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Question for Christian Buddhists or Buddhists Christians?
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Don't you touch my butt.
Just wanted to get to the bottom of things,
A Gnostic Christian has more in common with a Buddhist than he does with a Baptist. Hopefully, people see where I am going with this. I am too tired to type...........
To bed....?
Thanks for your input.....!
Add to that Jesuits (like Pope Francis). Ignatius (the founder of Jesuit order) stripped back all the (IMO) BS and decided to found his order on what Jesus taught, not the "Church" (in other words the men who used Christianity to their own benefits). In their practises (as I have mentioned before somewhere on here LOL) they have a walking meditation pretty much the same as Zen walking meditation, except they focus on God and Buddhism doesn't.
I don't want to carp on but I have a real issue with non-Christians making sweeping statements about ALL Christianity when it's really not all the same. I fully understand that a lot of people have had shitty experiences growing up with a Christian or other monotheistic experience, and if you don't want to believe then that's entirely your perogative. But you don't have the experience to speak for ALL Christians.
AND
This - I think you've hit the nail on the head with this statement.
Only on the surface Christianity and Buddhism are similar. Dig deeper, and not very deep you will find a very vast gulf of difference. Buddha preaches he is but an enlightened man; where as Jesus declares himself the son of god. A very vast difference; for two millennia genocide was conducted in the name of Jesus and his God father to those who refused to accept Christianity. There are no such thing for the spread of Buddha' wisdom.
There is no similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, only a few who want to see there is.
I think a lot of times in these types of discussions we are all looking at the Christian side of things from a point of view of the majority of Christians we deal with in our lives, and/or the popular view of them as a whole group. When in reality, there is a huge difference between saying "Buddhism isn't compatible with Roman Catholicim" and "Buddhist isn't compatible with Universalist Christians" and so on. I know when I hear or see the word "Christian" there are immediate images and feelings associated that in no way fully encompass all Christian experiences.
One of the main problems we run into here is a distinction between schools and lineages of Buddhism. Christianity isn't really any different. The wife of our local Sangha leader (not the monk who leads our Sangha as a whole) is devout Christian, who happens to follow Buddhism. People regularly ask her how in the world she can consider herself a Christian when she meditates on her knees in a room with a Buddhist husband and a statue of Buddha. She simply smiles and tells them it works for her. It depends entirely what your view of God even is. There are a lot of Christians who do not view God or Jesus in the manner in which we think they do. To think Christians all view their God and their religion in such a limited matter as we tend to think of it is pretty small minded.
We don't like when Christians misunderstand Buddhism. We accuse them of being ignorant and not knowing what they are talking about. I'm afraid we come across much the same (most of us) when discussing their religion.
If being a Buddhist Christian doesn't work for you, then peachy keen. But why should it matter if someone else claims it works for them?
@karasti :clap:
You can take as many ideas as you like from different religions in order to create your own personal conception of the universe. But then, why should you choose to be labelled as Buddhist-Christian, Jewish-Buddhist,... just be labelled for that matter? Why do we feel we have to justify ourselves to the rest of the world? People feel comfortable around people only as long as they can tag them and bag them. I choose to call myself a Buddhist because I adhere to the principles of the Buddha. Black and white. That does not mean that in the course of conversation with a Christian or a Jewish I could not accept their points of view. But why always the need to have everything spelled out to others?
In general, I don't think "we" do that. At least I rarely find myself doing it. But here on this forum it becomes a useful (if sometimes contentious) discussion since one purpose of the forum is to learn other people's views on various issues.
@dharmamom - I have spent the better part of learning to not care about justifying myself to anyone. Well said
This thread is not about protesting one's rights, or justifications.
The original question runs thus:
>
I have already given the opinion that it's extremely easy.
However, it can't be done the other way round.
Let's stick to giving our responses to that question, instead of flying off at tangents about rights, immovable interpretations and persuasions.
Stick to topic please.
Thanks.
A classical Christian can’t also be a classical Buddhist, because there is a definite dichotomy between their respective dogmas. That’s my statement on the topic, and now for my tangent.
Spirituality to me all boils down to this innate thirst for discovering who we really are and what our purpose in life or meaning of our existence is. I can appreciate dedicating oneself to a certain classical spiritual tradition with a narrow approach to accomplish that, but I also can appreciate that a broader approach through diversity can provide tremendous insight and understanding of what it means to be a human being, so it may not be a path in a more classical sense, but it is still a path that one can dedicate themselves to just the same and likewise just as valid.
When I look at pictures of cave paintings of primitive man, for instance, I see spiritual beauty and not spiritual ignorance.
I think it becomes a question of how you define a Buddhist AND a Christain. Based on how I see it, I won't say it can't be done, but I don't know how it could be done.
I'd agree that a Buddhist couldn't be a Christian, really, because it would compromise Refuge. I believe that a Buddhist is someone who takes Refuge in the Three Jewels. It's not Buddha Dharma, Sangha and Jesus. However, seeing as what defines a Buddhist is completely relative - it can mean virtually anything - I have to say, that in that light, anything is possible.
So ultimately a Buddhist can be a Christian too. If someone can find a way to resolve the apparent conflicts, then more power to them.
Anything is possible. Everything is possible.
The late Lama Yeshe ( the FPTM one ) published a book for Christians that involved taking Jesus as the Yidam complete with illustrations done by a well known thangkha painter.
It was called ' Silent Mind, Holy Mind.
Interesting!
I might have to find a copy. Jesus as Yidam? Not a bad idea.
I'm not particularly interested in that sort of practice, myself, but I would like to read What Lama Yeshe has to say about it.
Its out of print, but I just checked and copies are available through Amazon...
Its a really innovative work.
I am reading a book on interfaith dialogue called Common Heart. They mention someone named Ramakrishna who supposedly followed many various paths in their entirety. So it is said, he did not mix religions, but focused solely on one from its beginning to the culmination of experiencing "God" or "enlightenment" or any of the various terms used to express Ultimate Reality.
http://www.thedragonscave.org/archives/tdc/sri_ramana_maharishi/RAMKRSN1.TXT
@ JohnG Once upon a time when I took refuge in the three jewels, and having no previous religious affiliation, I dreamed I had found the holy grail of all religions, but have since woken up to the fact that it, just like Christianity, has a not so pure history as one might assume. As we become more familiar with its history in the west we will see that it has been used as tool to support things by those claiming to be Buddhist that run counter to its basic teachings, just like those claiming to be Christians.
If everybody following those respective paths were already enlightened or illumined just by affiliation there would be no need for practice and awakening. Instead it serves as a reminder of our actual state and the struggle we are all contending with in one way or another to sort out.
faculty.uml.edu/enelson/buddhismandwar.htm
Tell me, how many Buddhist genocides have occurred for the glory of Buddha, as was in the Lombard Crusades? How many witches have Buddhists condemned to burn alive for the likes of Mara? Christianity has more then a few millennia of blood it's hands, and it is thus that Christianity cannot be likened to Buddhism.
I've been a police officer for 26 years, and a vol. firefighter/paramedic for much longer. I'm a USAF veteran, as well as a Pa. Guard vet. I have witnessed the valor of Christians, in many various way's. And I have not witnessed a group who praise prejudice, and openly vow subjugation of those who do not adhere to their Christ.
True there are many such who call themselves Christian, but to those who stand by and look away when their own openly preach that their sole purpose is to subjugate all who are not Christian, openly give witness to approving the hate and violence, and are as guilty of the genocide, violence, and enslavement.
Don't you think that many Buddhist do the same thing?
Anyway, what I'm referring to is the same human struggle and condition shared by all regardless of religion. There are going to be occurrences that run counter to their respective core teachings, and I'm not saying there is equal historical evidence of atrocities, but atrocities do exist.
There are many things that would need to be examined in a historical context and quantified. The current situation in the west is that the interest in such things is relatively new, but things are beginning to be exposed, so perhaps in a few years more information on the subject will come to light.
How many Japanese soldiers, sailors, and airman who where self identified as Buddhist took part in the mass murder of millions of people in the 30's and 40's?
Take a closer look at the history of Tibet.
What's happening in Myanmar today?
No religion is immune to the worm that never dies.
First, do you think maybe it's time to get over things that happened literally hundreds of years ago?
Second, while it was not done for the "glory of Buddha", you need to read the history of Southeast Asia and see how Buddhist nations slaughtered (to the point of genocide) and enslaved the citizens of other Buddhist nations throughout many, many wars.
Third, I guess -- based on your post -- Buddhists don't believe in forgivenss. Funny, I thought that was a part of Buddhist behavior. Ah well, my mistake.
Whilst some wonder how the predominantly zen centered ruling samurai class could behave like brutes or think that semi, ostensibly religious folk can be as hypocritical under one ignored influence or another . . .
. . . let us differentiate between those practicing and those jihading for political, temporal, secular reasons.
The reason I find commonality is precisely because most people, including everyone here might be a hypocrite to a lesser or greater degree. Think you are not? Then the extent of the hindrances have not yet cleared . . . Those who have realised even to the point of 'grace' or nirvana, are still in the realm of samsara. Here their capacity to enable and empower grace/nirvana/fana in others is not in pointing out who rides the better raft. Who is pulling out the more compassionate arrow.
Are you on the journey? Of course. Some of us will take all the help we can get . . .
Christ be with you. Buddha too. :wave:
“So how, indeed, to get this kind of conversation going in the modern world is very difficult. Because if you look at some of the more dogmatic forms of religion . . . not that dogma is bad, it has it’s place . . . but if you look at these types that we are calling exoteric, or religion of myth and dogma, its arguably the cause of more human suffering and death than any other man-mad cause on the face of the planet.”
“And yet if you look at the great paths of liberation, those (are) contemplative paths that have claimed to show men and women a doorway in the deepest part of their own consciousness to that realm which is timeless and spaceless, and beyond death and pain and mortality.”
“So on the one hand we have religion causing the most human suffering imaginable, and on the other hand the only path out of human suffering that we know of. How to get that conversation going is extraordinarily difficult and yet there arguably is no more important conversation we can have.”
-Ken Wilber
Excerpt is from here:
You're making the huge mistake of judging the song and not the singer...
Watch this. Volume required.
It's a good laugh, too....
Now; you cannot condemn a religion for the way its so called 'followers' interpret the words.
There are millions of Christians who feel precisely as you do, or as Gandhi once famously put it,
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
The actions do not correlate with the teachings, and we, even to a social, domestic and personal level, are also guilty of that.
Do you strictly adhere to the 5/8 precepts?
Do you steadfastly follow the 8FPath, diligently?
How do you interpret the Buddha's teachings for yourself?
See, in order to be able to stand in judgement and be entitled to criticise the way others behave, we ourselves should be beyond reproach.
Are we?
I think you are a little behind in the information front...
When I first came across Buddhadharma you would often hear it said ' that there has never been a Buddhist war' ..well it wasnt true. The long litany of Buddhists wars and persecutions by Buddhists makes depressing reading.
It was just that the west had not begun to give weight to non western history..but that mantra was repeated constantly in book after book.
Now, after the massacres committed by Buddhists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka in the last decade there is even less reason to give it creedence.
Marvellous. Will look more at the quote:
"The hunter who chases two rabbits," answered the master, "catches neither one."
and some of the ideas presented:
. . . for example the three different approaches to spirituality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber
I am not aware of Ken Wilburs work. Maybe I should be, might be a good reason to join the library or read something not online . . .
He seems to be a lumper:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters
Hello,
i saw lot´s of comments about that theme. My buddhist teaching is fro Gotamo Buddho
himself, by reading the Pali-Canon. The one I own is from a highly qualified translator,a doctor of indology. A critic of him said, that was translating the Pali-Canon in a
roman-catholic way. I like this sentence because i know, that there is a lot in common
within buddhist teaching and roman-catholic religion. I even do dare to say that Jesus was buddhist.Both teachings are transcendental, that means that there is beyond beneath a samsara. One of the authors here said, that there is no hell in buddhist teaching. I´ve read enough Pali-Canon to tell you that there is written down, that there is a devil and that there even are devilisch worlds. However it was said that if people follow Jesus, they will reach heaven. It´s the same in buddhist teachings, it´s just called the brahmaic planes. There are a lot of deviations within nowadays buddhist orginizations, so it is within christian religions.
Even Jesus can be esteemed, in his spiritual progressm. When he was having "Insight"
during the forty daiys of not eating, he met the devil. This shows that he was quite far
advanced on his spirtitual path. He was above the 8 Jhanas. I suppose he even met the
brhamic planes, but is not written down, but still i do think so. After my own experiene the distance between devil and beyond isn´t that far apart.
The aim of buddhist teaching is to leave the circles of reincarnation and enter the
brahmaic planes, stay there and never come back to this earth öof suffering.
My last sentenc is about reading Pali-Canon. It´s not the orginal but it´s the most original literature that is available. Don´t read literatur from people who never
met Pali-Canon. Do the Eightfold Path and you will be surprised how strong these
impacts are on consciousnes. Leave Samsare. Spit on it.
anando
Very true, but how many of these soldiers, sailors and airmen committed atrocities in the name of Buddha? Now, tell me the number of Soldiers, sailors, airmen and religious who committed genocide for their Jesus, Jehovah, Allah?
And what struggle is that? In Buddhism, the word is change, adapt; good deed and freeing from struggle is the goal. In Christianity, it's submission to stagnation. Submission to authority and to totalitarianism. The Christian church teaches that only through 'it' and it's vast divinely given wisdom will we find peace, and to blindly submit to it and it's authority. During the Bosnia Herzegovina conflict, how many special units were formed to commit genocide, and blessed by the Orthodox priest that Jesus will grant them success in their mission of genocide? IN Rhoand Tutsies and Hutu tribes fought it out to the point where the rivers ran red with the blood of genocide. But, both tribes were Christian; one nun called in the attempt to 'save' some unfortunates from her tribe. When they filled the church, she locked it and burnt them alive. Ten years later she was found in a Belgium convent, the Vatican thinking that no one would dare try her because of being a Catholic nun. Yes atrocities do exist, but, only if people allow it by looking away and screaming 'it's not me'! It's them!! No religion can be hijacked without permission of it's adherents.
Second, while it was not done for the "glory of Buddha", you need to read the history of Southeast Asia and see how Buddhist nations slaughtered (to the point of genocide) and enslaved the citizens of other Buddhist nations throughout many, many wars.
Third, I guess -- based on your post -- Buddhists don't believe in forgivenss. Funny, I thought that was a part of Buddhist behavior. Ah well, my mistake.>
No I don't. When we forget our past we are condemned to repeat it. Christianity continues to demand to forget the pain and slaughter of it's past, but yet is so willing to relaunch it again and again, because of that 'forgive and forget'. Oh I have studied the events of South East Asia, I grew up during the Vietnam war, and learned much; but tell me. Was this conquering, done in the name of Buddha? No, it wasn't, but America's massive involvement was to destroy a Godless communism; a political idea that to them was taking away Jesus.
As stated there are no similarities between Buddhism and Christianity; Many look for pretty and profound words, but the vast difference is that Christianity is talk, subjugation and the Devine Right of Kings. Buddhism is you follow your path, you learn, and take part in life and community to better all, not the 'chosen' few. Yes Forgiveness is part of the Buddhist ideal, but not to the point of allowing disharmony over and over again.
:coffee:
As stated there are no similarities between Buddhism and Christianity; Many look for pretty and profound words, but the vast difference is that Christianity is talk, subjugation and the Devine Right of Kings. Buddhism is you follow your path, you learn, and take part in life and community to better all, not the 'chosen' few. Yes Forgiveness is part of the Buddhist ideal, but not to the point of allowing disharmony over and over again.
There are two phrases that are all too often true. First, that when we forget our past we are condemned to repeat it...and also that when we dwell on our past we are doomed to repeat it.
But furthermore, I didn't say forget, I said get over it, and later to forgive it.
Funny there are a number of famous Buddhists who feel your position is way wrong. Really, your position is, "My religion is better than your religion, na na na na na na."
:nyah:
Guess I'll hitch my wagon to people like Thich Nhat Hanh and HHDL, rather than a hater.
Hater? Hmm, so, believing that there are differences between Christian and Buddhist makes me a hater? History of evidence . . . well, then I do not belong here.
You have lumped all of Christianity together in a totally negative package. You've emotionally beaten up all the Christians as evil people. I call that hate.
I think you do belong here...to learn a different way of looking at other religions.
Man is an animal. Just because you put a label on that animal (be it buddhist or christian), it doesn't mean millions of years of predatory instinct will magically disappear and be replaced by goodness or compassion. That would take an awful lot of work. Saying "Buddhist this" or "Christian that" is silly - they are both products of evolution, thus equally susceptible to aggression, cruelty, greed, etc.
If you say Buddhism is 'that which relieves suffering' then you could say that Christian teachings can be close cousins since some Christian teachings relieve suffering. An example is in Trungpa's teaching of the lojong slogans. Trungpa says to say to yourself: "if I am meant to live I live and if I am meant to die I die". He pointed out that that is transformative; I'd have to dig out my book to give a more exact context. Close cousins to that is the Christian teaching "live in God's plan".
Those two teachings both are transformative and very similar. So I could say some of Jesus teachings are Buddhist. Of course Buddha was not God's son and Christians cannot worship idols.
So they are both totally different and yet close cousins.
Good way of looking at it. Jeffrey, you are often a healer.
St James is a Church that sometimes hosts teachings from other traditions including Buddhists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James's_Church,_Piccadilly
One lunchtime I was sitting at the back of the church, the only other person in attendance was an elderly lady, dusting, cleaning and arranging flowers. It is a common church occurrence. To my amazement I was able to discern she was doing these activities with an unusual quiet, care and mindfulness. I was impressed and put it down to perhaps a mindfulness teaching she had maybe attended from one of the Buddhist talks given there. Who knows.
Eventually and very quietly the woman left. After some silent meditation it was time to leave the empty church. The church was silent as I walked down towards the stained glass to have a closer look. On some of the benches the reason for her care and attention became apparent. Quietly asleep, behind the benches were some of Londons homeless street people. Quite humbling.
Matthew 10:40
"Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
Buddha is no God
And buddhism is not about loving Buddha or worshipping him.
@yuneifique , this is a very old thread.
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