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Respect Jesus, Muhammad, the Goddess, and Cthulu?
MindGate
United States Veteran
I'm sure many of you consider Buddhism the one true path to liberation and happiness. Though, do you respect other religions? I know the Dalai Lama thinks quite highly of the many religions nowadays, but still believes Buddhism is the quickest path to liberation.
A guidance councilor at school told me that she thinks very highly of Buddhism and thinks its a wonderful religion, even though shes a Christian. She said that Buddhisms thoughts, such as compassion for all beings and soforth, go hand-in-hand with Jesus's teachings and "if Buddha and Jesus were to sit down to dinner, they would have a lovely time together."
I personally am on a love-hate basis with other religions, to be honest. Some days I see how much good they can bring; other days I see how twisted and vile they can be.
So, my question would be, do you have respect for Christians (catholics, southern baptists, methodists), Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Taoists, Confucianists, etc, and their beliefs?
A guidance councilor at school told me that she thinks very highly of Buddhism and thinks its a wonderful religion, even though shes a Christian. She said that Buddhisms thoughts, such as compassion for all beings and soforth, go hand-in-hand with Jesus's teachings and "if Buddha and Jesus were to sit down to dinner, they would have a lovely time together."
I personally am on a love-hate basis with other religions, to be honest. Some days I see how much good they can bring; other days I see how twisted and vile they can be.
So, my question would be, do you have respect for Christians (catholics, southern baptists, methodists), Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Taoists, Confucianists, etc, and their beliefs?
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Comments
The Buddha taught to see good as good and bad as bad. It is best to trust in our own insight.
For example, a knife is good because it can peel fruit or cut vegetable for cooking. A knife is bad because it can be used to murder.
The Buddha suggested we live without hate. So we should see other religions as necessary for the people who follow them. Our mind is best free from hate. But we cannot always respect the principles of other religions.
For example, the Koran states if a wife is diobedient, a husband can physically beat her. As Buddhists, naturally, we do not respect such a teaching but we attempt to have equinimity rather than emotional hatred towards it.
The Buddha taught it is important for us to realise the unsatisfactoriness or imperfection of the world.
If we cannot fully accept with peace the unsatisfactoriness or imperfection of the world, our heart will struggle.
Agree with @taiyaki also. Would also throw in that conditions alone lead us to and from our beliefs; and so only through conditions do people change.
Namaste
Ajahn Sumedho teaches: "The world is this way".
The Buddha used the term "the world" as a synonym for "dukkha" or "suffering".
The world is suffering; suffering is the world.
This was the Buddha's view.
To transcend suffering, one must transcend the world.
Sorry to sound so harsh.
I posted a YouTube recently by a Hindu guru who was very clear about why the Hindus hated Buddhism and tried to destroy it. The guru of course was in agreement. He also despised Buddhism.
Jesus was a bodhisattva, who taught to a certain audience.
If you think about advertising. Religion is just a product being packaged and marketed differently to fit the demographic needs.
And Buddhism cannot be destroyed. Truth is beyond Buddhism and all religion.
The finger points to the moon. Do no mistake the finger for the moon.
Your view here is gravely wrong, imo.
The Dhamma or truth cannot be destroyed but it certainly can remain unknown to mankind.
The Prince painstakingly searched to find the Buddha-Dhamma.
Keep looking for the Buddha!
The Gnostics of Christianity do not believe that Jesus declared himself God. In fact, the Gnostic Christians teach that Jesus taught things that were almost parallel to Buddhism. Some people believe that the true teachings of Jesus Christ were misconstrued when the writer's of the Bible actually began writing.
Yes
A real Buddhist would see the emptiness of it all. And just love them all regardless of differences
:clap:
Right now in an African country, Christian ministers are preaching that little children can be infected with the devil and should be abandoned on the side of the road if they cry too much, and that gay men should be hanged. Do you respect their beliefs? Why not? It's the same Bible and same religion the corner church is practicing in your neighborhood. There are Jewish Rabbis who preach that God gave them Israel, so every Muslim living in the West Bank should be rounded up and deported because the Torah demands only Jews own the land. Do you respect their religion?
Shall I go on? Religion is another collection of myths and beliefs and rules until someone uses it to build a set of moral and spiritual laws to guide their own behavior. That includes Buddhism. You don't "respect" words on a page. Respect only applies to people, and the name of their religion, if any, is irrelevant.
I respect anyone who strives to live a life of compassion and helping others, no matter what their religion. I do not respect those full of hatred and bigotry and selfish ego, no matter their religion.
Rejoicing in others happiness is an act of compassion ! But when others compassion neglects anyone outside of their own beleif system something is certainly wrong. What can be said of any teacher whom teaches grasping at Self and ours as an Important doctrine surely all the suffering in the world come from acts of peoples selfishness.
Personally, I have read most of the Gnostic Gospels. They still use mystic terminology, which is not the same as the Buddha, who taught simply about natural things or natural phenomena.
The Gnostic Gospels are not the same as Buddhism. Buddhism is grounded & earthy.
Jesus is a deity. Jesus is a "personality", often embeded in our psyche due to our childhood conditioning.
If we wish to learn about ourselves, our life, our mind, nature & reality, so our mind can have some clear vision and refuge & reliance within itself, my opinion is it is best to let go of Jesus.
Mind is the way. Observing nature, both within & without, is the method of dhamma (nature).
All the best
DD
@DD--Jesus isn't necessarily a deity, as MG pointed out. Not all Christians believed he was. The fact that he survived the crucifixion and went East to devote the rest of his life to teaching in India (as documented in a text in Hemis Monastery in Ladakh) pretty much settles that question, IMO.
Are we a new religious cult called "the Buddhist defenders of Jesus"?
The world is full of sects & cults with their version of "Jesus".
Talk about being distracted.
:wtf:
no one owns truth and i believe that we are mature enough to be able to sift through what is true and what isn't.
being able to distinguish what speaks to our hearts and what doesn't is wisdom.
figure everything out for yourself.
Your fan,
D
(I'm one of the world's biggest Lovecraft/Cthulhu-Mythos' fans!!)
Little disappointed Cthulhu wasn't really mentioned much... oh well!
I happen to think there's a fair bit of truth behind Gnosticism.
(Not that Cthulhu is gnostic, nor that I believe it's anything outside of fiction).
...however, after reading the numerous posts in this thread, I'm not too sure exactly what the point is or 'where' this thread's to go?
Oh, yes, I love Cthulu too. I am curious, though, are they are true "cults" based on H.P. Lovecraft's fiction in todays modern world?
Interesting topic on which I recently formed my view.
Of course I respect all religions and they all have their place. That's quite obvious if you ask me. I don't know why you think we think Buddhism is the only path. To each is own and if time comes, people even switch religions or combine things. Whatever works for them is great. We are all looking for the truth in a way.
But I also made a deeper analogy, just because I can. This probably has been made many times before, but it isn't in this topic so I'd like to share it.
I have no proof of course, but I think Jesus got enlightened. It's just that his message never got across as well as the one of the Buddha. I'm not raised as a Christian so don't know the bible well, but I think that in the bible there are just a few of his Jesus his own words. The rest are interpretations of his life that were written down after a long time when the actual story might have changed.
God is often described as "all that is", so God is nature, God is the Dhamma. So Jesus statement that he is the son of God is correct. We are all the son of God, all an effect of nature.
Gods will is then karma. If you go against Gods will, you fight your karma and will not reach heaven. Heaven is being one with God, being one with nature, well, that is enlightenment. Of course, the interpretation is totally different, but the analogy is astonishing if you ask me.
Sabre :vimp:
then jesus went out on a limb and added his own commandment, love your neighbor as yourself, i don't see this as having any arguement with the buddha. of course you could argue that this similarity in teaching was all some big coincidence but remember in the time of the jesus there were buddhist "missionaries" spreading the word of the buddha all through china, southeast asia, persia, afghanistan, and yes most probably palestine.
while there may be some anti-prosletizing message to buddhism today this certainly wasn't true in the early years, i mean padma sambhava didn't just walk in to tibet, start meditating under a tree and everyone wanted to convert to buddhism, he fought spiritual battles with the native bon shaman and prevailed, buddhism spread like wildfire, i don't think it can do that today with today's attitudes.
i mean i hate to bring up nicheren shoshu, but i imagine their huge proselitizing methods were also used by early buddhists, the reason noone proseletizes in buddhist countries is because everyone is buddhist, practically.
Sigh.
Buddha was once asked by his disciple, "Bhante, how did you acquire so many supernatural powers?" The Enlightened One gave two answers,"By the strength of my samadhi and by the help of the gods."
I also agree that we don't need to believe in them at all.But could we just respect them? Sakyamuni had far more merits than any of the gods, yet in every lifetime they served him.It is simply that many gods feel that it is their duty to help one who declares that his aim is nothing less than Full Enlightenment.We don't have to pray to them, just respect them
In every Sutra, whether Theravada or Mahayana, all the eight kinds of supernatural beings such as Gods, Nagas, Yakshas, Grandharvas,Asuras Garudas, Kinnaras, Maharajas and a group of demons have joined the assembly of the Dharma
The Mahaparinirvana Sutra states :"Of the eight kinds, Ananda,of these assemblies,which are the eight? Assemblies of nobles Brahmins,householders and wanderers and of the angle hosts of the guardian kings of the 33 maras and Brahma."
The five sun gods of Hinduism were there too besides divinities of light and water. There were also gods of other religion like Jehovah of Judaism, Jesus of Christianity,Ra of the Egyptian religion, Allah of Islam,Isanmi-no-Mikoto Of Shintau, Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrianism, Tien of Confucianism, Sen-Chin, Sen-Wong, Sen Dee of Taoism. None were left out of the assembly of the Dharma.
Buddha has taught us the evidence of God in a certain reasonable limitation and often denies blind faith even in himself. Buddha does not hold that every deity has absolute ego but admits that there is a God of every religion in a shadow-like appearance.
Other religions are religions of a part while Buddhism is a religion of the whole.Gods of all religions respected our Buddha and as disciples of the Buddha,should we look down on them? The least we could do is maintain the respect, just respect, for them.
I don't see how it could hurt me if I were to nod my head a little as a sign of respect every time I pass by a temple or a church.The Buddhas will be happy, the Gods will be happy.
Once I was advised seek the help of Tu Ti Kong, the Earth Deity.One of my dogs died and its spirit was still hanging around. It used to come into my house when I was meditating and it loved to lick my face.The whole face would itch like mad.This itch was different and unbearable. Protectors were around but it is their nature to allow one's ancestors and spirits of the animals reared by us into the house without any hindrance.Such is their nature. I was advised to seek the help of Tu Ti Kong by performing a small fire offering to him.During that offering, I asked Tu Ti Kong to take the dog spirit along with him as it was a hindrance to my meditation.After that, I had no more trouble from that dog spirit.Even a small deity like him helped me along my path. Based on my experience, I have always kept my respect for all deities however small for that is what I have learned from the teachings of Buddha.