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Reconciling God with the Dharma
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The topic is Reconciling god with the dharma.
Discuss. Keep to topic, thanks.
I think a Deistic God can exist, but other deities, powers, energies create(d) everything we see. I think that if there is a God, it's just the substrate everything exists on, pretty much as Deism says. Though I don't believe this God did the actual creating. It's possible there are other deities that had a hand in creating or setting the rules in motion and stepped away. But who really knows? I think thinking on it too deeply gets us nowhere, because we don't really know. The Buddha taught how to escape all this, so I guess we'll find out the truth if and when we get there.
That which has a beginning may beyond our measure or capacity to know or calculate, but that does not rationally negate it, particularly when its origins are of spiritual order. I have said before that which is temporal cannot also be eternal because it is a contradiction, and I have yet to hear any response that rationally can convince me otherwise.
If we just speak of physical and karmic laws what is their origin? They must be either without beginning (eternal), or emergent and developing implying that they too have a beginning but they can't be both eternal and temporal either. What I always say is who said there is or has to be a need? The eternal essence of the uncaused mind is entirely of a spiritual order, complete in and of itself and beyond the realm of terms. It is under no necessity to create anything. It is freedom. It is not subordinate to any laws either emergent or that have no beginning (eternal).
Creation out of nothing does not mean from nothing, but rather that it has no ontological foundation in itself. It is not complete in and of itself, but is causally dependent. It is not separate from God by location but only by nature for an image is not the same as its archetype.
It passes from not being to being by the creative act of God's free will which again is under no necessity to create. Once created order is brought into being it will not cease to be for the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
Anyway, back to the topic. I don't think there is such a thing as reconciliation with God and the Dharma, and not necessarily because what I have just posted, but rather something that dawned on me last night. The whole foundation of the middle path rests on the critique of two extremes. It is completely dependent upon them otherwise there is no point of reference. Everything is seen either as materialism or eternalism or some variation thereof, and it becomes necessary to fit anything that is correctly or incorrectly conceived as not being in accordance with the middle path into one of these two extremes, so Buddhists can speak of the eternal (without beginning) nature of the mind, but a Christian can’t possibly be referring to the same uncaused eternal mind because what he believes belongs to the extreme of eternalism.
As an aside, science should not be concerned with developing theories based upon disproving or proving that which is of spiritual order because that is not its true purpose otherwise it becomes something else.
AFAICS, this is the first post, or portion of same, that has complied..... :mad:
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with believing that things can't come from nothing, and that God gives a plausible answer to where the universe comes from; but I certainly have a difficult time seeing an intelligent designer behind the world and human beings.
An ultimate being doesn't have to have created everything. Heck, the ultimate being may still be in the process of waking up. That could be what drives evolution. What exactly is it that drives natural selection to select?
If the universe itself can be said to be guided by instinct then it doesn't matter if we need an ultimate being or not.
In my opinion, an ultimate being could be reconciled with the dharma but the God of Biblical fame can not.
Is there a decent word for the universe becoming self aware one aspect at a time?
Could we be living the infinite tales of Jataka?
The infinite avatars of a Vishnu-like consciousness?
In my view, if there is God, the first coherent thought would more likely be "WTF am I?" rather than "I AM".
On topic though, I think if God is equated with unconditioned reality(Nirvana?), then God and Nirvana would kind of be the same thing... unless you think God must have some sort of conditioned quality.
I was interested that at one point you seem to be mentioning god-driven evolution.
I think of God more as nirguna Brahman... without qualities. In that case God is a state, like Nirvana, or even, I daresay, like the Tao:
The Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the Eternal Name
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
They are all ineffable and indescribable. I think it's all really kind of trippy.
That which has a beginning may beyond our measure or capacity to know or calculate, but that does not rationally negate it, particularly when its origins are of spiritual order. I have said before that which is temporal cannot also be eternal because it is a contradiction, and I have yet to hear any response that rationally can convince me otherwise.
If we just speak of physical and karmic laws what is their origin? They must be either without beginning (eternal), or emergent and developing implying that they too have a beginning but they can't be both eternal and temporal either. What I always say is who said there is or has to be a need? The eternal essence of the uncaused mind is entirely of a spiritual order, complete in and of itself and beyond the realm of terms. It is under no necessity to create anything. It is freedom. It is not subordinate to any laws either emergent or that have no beginning (eternal).
Creation out of nothing does not mean from nothing, but rather that it has no ontological foundation in itself. It is not complete in and of itself, but is causally dependent. It is not separate from God by location but only by nature for an image is not the same as its archetype.
It passes from not being to being by the creative act of God's free will which again is under no necessity to create. Once created order is brought into being it will not cease to be for the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
Anyway, back to the topic. I don't think there is such a thing as reconciliation with God and the Dharma, and not necessarily because what I have just posted, but rather something that dawned on me last night. The whole foundation of the middle path rests on the critique of two extremes. It is completely dependent upon them otherwise there is no point of reference. Everything is seen either as materialism or eternalism or some variation thereof, and it becomes necessary to fit anything that is correctly or incorrectly conceived as not being in accordance with the middle path into one of these two extremes, so Buddhists can speak of the eternal (without beginning) nature of the mind, but a Christian can’t possibly be referring to the same uncaused eternal mind because what he believes belongs to the extreme of eternalism.
As an aside, science should not be concerned with developing theories based upon disproving or proving that which is of spiritual order because that is not its true purpose otherwise it becomes something else.
If there is, he has not contacted me... yet.
Show of hands , how many have received a message from God ?
The game is so realistic that the players dont even realise its just a game.
So, spinynorman, that explains why he cant just put everyone straight into heaven.
Where is the fun in that ?
"A" God? Him?
If someone said this already, my mistake, I don't have time to read the whole thread right now
Or as Younghusband says in the second-to-last paragraph I quoted above, “But this Greatest, Highest, Most is not something wholly outside us and apart from us, any more than France is wholly outside Frenchmen. It is an Ideal which is actuating, drawing, compelling, and impelling us. the Upanishads regard It as the true Self in us all. If we could delve deep down within ourselves to the profoundest depths we would find the Supreme Reality. Or occasions may arise when in a flash It is revealed to us. There, in each of us, is the very essence of the whole Universe— ‘nearer to us than breathing and closer than hands and feet.’ There may not be a distant, aloof, Divine Potentate who knows all and can do anything, but working through the world may be an all-pervasive Principle constraining the whole towards an ultimate Perfection."
That "Thumb-sized" divine being enshrined in all creatures that so many Upanishads refer to in those very thumb-sized terms is the reality whose realization is essentially in question, is it not? What the Hindus call the Self, the Atman, is just a manifestation of it: THAT Thou Art. God is not a Noun, in that sense —nay, The Self (God) is a Verb, an Active Doing.
In the Spirit of the Upanishads is offered this thought, then:
"But it may have been because Buddha had too great, not too small, an idea of God that he refused to restrict himself to a sharp definition of the Deity. There are certain things which are too great to be put into words. Who, for instance, would care to define love? Buddha did not presume to define God, but both he and his disciples were saturated with the conception of a Power behind the eye that sees and the ear that hears, and behind all the phenomena of Nature. They had no hard, cold, mechanistic, materialistic view of the universe. They never conceived of it as anything else than spiritual. They assumed as a matter of course that there was a great spiritual power driving through all things as through themselves, and making for ever higher perfection." —Younghusband
Meditating on the (TRUE) Self? Why does this have to be so Non-Buddhist? Just because of some Buddhist metaphysics, the sort of thing which Shakyamuni eschewed?
BTW, it's interesting that as late as 2007, the Oxford English dictionary still didn't have the words "nontheism" or "non-theism," whereas the word "atheist" appeared in print as early as 1571, according to my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Therefore Younghusband must be excused from not addressing that subject in his essay on the non-atheism of the Buddha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist
Love is not really a noun is it? If static, it is not really Love.
Love is a Verb and a doing only. Love is an Act, not a thing.
So, too, is God. Sit still and know.
"She", "He"... I personally doubt these labels could apply.
I daresay that Younghusband is expressing something that is essentially true. The precise poetic way he puts it rings true to me. It's not that I choose to see the Buddha permeated by both wisdom and love ("divinity," if you will), it's that I cannot see him any other way. And that's what "God" is —wisdom and love. The Chandogya Upanishad (7.4) puts it:
"When you look into another's eyes, what you see is the Self, fearless and deathless. That is Brahman, the supreme."
That resonates with me. My teacher used to speak of an old Christian hymn by that name, "God is Wisdom, God is Love." That has always stuck with me and now in the nursing home I often find myself saying to the old folks of both genders that I see God when I look into their eyes because God is Wisdom and God is love and that's Who I see when I peer.
I just cannot see a sterile or bland Buddha. There is no such thing as a mere bland Consciousness. No, it is a loving consciousness. In much the same way that you cannot separate the heat from the light that ride on the sun's rays (except mentally), so it is with consciousness. The Light is Wisdom and the Heat is the Love, the Affection, the Desire for the Good.
Surely Buddha and his disciples had a different concept of "enlightenment" than some nowadays would argue. I stand with Younghusband on this one.
Or alternatively:
“It is, however, in his attitude towards the idea of God that Christ is most misrepresented......"
The only way this can be reconciled with the dharma is if God then turned to tempt Buddha appearing to him as Mara.
“It is, however, in his attitude towards the idea of God that Christ is most misrepresented......"
Nonsense! It is quite clear that Jesus of Nazareth referred to God as "Father."
There are some Christians who say that the New Testment was concocted by the early church and that all the stuff about God and miracles was added in later...now why does that sound so familiar?
Not really. It seems to clear to me that Jesus did not believe in the same idea of God that Abraham did.
If Jesus was not so oppressed then I don't think his teachings would have been tacked onto the Torah. He would have had his own distinct truth.
People always say Jesus was Jewish but if he was there would be no Christianity... It would all be Judaism. He was Jewish because Mary was Jewish but let's be realistic... To be Jewish, one really has to believe Judaism.
Put it this way... If the God Jesus talked about was indeed the same as the one from the Torah (or the "old" testament), then it must have gone through some heavy anger management course or something.
Forgiveness? Are you freaking kidding me?
"Before Abraham, I AM."
"Before"
In other words, Abraham didn't know what he was talking about.
Jesus was trying to establish a kinder and more realistic idea of God but the old ways just kept on seeping in from those seeking to gain power from his teachings.
The God that Jesus was talking about could be reconciled with the Dharma in my honest opinion but that is a far cry from the God mostly depicted in the Bible.
Everything that has beginning presupposes a change, and the nature of Adam & Eve is in change. As part of creation they are not eternal by nature, so they are not God in perfect repose. Otherwise we would be speaking about some form of pantheism.
Tradition says that in the beginning they existed in paradise in a more divinized state, and their bodies were not of the flesh and blood we are familiar with today. It was their free choice in the garden to pursue sensuality, and as a result their bodies became progressively coarser.
Man is both spiritual and material, and being made in the image of God he has certain sovereignty with regards to creation. Not as a dictator or ruler but that of priest and servant whose purpose is to draw all of creation towards communion with God and divinization, but not by nature but through participation in God’s uncreated energies or grace.
Anyone familiar with the Agganna Sutta might see some parallels here, though references are different what essentially is being conveyed is generally the same. Yes, male and female but spiritually speaking there is neither. I had better let my priest know that for 2000 years the Orthodox Catholic Church has been wrong in not asserting that heaven and hell are actual permanent destinations or locations.
Maybe I'm just dense, but I thought when you quoted someone you were responding to some assertion they made. I see nothing in what you've written that in any way relates to anything I've said. The stuff you've written is all about some hostile stance against the Biblical God or churchianity. I am only addressing the dharma here, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Forgiveness? I'm sorry, I don't follow. I think most of us Old Farts ( we've all been dubbed "Veterans") on NewBuddhist resemble the old Methodist preacher in his circular reasoning. No. Matter what the lessons were for the day, his sermons would always devolve to the virtues of infant baptism. "Any way but the Baptist way," for that devout Methodist.
Generally speaking, with the incarnation of Christ, His crucifixion on the Cross, and resurrection man's relationship, interpretation and understanding are elevated spiritually toward its end, but that end has yet to be accomplished for in God there is no end. Every time I'm pricked in my heart by my conscience. ;-)
(Sorry to be nitpicky but I had to call in sick from work and I'm bored okay? :P)