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Buddhism & God
I am sure this is in the wrong place but I haven't got a question about meditation.
I know this has probably been asked before, but can you believe in God and still be a Buddhist?
I have a Christian background, I say background because although at one time I believed the Christian beliefs I was never really a good Christian and rarely went to church.
Anyway due to ill health at the time I started meditating. After I meditated sometimes upto 2 hours but no longer I would always say a prayer. During the prayer I would get I suppose what you could call gold flashes (with my eyes closed) and an over whelming sense of love and peace. At the time I was dragged to a Christian Alpha course by my Mother and after expirencing the love, peace and even safety of what I sometimes refer to as God, I couldn't call myself a Christian anymore. All the fear based teachings of a wrathful God needing sacrifices and sacrificing his only son because we're so bad didn't wash anymore.
So I left and since then i've meditated almost everyday combined with other techniques but under no religion. I suppose I have a great interest in Zen, Yoga and Sufism. I'm now finding that I feel as if I am being pulled towards Zen. The main question though is that can I follow Zen and still believe in God? I can't remember many of Buddha's quotes but supposedly he never denied or confirmed there was a God and supposedly said "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense", but what do modern Buddhist believe, is it ok to believe in God?
Just to confirm I do not believe in a God of Abraham but more along the Taoist beliefs of the Tao i.e. God the Observer. I also believe God is both female and male in nature, completely good, pure love, pure spirit. Can I still follow Zen? Would I be accepted? As from what I have experienced I just couldn't drop God or what I call the Great Spirit from the picture.
Thanks in advance.
I know this has probably been asked before, but can you believe in God and still be a Buddhist?
I have a Christian background, I say background because although at one time I believed the Christian beliefs I was never really a good Christian and rarely went to church.
Anyway due to ill health at the time I started meditating. After I meditated sometimes upto 2 hours but no longer I would always say a prayer. During the prayer I would get I suppose what you could call gold flashes (with my eyes closed) and an over whelming sense of love and peace. At the time I was dragged to a Christian Alpha course by my Mother and after expirencing the love, peace and even safety of what I sometimes refer to as God, I couldn't call myself a Christian anymore. All the fear based teachings of a wrathful God needing sacrifices and sacrificing his only son because we're so bad didn't wash anymore.
So I left and since then i've meditated almost everyday combined with other techniques but under no religion. I suppose I have a great interest in Zen, Yoga and Sufism. I'm now finding that I feel as if I am being pulled towards Zen. The main question though is that can I follow Zen and still believe in God? I can't remember many of Buddha's quotes but supposedly he never denied or confirmed there was a God and supposedly said "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense", but what do modern Buddhist believe, is it ok to believe in God?
Just to confirm I do not believe in a God of Abraham but more along the Taoist beliefs of the Tao i.e. God the Observer. I also believe God is both female and male in nature, completely good, pure love, pure spirit. Can I still follow Zen? Would I be accepted? As from what I have experienced I just couldn't drop God or what I call the Great Spirit from the picture.
Thanks in advance.
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Comments
Others may see it differently.
God/Allah/Brahmin/The Way/Advaita/Nirvana/Whatever. Everyone is looking for peace.
You will find a considerable divergence of opinion on ideas of 'God' amongst Buddhists.
Certainly, belief in an interventionist, omnipotent, omniscient creator God, a la Christianity, is not common, due to Buddhist ideas re: beginningless time (no time for God before the universe) and limitless natural space (no room left for a God 'outside' this) ...
Namaste
I don't think so, though maybe you can.
namaste
According to the great Zen Master, D.T. Suzuki:
"When all these deep things are searched out there is after all no "self" where you can descend, there is no "spirit", no "God" whose depths are to be fathomed. Why? Because Zen is a bottomless abyss. Zen declares, though in somewhat different manner: "Nothing really exists throughout the triple world; where do you wish to see the mind? The four elements are all empty in their ultimate nature." - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/suzuki.html
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And according to Buddha himself:
Buddha [Lankavatara Sutra]: "All such notions [of a]...personal soul, Supreme Spirit, Sovereign God, Creator, are all figments of the imagination and manifestations of mind."
Buddha [Lankavatara Sutra]: "This position rises the question of a first cause which the philosophers meet by asserting that their first cause, God and the primal elements, are un-born and un-annihilate; which position is without evidence and is irrational.”
Buddha [Lankavatara Sutra]: "Again, Mahamati, some philosophers owing to their foolishness declare this to be Nirvana: that there is a primary substance, there is a supreme soul, and they are seen differently by each, and that they produce all things from the transformations of the qualities."
Buddha [Tittha Sutta]: "Is it true that you hold that whatever a person experiences is all caused by a Supreme Being's act of creation? Then in that case, a person is a killer of living beings because of a Supreme Being's act of creation. A person is a thief, unchaste, a liar, a divisive speaker, a harsh speaker, an idle chatterer, greedy, malicious, a holder of wrong views because of a Supreme Being's act of creation.
When one falls back on creation by a Supreme Being as being essential, there is no desire [motivation], no effort [at the thought], 'This should be done. This shouldn't be done.' When one can't pin down as a truth or reality what should & shouldn't be done, one dwells bewildered & unprotected. One cannot righteously refer to oneself as a contemplative. This was my second righteous refutation of those priests & contemplatives who hold to such teachings, such views."
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I just think this is so well put that it deserves repeating and emphasis.
Sounds very much like Sufism and Rumi, that's beautiful, thank you.
Transmetaphysical I don't want to get in to an is there a God, can you prove it can you not prove it debate. My Idea of God is simply a universal consciousness, the source of everything, has always been there, will always be there, is in everything but is not everything. For me intelligence has to come from intelligence and I know there are clever debates both to support and oppose that comment. But I have a very different belief from a western or middle eastern perspective. It's not out of any Bible just how I translate my own experience.
Saying that I will approach this with an open mind. I will not think of God or pray when I am practising Zen and that's fine with me because I think too many people rely on God or the idea of God and they eventually disempower themselves rather than learning to stand on there own two feet.
I suppose if a Catholic priest can go, I can go thanks very much all of you for taking the time to answer my question.
Mark.
Regarding Sufism and Rumi, that's how I see it as well.
In Vajrayana (and possibly other Mahayana beliefs and possibly some in Theravada) there is the concept of "primordial mind", or "emptiness which is of the nature of clarity and luminosity". I think this is an appropriate way to see the concepts of "God" in the Abrahamic religions. And 20th century existentialist theologians, especially Paul Tillich, talked about the "God above God".
That's how it works for me. "Beyond, beyond, completely beyond, gone to the other shore." (The Heart Sutra)
So do you believe in a kind of intelligent source. It's funny I watched a documentary on Buddha Boy Ram Bahadur Bomjon who meditated for 10 months and then went missing. Anyway his master or teacher who is a Buddhist monk said we are all Gods but he is God or something along those lines. It seems to be a set of very broad beliefs, because when you think of Buddhism you or at least I think of having no God.
*Likes*
Here's a good place to start:
http://tergar.org/
peace.
I agree with the Catholic ex-monk here and with MIG1's views of Consciousness.
For me the Biblical God is out.
I really liked the documentary, The Case for a Creator, but then I know that the man who researched this is a Christian, and that is where we parted ways.
For me I just don't believe that this God interacts with us. I have not seen prayer being answered for example, or healings taking place.
Part of my walking away from Buddhism is because it seemed like people were hostile to the believe in God or Consciousness as I call it.
But for other reasons I couldn't stay with Hinduism, much less Christianity.
I am rather lost out here. I still believe in the soul, but not in an unchanging soul and perhaps this soul is God for all I know.
Although I have not seen The Case for a Creator, but does it surprise you that the researcher is a Christian? Christians believe in God, the Creator. I don't see why that should be a reason for you to part ways. Perhaps you should have a more open mind, same goes for those buddhists who are hostile towards you for believing in a God.
Prayer should be for self discovery - to find strength, inspiration, solace. They are not supposed to be answered by God in the sense that praying for sickness leads to a cure. I don't think you'll find any religion where your prayers are answered in a direct way. If you do, watch out! don't drink the kool aid.
Good luck in your journey and Peace.
I really like what you say about prayer.
I really don't want to get involved in a debate about whether or not God exists, but I just wanted to point out the idea that just because prayers don't appear to be answered wouldn't necessarily mean that God doesn't exist. Perhaps God (or whatever you want to call it) doesn't answer prayers, or isn't conscious in the same way we understand it, or in some other way operating in a manner too difficult to describe.
There are many things that are far beyond our limited scope of human understanding.
I agree with what you said. I have thought that while I believe that Consciousness created, it doesn't mean that this Consciousness answers prayers or interacts with us, but just that the laws have been set out, such as karma. And in a way you could not really call it a God after all, because if I think of the God in a Christian since, this God is personal in that It interacts with us. I also have a strong feeling that the transcendence that meditators or some others have experienced which puts them into contact with this Consciousness of Love is what people have always called God. But other than that all other concepts of God are man made, that is giving him attributes of hate, jealously, etc. And maybe you would believe that even the experience is man made, but being transcendent it is hard to believe that it was, at least for me. It is an experience that I had and have never been able to let go of, but I don't find it to be a stumbling block as some Buddhists have told me in the past. But I do know that when I experienced it there was no judgment, only Love.
I like how Deepak Chopra put it: Physical forces cannot explain such exquisite order, much less the meaning we derive from it, which is why God came into being. The God particle delivers the tiniest bits of the clock but not the maker. I do not mean that an actual person in the sky made the universe. Keeping strictly with the scientific worldview, the maker must be impersonal, intelligent, universal, invisible, yet manifest in the visible world. The only viable candidate is consciousness.