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As an unconfirmed Pastafarian
it is my inclination to find the best sauce for Dharma. This is not always the three bread baskets for dipping but in a profound reevaluation of core principles. For example the Four Noble Truths:
The Truth of Duckha is that all ducks are not ultimately satisfying without the right sauce.
The Truth of the Origin of Ducky is that craving for and clinging to what is pleasurable and aversion to what is not pleasurable results in the wrong noodles.
The Truth of the end of Ducks is a return to the source sauce.
This leads to less duck and the Noble Eightfold Bath—
@vinlyn said:> What I find interesting is that when someone here on forum does mention God, or start a thread like this, or says something that explains how they look at the concept of God, a few people get all hot an bothered.
Have you heard of the psychological mechanism of projection?
@SpinyNorman said:
So what does the soul look like, practically speaking? How have you experienced it?
Haha, I don't know. Maybe just energy or something higher or pure light. But, I do feel that there is something greater and that I'm not just a bad of bones and cells. And lol, your questions. I haven't experiences or seen the Holocaust in person, but I have a feeling it happened
@igor.bayluk said:
Haha, I don't know. Maybe just energy or something higher or pure light. But, I do feel that there is something greater and that I'm not just a bad of bones and cells. And lol, your questions. I haven't experiences or seen the Holocaust in person, but I have a feeling it happened
I think you are on the right track. It is recommended that you search high and low for what would be your self or essence. You can't take someone else's word for it when they say that the self, or the soul, doesn't exist. You must prove to yourself that it doesn't (or does) exist.
"It is not sufficient that the mode of nonfinding be just a repetition of the impoverished phrase "not found".
For example, when an ox is lost one does not take as true the mere statement," it is not in such and such an area." Rather, by searching for it in the highland, midland and lowland of the area, you come to a firm decision that it cannot be found.
Here also, through meditating until a conclusion is reached, you gain conviction."
This is from "How to See Yourself As You Really Are" by the Dalai Lama
1
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Just because it can't be found doesn't mean it isn't here.
If we pay attention we might perceive it happen but once we label it, that's not it.
There is ample evidence to support the holocaust as a historic event not so much for leprechauns or souls. Comparing apples to watermelons. How do you know your not just not a bag of bones? Simply because you think. There are many things to look at and ponder, even from a neuro science side, how you form your identity, how you cobble it together, how your think, perceive and remember. Maybe my issue is the jump to a conclusion about oneself or existence predicated on a position one has no basis for asserting. I am not trying to harsh on you, but were other things contemplated or investigated before this conclusion?
@ourself said:
Just because it can't be found doesn't mean it isn't here.
As long as you think it might be there, you keep looking. Can you find it?
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
I do not need to pin it down to know it's there. If it wasn't there I wouldn't even be able to attempt it, now would I?
Self is something we do, not something we are.
If you can see yourself in the looking then well, there you are.
It isn't as complicated as many want it to be.
Gotta hand it to ya. You're a believer.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
No, I am saying the same thing the Dalai Lama is saying but differently.
That which does not exist cannot gain anything, let alone conviction.
I don't believe anything. That requires faith.
I only know what makes the most sense to me given the information I have.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Just out of curiosity, why would you say "Gotta hand it to ya, you're a believer"?
My view has come from careful examination and scrutiny of my own ideas as well as those we sometimes consider authority... You are the one parroting the Dalai Lama (and not quite getting it in my honest opinion) so who is the believer here?
Exactly so.
Faith or confidence in non belief or nun-belief (not to be confused with belief in nothing = nihilism) are both acts of transcending certainty. Being right or dharmically correct is no substitute for Gnosis based on practical experience. Such practiced experience hones ones faithlessness into certain directions ...
1
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
@ourself said: .... I don't believe anything. That requires faith.
Just out of curiosity, why would you say "Gotta hand it to ya, you're a believer"?
My view has come from careful examination and scrutiny of my own ideas as well as those we sometimes consider authority... You are the one parroting the Dalai Lama (and not quite getting it in my honest opinion) so who is the believer here?
Well then, you have proven that what the Dalai Lama said in the quote I posted is correct and that you have used that approach yourself.
Why shouldn't @igor.bayluk , who my comment was directed at, use the same careful scrutiny that you have used?
Of course it's obvious that someone is in the mirror, but that's not the end of the story for us is it?
I tend to be very pragmatic in my practice and I must own that, yes, I am one of those that cringe at the mention of the G-word.
Especially because the Buddha did not consider the question of God relevant to cessation of suffering, and I have the feeling that Buddhists from the West keep moving forth and back with the God concept only because they can't sever the umbilical cord with their religion of origin.
Working on the different spokes of the Noble Eightfold Path is likely to help me attain equanimity and inner peace, if not perhaps total cessation of suffering, or enlightenment, to mention a big word.
I would like to know how, specifically, in pragmatic and empirical terms, the belief in a God, the relinquishing of my own salvation by my own hands to a broader outer concept of God, the speculation on the existence of a God, will help me attain cessation of suffering?
I believe that in order to find God or to believe in it - faith plays a major part. I could be wrong but as a buddhist I find faith a burden in life. Believing and taking word of another person without using inner judgement or discernment is not quite for me. I rather live day by day of what I could understand mindfully, instead of trusting to the being being created by so much confusion.
Faith is a funny thing. Speaking for myself, I have faith in things with an empirical basis. For example, I have faith that the sun will most likely rise tomorrow morning; however I'll still check to be sure. Along the lines of this thread, Thomas Merton comes to mind...
@mockeymind said:
I believe that in order to find God or to believe in it - faith plays a major part. I could be wrong but as a buddhist I find faith a burden in life.
I can see that.
Do you have faith that the words of Buddha were accurately passed down orally for several hundred years and then written accurately by monks who never knew Buddha?
1
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
I thought I was building on your posts which is why I found it odd that you called me a believer as if we were at odds.
A believer in what I'm not sure, but it made me pause and wonder if you knew we were actually agreeing or if you think the Dalai Lama says we are not here.
Too many focus on the absolute truth and forgo the conventional truth in such a way as to lead many a newcomer into nihilism where compassion is a mere ideal instead of the logical position.
"I tend to be very pragmatic in my practice and I must own that, yes, I am one of those that cringe at the mention of the G-word.
Especially because the Buddha did not consider the question of God relevant to cessation of suffering, and I have the feeling that Buddhists from the West keep moving forth and back with the God concept only because they can't sever the umbilical cord with their religion of origin."
Not me. I never grasped at the popular religions as a child. If I argue for a kind of ultimate being, it is because it makes sense to me and no other reason.
The popular kids believe in the biblical godhead? Meh, don't really care.
The popular kids are strictly atheistic? Meh, don't care.
"I would like to know how, specifically, in pragmatic and empirical terms, the belief in a God, the relinquishing of my own salvation by my own hands to a broader outer concept of God, the speculation on the existence of a God, will help me attain cessation of suffering?"
Relinquishing your own salvation?
Why burden every concept of God with Abrahamic notions?
Why is it that when anyone mentions any kind of God concept on this Buddhist board, people can't let go of the biblical character but claim it's everybody else?
3
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
"I believe that in order to find God or to believe in it - faith plays a major part. I could be wrong but as a buddhist I find faith a burden in life. Believing and taking word of another person without using inner judgement or discernment is not quite for me. I rather live day by day of what I could understand mindfully, instead of trusting to the being being created by so much confusion."
Yeah, that's an assumption on your part though, no offense.
I have a concept of God in my head that I think is probably pretty close to the mark but I don't go believing it or having faith in it.
The best I've seen it described is in Thays poem "Call Me by my True Names"
At the moment it makes the most sense to me but tomorrow that could change.
Why burden every concept of God with Abrahamic notions?
Why is it that when anyone mentions any kind of God concept on this Buddhist board, people can't let go of the biblical character but claim it's everybody else?
Perhaps because most people who start these threads are former members of an Abrahamic religion and they make an allusion to the biblical character?
Why the need of a God concept anyway?
Is it so hard to learn to walk on our own?
2
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
edited May 2015
I'm not sure anybody mentioned a need.
I know I didn't.
It just seems like a few people here get overly sensitive about such a small issue and it makes me wonder who really carries the baggage.
Is God not a generic enough label for ultimate being?
I try not to use the word for the sole reason of people injecting Abraham into it somehow.
Look, @ourself, this is not a comment I address to you in particular, nor is meant to offend the sensitivity of the people who need to include the God variable in their existential equation.
I am just curious: what makes some people need to ponder over the origin of the world, speculate about the existence of a God, need a God at all in order to give a meaning to their lives?
It's a simple curiosity because I experienced the Buddha's nonplussed attitude towards the God speculation as probably the most liberating concept any religion or spiritual belief can bequeath to its followers.
I mean, what can be more liberating than an enlightened being who tells you that there is a cessation of dukkha, that what he has attained, any human being can attain by treading the path himself, and that metaphysical speculation is not relevant to cessation of dukkha.
Why would anyone still choose to run off and sit on a God lap for comfort?
Why would anyone still choose to run off and sit on a God lap for comfort?
A sort of god lap Dog?
Maybe for comfort? Don't you like comfort? Others comfort too hard?
My personal experience was one of presence. I always felt God was obvious. That is an assumed position, whatever the source feeling/certainty.
I became an atheist through breaking the emotional and wisdom tradition that presents presence. That was not easy. It was also not pleasant. I decided I wanted to 'live the lie' of presence again, rather than lying with ignoring.
To my amazement the absence or presence are a potential preference we can choose to engage or not ...
Pondering over god and the origin of the universe is important. Why not ask why we are here?
I look out at the stars and think, "Why?" It's these sorts of questions that lead inward.
I saw a little plant yesterday that had those floating white seeds. I blew the seeds off the Flower and these seeds floated away.
I'm thinking there is something that moves the universe. This is not luck that we are here.
@DhammaDragon said:
Look, ourself, this is not a comment I address to you in particular, nor is meant to offend the sensitivity of the people who need to include the God variable in their existential equation.
I am just curious: what makes some people need to ponder over the origin of the world, speculate about the existence of a God, need a God at all in order to give a meaning to their lives?
It's a simple curiosity because I experienced the Buddha's nonplussed attitude towards the God speculation as probably the most liberating concept any religion or spiritual belief can bequeath to its followers.
I mean, what can be more liberating than an enlightened being who tells you that there is a cessation of dukkha, that what he has attained, any human being can attain by treading the path himself, and that metaphysical speculation is not relevant to cessation of dukkha.
Why would anyone still choose to run off and sit on a God lap for comfort?
"some people"?
it has been one of the most prolific ongoing considerations in mankind's history.
I read a sutta in the Digha Nikaya but forgot the name, it goes something like this, after the contraction of the universe there arouse a being who was the first to arrive in an empty world or something, and he wished he could have company and soon other devas arose and Brahma thought he was a creator of them and those devas also thought that he created them, anyone know the name of that sutta.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
@vinlyn said:
it has been one of the most prolific ongoing considerations in mankind's history.
Yes, the most prolific... and the most inconclusive, dead-end and unsatisfying of all, too.
I was strolling along a lavender field yesterday morning, doing some walking meditation.
My hand caressed the lavender flowers as I walked by.
I silently did Thay's meditation: "Breathing in, I know I am alive. Breathing out, I smile to life, in me, and around me."
I basked in the aimless, pointless, arbitrary, impermanent beauty of the moment.
No intrusive mind overpondering to ruin the picture.
Just the sun, the brook, the lavenders and me.
@SpinyNorman because I exist, that there is love, because grass is green, that there are trillions of stars in an unimaginable universe. The whole game of enlightenment. It's an incredible miracle this life.
The whole dance of energies seems to be orchestrated in a beautiful, tragic and intelligent way. There is incredible pattern to everything. I can't say a man in the sky created this, but I can't say that this is all mathematical probabilities. It's way beyond anything a human mind could and should ever comprehend.
This life is to much of a miracle to not have some unknown power influencing everything. Maybe itself is everything,
@Earthninja said:> The whole dance of energies seems to be orchestrated in a beautiful, tragic and intelligent way. There is incredible pattern to everything. I can't say a man in the sky created this, but I can't say that this is all mathematical probabilities.
Beautiful and tragic yes, but I'm not sure about intelligent. I suppose you could say there is a sort of intelligence to the evolutionary process, but beyond that I don't see it. I don't see intelligence when I look at the night sky through a telescope, I see space extending infinitely.
It seems to be part of the human character to look for patterns, meanings and explanations, but that sometimes leads us to find things that aren't actually present. Questions like "Why are we here?" are valid and important but IMO should be approached with caution.
@ourself said:> Why burden every concept of God with Abrahamic notions?
It is a very popular concept, and one that many of us grew up with. But yes, there are other conceptions of God, though I think it's probably better to use different language for those because of the baggage attached to "God". I think sometimes people use "God" in a rather lazy way, not having worked out what they really believe.
@SpinyNorman yes fair enough but even the fact we are here questioning existence itself is a miracle. There is not a computer on earth that can even compare slightly to what the human brain can do.
We don't understand consciousness, yet we are conscious?
We don't understand dreams, yet we dream?
Can a human create something that can dream?
It is WAY beyond our pay grade, how can we refute an intelligence beyond ours? You probably wouldn't even call it intelligence. Poor word.
You look at space and don't see intelligence? There is a moon and a sun that creates all life as we know it on earth. You breathing is an exchange of gases with our earths atmosphere. Without earth, moon and sun there is no you or me existing here. We can't even say we are separate from this. How could we be?
The earth grew something that is now questioning it's existence? This is beyond anything the human mind can comprehend.
And not to mention quantum physics...
We know so little. Do we know anything really?
Haha sorry for the rambling spinynorman. Just letting ideas flow.
@Earthninja said: And not to mention quantum physics...
We know so little. Do we know anything really?
We know a lot more than we used to. Our ancestors didn't understand the science behind weather events and attributed them to gods. We are now struggling to understand the science of the universe, and there is still a tendency to look for supernatural explanations. The universe is certainly awe-inspiring, but I don't see any reason to assume some intelligence behind it.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
The problem doesn't lie in the word but what that word means to people.
There is not a heck of a lot we can do about changing the word but what it means is a different matter.
You said "The universe is certainly awe inspiring, but I don't see any reason to see intelligence behind it"
See, you are still stuck with your preconceived ideas on what God means but would see the baggage in the word instead of your understanding of the word.
I don't see intelligence behind it either. It simply is intelligence. Intelligence is simply information, nothing less and nothing more.
The universe may not be intelligent as a whole but it is a whole lot of intelligence. We do know that some of the universe tends towards becoming intelligent (because that's us) but to be intelligent is to make use of intelligence on purpose.
I'm not sure how else we could possibly explain natural selection without some kind of sense gate being involved. That doesn't mean I think it would have to be eternally aware but to me, it seems like it does tend towards awareness.
Looking for intelligence behind the universe is silly because there is no beyond. Anything beyond gets included as soon as beyond is discovered.
Looking for intelligence within the universe is probably better suited.
The flower can make use of intelligence but it won't be aware of it and makes no decisions based on a mistaken identity aside from intelligence.
We have evolved brains that allow us to be aware and make use of the intelligence that is absolutely everything.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
@SpinyNorman hmm intelligence like I said is probably not the right word. I'm not looking for supernatural explanations but we can't even explain our own existence. Who are we to say what is...
0
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
edited May 2015
Now, "supernatural" is a word that gets my goat, lol.
@ourself said:> See, you are still stuck with your preconceived ideas on what God means but would see the baggage in the word instead of your understanding of the word.
No, I'm simply using "God" in the way it is commonly understood. I've acknowledged that people have different conceptions of the word.
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Comments
Indeed. I love to hold the whole range and empty them one by one. May his noodliness protect me with His Sauce.
http://www.loose-canon.info/page53.htm
As an unconfirmed Pastafarian
it is my inclination to find the best sauce for Dharma. This is not always the three bread baskets for dipping but in a profound reevaluation of core principles. For example the Four Noble Truths:
This leads to less duck and the Noble Eightfold Bath—
behaving indecently,
etc
How important is getting the source/sauce right?
Have you heard of the psychological mechanism of projection?
A few Alan Watts quotes on this:
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
You don't look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.
Haha, I don't know. Maybe just energy or something higher or pure light. But, I do feel that there is something greater and that I'm not just a bad of bones and cells. And lol, your questions. I haven't experiences or seen the Holocaust in person, but I have a feeling it happened
I think you are on the right track. It is recommended that you search high and low for what would be your self or essence. You can't take someone else's word for it when they say that the self, or the soul, doesn't exist. You must prove to yourself that it doesn't (or does) exist.
"It is not sufficient that the mode of nonfinding be just a repetition of the impoverished phrase "not found".
For example, when an ox is lost one does not take as true the mere statement," it is not in such and such an area." Rather, by searching for it in the highland, midland and lowland of the area, you come to a firm decision that it cannot be found.
Here also, through meditating until a conclusion is reached, you gain conviction."
This is from "How to See Yourself As You Really Are" by the Dalai Lama
If we pay attention we might perceive it happen but once we label it, that's not it.
As long as you think it might be there, you keep looking. Can you find it?
Find it?
When did it go missing?
I do not need to pin it down to know it's there. If it wasn't there I wouldn't even be able to attempt it, now would I?
Self is something we do, not something we are.
If you can see yourself in the looking then well, there you are.
It isn't as complicated as many want it to be.
Good morning, and welcome to the world of brain-knotting....
Gotta hand it to ya. You're a believer.
No, I am saying the same thing the Dalai Lama is saying but differently.
That which does not exist cannot gain anything, let alone conviction.
I don't believe anything. That requires faith.
I only know what makes the most sense to me given the information I have.
Just out of curiosity, why would you say "Gotta hand it to ya, you're a believer"?
My view has come from careful examination and scrutiny of my own ideas as well as those we sometimes consider authority... You are the one parroting the Dalai Lama (and not quite getting it in my honest opinion) so who is the believer here?
Exactly so.
Faith or confidence in non belief or nun-belief (not to be confused with belief in nothing = nihilism) are both acts of transcending certainty. Being right or dharmically correct is no substitute for Gnosis based on practical experience. Such practiced experience hones ones faithlessness into certain directions ...
Not necessarily.....
Well then, you have proven that what the Dalai Lama said in the quote I posted is correct and that you have used that approach yourself.
Why shouldn't @igor.bayluk , who my comment was directed at, use the same careful scrutiny that you have used?
Of course it's obvious that someone is in the mirror, but that's not the end of the story for us is it?
I tend to be very pragmatic in my practice and I must own that, yes, I am one of those that cringe at the mention of the G-word.
Especially because the Buddha did not consider the question of God relevant to cessation of suffering, and I have the feeling that Buddhists from the West keep moving forth and back with the God concept only because they can't sever the umbilical cord with their religion of origin.
Working on the different spokes of the Noble Eightfold Path is likely to help me attain equanimity and inner peace, if not perhaps total cessation of suffering, or enlightenment, to mention a big word.
I would like to know how, specifically, in pragmatic and empirical terms, the belief in a God, the relinquishing of my own salvation by my own hands to a broader outer concept of God, the speculation on the existence of a God, will help me attain cessation of suffering?
I believe that in order to find God or to believe in it - faith plays a major part. I could be wrong but as a buddhist I find faith a burden in life. Believing and taking word of another person without using inner judgement or discernment is not quite for me. I rather live day by day of what I could understand mindfully, instead of trusting to the being being created by so much confusion.
Faith is a funny thing. Speaking for myself, I have faith in things with an empirical basis. For example, I have faith that the sun will most likely rise tomorrow morning; however I'll still check to be sure. Along the lines of this thread, Thomas Merton comes to mind...
I can see that.
Do you have faith that the words of Buddha were accurately passed down orally for several hundred years and then written accurately by monks who never knew Buddha?
I thought I was building on your posts which is why I found it odd that you called me a believer as if we were at odds.
A believer in what I'm not sure, but it made me pause and wonder if you knew we were actually agreeing or if you think the Dalai Lama says we are not here.
Too many focus on the absolute truth and forgo the conventional truth in such a way as to lead many a newcomer into nihilism where compassion is a mere ideal instead of the logical position.
@DhammaDragon;
"I tend to be very pragmatic in my practice and I must own that, yes, I am one of those that cringe at the mention of the G-word.
Especially because the Buddha did not consider the question of God relevant to cessation of suffering, and I have the feeling that Buddhists from the West keep moving forth and back with the God concept only because they can't sever the umbilical cord with their religion of origin."
Not me. I never grasped at the popular religions as a child. If I argue for a kind of ultimate being, it is because it makes sense to me and no other reason.
The popular kids believe in the biblical godhead? Meh, don't really care.
The popular kids are strictly atheistic? Meh, don't care.
"I would like to know how, specifically, in pragmatic and empirical terms, the belief in a God, the relinquishing of my own salvation by my own hands to a broader outer concept of God, the speculation on the existence of a God, will help me attain cessation of suffering?"
Relinquishing your own salvation?
Why burden every concept of God with Abrahamic notions?
Why is it that when anyone mentions any kind of God concept on this Buddhist board, people can't let go of the biblical character but claim it's everybody else?
"I believe that in order to find God or to believe in it - faith plays a major part. I could be wrong but as a buddhist I find faith a burden in life. Believing and taking word of another person without using inner judgement or discernment is not quite for me. I rather live day by day of what I could understand mindfully, instead of trusting to the being being created by so much confusion."
Yeah, that's an assumption on your part though, no offense.
I have a concept of God in my head that I think is probably pretty close to the mark but I don't go believing it or having faith in it.
The best I've seen it described is in Thays poem "Call Me by my True Names"
At the moment it makes the most sense to me but tomorrow that could change.
Perhaps because most people who start these threads are former members of an Abrahamic religion and they make an allusion to the biblical character?
Why the need of a God concept anyway?
Is it so hard to learn to walk on our own?
I know I didn't.
It just seems like a few people here get overly sensitive about such a small issue and it makes me wonder who really carries the baggage.
Is God not a generic enough label for ultimate being?
I try not to use the word for the sole reason of people injecting Abraham into it somehow.
Look, @ourself, this is not a comment I address to you in particular, nor is meant to offend the sensitivity of the people who need to include the God variable in their existential equation.
I am just curious: what makes some people need to ponder over the origin of the world, speculate about the existence of a God, need a God at all in order to give a meaning to their lives?
It's a simple curiosity because I experienced the Buddha's nonplussed attitude towards the God speculation as probably the most liberating concept any religion or spiritual belief can bequeath to its followers.
I mean, what can be more liberating than an enlightened being who tells you that there is a cessation of dukkha, that what he has attained, any human being can attain by treading the path himself, and that metaphysical speculation is not relevant to cessation of dukkha.
Why would anyone still choose to run off and sit on a God lap for comfort?
God is love is the reason. Same reason for the mahayana. Love over peace.
Thanks guys,
Useful points from everyone.
A sort of god lap Dog?
Maybe for comfort? Don't you like comfort? Others comfort too hard?
My personal experience was one of presence. I always felt God was obvious. That is an assumed position, whatever the source feeling/certainty.
I became an atheist through breaking the emotional and wisdom tradition that presents presence. That was not easy. It was also not pleasant. I decided I wanted to 'live the lie' of presence again, rather than lying with ignoring.
To my amazement the absence or presence are a potential preference we can choose to engage or not ...
God is Nothing. Nothing is next to Godliness ...
and now back to the investigative ...
God is Nothing. Nothing is next to Godliness ...
-For me God is sort of like Buddha-nature star dusted everything...
I look out at the stars and think, "Why?" It's these sorts of questions that lead inward.
I saw a little plant yesterday that had those floating white seeds. I blew the seeds off the Flower and these seeds floated away.
I'm thinking there is something that moves the universe. This is not luck that we are here.
No @Earthninja it is not luck its karma.
"some people"?
it has been one of the most prolific ongoing considerations in mankind's history.
I read a sutta in the Digha Nikaya but forgot the name, it goes something like this, after the contraction of the universe there arouse a being who was the first to arrive in an empty world or something, and he wished he could have company and soon other devas arose and Brahma thought he was a creator of them and those devas also thought that he created them, anyone know the name of that sutta.
I can't answer those questions because they do not apply to me.
I can relate, trust me. The first time I read the Bible without it being the children's edition, it turned me towards Satanism.
Yes, the most prolific... and the most inconclusive, dead-end and unsatisfying of all, too.
I was strolling along a lavender field yesterday morning, doing some walking meditation.
My hand caressed the lavender flowers as I walked by.
I silently did Thay's meditation: "Breathing in, I know I am alive. Breathing out, I smile to life, in me, and around me."
I basked in the aimless, pointless, arbitrary, impermanent beauty of the moment.
No intrusive mind overpondering to ruin the picture.
Just the sun, the brook, the lavenders and me.
Buddhist practice does tend to challenge our attachment to comforting beliefs and wishful thinking.
Could you elaborate?
What do you mean by "ultimate being"?
The whole dance of energies seems to be orchestrated in a beautiful, tragic and intelligent way. There is incredible pattern to everything. I can't say a man in the sky created this, but I can't say that this is all mathematical probabilities. It's way beyond anything a human mind could and should ever comprehend.
This life is to much of a miracle to not have some unknown power influencing everything. Maybe itself is everything,
Beautiful and tragic yes, but I'm not sure about intelligent. I suppose you could say there is a sort of intelligence to the evolutionary process, but beyond that I don't see it. I don't see intelligence when I look at the night sky through a telescope, I see space extending infinitely.
It seems to be part of the human character to look for patterns, meanings and explanations, but that sometimes leads us to find things that aren't actually present. Questions like "Why are we here?" are valid and important but IMO should be approached with caution.
It is a very popular concept, and one that many of us grew up with. But yes, there are other conceptions of God, though I think it's probably better to use different language for those because of the baggage attached to "God". I think sometimes people use "God" in a rather lazy way, not having worked out what they really believe.
We don't understand consciousness, yet we are conscious?
We don't understand dreams, yet we dream?
Can a human create something that can dream?
It is WAY beyond our pay grade, how can we refute an intelligence beyond ours? You probably wouldn't even call it intelligence. Poor word.
You look at space and don't see intelligence? There is a moon and a sun that creates all life as we know it on earth. You breathing is an exchange of gases with our earths atmosphere. Without earth, moon and sun there is no you or me existing here. We can't even say we are separate from this. How could we be?
The earth grew something that is now questioning it's existence? This is beyond anything the human mind can comprehend.
And not to mention quantum physics...
We know so little. Do we know anything really?
Haha sorry for the rambling spinynorman. Just letting ideas flow.
With metta
We know a lot more than we used to. Our ancestors didn't understand the science behind weather events and attributed them to gods. We are now struggling to understand the science of the universe, and there is still a tendency to look for supernatural explanations. The universe is certainly awe-inspiring, but I don't see any reason to assume some intelligence behind it.
The problem doesn't lie in the word but what that word means to people.
There is not a heck of a lot we can do about changing the word but what it means is a different matter.
You said "The universe is certainly awe inspiring, but I don't see any reason to see intelligence behind it"
See, you are still stuck with your preconceived ideas on what God means but would see the baggage in the word instead of your understanding of the word.
I don't see intelligence behind it either. It simply is intelligence. Intelligence is simply information, nothing less and nothing more.
The universe may not be intelligent as a whole but it is a whole lot of intelligence. We do know that some of the universe tends towards becoming intelligent (because that's us) but to be intelligent is to make use of intelligence on purpose.
I'm not sure how else we could possibly explain natural selection without some kind of sense gate being involved. That doesn't mean I think it would have to be eternally aware but to me, it seems like it does tend towards awareness.
Looking for intelligence behind the universe is silly because there is no beyond. Anything beyond gets included as soon as beyond is discovered.
Looking for intelligence within the universe is probably better suited.
The flower can make use of intelligence but it won't be aware of it and makes no decisions based on a mistaken identity aside from intelligence.
We have evolved brains that allow us to be aware and make use of the intelligence that is absolutely everything.
It's interesting that you brought up Thays meditation technique because he is one God-loving Buddhist.
"To me, the kingdom of God or the Pure land of the Buddha is not some vague idea, it is a reality."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh from The Eyes of the Elephant Queen
If it isn't natural is isn't happening.
Freakin words.
Eh? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligence
No, I'm simply using "God" in the way it is commonly understood. I've acknowledged that people have different conceptions of the word.
When the military goes looking for intelligence what are they looking for, information or the ability to learn?
It's still the ability to use intelligence that determines how intelligent one is.