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Reconciling God with the Dharma
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When I say fickle, I mean that they have similar emotional inclinations like we do, whereas Buddhas and Boddhisattvas are consistent because they have mastered indiscriminant compassion and equanimity. I honestly think that some devas take an interest in people, even non-Buddhists, just because they like the "cut of their jib", which is obviously not a bad thing. Some people, like my (Christian) grandmother, just have an uncanny ability to bring blessings to all people they encounter and/or pray for. My mom was (is? lol) a wild child and she always says that her mother's prayers must have protected her somehow when she was more, um, "spirited" haha.
Others are said to engage in a completely tit-for-tat relationship with people, some who require animal sacrifices, which of course hinder Buddhists greatly. Even when rituals don't involve animal sacrifices, it usually doesn't work out well when humans feel they are compulsory beyond expressing great gratitude and commitment.
Indra got pissed at the people of Govardhana because Krishna told the people to stop offering sacrifices to Indra. So Indra sent a downpour that threatened to wash away the whole countryside. Krishna picked up Govardhana hill and held it like and umbrella over the countryside and people.
There are many other stories in the puranas of the devas getting pissy and throwing fits. I think some people can tap into and channel energies, either benevolent and auspicious, or malevolent, like lightning rods. Your grandmother may be one of those persons who attracts auspicious and benevolent energies, i.e blessings. Which is how I felt previously, in my "Hindu days". It's pretty much why I left most of it behind, especially the rituals, pujas, do's, don'ts, fasts, must-do's, must not do's. There is too much superstition. It's ironic that I fled Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy because of the dogma and ritual and ran into the same thing with Hinduism. I'm trying not to bring the same baggage with me to Buddhism.
@Nirvana, I understand we are talking about a God that can exist in light of the dharma but the similarities between some of what Jesus reportedly said and the dharma as reported by Buddha can't really be dismissed if we are to be fair. Jesus didn't get a fair shake like Buddha did. Buddha had 50 years or so to get his message out there.
I do agree that the Upanishads is easier to reconcile but @SpinyNorman brings up a very valid point when saying Jesus was also possibly misrepresented. Especially when the God I think Jesus spoke of could be reconciled with the dharma.
@zsc, Thanks, you're right, of course.
Yes, the kingdom of Heaven (God) can be tasted/experienced here and now.
The Christian is called to acquire the mind of the Church which is revealed through the lives of her saints and the writings they have passed on.
St Gregory of Nyssa (335-395) says this about the Kingdom of God (Heaven) in his commentaries on the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes: To be continued...
@SpinyNorman circumphrased Younghusband's statement that Buddha is misrepresented by some as an atheist simply because he refrained from making any sharp definition of God, "and especially because he did not define Him as a Person —as a Father, for example." To which @SpinyNorman quips back" To which, out of the need to respond to the incongruity of his argument I had no second thought of responding: It is also abundantly clear that Shakyamuni never taught this Great-Parent-in-the-Sky idea. To say that Christ's idea of God is misrepresented is patently false, for Christ did see God as Father. The church may blow up farces of God in its different seasons of time, but it's really, really, hard to misrepresent the singular Man that was Christ. The canonical scriptures never have him contradicting himself. Sure, there are passages where you can tell that the evangelists had it both ways, as in: "Those who are not against us are with us." And, again, "Those who are not with us are against us." But suchlike are mostly just slogans for political use that have not in the groundswell of history ever amounted to much except in the unfortunate pograms against the Jews, Hitler, and so forth. Devastating developments these, but any Christian true to the whole spirit of Christ can see through such platitudinism.
You have to blame such things on the talented hoodwinkers that know which buttons to push to make the masses do things that the hoodwinkers want them to do. Not only that, but the hoodwinkers are so smart they find ways to make the masses think they thought all this up themselves.
Well, I never brought up God or tried to define him, let alone confine him to a certain Hebrew deity. This line of argument that you're bringing into this thread is all stones and mortar.
Later on in a different post: My mind refuses to race like that. One topic at a time, or it's just too much. When you're buying a car you can discuss car wax for a few minutes with the salesperson, but don't waste his or her time on shoe wax or floor wax. Apples are one thing and oranges quite another.
But you're wrong if you do really understand that you and I are both "talking about a God that can exist in light of the dharma," as you phrased it. This sort of mathematical-style statement certainly does not ring true to me. For one thing, those who postulate for "God" (as you seem to do) the traditional omnipotent "God" posit all power in him, and the modal word "can" would therefore have to be stricken right away. All this exhausting stipulation!
No, I was simply talking about the common ground: a wondrous mystic ground capable of bestowing all peace and promise, but The Common Ground. Period.
In the Silence, all is Common Ground that we share, dear heart.
The only thing to reconcile is how others interpret our misrepresentation.
Mettha
I think with reconciliation one would still primarily hold to a particular view, belief, or path and attempt to somehow make accommodations, explanations, or room for another.
With realization there would ultimately be no view, belief, or path to hold on to where all conceptual notions fall away like mountains into a vast sea, but only the naked experience of interior silence and stillness, of eternity or the deathless, the simultaneous presence of all time, perfect repose or rest, neither coming nor going, the flame that doesn't burn etc.
Perhaps then that assertions about the superiority of a certain view, belief, or path over another is evidence of clinging, not only to the aforementioned, but also to the ideas held about another used as confirmation bias.
Him? If you aren't trying to define something you should stay away from descriptors like "him".
If you want to keep the discussion limited to one certain idea of God then the Upanishads is a bad place to start as the word God with a capital G is Biblical.
Nobody has a patent on what it means to have God and at the same time, you simply can't stipulate whos idea of God is allowed to be discussed. That amounts to nothing more than sour grapes and wild speculation.
Plus it is simply incorrect.
Some people say God when they mean ineffable; I like ineffable, you don't have to layer it with personal meaning and views. However, would the thread have been as amusing and at times tense if it was 'reconciling the ineffable with the dharma'.
I would have reconciled it immediately with the 'dharma leads to the ineffable'