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@DhammaDragon said:
Interreligion exchange is very interesting, but I find that's too much God proselitising for a Buddhist site.
Friend, I know very little. I'm actually ignorant on most things, but let's try to analyze these issues once more, without evoking counterproductive cultural barriers. We must free oursejves from all intellectual pride, all prejudices, all preconceptions, in order for our exchange to be fruitful.
I'm assuming you have not read the whole discussion, because in my replies I was very specific as to what is meant by the notion of God.
I'm not sure whether you read the Wikipedia link you submitted either, at least not in its entirety I suppose? In the end, it really all boils down to the definition you want to adopt for God. As I mentioned in a previous post, you do not have to think of God as an anthropomorphic being endowed with immense powers, but as the source of all being, as the Ultimate Reality or Absolute. This Absolute cannot by definition be subject to any restrictions/limitations, obviously.
A further name for the irreducible, time-and-space-transcending mysterious Truth or Essence of Buddhic Reality spoken of in some Mahayana and tantric texts is the Dharmakaya (Body of Truth). Of this the Zen Buddhist master Sokei-An, says:
... dharmakaya [is] the equivalent of God ... The Buddha also speaks of no time and no space, where if I make a sound there is in that single moment a million years. It is spaceless like radio waves, like electric space - intrinsic. The Buddha said that there is a mirror that reflects consciousness. In this electric space a million miles and a pinpoint - a million years and a moment - are exactly the same. It is pure essence ... We call it 'original consciousness' - 'original akasha' - perhaps God in the Christian sense. I am afraid of speaking about anything that is not familiar to me. No one can know what IT is ...
The same Zen adept, Sokei-An, further comments:
The creative power of the universe is not a human being; it is Buddha. The one who sees, and the one who hears, is not this eye or ear, but the one who is this consciousness. This One is Buddha. This One appears in every mind. This One is common to all sentient beings, and is God.
The Rinzai Zen Buddhist master, Soyen Shaku, speaking to Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, discusses how in essence the idea of God is not absent from Buddhism, when understood as ultimate, true Reality:
At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience ... To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, 'panentheism', according to which God is ... all and one and more than the totality of existence .... As I mentioned before, Buddhists do not make use of the term God, which characteristically belongs to Christian terminology. An equivalent most commonly used is Dharmakaya ... When the Dharmakaya is most concretely conceived it becomes the Buddha, or Tathagata ..."
Soyen Shaku is not preoccupied with mundane praise. He clearly does not aim at pleasing anyone, while abdicating his intellectual integrity. Simply, materialists cannot accept his view, hence the recourse to wishful thinking from their part. In all honesty, your claim is subjective, and basically just mere speculation. Rather, Soyen Shaku is conveying oriental concepts and wisdom into a very distant language/culture, in order to make them understandable to western audiences of his time: this is much more plausible, I would suggest. And albeit his proceeding may be only partially adequate, ultimately the substance of things does not change. When a Japanese master talks, I tend to take his words quite seriously, and over those of nearly anyone else in this field. Instead, the opposite seems to me to be quite the case. I mean, in recent years, among westerners, a gradual dismissal of Buddhist metaphysics and rich religious background can be observed, I think as an attempt to make Buddhism more palatable to the tastes of a mostly secularized public. You know, I am very suspicious of what we jokingly call Californian Buddhism, and of its overly simplistic, superficial approach.
Second link from your post, an important passage in D. T. Suzuki "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" is conveniently overlooked. In the original, this missing part can be read right after the first paragraph. And here it is:
"When I say there is no God in Zen, the pious reader may be shocked, but this does not mean that Zen denies the existence of God; neither denial nor affirmation concerns Zen. When a thing is denied, the very denial involves something not denied. The same can be said of affirmation. This is inevitable in logic. Zen wants to rise above logic, Zen wants to find a higher affirmation where there are no antitheses. Therefore, in Zen, God is neither denied nor insisted upon; only there is in Zen no such God as has been conceived by Jewish and Christian minds. For the same reason that Zen is not a philosophy, Zen is not a religion."
Analyze these words carefully. We are right back to Soyen Shaku definition, where he states:
"To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence."
D. T. Suzuki (who, en passant, was Soyen Shaku's disciple and translator) makes it very explicit. According to him, Zen overcomes discursive or logical thinking. Therefore it is not religion neither phylosophy, its path is fundamentally different (more in line with that of mysticism). For the same reason Zen doesn't resort to terms like God (as Soyen Shaku puts it "Buddhism usually avoids the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience"). In fact, together with the process of logical thought, which is in itself diacritic, the Christian God notion introduces another separation, or anthitesis if you will, in that God is not immanent to His creation, but actively intervenes inside it and constantly upholds it. Still "Zen wants to find a higher affirmation where there are no antitheses", ie an Absolute.
It is precisely this Absolute which Soyen Shaku defines as "πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence". He then goes on to liken this concept to God, as to make it understandable to Western audiences. The association is not at all arbitrary, when you take into account a panentheistic kind of God is being referred, whose nature is fundamental unity. Again, this is an almost impossible attempt at putting into words experiences that are pre-logical or a-logical in their very essence.
As I wrote: "Buddha warned against this type of intellectualism precisely because he knew Truth would become apparent more in an intuitive frame rather than a discursive one. It's actually quite close to Pascal famous distinction between esprit de finesse and esprit de géométrie"
D. T. Suzuki again, from Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism:
"The Dharmakaya may be compared in one sense to the God of Christianity and in another sense to the Brahman or Paramatman of Vedantism. It is different, however, from the former in that it does not stand transcendentally above the universe, which, according to the Christian view, was created by God, but which is, according to Mahayanism, a manifestation of the Dharmakaya himself. It is also different from Brahman in that it is not absolutely impersonal, nor is it a mere being. The Dharmakaya, on the contrary, is capable of willing and reflecting, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is Karuna (love) and Bodhi (intelligence), and not the mere state of being."
As you can see Soyen Shaku is perfectly coherent with D. T. Suzuki in his statements. This looks to me like some kind of God, don't you think? I cannot understand why this notion seems to treathen many.
Could you then clarify what do you mean by "metaphorically necessary nor literally" in relation to God? Because it does not make much sense. It sounds like you're trying to quote words I never used. I remember writing "metaphysically necessary", which in phylosophy usually means that God must exist by merit of its own nature, that is actus purus.
Finally, I must firmly reject accusations of proselytism. Now, the topic of this discussion is "Belief in God". It used to be "Are belief in God and Buddhism compatible?", if I'm not mistaken. My point is that yes, they are in fact totally compatible, since Buddhism can be said to presuppose at least a God in the form of panentheism. In this framework, defining what is really meant by God in Western religions becomes also essential. I did not start the topic either, and in all of my posts I have been very explicit as to the fact that I am Catholic, pointing out analogies and differences very clearly when required
@DhammaDragon said:
Interreligion exchange is very interesting, but I find that's too much God proselitising for a Buddhist site.
Mitchell McLaughlin is a writer and teacher from Rochester, NY. He has a BA in Religious Studies and an MA in the Philosophy of Religion:
"One might think that in Buddhism is not panentheist because many think there to be no God in its philosophy, but such is not the case. First of all, there is not just one Buddhism, there are many Buddhisms. Under the umbrella term Buddhism there are first of all three “baskets” or divisions: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Theravada is the earliest, Mahayana the largest, and Vajrayana the Tibetan form which builds off of Mahayana and Hindu Tantrism. C. D. Sebastian rightly makes the point that “Mysticism has got sense if and only if there is Metaphysics” (267), and that “Metaphysics or true philosophy (prajna) is nondual knowledge – Intuition of the Real. Here the possibility of intellectual intuition is not only accepted but is taken to be the very heart of reality. It is the Truth. In Intuition, Knowledge and the Real coincide; essence and the existence are identical” (268). And he adds that “advaya is knowledge free from the duality of extremes,” even of Being and Becoming, that is, the Truth is “beyond all conceptual tendencies” (271).
The great sage Nagarjuna would later develop the four-cornered negation, for example, 1) the universe is, 2) the universe is not, 3) the universe both is and is not, and 4) the universe neither is nor isn’t. This is related to what Buddhists mean by emptiness, that is, empty of inherent existence, which is to say, it doesn’t exist, and yet it is here. Everyday thought cannot reach this ineffable reality, which is why Intuition is so important.
Again, while some may argue the fact that Buddhists don’t worship a God, it is not true that they don’t believe in one. First, that they don’t worship a God means only that they don’t ask the question about him, that is, they see it as irrelevant to their purposes. Buddhists are seeking nirvana, emptiness, and the end of the cycle of being and becoming, and to them they don’t need a God to realize such within themselves. Second, in some sects, such as Pure Land Buddhism, there is most definitely the idea of higher beings. It is also true that many Buddhists do recognize a God, especially in the American Buddhism that is beginning to gain strength and support. Third and likewise, even many “Eastern” Buddhists do recognize a God, that is, they see the Buddha as God, and some even worship him as what is called Adibuddha, who contains the whole of creation within him. And it is well known and fully attested by all Buddhists that Buddha-nature is everywhere and in everything, that it is all creation and also that we are each to strive to attain it within ourselves. To clarify, it’s not that Buddhism is theistic, but rather it’s not atheistic, as many people assume to be the case for all of Buddhism.
Another way to look at supposed lack of deity is through the doctrine of pratitya-samutpada, which says that nothing exists independently or apart from all other things. Everything is one. To understand this one must have the vision of shunyata or nothingness, for in truth there is nothing that has autonomous being. However, we shouldn’t mistake this for there being a void, for a void is nothing in another more absolute sense, a sense that is not real but rather illusion. It is because everything is one that there is universal harmony on all scales. If there were not this essential harmony there would be nothing; existence is harmony. Similarly, “All are one in Buddha, for all sentient beings possess the Essence of Buddha-hood. It is the all-embracing ground of Buddha-hood. It pervades everything and moves everything. In it all beings are united…It is the basis for world culture, harmony and unity” (Sebastian 284).
All of this is perhaps artfully summed up in the term “unbounded wholeness,” coming in an ancient Tibetan text called the Authenticity of Open Awareness. If one thinks about this term, unbounded wholeness, we not too vaguely conceive an infinite space which is ever overflowing, that is, panentheism. Further, everyone has the seed or potential for Buddha-nature within them, for it is the ultimate nature of everything. Those who can are expected to develop this potentiality both within themselves and as a practice for their outer life. Within oneself this is called developing one’s bodhicitta, the wisdom-mind, which is said to be “vast as the heavens and deep as the sea.” In developing this mind, which is no-mind, one becomes increasingly perfect or more realized in emptiness, of oneself and in creation. One who has achieved such clarity of insight but yet remains in the world to help others do the same is called a Bodhisattva."
@DhammaDragon said:
Does your mind ever switch off or you just love to read yourself?
I know, I am sorry, I did not intend to annoy you. I sincerely apologize for my invasive behavior. Also, I probably won't be around in the next few days. Well, dear friend, let me wish you a wonderful day/rest of the week, I really mean it. And thank you again for your patience. Peace and Good
Sorry, @Artorius, for my brash comment above.
I just can't understand why some people love to overthink things.
That's my personal issue, of course.
What I would like to understand better is your ulterior motivation here.
You are a Catholic posting on a Buddhist site, going to great lengths to over-explain an issue which does not quite figure uppermost on the Buddhist syllabus.
I find it just weird.
Metta to you.
Comments
Friend, I know very little. I'm actually ignorant on most things, but let's try to analyze these issues once more, without evoking counterproductive cultural barriers. We must free oursejves from all intellectual pride, all prejudices, all preconceptions, in order for our exchange to be fruitful.
I'm assuming you have not read the whole discussion, because in my replies I was very specific as to what is meant by the notion of God.
I'm not sure whether you read the Wikipedia link you submitted either, at least not in its entirety I suppose? In the end, it really all boils down to the definition you want to adopt for God. As I mentioned in a previous post, you do not have to think of God as an anthropomorphic being endowed with immense powers, but as the source of all being, as the Ultimate Reality or Absolute. This Absolute cannot by definition be subject to any restrictions/limitations, obviously.
From the same Wikipedia page you kindly provided (God in Buddhism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism#Zen_and_the_Absolute):
"Zen and the Absolute
A further name for the irreducible, time-and-space-transcending mysterious Truth or Essence of Buddhic Reality spoken of in some Mahayana and tantric texts is the Dharmakaya (Body of Truth). Of this the Zen Buddhist master Sokei-An, says:
... dharmakaya [is] the equivalent of God ... The Buddha also speaks of no time and no space, where if I make a sound there is in that single moment a million years. It is spaceless like radio waves, like electric space - intrinsic. The Buddha said that there is a mirror that reflects consciousness. In this electric space a million miles and a pinpoint - a million years and a moment - are exactly the same. It is pure essence ... We call it 'original consciousness' - 'original akasha' - perhaps God in the Christian sense. I am afraid of speaking about anything that is not familiar to me. No one can know what IT is ...
The same Zen adept, Sokei-An, further comments:
The creative power of the universe is not a human being; it is Buddha. The one who sees, and the one who hears, is not this eye or ear, but the one who is this consciousness. This One is Buddha. This One appears in every mind. This One is common to all sentient beings, and is God.
The Rinzai Zen Buddhist master, Soyen Shaku, speaking to Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, discusses how in essence the idea of God is not absent from Buddhism, when understood as ultimate, true Reality:
At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience ... To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, 'panentheism', according to which God is ... all and one and more than the totality of existence .... As I mentioned before, Buddhists do not make use of the term God, which characteristically belongs to Christian terminology. An equivalent most commonly used is Dharmakaya ... When the Dharmakaya is most concretely conceived it becomes the Buddha, or Tathagata ..."
Soyen Shaku is not preoccupied with mundane praise. He clearly does not aim at pleasing anyone, while abdicating his intellectual integrity. Simply, materialists cannot accept his view, hence the recourse to wishful thinking from their part. In all honesty, your claim is subjective, and basically just mere speculation. Rather, Soyen Shaku is conveying oriental concepts and wisdom into a very distant language/culture, in order to make them understandable to western audiences of his time: this is much more plausible, I would suggest. And albeit his proceeding may be only partially adequate, ultimately the substance of things does not change. When a Japanese master talks, I tend to take his words quite seriously, and over those of nearly anyone else in this field. Instead, the opposite seems to me to be quite the case. I mean, in recent years, among westerners, a gradual dismissal of Buddhist metaphysics and rich religious background can be observed, I think as an attempt to make Buddhism more palatable to the tastes of a mostly secularized public. You know, I am very suspicious of what we jokingly call Californian Buddhism, and of its overly simplistic, superficial approach.
Second link from your post, an important passage in D. T. Suzuki "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" is conveniently overlooked. In the original, this missing part can be read right after the first paragraph. And here it is:
"When I say there is no God in Zen, the pious reader may be shocked, but this does not mean that Zen denies the existence of God; neither denial nor affirmation concerns Zen. When a thing is denied, the very denial involves something not denied. The same can be said of affirmation. This is inevitable in logic. Zen wants to rise above logic, Zen wants to find a higher affirmation where there are no antitheses. Therefore, in Zen, God is neither denied nor insisted upon; only there is in Zen no such God as has been conceived by Jewish and Christian minds. For the same reason that Zen is not a philosophy, Zen is not a religion."
Analyze these words carefully. We are right back to Soyen Shaku definition, where he states:
"To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence."
D. T. Suzuki (who, en passant, was Soyen Shaku's disciple and translator) makes it very explicit. According to him, Zen overcomes discursive or logical thinking. Therefore it is not religion neither phylosophy, its path is fundamentally different (more in line with that of mysticism). For the same reason Zen doesn't resort to terms like God (as Soyen Shaku puts it "Buddhism usually avoids the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience"). In fact, together with the process of logical thought, which is in itself diacritic, the Christian God notion introduces another separation, or anthitesis if you will, in that God is not immanent to His creation, but actively intervenes inside it and constantly upholds it. Still "Zen wants to find a higher affirmation where there are no antitheses", ie an Absolute.
It is precisely this Absolute which Soyen Shaku defines as "πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence". He then goes on to liken this concept to God, as to make it understandable to Western audiences. The association is not at all arbitrary, when you take into account a panentheistic kind of God is being referred, whose nature is fundamental unity. Again, this is an almost impossible attempt at putting into words experiences that are pre-logical or a-logical in their very essence.
As I wrote: "Buddha warned against this type of intellectualism precisely because he knew Truth would become apparent more in an intuitive frame rather than a discursive one. It's actually quite close to Pascal famous distinction between esprit de finesse and esprit de géométrie"
D. T. Suzuki again, from Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism:
"The Dharmakaya may be compared in one sense to the God of Christianity and in another sense to the Brahman or Paramatman of Vedantism. It is different, however, from the former in that it does not stand transcendentally above the universe, which, according to the Christian view, was created by God, but which is, according to Mahayanism, a manifestation of the Dharmakaya himself. It is also different from Brahman in that it is not absolutely impersonal, nor is it a mere being. The Dharmakaya, on the contrary, is capable of willing and reflecting, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is Karuna (love) and Bodhi (intelligence), and not the mere state of being."
As you can see Soyen Shaku is perfectly coherent with D. T. Suzuki in his statements. This looks to me like some kind of God, don't you think? I cannot understand why this notion seems to treathen many.
Could you then clarify what do you mean by "metaphorically necessary nor literally" in relation to God? Because it does not make much sense. It sounds like you're trying to quote words I never used. I remember writing "metaphysically necessary", which in phylosophy usually means that God must exist by merit of its own nature, that is actus purus.
Finally, I must firmly reject accusations of proselytism. Now, the topic of this discussion is "Belief in God". It used to be "Are belief in God and Buddhism compatible?", if I'm not mistaken. My point is that yes, they are in fact totally compatible, since Buddhism can be said to presuppose at least a God in the form of panentheism. In this framework, defining what is really meant by God in Western religions becomes also essential. I did not start the topic either, and in all of my posts I have been very explicit as to the fact that I am Catholic, pointing out analogies and differences very clearly when required
Mitchell McLaughlin is a writer and teacher from Rochester, NY. He has a BA in Religious Studies and an MA in the Philosophy of Religion:
"One might think that in Buddhism is not panentheist because many think there to be no God in its philosophy, but such is not the case. First of all, there is not just one Buddhism, there are many Buddhisms. Under the umbrella term Buddhism there are first of all three “baskets” or divisions: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Theravada is the earliest, Mahayana the largest, and Vajrayana the Tibetan form which builds off of Mahayana and Hindu Tantrism. C. D. Sebastian rightly makes the point that “Mysticism has got sense if and only if there is Metaphysics” (267), and that “Metaphysics or true philosophy (prajna) is nondual knowledge – Intuition of the Real. Here the possibility of intellectual intuition is not only accepted but is taken to be the very heart of reality. It is the Truth. In Intuition, Knowledge and the Real coincide; essence and the existence are identical” (268). And he adds that “advaya is knowledge free from the duality of extremes,” even of Being and Becoming, that is, the Truth is “beyond all conceptual tendencies” (271).
The great sage Nagarjuna would later develop the four-cornered negation, for example, 1) the universe is, 2) the universe is not, 3) the universe both is and is not, and 4) the universe neither is nor isn’t. This is related to what Buddhists mean by emptiness, that is, empty of inherent existence, which is to say, it doesn’t exist, and yet it is here. Everyday thought cannot reach this ineffable reality, which is why Intuition is so important.
Again, while some may argue the fact that Buddhists don’t worship a God, it is not true that they don’t believe in one. First, that they don’t worship a God means only that they don’t ask the question about him, that is, they see it as irrelevant to their purposes. Buddhists are seeking nirvana, emptiness, and the end of the cycle of being and becoming, and to them they don’t need a God to realize such within themselves. Second, in some sects, such as Pure Land Buddhism, there is most definitely the idea of higher beings. It is also true that many Buddhists do recognize a God, especially in the American Buddhism that is beginning to gain strength and support. Third and likewise, even many “Eastern” Buddhists do recognize a God, that is, they see the Buddha as God, and some even worship him as what is called Adibuddha, who contains the whole of creation within him. And it is well known and fully attested by all Buddhists that Buddha-nature is everywhere and in everything, that it is all creation and also that we are each to strive to attain it within ourselves. To clarify, it’s not that Buddhism is theistic, but rather it’s not atheistic, as many people assume to be the case for all of Buddhism.
Another way to look at supposed lack of deity is through the doctrine of pratitya-samutpada, which says that nothing exists independently or apart from all other things. Everything is one. To understand this one must have the vision of shunyata or nothingness, for in truth there is nothing that has autonomous being. However, we shouldn’t mistake this for there being a void, for a void is nothing in another more absolute sense, a sense that is not real but rather illusion. It is because everything is one that there is universal harmony on all scales. If there were not this essential harmony there would be nothing; existence is harmony. Similarly, “All are one in Buddha, for all sentient beings possess the Essence of Buddha-hood. It is the all-embracing ground of Buddha-hood. It pervades everything and moves everything. In it all beings are united…It is the basis for world culture, harmony and unity” (Sebastian 284).
All of this is perhaps artfully summed up in the term “unbounded wholeness,” coming in an ancient Tibetan text called the Authenticity of Open Awareness. If one thinks about this term, unbounded wholeness, we not too vaguely conceive an infinite space which is ever overflowing, that is, panentheism. Further, everyone has the seed or potential for Buddha-nature within them, for it is the ultimate nature of everything. Those who can are expected to develop this potentiality both within themselves and as a practice for their outer life. Within oneself this is called developing one’s bodhicitta, the wisdom-mind, which is said to be “vast as the heavens and deep as the sea.” In developing this mind, which is no-mind, one becomes increasingly perfect or more realized in emptiness, of oneself and in creation. One who has achieved such clarity of insight but yet remains in the world to help others do the same is called a Bodhisattva."
Does your mind ever switch off or you just love to read yourself?
I know, I am sorry, I did not intend to annoy you. I sincerely apologize for my invasive behavior. Also, I probably won't be around in the next few days. Well, dear friend, let me wish you a wonderful day/rest of the week, I really mean it. And thank you again for your patience. Peace and Good
Sorry, @Artorius, for my brash comment above.
I just can't understand why some people love to overthink things.
That's my personal issue, of course.
What I would like to understand better is your ulterior motivation here.
You are a Catholic posting on a Buddhist site, going to great lengths to over-explain an issue which does not quite figure uppermost on the Buddhist syllabus.
I find it just weird.
Metta to you.