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For those that have the outlook that all religions are just "different paths to the same peak," why do you have a greater affinity for Buddhism?
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as for dhammaism, it resonates with me because it fits with my search for ultimate truth.. and the Buddha's message fits so perfectly with my own experience of life and continues to match my experience through the practice, that I have never seen any other belief system or quest for wisdom/knowledge/truth more worthy of dedicating my life to.
Now you're talking . . . :cool:
I ask the question because I've been talking to some people involved in interfaith dialogue lately, and it got me wondering why we choose the spiritual paths we do. Some of the people I've met believe that all faith systems are expressions of the same ultimate truth. But only recently have I wondered "Well, then why are you a Christian? Why am I a Buddhist?"
I (unfortunately) have my own prejudices against how theistic beliefs are practiced which prevents me from truly being able to accept all faith systems (for now). But for those that wholly feel that all religions are wonderful expressions of some absolute cosmic reality... why do you choose the path of Buddhism? Why not Islam? Or Zoroastrianism?
Just kidding........
I was given a copy of "The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying" by my mother, out of the blue...
The more I read, the more everything just slotted into place and made sense.
On a serious note, Bruce Lee's books were a major influence on me growing up. From Bruce, I went to Alan Watts and from there to Buddhism.
No one to blame anything on besides yourself.
All the above of course quite generalized as there are also practicing Christians/Muslims/etc and also not practicing Buddhists. But this is how it went for me.
That is not to say that I don't think that it is possible, only that it is rare at this level. The one I am on.
So I would have to say that from my point of view, most Buddhists are in the raft. They don't know what the other shore will look like. They are following the 8fp. Learning compassion and meditation. Trying to minimize suffering for themselves and others.
As far as religious types go, I know far more Christians than Buddhists. They definitely take their beliefs more seriously than I do. But they are living the life. They are trying to be compassionate and morally upright. They are trying to reduce suffering as well.
I think they are in a raft too. Will they be enlightened? Maybe not. But are a Buddhist's odds that much better in the long run? How can we know? Christianity may well be a valid path to awakening, particularly if one considers the possibility of multiple births.
Why would a practicing Christian suffer a lower birth because of some things he believes?
We are all deluded at some level until we are awakened.
And how close are you at finding the 'ultimate truth' ?
Also, when you say 'ultimate' truth, In regards to what?? Life? Death? Everything? What is it??
(I dont believe we can find the answers to EVERYTHING !
So what do you mean by ultimate truth? )
Do you mean in regards to why we suffer??? Or do you mean something else?
Thanks! :-)
Looking foward to your answer because ive always wanted to know what people mean by 'ultimate' truth!
For me religions are methods. Just like there are fifty methods for learning to play guitar and keep improving, there are fifty methods for learning to live and die and keep improving. This is why I am not a Buddhist. I find Taoism more useful in some situations, simpler and cleaner, and Sufism is a continual inspiration, Rumi and Al-Halaj and all that wonderful writing, and Christianity was my childhood religion and I owe it a lot even though I became allergic to it for a while due to a misunderstanding. A naive love of Jesus as a child is a very valuable thing in later life. Horses for courses.
What Buddhists call the Buddha Nature is 'experiential' for mystics, Buddhists, Taoists and so on.
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Buddha_nature
Buddhism starts with a skilful means. The 8 fold path. It is a workable methodology.
This is what i couldnt get my head around. I always thought 'ultimate truth' meant ' knowing ALL TRUTH about ALL THINGS!!!
The "God" I believed in resembled less and less anything theistic, much less Christian, even when I based it on peculiar interpretations of scripture (I took "God is love [compassion]" as literal, so that "Love is God" means that where there is no compassion, God literally ceases to exist and life is rendered meaningless).
By 2001 I had fallen off of it entirely, and was an atheist (which, paradoxically, was the result of something one might call a "mystical experience"). But atheism for me was not just simply the lack of belief in a deity, but of metaphysics itself, with which there can be no god.
While I did have some limited exposure to Zen Buddhism in the past, I never explored it in terms of Buddhism, but only in a more general way (I had previously bought into the "Buddhism is pessimistic" line ala Schopenhauer, which turned me off).
On the "theoretical" side: For several years I tried to make sense of this "non-metaphysical metaphysics." It wasn't until exposing myself to Buddhist writings that things began to make sense. Via emptiness and dependent co-arising, Buddhism doesn't rely on something "outside" of existence to "explain" it. Nonduality means there can be no "extra" something to tack onto the world-- it is all right here.
This sounds all fine, but it is just theoretical by itself. On the practical side, however, I began with doing zazen only. Other aspects of Buddhism which seemed too "religious" to me made little sense to me. But as I practiced and studied more, I began to see the value of chanting, bowing, prostrating, etc.
Whereas previously, doing zazen only, I was like a carpenter refusing to use any tools except for a hammer. Now I even understand the "theoretical" side is actually really just another kind of praxis. Emptiness is not some sort of philosophical information about the world, but a method for seeing the world nondualistically.
Added to that, a few few months ago, finally being part of a flesh-and-blood sangha (two, actually!) it has had an important impact on my practice that I simply could not have imagined before.
My sangha experience so far has been very different from all the churches I have attended in the past because Buddhism is more a matter of orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. In the various churches I had been in, praying to a anthropomorphic supernatural being made no sense to me and I struggled with it. And how could Christian belief be made into a living faith? It simply could not "click" for me, no matter how much I tried.
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a Christian, but I felt I was being dishonest with myself as I kept going further down the more liberal end of the spectrum. I really struggled with this and at that time in my life, it was the most important thing to me to make sense of life through a Christian lens. Now I'm not so sure what the hell I was going on about! haha
Whereas the practices of Buddhism make sense-- I no longer have to struggle with myself. I can prostrate wholeheartedly in a way that I could not pray a Christian prayer.
And that isn't to knock Christianity per se-- but it simply never clicked for me. There are aspects of it that I can see relate to Buddhism, though couched in Christian language.
Then after listening to the dalai lama, I asked myself: Why not Buddhism?
...and a pure heart
Well, yes and no.
Here is Osho in the 'Discourses'
'The Indian system of reasoning is not like investigating truth with the help of a lamp. It is like investigating the dark night in the dazzling brilliance of a lightening flash, where everything becomes visible simultaneously. Not that something - a part - is seen now, sometime later another part, later again something more, and so on; no the Indian way is not like that. In the Indian system of investigation, the revelation of truth takes place all at once; everything is discovered at one and the same time.'
Union with reality would mean knowing reality as it is, all at once. As Plotinus says, it means a union of the whole with the whole, for only the whole can be one with the whole.
Perhaps it would be interesting to examine just one particular ultimate truth, (we can hypothesis one), in order to see if (logically) it can be known without knowing all the rest at the same time. I suspect that it would be logically (and not just experientially) impossible to know one without knowing them all, but I've never done the calculations.
Firstly, I don't have to be able to explain God or fit a pre-made mold of what to believe in when it comes to God. Secondly, while most theistic religions have a "grand plan" for the next life, they tell you how you SHOULD live in this life, but now HOW to. Buddhism focuses on THIS life, how to reach enlightenment and how to live (8NP).
Buddhism also gives me tools to cope with life, instead of pithy sayings like "God only gives you what you can bear" or "God tests those he loves the most". And I've found more solace in mindfulness meditation and mantras in the past two weeks (having been diagnosed with a fatal disease) than I ever did praying.
NB to be fair, I do believe in "God/dess/Divinity", but I'm finding less and less solace. Perhaps reaching Enlightenment for me is to drop clinging/attachment to this? who knows?
In metta,
Raven
"Does She Really Exist?"
The scene: a Buddhist conference in Berlin. Among the many panels and presentations, some teachers have come to give workshops as well. One such elder is an eminent Tibetan lama; he has been giving instruction on The Praise to the Twenty-One Taras. It is now time for questions and answers.
A young man with furrowed brow requests to speak. He asks in broken English, “Rinpoche, for many years now I have been your student. I am committed to the practice but I have the doubt. I am very willing to do the pujas, the visualizations, the prostrations, but it is very hard to have the whole heart in it, because I have this doubt: Tara, is she really there? Sometime you talk like she is a real person, but sometimes you say she is the wisdom of Buddha Amoghasiddhi, or just a skillful means.
If I could know for sure, I would redouble my efforts. So, Rinpoche, Tara, does she really exist or does she not?!”
For a few moments the lama ponders, then raises his eyes to meet those of his inquirer. A smile spreads across his face.
He responds, “She knows that she is not real.”
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2008/6/1/between-arhat-and-bodhisattva.html
om tare tuttare ture soha
In metta,
Raven
I've never been able to look at things as either "good" or "evil" - which is probably why I've never been an unquestioning disciple of a path. Even with Buddhism I have questioned things.
Mine is more that I find it easer to accept the working of karma in my life than handing responsibility to a divine being.
In metta,
Raven