Buddhism | The Hare Krishna Movement

Ever since I was a small child, I have been attracted to the statue of Buddha. Don’t know why, but I had a statue of Buddha in my bedroom, and it was a Christian home. I didn’t really know about Krishna then or who the Buddha was…but I was so attracted to everything Eastern. As I learned latter in life Buddha was actually an incarnation of Krsna. “From the Bhāgavatam we understand that Lord Buddha is the incarnation of Kṛṣṇa who appeared when materialism was rampant and materialists were using the pretext of the authority of the Vedas.” (from purport Bg 4.7)

The Four Noble Truths & The Eightfold Path

The Four Noble Truths

The Buddha’s first sermon after his Enlightenment centered on the Four Noble Truths, which are the foundation of Buddhism. The truths are:

The truth of suffering (dukkha)
The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)

Let’s look at one truth at a time.

Protectors of the Cow

The following article I found very interesting. It was circulating on Face book before I saw it on the Sampradaya Sun this morning. It is very informative, and is worth reprinting here.

The Samurai: Protectors of the Cow
by Jahnava Nitai das
Mar 01, 2015 — ORISSA (SUN)

If I were to tell you, that once, no other country, save India, revered the cow as much as Japan, I could understand your disbelief. Today, we think of Japan as a meat-eating culture. However, this image is a product of the last 150 years of American influence. The traditional Japanese culture held the cow as the most sacred animal. What follows next is the true story of among the greatest protectors of the cow – the Samurai.