorance only because they reach & living luxurious life?
the person who are free from suffering, who has the peace of mind & satisfaction is the lucky person there is no any question of money
What the example you have given of Accident that one person get seriousely hurt & other not
ReplyDeleteIn this case this is the probabality/chance
eg. If we toss coin their is 50 percent probability/chance to getting either head or tail So in your above eg this is probability & not a luck
Glad to see your comment. Your response is indictive of a thinking brain. In the example of tossing a coin, statistically it is true that probability is 50%. But my argument is a step above this one. Lets say that we two play a game where you make a bet on head and I on tail and we decide to toss 10 times. If you get head 9 out of 10 times, what would you call that ? I guess is the definition of Luck in my mind. When your facts are not following the statisitical probability model then it should be called luck because there is no explaination for it.
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