Buddha Boy - 3 years of meditation
Kushikushun
Posts: 1,263
I just saw some news about him and started looking up some information about this boy on the net. I dont know what to think of it, but find it very intriguing. What do you guys think?
p.s. Before you provide your opinion, it is better to watch the whole documentary by Discovery Channel to get the different sides of the story.
Heres info from wikipedia and some links:
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon):
"Ram Bahadur Bomjon (born c. 9 April 1990, sometimes Bomjan, Banjan, or Bamjan), also known as Palden Dorje (his official Buddhist name), is from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal and drew thousands of visitors and media attention for spending months in meditation. Nicknamed the Buddha Boy, he began his meditation on 16 May 2005.
Bomjon's story gained popularity because it resembled a Buddhist legend from the Jataka Nidanakatha about Gautama Buddha's enlightenment, so much so that some devotees claimed Ram was the reincarnation of a Buddha. However, on 8 November 2005 Dorje arose and said to the public, "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy. I am at the level of a rinpoche." A rinpoche is the level of a teacher, which indicates he believes he has achieved a significant amount. He said that he will need six more years of meditation before he may become a Buddha.
According to his followers, Bomjon may have reached the stage of a bodhisattva, a person on the path to attaining full enlightenment of buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. According to the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, there were innumberable Buddhas before him and infinite Buddhas to come in future. Proponents also claim that Bomjon might also be the emanation of Maitreya Bodhisattva, the predicted successor to the historical Buddha.
An average human being who stops drinking will die of dehydration in three to four days. According to the Guinness Book of Records the longest time a human has survived without water is 18 days. Bomjon, on the other hand, does not appear to break his meditation to eat or drink.
Bomjon was observed not to leave the tree at least during the daytime, but nobody was allowed to approach him too closely. Between 5:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. nobody was allowed to see him, and a screen was erected for that purpose. Many people speculated that he ate and drank water during that time.
Some supporters believe that discussions of inedia are irrelevant, and that the ability to sit nearly motionless in the same position day after day, with no regard for extremes of weather including a cold winter and a monsoon season, is notable. For example, American writer George Saunders visited Bomjon and observed him for a single night, and was impressed by Bomjon's perfectly still stature even during an evening climate that seemed unbearably cold to the much more fully clothed journalist.
In 2007, the Discovery Channel produced a documentary titled "The Boy With Divine Powers". On a first attempt, the film crew was required to stay outside the guarded barbed wire fence and their camera's night vision could not pick up a signal where Ram sat at the base of a tree during their non stop recording over four days. On a second attempt a few weeks later, however, the film crew was able to film Ram continuously for 96 hours, day and night, during which time he did not drink any fluids or eat any food. According to scientists on the documentary, an average person would be expected to die from kidney failure after 4 days without drinking any fluids. The boy showed no signs of classical physical deterioration caused by dehydration. At a close inspection conducted by the filming crew around the tree where Ram was sitting, no hidden water pipes or food stashes were found.
Bamjon, 17, on 10 November 2008, reappeared and spoke to flocks of devotees in the remote forest and jungle in Ratanpuri, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, Prakash Sen, near Nijgadh. With shoulder-length hair and his body wrapped in a white cloth, he is believed endowed with enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, which borders Nepal, the same place where Siddartha Gautama attained enlightenment.Min Bahadur Shakya of the Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods in Katmandu stated Buddhist priests have yet to investigate the boy, who in 2005 lived in a forest for 10 months".
Blog by two visitors of the site:
* http://samandlaura.blogspot.com/2005/12/buddha-boy-from-nepal-part-1.html
Youtube vids:
2005:
* Part 1 Discovery Channel (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FBe3CQVPV4
* Part 2 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKbtl574REE&feature=related
* Part 3 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs9Q88NZ70U&feature=related
* Part 4 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X0gums7Vz4
* Part 5 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXu8meC1BhI
* 4 days and night filming of the boy (short footage of Discovery Channel documentary) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__RX0rPhywo&feature=related
* Buddhist Lama testing the boy (short footage of Discovery Channel documentary) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWnJlNMZgoA
Nov. 2008:
Buddha boy re-emerges from jungle for blessings -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjMYTqtELPU&feature=related
Please be respectful in expressing your opinion,
thanks.
p.s. Before you provide your opinion, it is better to watch the whole documentary by Discovery Channel to get the different sides of the story.
Heres info from wikipedia and some links:
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon):
"Ram Bahadur Bomjon (born c. 9 April 1990, sometimes Bomjan, Banjan, or Bamjan), also known as Palden Dorje (his official Buddhist name), is from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal and drew thousands of visitors and media attention for spending months in meditation. Nicknamed the Buddha Boy, he began his meditation on 16 May 2005.
Bomjon's story gained popularity because it resembled a Buddhist legend from the Jataka Nidanakatha about Gautama Buddha's enlightenment, so much so that some devotees claimed Ram was the reincarnation of a Buddha. However, on 8 November 2005 Dorje arose and said to the public, "Tell the people not to call me a Buddha. I don't have the Buddha's energy. I am at the level of a rinpoche." A rinpoche is the level of a teacher, which indicates he believes he has achieved a significant amount. He said that he will need six more years of meditation before he may become a Buddha.
According to his followers, Bomjon may have reached the stage of a bodhisattva, a person on the path to attaining full enlightenment of buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. According to the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, there were innumberable Buddhas before him and infinite Buddhas to come in future. Proponents also claim that Bomjon might also be the emanation of Maitreya Bodhisattva, the predicted successor to the historical Buddha.
An average human being who stops drinking will die of dehydration in three to four days. According to the Guinness Book of Records the longest time a human has survived without water is 18 days. Bomjon, on the other hand, does not appear to break his meditation to eat or drink.
Bomjon was observed not to leave the tree at least during the daytime, but nobody was allowed to approach him too closely. Between 5:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. nobody was allowed to see him, and a screen was erected for that purpose. Many people speculated that he ate and drank water during that time.
Some supporters believe that discussions of inedia are irrelevant, and that the ability to sit nearly motionless in the same position day after day, with no regard for extremes of weather including a cold winter and a monsoon season, is notable. For example, American writer George Saunders visited Bomjon and observed him for a single night, and was impressed by Bomjon's perfectly still stature even during an evening climate that seemed unbearably cold to the much more fully clothed journalist.
In 2007, the Discovery Channel produced a documentary titled "The Boy With Divine Powers". On a first attempt, the film crew was required to stay outside the guarded barbed wire fence and their camera's night vision could not pick up a signal where Ram sat at the base of a tree during their non stop recording over four days. On a second attempt a few weeks later, however, the film crew was able to film Ram continuously for 96 hours, day and night, during which time he did not drink any fluids or eat any food. According to scientists on the documentary, an average person would be expected to die from kidney failure after 4 days without drinking any fluids. The boy showed no signs of classical physical deterioration caused by dehydration. At a close inspection conducted by the filming crew around the tree where Ram was sitting, no hidden water pipes or food stashes were found.
Bamjon, 17, on 10 November 2008, reappeared and spoke to flocks of devotees in the remote forest and jungle in Ratanpuri, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, Prakash Sen, near Nijgadh. With shoulder-length hair and his body wrapped in a white cloth, he is believed endowed with enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, which borders Nepal, the same place where Siddartha Gautama attained enlightenment.Min Bahadur Shakya of the Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods in Katmandu stated Buddhist priests have yet to investigate the boy, who in 2005 lived in a forest for 10 months".
Blog by two visitors of the site:
* http://samandlaura.blogspot.com/2005/12/buddha-boy-from-nepal-part-1.html
Youtube vids:
2005:
* Part 1 Discovery Channel (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FBe3CQVPV4
* Part 2 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKbtl574REE&feature=related
* Part 3 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs9Q88NZ70U&feature=related
* Part 4 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X0gums7Vz4
* Part 5 Discovery Channel Documentary (quite long)-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXu8meC1BhI
* 4 days and night filming of the boy (short footage of Discovery Channel documentary) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__RX0rPhywo&feature=related
* Buddhist Lama testing the boy (short footage of Discovery Channel documentary) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWnJlNMZgoA
Nov. 2008:
Buddha boy re-emerges from jungle for blessings -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjMYTqtELPU&feature=related
Please be respectful in expressing your opinion,
thanks.
Why not be mediocre and be the best at it that you can be?
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
I don't think there's too much you can say about it. Just as there isn't too much you can say about shamanism.
On the subject of Buddhism, I'm really looking forward to spending a few days around Mount Wutai in Northern China in January. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Wutai - It's considered to be the most sacred of China's four most sacred mountains. Should be interesting, and a chance to get some nice photo's.
I think it's inspiring and exciting to see what he is doing and I'm really hoping he reaches his goal.
It's good to see people so devoted to a goal.
I'm a de facto atheist but am extremely interested in spirituality as opposed to an existential, interventionist supreme being, so eastern philosophies and religions are far more appealing to me than western theologies.
He seems humble too. I read once that plenty of people have claimed to be the Maitreya in the past and done bugger all to conduct themselves as particularly pure, spiritual beings, whereas this guy seems to be genuinely striving for enlightenment but still asks not to be called Buddha.
'...as I lay there thinking of my vision, I could see it all again and feel the meaning with a part of me like a strange power glowing in my body; but when the part of me that talks would try to make words for the meaning, it would be like fog and get away from me.'
- Black Elk - Oglala Sioux medicine man
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081122/wl_sthasia_afp/nepalreligionbuddhism
by Sam Taylor Sam Taylor
KATHMANDU (AFP) – A young man believed by followers to be a reincarnation of Buddha has returned to Nepal's jungles to meditate alone, police said Saturday, as scholars cast doubt on his supporters' claims.
Known as the "Buddha Boy," Ram Bahadur Bomjam, 18, became famous in 2005 after supporters said he could meditate motionless for months without water, food or sleep.
"Bomjam went back into the jungle late Friday and all the devotees have left," police officer Gobinda Kushwaha told AFP from Neejgad, a town in Bara District, 60 kilometres (37.5 miles) south of Kathmandu.
The "Buddha Boy" reappeared earlier this month after supporters said in March 2007 that he was going to meditate for three years in an underground bunker, although he was spotted on two occasions.
For the last 10 days, he has been blessing thousands of devotees who came daily to the site in dense jungle close to Neejgad.
The president of the Nepal Buddhist Council said claims by his supporters that he was a reincarnation of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, were not credible.
"We do not believe he is Buddha. He does not have Buddha's qualities," said Mahiswor Raj Bajracharya,