Buddhists believe in outer space: Shaolin abbot

[Ensapa]

Here's an article that reconfirms the fact that the Buddha did mention that it was possible for aliens to exist.

Buddhists believe in outer space: Shaolin abbot

Xinhua, June 13, 2013

As China's successful launch of its fifth manned spacecraft marks another step in realizing the country's space dream, Chinese monks regularly ponder how space is related to their own life.

"Buddhism believes there are aliens. They not only exist, but there are many," said Shi Yongxin, abbot of the Shaolin Temple in central China's Henan Province.

Buddhists believe the existence of many different worlds and their end-results do not exclude other celestial bodies, said Shi in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

According to the 48-year-old monk, those who have a good practice of Buddhism can go to other worlds, including outer space.

With a history of more than 1,500 years, the Shaolin Temple is famous for Buddhist teaching and Chinese martial arts, particularly Shaolin kungfu. It was enlisted as a world cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2010.

Shi, the temple's 30th abbot, is known as the "CEO of Shaolin" for his pursuit of commercial development. He became abbot in 1999.

Shi's business moves have sparked controversy, but he maintains the temple's core functions are to organize religious activities.

"The core soul of the Shaolin Temple has always been the cultivation of followers," stressed the abbot. The temple has more than 300 monks, half of whom were born after 1980.

Shi said they had not been to other celestial bodies and did not know whether Buddhist doctrines can be practiced on other planets.

Life is not eternal in the real world, but some other worlds are described to have eternal life with no pains nor troubles, said Shi, adding this is what Buddhists pursue.

The religious meditation of monks is a state of deep calm, active thinking and high concentration of the sober mind, according to studies conducted by Liu Tianjun, a professor of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

Shi, who is no stranger to modern technologies such as the mobile phone said brain waves of monks with good cultivation are different from those of ordinary people. This seems to indicate modern monks possess qualities of astronauts.

[kris]

@ensapa, this is rather interesting and thank you for sharing.

Has anyone here watched the "Ancient Aliens" series? Many of the arguments revolve around that the Christian God is indeed alien who decent from the sky (as depicted in many diagrams of ancient civilizations). Mostly from spaceship.

Also, there are many structures like pyramids, Stonehenge, etc which the technology is too advanced for human civilization. Specially the pyramids, how did they build such structure with the technology available at that time, and also there are many heavy tombs in the pyramids, how did they move it?

Also, the universe is so big.. how arrogant are we to say that we are the ONLY one in this universe??

[fruven]

For Buddhism it may not be news but nevertheless it is worth pointing out that Buddha has spoken about non-Earth sentient beings in other worlds. Therefore it is not a new discovery for people who have known about it. It is like there is more people who doesn't know that earth is a sphere in the past. Someone then gone around it and shouts to everyone that the Earth is a sphere. What about those people who knows about it before then? Supposed that there comes to a time that the 'science' can prove that mind can travel from one body to another body and thus it can travel to another world, and thus those beings, aliens, exist. What happens if there is no way for science to prove that mind exists and can travel from one body to another body? How long are we going to wait?

[Tammy]

Shaolin temple's current abbot is an extraordinary monk. He is more of a CEO to the temple than an abbot. He makes an enterprise out of the entire operation of the temple, selling it's ever famous kung fu by accepting invitations to perform (with a fee, no less), gives king fu classes in the temple.. etc.

Beside having committed the 'crime' of commercialized Shaolin Temple, I think he is doing a great job changing the traditional believe that shangha members are to stay in caves and meditate, instead they should actively promote Buddhism by making Buddha's precious teaching more accessible by general public.

[brian]

To think that we earthlings are the only ones existing in this universe is not correct. Like what fruven said, Buddha spoke about the existence of life forms in other places in this universe. Since we humans have made advance progress stage in science and technology, we know there are many many huge universe light years away from us. I do not believe there is no one single life forms out there that doesn't exist. One question remains, are there going to be any visitors to our planet soon? Or will there be any? How will they look like? 

[diablo1974]

Its rather normal for Buddhists to link Buddhadharma to science and logic, i am not surprised with what a monk has said. Buddhism is an ancient religion but is not ancient in its teachings. i believe there are many more scientific theories yet discovered by scientists but has been mentioned by the Buddha 2500 years ago. Because of the different terms and language used in Buddha times, the concept would be the same or a source to contribute to science .

[Rihanna]

Thanks for the article Ensapa. I find it strange that the press chosed Shaolin temple's current abbot to be interviewed with regards to this subject matter, probably due to the 'public awareness' of Shaolin temple.

Abbot Shi had given Shaolin Temple a new life by cashing in (for lack of better words) on the martial arts element of which the temple is famous for. He had also endorsed the use of modern devises by sangha members in his temple which brought on countless negative opinions.

I like him because he is not afraid to do what he believes in and thanks to him, Shaolin temple is financially more than able to self-sustain and not depend on donation and sponsorship.

I agree with Abbot Shi too. We should not be so narrow minded to think that human beings on planet Earth is exclusive. There are so many other planets of existence and dimensions where definitely there are other forms of lives.

[yontenjamyang]

To quote an a famous analogy.

"There are as many stars in the known universe as all the sand grains in all the beaches on Earth. It would be very arrogant for one to pick up one single grain and declare, Only on this grain that lives exist!"

In other words, since there are as many stars like the Sun in this universe as all the grain of sands on all the beaches of the world, it cannot be true that only on the planet Earth that orbits the Sun that lives exist. After all the planet Earth is a very ordinary planet in a very ordinary star system (the Solar system). Please watch the video below.

How Many Stars In The Universe?

According to this video, there are, 1000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe. That is, 1 follow by 24 zeros or 10 to power of 24. If we take into account the universe is actually a few times bigger than the observable universe because light did not have the time to reach us, then we need to add a few more zeros to the number. What are the chances that the Earth is the only planet that has lives?