Glory Be to God (allegedly)
lobster
Crusty Veteran
This morning during my atheist Buddhist formal meditation hour, I used the internal mantra, 'Glory be to God'. Not even sure why. In these strange days can we still be sure of uncertainty?
I like God,
the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_MonsterBertrand Russell's sun satellite teapot
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapotand Bob Dobbs
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius
I even have a soft spot for Thor, Allah and Baby Jesus. They all seem to bring out our best cutlery and range of sharpened tongues and pickled minds.
The Buddha allegedly used to advise Gods, thereby ensuring his teaching status as Beyond the imponderable. The Tao, Ain Soph and Grand Architect all suggest a karmic, ordered, masterly and cunningly planned interdependency. Maybe if I was more partisan I would chant, 'Praise Nirvana' or 'Dharma is Greater'? However wisdom is not in the tracks and ruts but on the far edges ... where God, Lady Buddha and Stories manifest ...
What is 'impossible' for you to contemplate? Could it be elected?
Comments
just imagine, to write all those above, how fast your mind (machine) should
have worked?
writing of the post is the outcome (vithikkama)
processing is done by the mind machine (parivuttana)
materials are 'what you have heard, read, thought before' (anusaya)
(federica, don't get upset with my grammer mistakes, capitals, fullstops etc, please)
Ok, just for once, I won't.
What's not to like?
Exactly @Fosdick
Just because we are unbelieving atheists or transcending the need or affiliation with God is no need to throw out Baby Jesus or similar idealisations with the Buddha Bath. Unless we want or need to.
In other words if God or Buddha is an impediment, Kill Her (as the zenniths say). We have to free of carrot and stick compulsion or revulsion to be practicing Godists.
"You know of the how, but I know of the how-less."
Rabia
Right! Let's have a Ding Dong....
Thanks guys.
Theism is sometimes crazed. Just as the ultra logical can be unappreciative of the gestalt of poetry, music, love and mad mystics.
It is why the Middle Way is one of balance between OUR extremes. Strangely enough or paradoxically, I take delight in Cod and god with equal measure. In other words looking at the form, I find the empty assumptions on its nature and when empty the form has meaning ...
For example I find kindness is an abstraction but when genuine, rather than trading for heaven or karma points, is very real.
Is clutching at metaphysical straws really a useful practice? Is speculating on imponderables really a useful practice?
Spiny Papanca
Throw it all out.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of God-ism... I personally lean towards pantheism
@SpinyNorman saith> Throw it all out.
The biggest problem I see with theistic religions is that they are like monkey traps - you have to stick your arm into the coconut of dogma to get at the good stuff, and then you can't get your arm out of there without letting go of the fruit of salvation. There seems to be no teaching, no mechanism, for freeing yourself from the trap. This is in contrast to Buddhism, in which we are urged to leave the raft on the shore once we have crossed over.
The simplest and most direct answer seems to be, as you appear to suggest, not to stick your arm into the trap in the first place. Salvation is not confined to the interior of a coconut.
My perfume must be offensive as neither Jews nor Christians are that fond of me - even though I am one of their "tribes" by birth (Jewish mum, Christian dad).
Oh well, no skin off my nose
Personally I quite like pantheism as a theory. Not sure if I could roll with it in practise, though I'd like to think I could.
I am going to throw out, throwing out ...
I could get quite attached to that
Nothing is impossible to contemplate I don't think. I usually consider myself sort of omnitheistic in the sense that I feel for all of the gods that have ever been or will ever be conceived.
I do not give them shelter (or put them in a cage) by believing in them myself but sometimes I'll call on various attributes of an idealized version of what I'd make them into if I was so inclined. I allow them to exist without believing in them.
I feel Buddha was trying to free the gods as much as those caging them in their minds.
I like Jesus too. I really don't think he was here to die for other people's sins but I do think he lived his life for the sake of and in service of others.
I don't think a first-cause-creator-god makes a lot of sense in light of D.O. but that is only one way of looking at it all.
I don't put a lot of stock in any of this and whether gods exist or not or if we are all aspects of one soul or not doesn't affect how I conduct myself although, Thich Nhat Hanhs "Call me by my True Names" hits home in a way that, well... just hits home.
I've recently acquired a more flexible multi-faith approach to God so to speak. I am interested in studying theology and different religions. I got a Christian theology book (Radical Love by Patrick S. Cheng) that had me reconsider Christianity and the Holy Trinity. I found myself drawn to the icons and stories within the book, even though I haven't been to church since a kid and initially "swore off" Western religion once I discovered Buddhism.
I believe that there's an interconnected energy to the universe/cosmos. Whether that is God or some future theoretical physics equation, I believe this one source can be found in all religions/faiths/traditions.
I used to identify as an atheist. Since becoming spiritual, I'm not so sure. I don't want to label myself either way, even as an agnostic. Instead of ditching the possibility or impossibility of a God, I want to forgo the concept entirely and merely focus on a simplified Source or energy, etc. There is a book I read over the summer (just got up to look for it and couldn't find it), the author of which I can't remember, but he blends Western and Eastern concepts of God into one Source/Energy/Universe and I really enjoyed how he conceptualized it.
I am not much of a ritualistic person, so I don't think I would practice well under the concept of a God anyway. However, I have noticed that I need something to focus on, which is why I've recently been looking into Shin Buddhism and celestial Buddhas like Amida, whom I can configure my practice and devotion after without the authoritative pressures Gods bring.
We have ritual deity focus in some Dharma practices @eggsavior ...
Here is something from my page on Yidams/deities:
For as long as I can remember the presence or rather the certainty of a Deity seemed or felt self evident. I could understand most viewpoints. However a universe devoid of Deity seemed incomprehensible. However some people knew it to be true, were certain of it and therefore it was a valid perception I was not privy to. I had to kill God. Or rather kill the sense of Deity and embrace the Void.
For some Buddhists atheism is their entry point into practice. It comes easy and rationally. My god-kill search began with Richard Dawkins and the vocal atheist education circuit. It was not difficult to find credence with their assertions which were mostly geared to fundamental and largely silly and superstitious literalism. I was already in agreement with most of what they said. How to go that further step? How to find the sense of God, the presence and find its arising and therefore nature?
... continued here:
http://cundi.weebly.com/yidam.html
Another focal point is mantra which I also have a page on - that may be of interest
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/day/2013/08/03
I regard pantheism as theism-lite, and it feels rather pointless to me, redundant really. Having done some amateur astronomy, I view the universe as awesome in it's own right, so I don't see a need to add anything.
In the suttas the dhamma has the taste of freedom, so there is that sense of liberation, at many levels.
That's certainly true, but if an intelligent hand set the Big Bang in motion, then perhaps the universe as we know it today is an expression of the mind behind that first movement. It doesn't have to be, and Occam's razor argues against it, but it's possible and elegant
what exactly is universe?
What exactly is your point? To pontificate on and on?
@upekka asketh > what exactly is universe?
The all, the unknown, matter and energy & who knows what else ad infinitum. Mostly, it is that of which we are ignorant and shall remain ignorant until we somehow miraculously transcend our fundamental monkeyness and attain the ultimate and infinite wisdom of God himself who has no monkeyness about him but dwells outside the universe entirely, untouched by the laws of cause and effect, whistling to himself as he pulls the strings to watch us twitch.
Sorry, I know that's not helpful but I couldn't stop myself. Having a reactionary sort of day, I guess.
Tee Hee!
Infinite wisdom is a bit much for most of us to imagine. A bit above and beyond the norm is perhaps a start. This is why (and bravo I say), the Buddha focussed on our immediate situation and its improvement.
I would suggest certain ideas, idealisations, even temporary fantasies or stories can offer stability and needed emotional support. @David says it very well here:
This is a very insightful summation of how I was taught yidam practice in Tantra. We allow them temporary and skilful being ...
These days I find myself identifying as an Ietsist or somethingist with a bent more towards a force something rather than a being something. I feel like religious notions of the something are like the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant, trying to describe it but not having the full picture.
Interesting. It also allows me to feel compassion towards them which in turn helps me to get a better feel of the attribute in them I wish to incorporate into practice.
I feel that in having compassion for the gods, Buddha was able to free many of them.
Exactly so.
The gods are not separate from us. Feeling compassion for Allah (very naughty and mostly blasphemous), The Force, Kwan Yin, Jesus Christ Almighty, His Noodliness, the Flying Spegetti Monster etc ...
Build them up. Talk to them. Let them go.
Emptiness formed and emptied ...