Hope lives on for Russia's dead monk - 19 July 08

[MsIndent]

he says: "da, deistvitelno est' chto-to, est' bog" in russian. translation is perfectly accurate. buryat buddhist faith may be different from another forms of buddhism tho.

and this all is really fascinating.

[WorldMongolMusic]

Итгэлт хамба

[iam1and1isme]

that body... is slight creepy, i got scared, honest!

[bobslightbulb]

Fascinating.

[wiredboy27]

Wow ignoring the first cause argument because it is irrelevant to practice. I blame Dedekind. Is anabiosis even a word?

[PrimarchZabius]

No god in buddism sir ....

[CwiczPompki]

Is he still dead?

[Chelseafcuk1]

unbelieveable news story. I end up watching this story but I was fininding the film "The Bulletpoof Monk".....

[Cormierguy121]

The translations for this report are horrible, but the report itself was good. The buddhists dont speak of "god" or "faith".

[zooropah82]

Did he died?

[knoxvilleguy2]

AlJazeera did this story ? I thought this went against everything they believe in.....

[unit45x]

@knoxvilleguy2 They are journalists. You are misinformed about the world.

[knoxvilleguy2]

@unit45x - You mean they can actually do an unbiased objective story without the word " infidel " in it ? Wow.

[unit45x]

@knoxvilleguy2 They do a great job in reporting. You should give them a try. Media from many outlets gives us perspective and is the foundation of our current "freedom" in many ways. I think you would be surprised. CNN often won't go near a story that they will, and quite objectively and comprehensively at that. They are really good for news on Africa and other places not deemed worthy of typical Western media.

[knoxvilleguy2]

@unit45x That's unusual, considering that AlJazeera has been tied, perhaps maybe almost stereotypically, to Islamic propaganda by some " experts ".

[unit45x]

@knoxvilleguy2 America is not the whole world, It is funny, but we get so much propaganda in the US. You can only tell when you start to travel the world and see the different way the world actually is compared to what they want us to think. I am surprised by how much "freedom" we really do not have sometimes. We are free to be really ignorant...

[knoxvilleguy2]

@unit45x there is a bias in the news. Whether it is " by the awful Liberal media " as Fox News pushes, or by conservative media outlets, or both, I can't say for sure.

I come from a heritage of print journalists on both sides of my family, & I was really too young to figure out if THEY had a particular bias.

Oh,NO DOUBT propaganda is alive & well in the USA. I wish the local cable had BBC America available.

[saveburmanowsf]

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[tsering936]

you became as you think

[tsering936]

fuck china

[blooddevilfox]

Fuck Stalin

[GoddessOFUnity]

did he say that there is a God? I thought buddhists didnt believe in God. this makes no sense.

[dodojardin]

looks pretty rotten to me.. but I guess it must be a good business with all the suckers coming there to see the "miracle". Eeeh, Russian entrepreneurship.. :))

[petestrat07]

When I die it will most probably be in fetal position.

[KarthikSoun]

Life and death are one unitary motion!! The flow of blood,air,thought etc., are no different from the flow of matter outside like water and air..! The point of separation is thought, so Buddhism emphasizes to understand ones own thoughts than pray to a god outside!

[MissingVoices77]

Very interesting!

[77krissy77]

una storia davvero affascinante....

[ararat123457]

Some one smart give me your point of view on this

[amdo2008dragon]

wow i see my tibetan buddhism spreading kudos , bravo spread the buddha dharma plzzzzzzzzz all over the world ,may their be peace in this world and every one reach heaven

[dayv70s]

Interestingly their fellow Russians of the Orthodox Christian faith have a few stories of their own about bodies of dead monks magically preserved. Maybe the basis for some friendly ecumenical discussion!

[blajing]

AlJazeera rawks!!!!

[ChukkovProductions]

I thought Al Jazeera only did stuff about Islam? Why would they want to have these heathen lies?

[arabrockerman]

try watching al Jazeera reguardless of what the u.s. government says about it its acutally one of the best news stations i only started watching to see what all the fuss is about and i found out its the only news that seems to only report the facts and strait forward with no spin and about anything you can think of reporters risk thier lives sometimes to get the story and sometimes get killed or jailed but thats what makes it a good news source

[LeHuyAnh]

Hahaha...good point, but that's not fair in this case. Don't forget, Al Jazeera wants to be a "better" CNN...so they try to make worldly stories like this one.

[yellowman88]

wow Asians speaking Russian!!!!

Wow that monks hardcore. He died in upright lotus position!!

[ChukkovProductions]

I think you'll find Russia is a dominantly Asian country... and yes, he was pretty hardcore.

[raulitech]

the salt and cold preserved the body.

[Undech01]

there are also dead monks in thailand who have not decomposed either.

[ZannekMcMaro]

I'm not sure the translation was accurate. Since when do Buddhists talk about 'God' or 'faith'?!

[ChukkovProductions]

Since they've been a RELIGION.

[ZannekMcMaro]

Um....no. Buddhism doesn't really fit the western concept of religion at all. I suggest you do a bit of research.

They're all about looking inwards for happiness and achieving spiritual flourishing by investigating the mind from a first-person perspective.

Also the Buddha himself encouraged his followers NOT to take his words on faith, but to try his methods for themselves, making it a kind of empirical system, which is the stark opposite of a religion.

[ChukkovProductions]

"Buddhism is a religion and philosophy with between 230 and 500 million adherents worldwide, the vast majority living in Asia" Come on, when is the wiki ever wrong? Besides, I live at the Mahabodhi, I think I'd know.

[raulitech]

Yeah, Buddhism is about self development and solving suffering.

[VerbotenDingleberry]

I'm sure it was just a way of speaking to Westerners. When you say Dharma you usually just get a funny look.

[nProfessional]

@ZannekMcMaro The translation probably was wrong or the guy meant something other than God. LAYGPOT is right. Buddhists do not believe in any god.

[maiashakti]

@nProfessional That's not necessarily true - there are Buddhists who do believe in a God, but they generally feel that the existence of a deity (or deities) isn't of primary importance.

[nProfessional]

Oh by the way, there are a few monks supernaturally preserved monks in Myanmar just like this one.

[mikeybill]

Fantastic stuff. Christianity has a long history of revering dead saints as well.

[mingyuguo]

worship a dead body that has been buried for so many years? Are you guys trying to engineer SARS-version 2?

[rhomea77]

this is so weird

[lani0]

For more information on what this phenomenon might be, please read up on 'samadhi' stage in Yoga.

[Revolutionizings]

hey, do I know you?

[SubmarinerAndroid]

who?

[xVinhX]

That was pretty interesting. I did research on it (and by research i mean google lol). His name is Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov

[ChukkovProductions]

Didn't it say his name in the report, anyway?

[xVinhX]

Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov

Theres a wikipedia article about him too

[xVinhX]

yeah they did, but its hard to spell out his name based on what they said in the video, since it is a foreign language (to me anyway)

[sexydecayed69]

This was fascinating and ty for sharing it wow.

[ACTORnSCREENWRITER]

truely bizzare...

[LAYGPOT]

These are Tibetan Buddhists. Mongols adopted Tibetan Buddhism around the 13th century. God is just a misnomer that this journalist used. Buddhists do not believe in the creator god of the Judaeo-Christian religions.

[GoddessOFUnity]

@LAYGPOT I think the word god for buddhism is the Eternal unborn uncreated. the One that is all. and that we are all expressions of it. I think the God is defined many ways .. not a personal God that grants wishes. but instead the Great spirit that is within everything.

[mercenarybdu]

perhaps there is a god after all....

[sharinganclan213]

how did he do it?

[fekkot]

It might just depend on how you translate it. Some of it might just be translated for the sake of clarity for those that don't know of the religion. For example, on some foreign showings of English programs with Christians, "Christ" can sometimes translated as "God", even though they aren't really the same.

[SubmarinerAndroid]

This is a wonderful story, like so many from Al Jazeera, that I would never have gotten otherwise here in the States.

But what odd Buddhists these are, who speak of "faith" in "miracles" and "God". It's not the Buddhism I know, which concentrates on meditation practice to free oneself and then others of real worldly suffering.

[eyub77]

agree with you buddhismk in is sense doesnt have a "god"

[ChukkovProductions]

But surely they must believe in some sort of 'creator'?

[sixtango]

Buddhists believe that Mind is creating everything and that mind is beyond any birth or death or even any conceptual notion, they dont believe in 1 or more god.

[darkhorse1982]

that's a good question. As you say most Buddhists do not believe in some sort of creator. Buddhists emphasize practice. A question that cant elucidate practice is irrelevant. Thus the Buddha, despite his omnipotence, refused to answer a number of questions. He said that an answer affirming or denying could only mislead. E.g., who created the creator? and what was before the creator? And if there was no creator, then where did this world come from? So either answer distracts from real practice.

[MissingVoices77]

I think its a matter of translation.

These people are Buddhist and have no Christian image of a God. In Buddhism godnesses shines trough everything.

[tsedawa]

mind is the creator