Since Buddhism is self oriented and Chinese are family oriented , how did overcome the obstacle family oriented customs ?Bodhidharma, early 6th century.
Only monks are expected to give up family life.
How Buddhism penetrate into China, and in what period in time ?
Since Buddhism is self oriented and Chinese are family oriented , how did overcome the obstacle family oriented customs ?
Again I read some time ago at some point a queen of heaven was introduced by buddhists and it become more acceptable for the Chinese society .That was one of the biggest criticisms that the Confucians directed at Buddhism.
Spidergoat is right that it's only monastics that are expected to be celibate and to leave their families. But during the early Tang, Buddhist monasticism was attracting so many young people from upper class homes that a great deal of opposition to Buddhism developed among the more prominent families, leading to the great persecution of 845 in which thousands of monasteries were closed by soldiers.
(The current communist regime in China launched a similar but even more thorough persecution in the second half of the 20th century, which can be expected to dramatically change Chinese Buddhism once again.)
Again I read some time ago at some point a queen of heaven was introduced by buddhists and it become more acceptable for the Chinese society .
Are you thinking about Guanyin?
Guanyin is the Chinese transformation of the Mahayana boddhisattva Avalokitavara, who features prominently in the Lotus sutra as the bodhisattva of mercy. In India Avalokitavara was a male demigod figure, imagined as occupying a heaven and willing to reach down in his great compassion to aid anyone who calls upon his name.
When this myth traveled to China, Avalokitavara inexplicably underwent a sex-change and was imagined as the female demigoddess Guanyin. She retains her attributes as a goddess of mercy, answering anyone who sincerely calls for assistance. Since Mahayana Buddhists supposed that the heavenly sort of boddhisattvas could manifest on Earth in any form they choose, the sex change has never been a big issue for Buddhists.
Why this transformation happened is unknown. Perhaps many of Avalokitavara's earliest devotees in China were female and they may have felt more comfortable calling upon a female form regarding female problems.
And many scholars hypothesize that Avalokitavara may have become syncretized and identified with an existing Chinese goddess worshipped in Chinese folk religion.
In Pure Land Buddhism, Avalokitavara/Guanyin is widely believed to ensure out of his/her limitless mercy and compassion that those who call upon him/her will be reborn in the Sukhavati heaven, the 'pure land of the west', a supernatural paradise from which eventual enlightenment is assured.
This helps explain how Buddhism in China became identified with funerals and ensuring an auspicious afterlife.
Early European visitors to China were struck by how similar the role Guanyin plays in China is to the role the Virgin Mary plays in Catholicism, as a figure of limitless mercy and compassion and as an intercessor for those who call on her name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin
That is what I have seen in China, Monks selling candles incense and other . worshipers burning candles laying down flowers and so on . Not all Christian burn candles or incense or put offering , but there some who do like Catholics .There is religious Buddhism for laypeople, and there there is the actual experience of the Buddha, which few have experienced or understand. I guess Buddhists figure this situation is OK, as long as it gets people on the path. Historically, the true drivers of Buddhist thought were often outsiders to the temple like the 6th patriarch, Hui Neng, who was a worker in the kitchen, and not a monk at all.
It seems that Zarathustra, Jesus, and Gautama Buddha all took the religions they grew up in and refined them into another.
Accurate?
How do you know . were you there ?Buddha never claimed to be a God or deity.
Buddha never claimed to be a God or deity.
How do you know . were you there ?
Thank you for the info It is interesting.In the famous Dona sutta, the Buddha may have denied that he was a god. (Reading the Pali as present tense. Or perhaps he speaking future tense and saying that he wouldn't be reborn as a god.) Interestingly, he denied at the same time that he was a man (or would be reborn as a man). Instead he was a Buddha, an entirely different category. A simple and basic translation is here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.036.than.html
And a more scholarly analysis is here:
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/36.13-Pada-Dona-S-a4.36-piya.pdf