Hey, friends, this is Michael Boehm with Youth Apologetics Training. Today, we're going to keep going with this series about Buddhism, more specifically Theravada Buddhism. All right, it's the more fundamental version of Buddhism. It's where this whole Buddhist movement started. And then, well, pretty soon thereafter, we started seeing Mahayana Buddhism, which is what actually means greater vehicle, this wider path, if you will, the more liberal forms of Buddhism. But anyway, yesterday, we ended off and I was talking about karma and how on the internet, when you Google or however, whatever search engine you use, the questions of karma and what governs karma, what, what out there in this strictly naturalistic universe? Well, if you're somebody who believes in Theravada Buddhism, you know, there is no deity, there is no God. So what out there governs karma? What governs reincarnation? And when you ask that question online, you never get a straightforward good answer. Nobody gives you a good answer. It's always a bunch of hemming and hawing. For example, you hear most of the answers come about, where they make reference to some kind of direct cause and effect relationship between your good actions and good results versus bad actions and bad results, which I think is nonsense. Because first and foremost, there isn't a direct relationship between good actions and good reactions versus bad actions and bad reactions. I know that there are some people out there that rob banks. I don't know anybody personally, but there's people out there that will rob banks or rob the people of a nation. Hmm. There's some people out there like that, that seem to get away with it for a long time and end up living their lives and having a great, cushy, fun life all the way to the day they die. And sometimes they even die peacefully. You know, like what you see in Jeremiah and Job and many other prophets that are asking God, God, why do you have wicked people that live perfect, comfortable lives? And then you have these good, righteous people that have really tough lives. What's going on? You know, every one of us know people who are just punks, okay? They're punks. They put out a whole lot of bad and somehow they still live good lives. And you look at them and you think there is no way karma is true. All right, there is no direct causal effect relationship between what they do, and what they get back out of what they do. Furthermore, what I continue to see people dodge on the internet, when I look at different forums and different places where people are asking the same question I'm asking is nobody addresses reincarnation. All right. You do. Okay, let's say you live your, your life in a way that's really bad here on this earth, right? And then you're reincarnated. How in the world are your negative actions of one life going to affect the next life? What governs that? How does that even work? because there is no causal, there's no direct cause and effect relationship between one life and the next life, at least naturally speaking. There has to be some kind of supernatural element involved, right? But yet it's referred to as the law of karma. All right. Huh. And so anyway, through this eightfold path, you're trying to reach this state of enlightenment, where you end suffering, you end desire, okay, and eventually you reach nirvana. This state, by the way, where you've reached enlightenment is referred to as our hot. which is interesting. When I when I met my wife, I realized right away that she had reached this state of enlightenment. Because I mean, right away, I took one look at her and I was like, you are hot. Good. Oh, friends, you get what you get. Okay. Sometimes the jokes, they're just bad. They're really bad. So anyway, the state of enlightenment is arhat. And again, you're trying to blow out all of your desires. You're trying to remove that individual portion of you. You're trying to reach the ultimate selfless state. All your desires are gone. All the me, me, me, me, me in your life is gone. And you merge with the one you become part of nirvana, or you reach nirvana. This great blowing out of all that is you. Sometimes it's likened to a drop that merges in with the ocean. And so anyway, they reach this state of nirvana through, yes, the Eightfold Path. They also use, well, as we saw there, meditation, that's part of the Eightfold Path. And meditation, of course, we see meditation in just about almost all the different faiths that you see around the world, right? People use different forms of meditation. And generally, It is a process of emptying your mind in one way or another, right? You're trying to blow out everything of this world out of your mind and potentially possibly try to fill it with something else. As far as Buddhism or Theravada Buddhism is concerned, A lot of times they'll try to meditate on one specific concept. Sometimes they'll repeat mantras in their mind, sometimes out loud, but sometimes just in their mind. Like, for example, Buddho. I read one account where one of the great Theravada teachers, okay, say that in air quotes, is having people sit there in this lotus position, holding their hands in a certain specific way called mudras. We'll talk about that in just a second. holding your hands in a certain specific way. And then they breathe in and as they're breathing in slowly, they're thinking of B U D, Bude. Okay, you're basically Budeho is like saying Buddha, okay. And they're breathing in and they're visualizing the letters B U D. Okay, believe it or not. Okay, and then they breathe out slowly relaxed. and they're breathing out ho. So eventually, with your breathing in and breathing out, you're saying booed ho over and over and over and you're visualizing the letters of the word. And you do this for hours and hours on end, which in my opinion, yeah, besides the fact that your eyes are shut, and you're kind of relaxing. I see that as suffering. It is an endless striving after a pointless goal. Okay, but anyway, they there's all these different forms of meditation. One of these days, I'll do some podcasts on meditation. Meditation has certainly crept into the church in many different ways. And I'm not talking about where the Bible says meditate on the scriptures, as in the filling of your mind. Okay, this is not blowing out your mind. This is the filling of your mind, the memorization and really dwelling on and filling your mind with the Word of God. No, this is happening in our churches where people are trying to empty their mind and open themselves up for other or to other spiritual forces. Now, I understand a lot of times they're looking for counsel or messages from the Lord, What ends up happening, though, is when you bring in Buddhist or New Age or occultic practices and you open yourself up and blow out your mind, you end up usually communicating with something you don't want to communicate with. But anyway, Buddhism, there is a blending of Buddhism and the Christian church. Believe it or not, there's websites all over the Internet. attempting to blend Christianity and Buddhism. This is not Theravada Buddhism. We'll talk about that. I'll do a whole series on Christianity and Buddhism because it's getting into the church. We're talking about yoga, we're talking about Buddhist meditation, and this is a blending of more of the then Mahayana, different forms of Mahayana, the greater vehicle type Buddhism, right? You're not going to see any of the Theravada Buddhism really blending with Christianity at all. Now, perhaps elements of it, but whatever the case, anyway, I'll do a whole series on that eventually, I have to lay this foundation of understanding what is Buddhism, at least how it started. before we really get into how it spun off and affects Christianity and all these other strange, very occultic, in some instances, schools of Buddhism. Interesting stuff. Anyway, I said I would mention mudras. Mudras. there well guys you see all these buddhist statues right uh in fact yikes you even see a lot of catholic artwork where the statue or the painting or whatever the the person depicted seems to be throwing a gang sign if you know what i mean they got their hands and they're doing something funny with their hands and you're looking at it thinking that hand gesture is completely unnatural. And so whoever the artist is, there is an intention there. There's something going on. They intended for that strange hand signal. to mean something? What are these gang signs? You know, is the Apostle claiming something? You know, is he from the West side or something? Or, you know, what's going on? Well, the Buddhists, Theravada, mainly Mahayana, but Theravada Buddhism has a lot of mudras as well. These strange hand signals, these hand signs that you hold when you're meditating, or whatever. And it's supposed to aid in your meditation, or bring about that which you know, the hand signal represents. Alright, so there's hand signals for health, there's hand signals for understanding Buddhist Dharma, Buddhist teaching, to help with your energy flows, all this strange stuff, right? Well, I just want to mention that these different hand gestures, I mean, it's, Really, when you look at it from an occultic standpoint, you look at witchcraft, for example, you're trying to influence the physical realm by throwing together several different elements, whether hand signals, gestures, words, strange ingredients, perhaps in some kind of a potion. You're throwing all these elements together in hopes that, you know, in the way you stand, maybe some magical symbols, in the hopes of bringing about something in the physical that you can't really affect in the physical without some kind of supernatural element. Does that make any sense? Mudras kind of play on that. You've got these weird hand signals. And even though the Theravada school of Buddhism does not believe in a supernatural or in the sense that they don't believe in a god, they still have these hand signals. They have these mudras that are supposed to aid them in meditation. To me, that doesn't make any sense. I'll probably do someday, perhaps go into this a little deeper. But I just want to mention that because yeah, you do see a lot of these paintings and statues. In fact, every single Buddhist statue I've seen, the Buddha's thrown some kind of a gang sign, right? He's always got his hands in a very unnatural way. And you know, there's something more going on there. Just, you know, for fun, if you'd like to check this out, and I actually encourage that you do, just go to Google, or Bing, or whatever you use, and type in Mudras, M-U-D-R-A-S, and then click on images, and you'll see exactly what I'm saying. There's just bazillions of these various hand signals out on the internet, and the supposed desired results that they're supposed to bring to you. And I was reading different forums, where people are saying, I like this particular mudra, it really works for me, it helps with my energy flows, and you know, all this strange stuff. Oh, man. So anyway, I'll go ahead and stop right there. Tomorrow, we're going to start looking at problems with Buddhism. And I know we've already kind of started getting into that. But I want to look at some other issues that I see in Buddhism that well are a little bit problematic. And then we'll perhaps even start getting into how we can potentially start talking to these people. Look forward to that tomorrow. With that, I love you guys. And I'll see you tomorrow.