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I follow Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism
One thing I have been trying to accomplish in my practice is to realize when I have reached the point on internet forums when further discussion with an individual will be fruitless.
As an aside, when you and I reach that point it will be a sad day indeed. I rather enjoy our occasional locking of horns in a perverse sort of a way.
One thing I have been trying to accomplish in my practice is to realize when I have reached the point on internet forums when further discussion with an individual will be fruitless.
As an aside, when you and I reach that point it will be a sad day indeed. I rather enjoy our occasional locking of horns in a perverse sort of a way.
Okay, I'll make you an exception so we can continue to "mind wrestle"!
What this thread has shown me is how much I dislike being labelled. It feels like being pinned down so that I can be attacked from there. There is no doubt that this comes directly from my childhood and is a 'knee jerk'. Good to notice how uncomfortable I get.
In essence, it means that I continue to live out the abreaction from authority that my Novice Master noticed in me all those decades ago.
Thank you for shining a light into a dark place within.
Actually @MindGate is correct here. I talked to some Muslim friends, and for someone who declares himself a Muslim to practice or belief anything else other than what Islam teaches in terms of spirituality and religious doctrine is considered an act of apostasy. Ergo, you cannot be a Muslim and believe in salvation through Christ, or that one can pull himself out of suffering through Buddhist practice, for example.
Actually @MindGate is correct here. I talked to some Muslim friends, and for someone who declares himself a Muslim to practice or belief anything else other than what Islam teaches in terms of spirituality and religious doctrine is considered an act of apostasy. Ergo, you cannot be a Muslim and believe in salvation through Christ, or that one can pull himself out of suffering through Buddhist practice, for example.
If you're responding to my comments, then you'd better go back and reread them, because you missed my whole point. Which is -- it's not up to a Buddhist in this forum to tell a self-professed Muslim whether or not they are actually a Muslim.
Its not up to me to define a religion - its up to the founder. And Muhammad has told us specifically what a Muslim is. If they don't follow the beliefs of Islam, they are not a Muslim. They can call themselves whatever on God's green earth they want to call themselves, but if they don't fit the description of what a Muslim actually is, by definition, they are not a Muslim.
They could be some offshoot of Islam, but not an actual Muslim.
Muslim means "one who submits" (to God). Islam may close their definition, but in Arabic many people are "Muslims" despite their religion. Much the same way Arab Christians and Jews pray to Allah. (God)
What is the fruit you are trying to grow? Does this fruit further the dharma or reduce suffering in either yourself or others? Rather than both parties walking away thinking the other is misguided or delusional, why not have both parties walk away with a new perspective on a situation, each with its own merits and demerits. How does closing our ears to another's perspective help us to foster understanding?
If "conceived in sin" means we are sinners at birth, this is a completely inaccurate representation of experiential reality IMHO. It could be believed, but there's nothing to back it up. Most likely, I think the concept of "sin" began with a movement of thought to distance humankind from animals, to deny our animal instincts and agree to live a certain way. We don't say that animals sin, do we? And yet it's acting like an animal that is a sin for a human. Our concept of sin is how we choose to put ourselves above other life on Earth. In fact until fairly recently, such religions views did separate humankind from animals, denying that we were in fact animal lifeforms. It all makes sense.
We pass this concept and others down from generation to generation, which makes it difficult to escape. Once we reach a certain age, we're more or less set in our ways, and those ways are the ones taught to us by our parents and society. It takes a lot of work to break down that conditioning. That's why we have to work so hard to purify our own stream of thoughts, speech and actions to escape from the cycle of good/evil, pleasure/pain, which is all part of our suffering... it's a wave of pleasure-pain-pleasure-pain, never-ending. We gravitate toward pleasure, we avoid pain, but we don't have the control to pull this off all of the time (or even the majority of the time for many). To find peace, we must understand and accept every moment as it is. We must direct our minds through personal effort to overcoming dualistic views that only keep us bound on this rollercoaster.
May I humbly point out that the OP says that they "follow Islam", not that they claim to be a Muslim. I find much to inspire, admire and reflect upon in Islam, particularly Sufism.
Many here seem to think that "following"=membership. It just ain't so.
...If you're responding to my comments, then you'd better go back and reread them, because you missed my whole point. Which is -- it's not up to a Buddhist in this forum to tell a self-professed Muslim whether or not they are actually a Muslim.
Then why did someone come on the Buddhism board and ask for our opinion? But the post didn't say he was a Muslim, but a Muslim-Christian-Buddhist-whatever. And we're giving our opinion of how valid and useful we think that label might be.
I think I get your point, in that people spend too much time arguing amongst themselves about who is the "True Christian" or "Real Buddhist" or whatever. But in a broader point, words have to actually mean something, and the members of a religion should have the right to define what they're about.
Take it another way, to a far extreme, if a small group of people started taking hostages and killing innocent people in the name of Buddha and wore robes and said they were warriors for Buddha, you and I and the collective Buddhists of the world would have the right to stand up and shout how that is not Buddhism and those are not real Buddhists.
But really, people normally have the right to call themselves whatever they want, as you say. But if they as for opinion on the subject, they don't have the right to demand other people agree that it's an accurate discription.
Actually he made a statement ("I kind of follow all these religions. I believe that all humans are evil, conceived in sin (Christianity), and that Buddhism is a skillful method of suppressing that evil. I also believe, as many Islamic fatalists (and the Hindu bhagwat gita) do, that what will be, will be - and that the results are not in our hands. Everything is predetermined, whether by God or by preceding causes in the long chain of cause and effect. So there you have it - four religions"). He didn't ask for a judgment on his view, unless you consider merely posting on a forum to be asking for judgments. And, perhaps it is.
And Simon had a good point, although I'll correct him slightly. The OP said, "I kind of follow...", but did not state that he was any of the four religions.
But you are getting my point. In this forum, if I said "you drink so you are NOT a Buddhist", I would be severely criticized. Yet, we have Buddhists telling other people that they are not a certain religion. I find this attitude contradictory and not principled.
If you did not believe the Buddha's teachings, you would not be a Buddhist. If you do not believe Quranic teachings, you would not be a Muslim.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited September 2011
The essence of the OP's first post is in fact that he subscribes to certain ways of thinking, represented in various callings/religions/faiths.
My point is that it's all very well to take points of wisdom from different quarters - indeed, many religions speak "as one" on many levels, and there are more than a few coincidental teachings.
However, the other point I was making is that, in order to follow any one specific calling (religion, faith, what-have-you) there comes a point where, regardless of how much one respects and learns from other callings (etc, etc....) there comes a time when, for your own clarity and ease of confusion, it's best to prioritise and herald as uniquely significant, the primary and fundamental teachings of that one specific religion.
At no point did I insinuate or infer that the OP should be Buddhist and discard all else. I merely outlined the eventual necessity of clearing a few misconceptions, contradictions and confusions up, once and for all.
Why is there a problem here? MG is only making an argument based on logic. The fundamental tenets of Islam are X. The basic tenets of Christianity are Y. X specifies that certain subsets of Y are unacceptable, therefore, never the twain shall meet. See Mountains' post, he neatly sums up MG's point.
Spirituality is a personal thing. What we each expect of it, and what we each get out of it, is up to us. There's as much difference in the views of people within the same religion as there is between different religions altogether, and so amalgamations of different ideas are not uncommon.
I agree that we get to a point where there are unresolvable contradictions between our beliefs, but I think this should be something each one of us handles when it arises (and we should not judge others based on their beliefs, or tell them they are or aren't X-Y-Z).
What brings us together, we should keep. What divides us, we should abandon.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
...Once we come to recognize the need for a spiritual path we discover that spiritual teachings are by no means homogeneous and mutually compatible. ... One approach to resolving this problem that is popular today is the eclectic one: to pick and choose from the various traditions whatever seems amenable to our needs, welding together different practices and techniques into a synthetic whole that is personally satisfying. Thus on may combine Buddhist mindfulness meditation with sessions of Hindu mantra recitations, Christian prayer with Sufi dancing, Jewish Kabbala with Tibetan visualization exercises. Eclecticism, however, though sometimes helpful in making a transition from a predominantly worldly and materialistic way of life to one that takes on a spiritual hue, eventually wears thin. While it makes a comfortable halfway house, it is not comfortable as a final vehicle.
There are two interrelated flaws in eclecticism that account for its ultimate inadequacy. One is that eclecticism compromises the very traditions it draws upon. The great spiritual traditions themselves do not propose their disciplines as independent techniques that may be excised from their setting and freely recombined to enhance the felt quality of our lives. They present them, rather, as part of an integral whole, of a coherent vision regarding the fundamental nature of reality and the final goal of the spiritual quest. A spiritual tradition is not a shallow stream in which one can wet one's feet and then beat a quick retreat to the shore. It is a mighty, tumultuous river which would rush through the entire landscape of one's life, and if one truly wishes to travel on it, one must be courageous enough to launch one's boat and head out for the depths.
The second defect in eclecticism follows from the first. As spiritual practices are built upon visions regarding the nature of reality and the final good, these visions are not mutually compatible. When we honestly examine the teaching of these traditions, we will find that major differences in perspectives reveal themselves to our sight, differences which cannot be easily dismissed as alternative ways of saying the same thing. Rather, they point to very different experiences constituting the supreme goal and the path that must be trodden to reach that goal.
Hence, because of the differences in perspectives and practices that the different spiritual traditions propose, once we decide that we have outgrown eclecticism and feel that we are ready to make a serious commitment to one particular path, we find ourselves confronted with the challenge of choosing a path that will lead us to true enlightenment and liberation. One cue to resolving this dilemma is to clarify to ourselves our fundamental aim, to determine what we seek in a genuinely liberative path. If we reflect carefully, it will become clear that the prime requirement is a way to the end of suffering. All problems ultimately can be reduced to the problem of suffering; thus what we need is a way that will end this problem finally and completely. Both these qualifying words are important. That path has to lead to a complete end of suffering, to an end of suffering in all its forms, and to a final end of suffering, to bring suffering to an irreversible stop.
We had a thread in which it was discussed that belief in the divinity of Christ and in his Resurrection was required in order to be considered a Christian. (So, technically the UU's aren't Christians. They intrigue me, I'm glad someone brought them up.) Christianity also believes in the Holy Trinity. Islam believes God is indivisible. What I get from this is, that if you want to combine Christianity and Islam in your practice, you'd have to be a Unitarian Universalist.
What about Buddhism and Sufism? They seem like they might go together ok. Some sources believe that the originator of Sufism was born and raised in the Buddhist communities of the Tarim Basin, where all those beautifully-painted caves full of Buddhist texts are.
We're trying to find beliefs to make us happy, even if we have to mix 'n match from different religions. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it doesn't lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to unbinding. It just gives us more to cling to, to try and find temporary comfort.
Unfortunately that's just the problem, it's temporary... even when we're happy, we have to cling to that happiness and we fear losing it. We strive to protect it and make it last. This makes happiness a subtle form of dukkha in disguise. The solution is to dis-empower the "craving" that causes us to seek happiness and avoid suffering. This craving is the real cause, as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.
This, at least, is why the Buddha taught... to lead to the cessation of suffering through the cessation of craving (tanha).
"To seek happiness is to find suffering. To release happiness is to find peace."
Most Muslims I know don't seem to like Sufis and claim they are "non-Muslims" and then proceed to tell me that "they eat puke" and weird stuff like that. Although, I've heard that some Tibetan Buddhists monks do this too.
Ram Dass has been teaching all religions for years, and it works for him, and as someone else said, the Unitarians pick and choose what they want to believe. I do as well. What is important is your heart, how well you love, not your dogma.
Ram Dass has been teaching all religions for years, and it works for him, and as someone else said, the Unitarians pick and choose what they want to believe. I do as well. What is important is your heart, how well you love, not your dogma.
I find it interesting that all these religions have dogma and then people wish to go against that by choosing bits and pieces here and there yet want the specific label of the dogmatic path, not their "flavour". Why not just label your particular path after yourself (EG if I followed Christianity and Islam then I would be a Ravenist)?
Ram Dass has been teaching all religions for years, and it works for him, and as someone else said, the Unitarians pick and choose what they want to believe. I do as well. What is important is your heart, how well you love, not your dogma.
I find it interesting that all these religions have dogma and then people wish to go against that by choosing bits and pieces here and there yet want the specific label of the dogmatic path, not their "flavour". Why not just label your particular path after yourself (EG if I followed Christianity and Islam then I would be a Ravenist)?
Whilst you are entirely free to have your "Pick & Mix" attitude to world religions, I suspect most religions would have a problem with your claim to follow, for instance, Islam and Christianity, given that they are diametrically opposed to each other.
As a former fundamentalist Christian I know an awful lot of Christians believe stuff in the Bible like Christ's words "No man comes to the Father but by me" and all the horrible curses in the Old Testament for those who did not solely worship the one God. After all, the first of the Ten Commandments states "Thou shalt worship me, the Lord they God and put no other gods before me. For I am a jealous God..." etc. Exclusivity is kind of where its at for most Christians. Everyone else, no matter how good, is going to hell (unpleasant though it may be, that is actually at the root of Christian belief).
I believe most Muslims feel much the same (I had a lot of Muslim friends and have studied the Koran).
So as far as I'm concerned, if your eclectic path works for you and is helping you to be a better person, that's great. But don't expect to get a great welcome in the majority of churches or mosques.
................. But don't expect to get a great welcome in the majority of churches or mosques.
..........or, dare I add?, from some members even here.
People are people, Simon, inevitably flawed and apt to forget compassion when confronted by a difference of opinion. It's all ego-clinging - as we said on another thread, it is possible to be attached to anything, even Buddhism.
All religions promote a practice that helps one "transcend" beyond selfishness, vice, etc. I take advantage of the wisdom of other teachers, but I find that most (if not all) of the teachings I follow can correspond to that of The Buddha. In this way, being a follower of other teachers is good. Not because these teachings correspond to The Buddha per se (I used him as an example), but because they harmonize with each other.
Contradiction creates confusion, and confusion creates uneasiness.
Sometimes we are intent on preserving our old ways while cultivating new, even if we know how illogical it is to attempt this. This is attachment - clinging - and it causes us pain. Pain is not just a feeling, but a function. It "stumps our growth", blocking the path to Nibbana.
All religions promote a practice that helps one "transcend" beyond selfishness, vice, etc. I take advantage of the wisdom of other teachers, but I find that most (if not all) of the teachings I follow can correspond to that of The Buddha. In this way, being a follower of other teachers is good. Not because these teachings correspond to The Buddha per se (I used him as an example), but because they harmonize with each other.
Contradiction creates confusion, and confusion creates uneasiness.
There are differences, I think, if you really do investigate them, especially with mainstream Christianity etc. I also believe Hinduism is very different to that taught in the Dharma.
Nothing, as everyone has their own unique spiritual process through the forrest of self discovery. As more and more clarity dawns within this search and the trees give way to more and more clearing, one want's a spirituality that has philosophy, psychology and methodology that engages the body as well as explanations of the fruit of practice laid out with clarity. Spirituality is not a no mans land where you have to venture out alone, we are all connected, so those paths that reflect a tradition of clarity will attract a person who is finding inner clarity within that seeking. As one gets more clear about what one wants spiritually, one will eventually come to a spirituality that reflects this clarity. Is that clear?
At the same time, wisdom is everywhere and it's good to be inspired by all those that have expressed any moment of wisdom through any culture at all. Even bugs, animals and trees can inspire wisdom arising dependent upon the perspective of the onlooker.
I just found info on the Sufis that says they revere Jesus (whom they call Issa) as a prophet. So maybe we've been a little hard on the OP. Maybe s/he knows something we don't know.
wisdom is everywhere and it's good to be inspired by all those that have expressed any moment of wisdom through any culture at all. Even bugs, animals and trees can inspire wisdom arising dependent upon the perspective of the onlooker.
This is what I basically meant by my previous comment.
Comments
In essence, it means that I continue to live out the abreaction from authority that my Novice Master noticed in me all those decades ago.
Thank you for shining a light into a dark place within.
Y.
We pass this concept and others down from generation to generation, which makes it difficult to escape. Once we reach a certain age, we're more or less set in our ways, and those ways are the ones taught to us by our parents and society. It takes a lot of work to break down that conditioning. That's why we have to work so hard to purify our own stream of thoughts, speech and actions to escape from the cycle of good/evil, pleasure/pain, which is all part of our suffering... it's a wave of pleasure-pain-pleasure-pain, never-ending. We gravitate toward pleasure, we avoid pain, but we don't have the control to pull this off all of the time (or even the majority of the time for many). To find peace, we must understand and accept every moment as it is. We must direct our minds through personal effort to overcoming dualistic views that only keep us bound on this rollercoaster.
Many here seem to think that "following"=membership. It just ain't so.
I think I get your point, in that people spend too much time arguing amongst themselves about who is the "True Christian" or "Real Buddhist" or whatever. But in a broader point, words have to actually mean something, and the members of a religion should have the right to define what they're about.
Take it another way, to a far extreme, if a small group of people started taking hostages and killing innocent people in the name of Buddha and wore robes and said they were warriors for Buddha, you and I and the collective Buddhists of the world would have the right to stand up and shout how that is not Buddhism and those are not real Buddhists.
But really, people normally have the right to call themselves whatever they want, as you say. But if they as for opinion on the subject, they don't have the right to demand other people agree that it's an accurate discription.
And Simon had a good point, although I'll correct him slightly. The OP said, "I kind of follow...", but did not state that he was any of the four religions.
But you are getting my point. In this forum, if I said "you drink so you are NOT a Buddhist", I would be severely criticized. Yet, we have Buddhists telling other people that they are not a certain religion. I find this attitude contradictory and not principled.
If you do not believe Quranic teachings, you would not be a Muslim.
My point is that it's all very well to take points of wisdom from different quarters - indeed, many religions speak "as one" on many levels, and there are more than a few coincidental teachings.
However, the other point I was making is that, in order to follow any one specific calling (religion, faith, what-have-you) there comes a point where, regardless of how much one respects and learns from other callings (etc, etc....) there comes a time when, for your own clarity and ease of confusion, it's best to prioritise and herald as uniquely significant, the primary and fundamental teachings of that one specific religion.
At no point did I insinuate or infer that the OP should be Buddhist and discard all else.
I merely outlined the eventual necessity of clearing a few misconceptions, contradictions and confusions up, once and for all.
I agree that we get to a point where there are unresolvable contradictions between our beliefs, but I think this should be something each one of us handles when it arises (and we should not judge others based on their beliefs, or tell them they are or aren't X-Y-Z).
What brings us together, we should keep. What divides us, we should abandon.
What about Buddhism and Sufism? They seem like they might go together ok. Some sources believe that the originator of Sufism was born and raised in the Buddhist communities of the Tarim Basin, where all those beautifully-painted caves full of Buddhist texts are.
Unfortunately that's just the problem, it's temporary... even when we're happy, we have to cling to that happiness and we fear losing it. We strive to protect it and make it last. This makes happiness a subtle form of dukkha in disguise. The solution is to dis-empower the "craving" that causes us to seek happiness and avoid suffering. This craving is the real cause, as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.
This, at least, is why the Buddha taught... to lead to the cessation of suffering through the cessation of craving (tanha).
"To seek happiness is to find suffering. To release happiness is to find peace."
Just a thought.
In metta,
Raven
As a former fundamentalist Christian I know an awful lot of Christians believe stuff in the Bible like Christ's words "No man comes to the Father but by me" and all the horrible curses in the Old Testament for those who did not solely worship the one God. After all, the first of the Ten Commandments states "Thou shalt worship me, the Lord they God and put no other gods before me. For I am a jealous God..." etc. Exclusivity is kind of where its at for most Christians. Everyone else, no matter how good, is going to hell (unpleasant though it may be, that is actually at the root of Christian belief).
I believe most Muslims feel much the same (I had a lot of Muslim friends and have studied the Koran).
So as far as I'm concerned, if your eclectic path works for you and is helping you to be a better person, that's great. But don't expect to get a great welcome in the majority of churches or mosques.
Contradiction creates confusion, and confusion creates uneasiness.
Sometimes we are intent on preserving our old ways while cultivating new, even if we know how illogical it is to attempt this. This is attachment - clinging - and it causes us pain. Pain is not just a feeling, but a function. It "stumps our growth", blocking the path to Nibbana.
Either skim the surface or dive in.
Best wishes,
Abu
At the same time, wisdom is everywhere and it's good to be inspired by all those that have expressed any moment of wisdom through any culture at all. Even bugs, animals and trees can inspire wisdom arising dependent upon the perspective of the onlooker.
:coffee: