I think a lot of things were added on by followers after Buddha passed away. Some followers then became sifu and gave their 'inyterpretation' of what Buddha taught.

My wife is following the Pure Land tradition and she is so supersticious!! I follow the Theravada (Ajahn Chah) tradition and we always argue what Buddha taught. She tried to be vegetarian (i eat meat but don't eat a lot due to a healthier lifestyle).
She always gets angry when i bring up names of people who have died (she says the dead spirit will come and haunt me when they hear their names being mentioned  ).

My wife always think she is Mahayana and i am the lower Theravada sect so her Mahayana is so much more higher than my lesser vehicle 

Certainly the historical Buddha taught  more than philosophy, he taught the Dhamma (natural law) that gives insight into the nature of existence, and karma/ rebirth/ realms of existence.

But you must understand, the ancient Buddha's teaching were mostly in ancient Pali language and have fused into the culture of burma / thailand and srilanka in their native language.

In the last few hundred  years, with European powers in contact with Buddhism , their own intellectual people have looked at buddhism in very biased angle, and filtered out all the esoterism of the teaching and conclude it as just a philosophy.

With this conclusion, they write their books and opinion, in English language.

So naturally, in modern days, most people's opinion will be influenced by the western thinkers, which gave quite an inaccurate picture.

Yeah, you would find sometimes hard to communicate. For example a simple fact from you and 3rd party bears different results,even though the concept is same. it just like this person shutting down listen to you, while throughly accept if shared by other.

everybody karma is different, then obviously the mind/perception also different ...
u just need to understand what u are practicing ....

actually all these burning incense/oil lamp n pray to statue is more about getting good deed(fook tuck)...
n got nothing to do with buddhism cos even other religion or atheist they all also do the same n do charity n good deed too ...

buddhism is about the mind n not those thing outside of the mind ...

The Budda expounded the great merits of offering lamps in many occasions. Pradipadaniya Sutra or the Merits of Offering Lamps Sutra elaborated the importance of this practise. Recite this sutra often. The Buddha also told how offering lamps helped a practitioner became Dipankara Buddha, a great Buddha before Shakyamuni Buddha came.

Try to adopt the practise of offering lamps at home. There are short lamp offering verses. Pick one

The Budda expounded the great merits of offering lamps in many occasions. Pradipadaniya Sutra or the Merits of Offering Lamps Sutra elaborated the importance of this practise. Recite this sutra often. The Buddha also told how offering lamps helped a practitioner became Dipankara Buddha, a great Buddha before Shakyamuni Buddha came.

Try to adopt the practise of offering lamps at home. There are short lamp offering verses. Pick one

if u read the sutra u should understand the sutra is talking about real sentient being buddha and not statue ...now where got living buddha ?
but many in tibetan buddhism claimed they are the living buddha cos they practice from 'effect to cause' ...

and the reason why i say it got nothing to do with buddhism bcos 'offering' is about good deed(fook tuck) but buddhism is about wisdom(kung tuck) ...
good deed is the 'good condition' for your next reincarnation but wisdom is about the perception of the mind about the reality which is sunyata ..
buddhism is about getting out of samsara, so by just doing offering to buddha can get out of samsara ?

Your answers are baffling. Do you know that Buddha said statues have the same equal merit as the real him? That practise offering to statues accumulates the same merits?

Of course, many ppl think they can skip all process n be EMPTY directly. Thats delusional

firstly i do agree that is u offer to the 'buddha' u get immeasurable merit ...this one nothing to argue ...
but the buddha word mean an 'awakening sentient being', have u heard before a 'awakening statue' ?
most of the sifu/fatt si will say statue is the same as the real buddha ....
but do u know that every time u pray/offer actually u are 'connecting' to the statue ?
the keyword is 'connecting', n do u know many those unknown sentient being actually also can reside in a buddha statue ?
can u see the problem ?

Right. Practise offerings to Buddha statues were taught by the Buddha himself. The statue is a representation of the real Buddha. There’s sutras n teachings on revering Buddha statues, even one broken piece of it, we respectfully bow. The teachings r the same for Mahayana or Vajrayana. It is based on what the Buddha had said n taught. When facing the statues, one is making connections w the real Buddha. Every mantras, every visualisations. No practising Buddhists treat that statue as real other than practising reverence n respect for its representation.

To say that offerings has nothing to do with Buddhism is completely false

my explanation is very simple .... buddhism is about getting out of samsara, by doing what u mention above can get out of samsara ?

actually there is also a lot of 'different view' about the mahayana sutra ...
most of their sutra comes from 'dragon palace' and taken from some 'some' bodhisattva n not from gautama buddha teaching in india ...
Theravada sutra all start with 'Thus have I heard/如是我聞' means this is what i heard from gautama buddha ...
but mahayana sutra all start with many buddha/bodhisattva name ....

buddhism is about getting out of samsara, so by just doing offering to buddha can get out of samsara ?

Melaka

Long time this activities?

Practising offerings to the Buddhas are the teachings of the Buddha. Following the teaching of the Buddha is a practising Buddhist.

Sutras starts with that quote.

Either you dont follow the teachings or u omit some teachings. That explains it

Haiya, don't cincai say la bro, got merits one.