quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Or re-phrased, why is it perfectly acceptable and respectable to see oneself as a Christian platonist, aristotelian, idealist, blah blah... but not Buddhist.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Joesaphat.

Do you find that a lot of Christians criticize you? I used to do talks and write articles on stuff like self-abandonment or non-dualism in both Christianity and Buddhism, and found plenty of interest.

But I was involved in very liberal Christian circles, I guess that evangelicals might be more critical.

There are some Christian writers who are popular in Zen, (well, some areas of Zen), obviously, Eckhart, but also, Merton, (who wrote a book on Zen), and people like de Caussade.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Or re-phrased, why is it perfectly acceptable and respectable to see oneself as a Christian platonist, aristotelian, idealist, blah blah... but not Buddhist.

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I should think a large element is xenophobia.

A less prevalent and more respectable motivation might be that while some heavyweight theologians have done quite a lot of work into integrating Platonism and Aristotelianism with Abrahamic monotheism, I don't think that work has been done so convincingly for Buddhism or Hinduism.
You need to sort out which elements of each tradition are non-negotiable, which are valid insights, and which ought to be abandoned in the light of the other tradition. Attempts to take Buddhism on board in Christianity and vice versa need to avoid throwing out the baby Jesus with the bathwater on the one hand and on the other hand just adopting a few Buddhist sayings into what is still an unchanged Christian framework.

There seem to be two chief sticking points. The one is simply that in so far as theological categories are neutral for Buddhism it is not compatible with Christianity, since Christianity sees God as the aim and goal of spirituality. That said, what is meant by 'God' is one of the things up for discussion. Related to this is the nature and role of non-attachment. I think Traherne is deeply orthodox when he says, (not exact words) you can never love anything too much; merely in the wrong way or other things too little. That I think is in tension with Buddhist spirituality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

---

Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Joesaphat.

Do you find that a lot of Christians criticize you? I used to do talks and write articles on stuff like self-abandonment or non-dualism in both Christianity and Buddhism, and found plenty of interest.

But I was involved in very liberal Christian circles, I guess that evangelicals might be more critical.

There are some Christian writers who are popular in Zen, (well, some areas of Zen), obviously, Eckhart, but also, Merton, (who wrote a book on Zen), and people like de Caussade.

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It transpires in my preaching as well. Some, even a lot of Christians (and I sure count myself as one) respond well, some get wary once they become aware of the provenance of certain ideas, others are downright vicious and would have you defrocked. Bp Kevin Forrester, for instance, was given a pretty hard time on the matter. The meditation group at St Martin's in the Fields has also come under fire.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
We all make competing theological claims within our individual narratives. We are full of contradiction. We HAVE to create new synergies with non-Christian religious and other cultures, ethnes without lying to people that we'll be their family now. That is how Christianity developed after all in Jewish then Greco-Roman cultures and beyond. Not without culture clash. We must learn from that.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
My current Zen group has Sufis, Christians, Buddhists, and of course the gnarly atheists. Well, we seem to find a common language, and of course, it's about luuurve. Love is the drug I'm thinking of. (Full lyrics on Google Play Music).

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
My current Zen group has Sufis, Christians, Buddhists, and of course the gnarly atheists. Well, we seem to find a common language, and of course, it's about luuurve. Love is the drug I'm thinking of. (Full lyrics on Google Play Music).

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I think I'll revise the gospel to the Hitchhikers' Guide version: one man nailed to a tree for saying what a wonderful idea it would be if people were nice to each other all the time.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I can't tell if that's sarcastic or not. What about, self-abandonment as a path through emptiness to fullness? Well, that comes out as love, doesn't it?

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Orthodox Jews have had funerals for converts to Christianity. Muslims can faithfully behave the same and worse. "You're dead to me.". And make it so. So do secular families of course, in that spirit. Not surprisingly considering some flavours of Christianity.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

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I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Still not sure, why could you not keep Torah and yet confess Jesus as the Messiah? You might not qualify as orthodox, but you still can be observant, and I have yet to meet any Jew who'd claim that you've ceased being Jewish because of your conversion.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

---

Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

---

I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Still not sure, why could you not keep Torah and yet confess Jesus as the Messiah? You might not qualify as orthodox, but you still can be observant, and I have yet to meet any Jew who'd claim that you've ceased being Jewish because of your conversion.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I can't tell if that's sarcastic or not. What about, self-abandonment as a path through emptiness to fullness? Well, that comes out as love, doesn't it?

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Being nice to each other, indeed, self-abandonment, is very honourable. I have plenty of inter-faith interaction and seek more. But I nevertheless believe Jesus to have been somebody distinctive and to have done something unique to mankind's benefit.

If all he did was embody being nice to people then I see no reason to bother with Christianity.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yes to all that. But Jesus makes a claim to achieve redemption on our behalf. I'm with those who think that claim cannot be separated from his actions.

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I was going to ask Joesaphat a question about that, as some of the radical Zen teachers say that nobody is enlightened, since 'somebody' contradicts enlightenment (no-self). In fact, I think this is quite common throughout Buddhism.

If you translate that into Christian language, then nobody is redeemed, since it's the obstacle of the self which hinders redemption. Hence, self-abandonment, or what de Caussade calls the sacrament of the present moment (which annihilates ego).

Hence, the crucifixion, and the abandonment by God, which strips God of 'God', (the reification). (Similarly, kill the Buddha).

However, I think the translation doesn't quite work, and FFS, who is going to preach this from the pulpit?
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
In my limited experience, interfaith work with Buddhists is far more taxing than with the "religions of the book" because the very concept of God is so different. I have also found that for all the talk of love & peace, the Buddhists prove to be the most fractious and difficult to please
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
In my limited experience, interfaith work with Buddhists is far more taxing than with the "religions of the book" because the very concept of God is so different. I have also found that for all the talk of love & peace, the Buddhists prove to be the most fractious and difficult to please

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
And what about multiple reincarnations vs. one afterlife? And that finding nirvana in those reincarnations seems to be works-based rather than grace-based? Or do we look at Buddhist exercises as means of sanctification as opposed to salvation? Enquiring minds...

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
In my limited experience, interfaith work with Buddhists is far more taxing than with the "religions of the book" because the very concept of God is so different. I have also found that for all the talk of love & peace, the Buddhists prove to be the most fractious and difficult to please

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Yes. I used to run therapy groups with a co-leader, and we used to groan if a Buddhist joined, as they were usually bastards. The other hideous people were professional dancers. Now, this isn't being very nice, eh?

There's a nice story of a Tibetan teacher being interviewed. The journalist said to him, 40 years of meditation, you must have shrunk the shadow to a tiny dot, and the Tibetan groaned, 'no, no, shadow now huge', and opens his arms to indicate the magnitude of the shit that confronts him daily. Now, many Christians would resonate with that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

---

I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

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Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

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Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Still not sure, why could you not keep Torah and yet confess Jesus as the Messiah? You might not qualify as orthodox, but you still can be observant, and I have yet to meet any Jew who'd claim that you've ceased being Jewish because of your conversion.

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You could try reading my reference.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yes to all that. But Jesus makes a claim to achieve redemption on our behalf. I'm with those who think that claim cannot be separated from his actions.

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I was going to ask Joesaphat a question about that, as some of the radical Zen teachers say that nobody is enlightened, since 'somebody' contradicts enlightenment (no-self). In fact, I think this is quite common throughout Buddhism.

If you translate that into Christian language, then nobody is redeemed, since it's the obstacle of the self which hinders redemption. Hence, self-abandonment, or what de Caussade calls the sacrament of the present moment (which annihilates ego).

Hence, the crucifixion, and the abandonment by God, which strips God of 'God', (the reification). (Similarly, kill the Buddha).

However, I think the translation doesn't quite work, and FFS, who is going to preach this from the pulpit?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

---

Apparently you can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism's_view_of_Jesus

Judaism also makes a competing theological claim, that the Messiah is yet to come and Jesus wasn't he.

---

I mean you can be born Jewish , be Torah observant and yet follow Christ. Many do.

---

Well, yes, but then you're not following Judaism any more, according to most Jewish thought on the matter.

---

Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Still not sure, why could you not keep Torah and yet confess Jesus as the Messiah? You might not qualify as orthodox, but you still can be observant, and I have yet to meet any Jew who'd claim that you've ceased being Jewish because of your conversion.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

I’m a Dharma brat, I was born into it, I was brought up on it and for the life of me I cannot understand why fellow Christians have a problem with it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

If all he did was embody being nice to people then I see no reason to bother with Christianity.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
OK, we have Buddhism without beliefs, what about Christianity without beliefs?

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Hinduism and the like make competing theological claims, the Buddha made none. And you certainly can be a Christian Jew.

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Buddhism can get kinda amorphous, but non-theism is important. I do think that there is much compatibility, but I think the whole point of the type of God that Christianity espouses is not completely compatible with Buddhism.

quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:

If all he did was embody being nice to people then I see no reason to bother with Christianity.

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But why? Loving your fellow humans is the point. Everything else is just secret handshakes, initiation ceremonies and merit badges.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
Never mind the existence of God, the existence of the self seems pretty fundamental to most forms of Christianity. I don't see how that can be reconciled with anatta.

From that perspective, ISTM Christianity would be a pretty serious obstacle to a good Buddhist trying to observe the dhamma.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
I vaguely remember hearing something about souls once or twice.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
That's a hugely Western kind of Buddhism, lilBuddha,

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Western Buddhists however tend to have Christian chips on their shoulders and desperately want the Dharma to be non-theistic.

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I regularly read the Sutras, this morning's had Gautama paying a visit to Brahma himself 'ascending there as quick as one flexes one's forearm.'

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Most of the Koreans here in my parish (and there are thousands of them) have no qualms revering Christ as a great bodhisattva. This is not my view, but it's far removed from a-theism.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Also, cf. kenosis, Christ emptied himself, or in some paraphrases, became nothing. And in the end, is abandoned.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
I vaguely remember hearing something about souls once or twice.

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Honestly, Ricardus, where? I won't deny that some Fathers were all enamoured with Plato but where the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT mention the soul, they just mean 'life' or 'breath,' and the Buddha would not deny that you and I are alive. The soul as pilot of the ship that is the body and shoots up to heaven at its disintegration is not Christian anthropology, it's pagan. Furthermore, the church has not declared any particular form of anthropology authoritative.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
I vaguely remember hearing something about souls once or twice.

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Honestly, Ricardus, where? I won't deny that some Fathers were all enamoured with Plato but where the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT mention the soul, they just mean 'life' or 'breath,' and the Buddha would not deny that you and I are alive. The soul as pilot of the ship that is the body and shoots up to heaven at its disintegration is not Christian anthropology, it's pagan. Furthermore, the church has not declared any particular form of anthropology authoritative.

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Google any historic Christian liturgy and do a text-search for the word 'soul'.

You might want to argue that souls *shouldn't* be in Christianity, but the reality of the situation is that they are.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
What do people object to in Mr Sid. Gautama’s teaching? Which of the noble truths, which bit of the eightfold path? What’s the worry?

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb]That's a hugely Western kind of Buddhism, lilBuddha,

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Western Buddhists however tend to have Christian chips on their shoulders and desperately want the Dharma to be non-theistic.

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Admittedly, it's mere personal experience, but none of my Asian Buddhist friends have a problem with Christianity, loads of new western Dharma groups however can feel pretty hostile.

I regularly read the Sutras, this morning's had Gautama paying a visit to Brahma himself 'ascending there as quick as one flexes one's forearm.'

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Most of the Koreans here in my parish (and there are thousands of them) have no qualms revering Christ as a great bodhisattva. This is not my view, but it's far removed from a-theism.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

and yes, the fact that millions, absolutely millions of Buddhists do worship (make offerings, pray, praise etc.) in forms that would be quite recognisable by Christians does show that they have little problem with it.

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You may think it's not 'correct' Buddhism, but assuming that like me you are a westerner, it's a staggeringly arrogant thing to say.

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Admittedly, it's mere personal experience, but none of my Asian Buddhist friends have a problem with Christianity, loads of new western Dharma groups however can feel pretty hostile.

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originally posted by lilBuddha:
The sutras are not literal, not are they complete. They are meant to be used in conjunction with teaching and/or a greater understanding. They are not an independent, complete instruction manual.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat
Yes they are, but they're still supposed to be Buddhavacana, and they are quite revered except, again, by Western Zen groups. Most Japanese zen practitioners I know read them assiduously. Most do in fact recite the Heart Sutra several times daily.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat
I won't deny that Christian liturgies mention souls, only that they do not specify what they mean by it, and certainly not that souls constitute a 'self.' [/QB]

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
"Millions of Christians in South America worship Mary and the saints. That this is syncretistic rather than pure Christianity is rarely of any debate."

Gosh, you're talking about the immense majority of Christians worldwide and through history, bar some Protestants. I cannot make sense of what you mean by 'pure Christianity' if you disregard them.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Millions of Christians in South America worship Mary and the saints. That this is syncretistic rather than pure Christianity is rarely of any debate.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat
I won't deny that Christian liturgies mention souls, only that they do not specify what they mean by it, and certainly not that souls constitute a 'self.'

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Even if one accepts that it is technically possible to interpret the liturgies in a way that is consistent with anatta - and I don't believe this is true of the catechisms - that is not how they are generally interpreted, and I don't think it is consistent to complain about lilBuddha ignoring the religious practices of most Buddhists while simultaneously claiming a minority and idealised Christianity as the only authentic kind. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Millions of Christians in South America worship Mary and the saints. That this is syncretistic rather than pure Christianity is rarely of any debate.

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Only if you get your definition of 'pure Christianity' from the Orange Lodge.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

Religions are a bit like ducks, they seem to hybridize at the drop of a hat.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

Religions are a bit like ducks, they seem to hybridize at the drop of a hat.

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At a certain point, though, a mallard will no longer the appropriate thing to call the new duck.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
As was said, in its Mahayana forms, the ideal is to become a bodhisattva and achieve boundless compassion, mama karuna.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Yes, we must, and if we cling too tightly to the Greco-Roman packaging of our faith, we won't be able to talk to the world.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Yes, we must, and if we cling too tightly to the Greco-Roman packaging of our faith, we won't be able to talk to the world.

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I don't think we should want to swap a Greco-Roman packaging for an Indio-Japanese packaging.
The point of taking Greek thought or Buddhist thought on board is because we think there is valuable substance and wisdom in that those traditions. The reason for taking on board Greco-Roman ideas was because they seemed to have truth to them - a different and complementary perspective that helped see Jesus and God more in the round. Any interest in Buddhism should be to add another perspective, not to replace one.

The adoption of the Greco-Roman perspective is it seems to me the model for Christian inter-religious dialogue, not something that needs to be undone.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
So India and Japan must adopt a Greco-Roman perspective before they can receive Christ? Turkey and Saudi too?

That's gone SO well hasn't it?

I'm sure I'm misunderstanding you as ever Dafyd. Not your level.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
And what about multiple reincarnations vs. one afterlife? And that finding nirvana in those reincarnations seems to be works-based rather than grace-based? Or do we look at Buddhist exercises as means of sanctification as opposed to salvation? Enquiring minds...

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The Buddha taught rebirth, one of the three main tenets of his teaching is anatta/anatman (no self or no soul), there is no soul that transmigrates, though he did teach that your 'attachments' would cause other lives to happen, till you finally free yourself from all defilements... not that different from purgatory, really.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Millions of Christians in South America worship Mary and the saints. That this is syncretistic rather than pure Christianity is rarely of any debate.

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Only if you get your definition of 'pure Christianity' from the Orange Lodge.

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OK, kinda going sideways but I'm talking about going beyond the idea of veneration and into actual worship. Santa Muerte is on the extreme end, but in the middle is a level of worship not within the boundaries of Catholicism.
This is not limited to either mesoamerica or Catholicism, of course.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I certainly would not claim it's the only authentic or pure form, I also think that an awful lot of what passes for orthodoxy or 'mere Christianity' in Britain is actually Western or Greco-Roman cultural accretions.

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The 'soul' is a good example: what is it then? The form of the body, as Aquinas would have it? A little sprite? The ghost in the machine? The real self? The mind? The Biblical 'breath of life'? I'm not aware of any catechism having even attempted to define it let alone equated with the human 'self'

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
And what about multiple reincarnations vs. one afterlife? And that finding nirvana in those reincarnations seems to be works-based rather than grace-based? Or do we look at Buddhist exercises as means of sanctification as opposed to salvation? Enquiring minds...

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The Buddha taught rebirth, one of the three main tenets of his teaching is anatta/anatman (no self or no soul), there is no soul that transmigrates, though he did teach that your 'attachments' would cause other lives to happen, till you finally free yourself from all defilements... not that different from purgatory, really.

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Except that Purgatory involves a soul. If there is no self or soul, what exactly is being reborn and what "yourself" is being freed?

Sorry, IMO, when you get down to it, it seems Buddhism and Christianity are too widely parted to meet in much other than morality and ethics. But I wouldn't have a problem with listening to a talk about the similarities and differences from a pulpit or learning Buddhist meditation techniques.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I certainly would not claim it's the only authentic or pure form, I also think that an awful lot of what passes for orthodoxy or 'mere Christianity' in Britain is actually Western or Greco-Roman cultural accretions.

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I'm not convinced the first half of that sentence is compatible with the second ...

Anyway ISTM the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there from the beginning. It's a feature, not a bug.

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The 'soul' is a good example: what is it then? The form of the body, as Aquinas would have it? A little sprite? The ghost in the machine? The real self? The mind? The Biblical 'breath of life'? I'm not aware of any catechism having even attempted to define it let alone equated with the human 'self'

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The Catholic Catechism uses Aquinas' definition.

How would you understand the doctrine of the resurrection of the body without reference to either soul or self? ISTM to presuppose some kind of continuity between the person who dies and whatever is resurrected, and that continuity is necessarily incorporeal.

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
And what about multiple reincarnations vs. one afterlife? And that finding nirvana in those reincarnations seems to be works-based rather than grace-based? Or do we look at Buddhist exercises as means of sanctification as opposed to salvation? Enquiring minds...

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The Buddha taught rebirth, one of the three main tenets of his teaching is anatta/anatman (no self or no soul), there is no soul that transmigrates, though he did teach that your 'attachments' would cause other lives to happen, till you finally free yourself from all defilements... not that different from purgatory, really.

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Except that Purgatory involves a soul. If there is no self or soul, what exactly is being reborn and what "yourself" is being freed?

Sorry, IMO, when you get down to it, it seems Buddhism and Christianity are too widely parted to meet in much other than morality and ethics. But I wouldn't have a problem with listening to a talk about the similarities and differences from a pulpit or learning Buddhist meditation techniques.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Sorry, Lyda, I was feeling defensive. Your question has exercised Buddhist thinkers for more than two millennia and a variety of answers has been offered. The best I can do is to say that whatever is re-born is a non-self. The Buddha himself talks in parables on the matter. He talks of 'three fires' or 'three poisons,' and asserts the ignorance, hatred and delusion that have fuelled your existence will cause another one to be born. He's not much given to metaphysics. In fact, he preached that such speculations are a sure symptom of the aforementioned attachments.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Sorry, Lyda, I was feeling defensive. Your question has exercised Buddhist thinkers for more than two millennia and a variety of answers has been offered. The best I can do is to say that whatever is re-born is a non-self. The Buddha himself talks in parables on the matter. He talks of 'three fires' or 'three poisons,' and asserts the ignorance, hatred and delusion that have fuelled your existence will cause another one to be born. He's not much given to metaphysics. In fact, he preached that such speculations are a sure symptom of the aforementioned attachments.

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I apologise in advance for naivety, but how do you square the Christian idea of an afterlife with the (apparently universal) Buddhist idea of multiple lives?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I don't, Cheesy. I'm agnostic on the matter. Buddhists claim that Gautama Buddha himself, of course, only became aware of his countless past lives on the night of his enlightenment (another shitty translation). Non-enlightened people cannot be aware of them. This being said, I'm equally unable to know that life and after-life is one big, smooth continuum. It seems to me the platonic speculations of a soul detaching then being re-united with a physical body, only shinier, that the church has gotten itself into (in the RC catechism, at least) has precious little to do with Christ's teaching or Jewish teaching for that matter. Quite a few orthodox forms of Judaism do believe in 'transmigration' (gilgul, and no, not just the Kabbalists), so did Origen.... they too read their Bibles. The only thing I'm painfully aware of is the fact that my present sorry sinful state will not allow me to commune with the divine presence immediately. Of that, I'm sure. What Purgatory will be like, however... how could I know? how could anyone for that matter?

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I don't, Cheesy. I'm agnostic on the matter. Buddhists claim that Gautama Buddha himself, of course, only became aware of his countless past lives on the night of his enlightenment (another shitty translation). Non-enlightened people cannot be aware of them. This being said, I'm equally unable to know that life and after-life is one big, smooth continuum. It seems to me the platonic speculations of a soul detaching then being re-united with a physical body, only shinier, that the church has gotten itself into (in the RC catechism, at least) has precious little to do with Christ's teaching or Jewish teaching for that matter. Quite a few orthodox forms of Judaism do believe in 'transmigration' (gilgul, and no, not just the Kabbalists), so did Origen.... they too read their Bibles. The only thing I'm painfully aware of is the fact that my present sorry sinful state will not allow me to commune with the divine presence immediately. Of that, I'm sure. What Purgatory will be like, however... how could I know? how could anyone for that matter?

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I'm not sure that's really answering the question in any sense or form. I'm not here discussing the nature of the soul, the nature of the resurrection, the nature of the afterlife or any of these other points you are making here.

I'm simply asking about multiple verses a single earthly existence. Kindly address that point not all these others.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

OK, don't tell the bishop: I'd err on the side of multiple. I don't preach about it. I don't assert it to be Christian orthodoxy, clearly it's not.

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And I'll readily acknowledge it's a critical point in articulating the Buddhist dharma with Christianity. This being said, Scripture is utterly inconsistent on the matter as well.

'Are you Elijah?' And the Baptist answered: "I am not.'
Jesus (Mt 11): 'And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.'
Did either lie?

Similarly, we see in the answer to the Lord's question: 'Who do you say that I am,' and in Herod's private speculations about the same, that the NT writers witnessed to what seems to be the embryo of the Jewish doctrine of transmigration: 'You are one of the prophets who has come back.'

All things considered, I am unable to articulate the two: but it was a big stumbling block in my converting to Christianity: not the other way around. I still have reservations.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
[qb]Jewishness is both a religious identity and an ethnic-cultural identity. One can be a religiously non-observant Jew, or a Jew who engages in religious practices other than Judaism, and still be Jewish.

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Well yes, but the context of this thread is compatibility of different religious strands, so I was talking about being a religiously observant Jew and also following Christ, which most of Judaism says is not possible.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

OK, don't tell the bishop: I'd err on the side of multiple. I don't preach about it. I don't assert it to be Christian orthodoxy, clearly it's not.

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Indeed not, and I suspect if you did tell the bishop you'd have an interesting conversation which might lead to you being defrocked.

Bizarrely the Anglican church is often keener on keeping (at least some aspects of) theological orthodoxy over and above other things we might prefer it to take notice of.

For me, I'm afraid, belief in reincarnation is inconsistent with the Anglican priesthood. Of course, it matters not a jot what I think, but perhaps illustrates where there is something of an inconsistency (at least in perception from the pews if not in practice from the centre of the CofE) in being a Buddhist Christian.

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And I'll readily acknowledge it's a critical point in articulating the Buddhist dharma with Christianity. This being said, Scripture is utterly inconsistent on the matter as well.

'Are you Elijah?' And the Baptist answered: "I am not.'
Jesus (Mt 11): 'And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.'
Did either lie?

Similarly, we see in the answer to the Lord's question: 'Who do you say that I am,' and in Herod's private speculations about the same, that the NT writers witnessed to what seems to be the embryo of the Jewish doctrine of transmigration: 'You are one of the prophets who has come back.'

All things considered, I am unable to articulate the two: but it was a big stumbling block in my converting to Christianity: not the other way around. I still have reservations.

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Mmm. I suppose for me there is quite a difference between being a believer who can't quite match all the pieces together and in being a Christian minister who is supposed to be teaching the orthodox position.

Which, if it helps, is one of many reasons why I'm not a minister!

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I don't know, MrCheesy, one is always heterodox in someone else's eyes: evangelicals are beyond the pale as far as Catholics are concerned. The self-styled orthodox thinks Romans are deluded. Romans think we Anglicans are not even a church, but a mere ecclesial community. Baptists believe we're all wrong... whose orthodoxy? The 39 articles? I cannot think of many Anglican clergy who'll confess them wholeheartedly. But yes, you're right: this is not Christian orthodoxy, which is why I keep schtum about it, generally.

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If that's any comfort, many, many Buddhists cannot bring themselves to believe in rebirth either and think the whole thing is just the Buddha explaining himself using the Vedic categories of his day.

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Orthodoxy is mightily difficult to achieve, unless one is the type that takes everything on board unquestioningly. I cannot understand how anyone can 'simply believe' all +2500 or so articles of the new catechism without flinching.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
... Jesus never, ever speaks of a soul. The only mention I can think of in the NT is the conclusion of 1Thessalonians with its talk of being preserved 'body, soul and spirit.' ...

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I don't know, MrCheesy, one is always heterodox in someone else's eyes: evangelicals are beyond the pale as far as Catholics are concerned. The self-styled orthodox thinks Romans are deluded. Romans think we Anglicans are not even a church, but a mere ecclesial community. Baptists believe we're all wrong... whose orthodoxy? The 39 articles? I cannot think of many Anglican clergy who'll confess them wholeheartedly. But yes, you're right: this is not Christian orthodoxy, which is why I keep schtum about it, generally.

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Well first of all, I'm an Anglican not all of those other things (not that it matters in this instance, I'm pretty sure belief in reincarnation would be rather a ministry-killer in most Baptist as well as Roman Catholic circles).

Second of all, you appear to be aware of an inconsistency in terms of being a Buddhist Christian in that you're saying that you are keeping schtum about a fairly major part of the Buddhist understanding in the church setting.

And third of all, I'm absolutely disapproving of keeping schtum about something that is a fundamental part of what you believe. If it isn't, that's fine - but if it is then it seems inconsistent (to put it mildly) to be in the priesthood of the Anglican church only because you don't talk about it.

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If that's any comfort, many, many Buddhists cannot bring themselves to believe in rebirth either and think the whole thing is just the Buddha explaining himself using the Vedic categories of his day.

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Yes, but the point that I'm trying to make is that there is an inconsistency between Anglican Christianity - which in effect is your employer - and Buddhism.

It may indeed be the case that there is also an inconsistency the other way around which would prevent an Anglican priest becoming a leader in a Buddhist community - I have no idea. I'm not sure why that is relevant anyway, you were asking in the OP why Christians think that Buddhism is objectionable. I don't know and can't speak for how other Buddhist communities behave or believe.

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Orthodoxy is mightily difficult to achieve, unless one is the type that takes everything on board unquestioningly. I cannot understand how anyone can 'simply believe' all +2500 or so articles of the new catechism without flinching.

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Herein is madness. Either you (and the church!) decide that you match the belief profile of the organisation that employs you or you don't.

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Originally posted by Enoch:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
... Jesus never, ever speaks of a soul. The only mention I can think of in the NT is the conclusion of 1Thessalonians with its talk of being preserved 'body, soul and spirit.' ...

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Eh? What about:-

"Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. ...' "


Or Lk 10:27
"27   “Now my soul is troubled. ....".

I accept that the biblical concept of what a soul is, or how the various components of human identity relate to each other is different from how most people assume it to be. But to write off the whole lot as Greco-Latin syncretic accretions is not defensible.


Going back to the OP, I can see that if one is preaching the gospel to Buddhists, one needs to understand of Buddhism, of what can be Christianised and what has to be repudiated, but when we have such a rich tradition of our own, why should those of us who are not Buddhists feel any need to go pingling soupçons of Buddhism to titivate our taste buds? What does it offer that some, possibly less familiar, part of our own spiritual landscape doesn't do better?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Thank you for the rebuke. That's exactly what I was trying to point out in my initial question. I don't think I'll write anything further, it invariably seems to trigger animosity.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Thank you for the rebuke. That's exactly what I was trying to point out in my initial question. I don't think I'll write anything further, it invariably seems to trigger animosity.

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You appear to be taking disagreement and discussion of the points in your OP for animosity. I think reincarnation isn't consistent with Anglican Christianity - but I'm not in an position within the church and it doesn't matter what I think.

More to the point you asked the question on a discussion board and then didn't like an answer I gave.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
No, I did not like the fact that you assert that I should not be a minister and you went all censorious about what you deem incompatible with the Christian faith.

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Furthermore, let me repeat a third time: I do not 'believe in reincarnation.' I wrote that I was agnostic about re-birth. I'm wondering how you actually know all these things about the afterlife or the soul, personally. I'm just saying I don't know or understand what a 'soul' is or how it constitutes a self.
If you think your post does not drip with animus, think again.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

Anyway ISTM the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there from the beginning. It's a feature, not a bug.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

Anyway ISTM the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there from the beginning. It's a feature, not a bug.

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I agree that the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there all along, but I'm not sure about the feature vs. bug aspect. Christianity, by its spec sheet, should transcend that cultural reference frame. Indeed, non-forced conversion works best when the local culture is considered.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
How much of this is an add-on? I suppose you could argue, a la Feser, that it flows logically from basic premises about reality, God, actus purus, and so on. I feel too old and tired to really read stuff and find out.

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Ah well, that went well. Maybe the internet is not a good place for nuanced discussions about cross-faith relations. Or do I mean, inter, no, cross is good.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
No, I did not like the fact that you assert that I should not be a minister and you went all censorious about what you deem incompatible with the Christian faith. Furthermore, let me repeat a third time: I do not 'believe in reincarnation.' I wrote that I was agnostic about re-birth. I'm wondering how you actually know all these things about the afterlife or the soul, personally. I'm just saying I don't know or understand what a 'soul' is or how it constitutes a self.
If you think your post does not drip with animus, think again.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

Anyway ISTM the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there from the beginning. It's a feature, not a bug.

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I agree that the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there all along, but I'm not sure about the feature vs. bug aspect. Christianity, by its spec sheet, should transcend that cultural reference frame. Indeed, non-forced conversion works best when the local culture is considered.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
In relation to effort, I'll have you know that I recently read two, yes, that's two, books by David Bentley Hart, and I thought that they were the biggest load of tripe since I stopped reading Tripe News. No, no, no more arguments from incredulity, please.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Christianity, by its spec sheet, should transcend that cultural reference frame. Indeed, non-forced conversion works best when the local culture is considered.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And I'm not even against reincarnation as an idea, I just can't see that it is consistent with Anglican Christianity - which is a belief with fairly set ideas on this.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
This being said, and though Buddhist philosophy has its own set of problems, the kind of Aristotelian 'natural law' theories that are now only peddled in our churches does not help our dialogue with the hard sciences. Talking for instance of teleology or of the created 'purpose' of certain organs (mostly the sexual ones), when they are demonstrably adaptations and many such adaptations were unsuccessful is doomed. I cannot see of what use Plato can still be today either. Buddhism however is a living tradition that still makes sense to millions.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
How would you understand the doctrine of the resurrection of the body without reference to either soul or self? ISTM to presuppose some kind of continuity between the person who dies and whatever is resurrected, and that continuity is necessarily incorporeal.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

But if Christianity took on board Buddhist ideas would that be a cultural reference frame? That seems patronising. Buddhist ideas aren't a cultural reference frame - not in the sense that they can be transcended.

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Originally posted by Eliab:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
No, I did not like the fact that you assert that I should not be a minister and you went all censorious about what you deem incompatible with the Christian faith. Furthermore, let me repeat a third time: I do not 'believe in reincarnation.' I wrote that I was agnostic about re-birth. I'm wondering how you actually know all these things about the afterlife or the soul, personally. I'm just saying I don't know or understand what a 'soul' is or how it constitutes a self.
If you think your post does not drip with animus, think again.

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The compatibility of Christian and Buddhist ideas is obviously fair game for discussion on this thread. Which you started. While this is clearly a subject of personal importance to you - not being too easily offended is one of the Board's commandments - try to cool it a little, please.

Eliab
Purgatory host

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And I'm not even against reincarnation as an idea, I just can't see that it is consistent with Anglican Christianity - which is a belief with fairly set ideas on this.

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Chad Varah, who founded the Samaritans, believed in reincarnation. As far as I'm aware, he was never disciplined by the Church of England on that count.

I don't think reincarnation is true or even coherent in the Platonic/pythagorean form. But I don't think there's any disciplinary reason why an Anglican shouldn't believe it, and even if there were that would have no bearing on its truth.

For what it's worth, I believe St Augustine of Hippo refused to rule it out, which seems to me to imply that it's compatible with Western orthodoxy.

In any case, I'm not sure that the Buddhist version of reincarnation is subject to any of the same criticisms as the Western versions. Since Buddhism doesn't believe there's a self or soul there to transmigrate in the sense in which Pythagoreanism does, I'm not sure it's reincarnation in the Western sense at all.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

Anyway ISTM the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there from the beginning. It's a feature, not a bug.

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I agree that the Greco-Roman part of Christianity has been there all along, but I'm not sure about the feature vs. bug aspect. Christianity, by its spec sheet, should transcend that cultural reference frame. Indeed, non-forced conversion works best when the local culture is considered.

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This is very interesting. I was thinking about the Aristotelian stuff, which has resurfaced today in terms of natural law or even neo-scholasticism. How much of this is an add-on? I suppose you could argue, a la Feser, that it flows logically from basic premises about reality, God, actus purus, and so on. I feel too old and tired to really read stuff and find out.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And, since personal invective is allowed.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And, since personal invective is allowed.

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Personal invective is not allowed. Eliab host posted on this just a few posts previously.

You can complain in the Styx if you think you've been unfairly treated. Flouting the rules here will get you into trouble, especially after a host has intervened.

Calm down or take it to Hell.

/hosting

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And, since personal invective is allowed.

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Personal invective is not allowed. Eliab host posted on this just a few posts previously.

You can complain in the Styx if you think you've been unfairly treated. Flouting the rules here will get you into trouble, especially after a host has intervened.

Calm down or take it to Hell.

/hosting

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

Take it to the Styx or Hell, or step away from the keyboard and cool down before you attract Admin attention. Now. Stop adding "and another thing..." here.

/hosting

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

It's all very well to blast Buddhism as incompatible with 'real' Christianity on the notion of self or soul, but when you have no counter-argument , it makes you look a little silly.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

It's all very well to blast Buddhism as incompatible with 'real' Christianity on the notion of self or soul, but when you have no counter-argument , it makes you look a little silly.

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I stopped responding because here you indicated that you weren't going to post any more.

And I'm not 'blasting' Buddhism. My assertion is that most Christians hold to a concept of a soul which is incompatible with anatta. You seem to be responding that most Christians are wrong, which they may be, but this to me is just agreeing that the two views are incompatible, but that the incompatibility should be resolved in favour of the dhamma.

Now to my own views:

1. I personally find the afterlife to be the least satisfying point of Christian doctrine, so I am certainly not in the business of making assertions about what actually is the case (as opposed to what Christians believe is the case). But your original question was why Christians in general are leery about the dhamma.

2. I think we are getting excessively hung up on the words 'soul' and 'self', which is probably my fault.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body requires that on some level the departed and the resurrected are the same person, which implies that 'something' has been passed on from one to the other (to create the continuity) and that this 'something' is real (in that it has real-world consequences). The problem is then that as soon as I assert the existence of a 'something'*, that immediately suggests the existence of an object that is basically like any other object but made of some magical material, but I think that suggestion is a quirk of the way our minds conceptualise stuff, rather than a helpful description of reality.


* The English word 'something' is potentialy unhelpful in that it contains the word 'thing', but I would assert that etymology =/= meaning and no implications should be drawn from it.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I merely asked where people saw difficulties in a articulating one of the philosophies of the ancient world, one that is still thriving, when they generally see absolutely no problem importing concepts from Hellenistic philosophy.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I think your last paragraph is one of the closest 'conceptual' approximation of what the Buddha taught.

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With copious apologies for my abrasive tone.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I think your last paragraph is one of the closest 'conceptual' approximation of what the Buddha taught.

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I thought the Buddha went a little bit further, though, based on what he taught about dukkha (suffering).

Dukkha AIUI is, or is caused by, the gap between reality and what I want. E.g. I want to be young, healthy and alive, whereas the reality is that I will be old, sick and dead. The Buddha (and please correct me if I am mistaken) taught that since the 'I' is an illusion, the 'I's desires, and therefore the gap between them and reality, are also illusory, and when this is understood, there is no more place for dukkha.

Conversely Christianity doesn't say that our desires are illusory but rather that they should be properly directed towards God and neighbour. Now if desires can be attributed to the 'something-that-continues' as described in my previous post, ISTM that the something-that-continues has a bit more substance (??? can't think of a better word) than whatever passes between reincarnations in Buddhism.

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With copious apologies for my abrasive tone.

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No need to apologise. I admit to being a snarky git, and I'm sure you're an excellent pastor.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
How any reputable thinker can still peddle the Aristotelian causes as a useful tool, even if only in matters of logic, is beyond me. The theory of evolution, although technically called a theory, is pretty solid science. Our organs, our bodies etcetera... have no 'purpose' in any final sense. They are not 'designed' for any particular use. They've evolved. They're adaptations.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It's not, you are right, at least I'd argue the very same point. Do you have any reference for Augustine on the matter?

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I'd also be curious to know hoe those who think that 'God creates an immortal soul out of nothing' every time a child is conceived, which is medieval Catholic orthodoxy by the way, reconcile their alleged orthodoxy with discoveries in modern reproductive biology (fertilised eggs seldom make it to implantation, even less frequently to blastocyst stage and regularly turn into blastoma).

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It's not, you are right, at least I'd argue the very same point. Do you have any reference for Augustine on the matter?

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It's somewhere in the City of God.

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9. And, behold, my infancy died long ago, but I am still living. But thou, O Lord, whose life is forever and in whom nothing dies--since before the world was, indeed, before all that can be called “before,” thou wast, and thou art the God and Lord of all thy creatures; and with thee abide all the stable causes of all unstable things, the unchanging sources of all changeable things, and the eternal reasons of all non-rational and temporal things--tell me, thy suppliant, O God, tell me, O merciful One, in pity tell a pitiful creature whether my infancy followed yet an earlier age of my life that had already passed away before it. Was it such another age which I spent in my mother’s womb? For something of that sort has been suggested to me, and I have myself seen pregnant women. But what, O God, my Joy, preceded that period of life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? No one can explain these things to me, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory. Dost thou laugh at me for asking such things? Or dost thou command me to praise and confess unto thee only what I know?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
How any reputable thinker can still peddle the Aristotelian causes as a useful tool, even if only in matters of logic, is beyond me. The theory of evolution, although technically called a theory, is pretty solid science. Our organs, our bodies etcetera... have no 'purpose' in any final sense. They are not 'designed' for any particular use. They've evolved. They're adaptations.

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I don't think that's an objection to Aristotelian causes in the logical sense. To say that organs are adaptations is to say that they have a final cause for which they're adapted. If the explanation of an elephant's ears is that they've adapted to radiate heat then that is a final cause explanation; even if you then parse that as elephants with smaller ears overheated more quickly than elephants with larger ears and so had fewer offspring.

That's not to say that final causes so understood have the kind of moral significance that conservative Roman Catholic sexual ethics wants them to. I don't think those arguments are coherent.

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb]I think your last paragraph is one of the closest 'conceptual' approximation of what the Buddha taught.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I merely asked where people saw difficulties in a articulating one of the philosophies of the ancient world, one that is still thriving, when they generally see absolutely no problem importing concepts from Hellenistic philosophy.

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There is a difference, I think, between using a different philosophical toolbox to think about Christanity, and forming a syncretic amalgam of Christianity and something else.

Using the toolbox of the people you're talking to makes sense - if you wanted to talk to me about your Christian faith using your Buddhist philosophical toolbox, you'd first have to teach me Buddhist philosophy, which doesn't strike me as an efficient process. If you were talking to a group of Buddhists, beginning with a frame of reference that they can relate to makes sense.

Unless you want to discuss insights that you think are only accessible with a different toolbox - if your case is that we are all in error because of some wonky assumptions in Greek philosophy - in which case we'd need a very serious technical discussion (and people who know a lot more than me to have it).

A lot of the language that you've used in this thread, however, comes across as more of a syncretic amalgam than a different toolbox. I don't know whether that's what you're doing or not, but it's the impression I get, which means you're setting off a whole load of warning bells.

It's particularly easy to get that impression because Buddhism is presented, rightly or wrongly, as a religion: one can be Christian, or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Hindu, or whatever else, whereas nobody presents being a Platonist in that light.

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Originally posted by Dave W.:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It's not, you are right, at least I'd argue the very same point. Do you have any reference for Augustine on the matter?

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It's somewhere in the City of God.

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There's some speculation about it in Confessions, Book 1, chapter 6 (p. 14 of the pdf):

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9. And, behold, my infancy died long ago, but I am still living. But thou, O Lord, whose life is forever and in whom nothing dies--since before the world was, indeed, before all that can be called “before,” thou wast, and thou art the God and Lord of all thy creatures; and with thee abide all the stable causes of all unstable things, the unchanging sources of all changeable things, and the eternal reasons of all non-rational and temporal things--tell me, thy suppliant, O God, tell me, O merciful One, in pity tell a pitiful creature whether my infancy followed yet an earlier age of my life that had already passed away before it. Was it such another age which I spent in my mother’s womb? For something of that sort has been suggested to me, and I have myself seen pregnant women. But what, O God, my Joy, preceded that period of life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? No one can explain these things to me, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory. Dost thou laugh at me for asking such things? Or dost thou command me to praise and confess unto thee only what I know?

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
It's not, you are right, at least I'd argue the very same point. Do you have any reference for Augustine on the matter?

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It's somewhere in the City of God.

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I'd also be curious to know hoe those who think that 'God creates an immortal soul out of nothing' every time a child is conceived, which is medieval Catholic orthodoxy by the way, reconcile their alleged orthodoxy with discoveries in modern reproductive biology (fertilised eggs seldom make it to implantation, even less frequently to blastocyst stage and regularly turn into blastoma).

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I'd assume that believers in the special creation of souls assume that God only ensouls cells God knows are going to survive.
Incidentally, I think it's not quite consistent to cite Aquinas in support of your view and then dismiss Catholic orthodoxy.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To me, you are assuming what you are trying to establish: it's only a syncretism if the two things you are trying to mix are incompatible

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To me, you are assuming what you are trying to establish: it's only a syncretism if the two things you are trying to mix are incompatible

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I don't agree. If you are trying to "mix", it's syncretic. If you're trying to examine Christ in the light of a different set of philosophical tools, it's not.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
But why should, say, since he was quoted above, Augustine's constant use of Platonic concepts not be deemed syncretism whereas Buddhist concepts are deemed different?

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
But why should, say, since he was quoted above, Augustine's constant use of Platonic concepts not be deemed syncretism whereas Buddhist concepts are deemed different?

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They are different because, as pointed out previously, what Christianity is came as a result of those concepts. Christianity is very Western.
This is a different issue to whether that should remain the case, of course.
And Buddhism is what it is because of its origins as well. Why do you then object to a Western view of Buddhism?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Then it's a mere quarrel over terms.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
After all, people could cherry-pick, no? I know this has never been tried before in Christianity, but there's always a first time for everything.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Oh utter fucking bullshit, Christianity is not essentially Western. The Gospels are written in Greek.

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jesus was Jewish, all the apostles and most Fathers were from the Middle East. Till the late Middle Ages, its centre of gravity was not the barbarian West.

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And to this days, millions of Christians are not western

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Indeed, it is almost dead in the European world. Bullshit.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
This time, I've had it. Good bye folks, enjoy the site.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
This time, I've had it. Good bye folks, enjoy the site.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Rome, where Christianity got its big boost, is also another pillar of Western Civilisation.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Rome, where Christianity got its big boost, is also another pillar of Western Civilisation.

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Diarmuid MacCulloch notes in his History of Christianity that this is an artifact of Eurocentric history. The Christian communities in the Middle East beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire are ancient, and until the mass conversions to Islam (later than the Islamic conquest) may have been more than half of the total Christian population. Georgia and Ethiopia both converted to Christianity independently of Rome. Christianity at one stage had spread as far as China, and has had a permanent presence in India confirmed from the third or fourth century.

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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
This time, I've had it. Good bye folks, enjoy the site.

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It's a shame that you are taking this so personally. I don't think anyone is judging you at this point. They just have a different understanding of the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and Christianity than you do. It's a discussion. You won't always be able to persuade everyone to your POV, that's all.

Hope that you change your mind.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hang on, the quotes are not right in the above post, are they?

Joesaphat, I was chatting to a friend about no-self, and he made the interesting point that various mystics and modern neuroscience have arrived there, or rather, not arrived there!

Another strange historical point, that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect, I think. Presumably, the Prots need a self to be saved! I have heard Buddhists argue that its non-existence is salvation. Ho ho ho.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hang on, the quotes are not right in the above post, are they?

Joesaphat, I was chatting to a friend about no-self, and he made the interesting point that various mystics and modern neuroscience have arrived there, or rather, not arrived there!

Another strange historical point, that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect, I think. Presumably, the Prots need a self to be saved! I have heard Buddhists argue that its non-existence is salvation. Ho ho ho.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hang on, the quotes are not right in the above post, are they?

Joesaphat, I was chatting to a friend about no-self, and he made the interesting point that various mystics and modern neuroscience have arrived there, or rather, not arrived there!

Another strange historical point, that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect, I think. Presumably, the Prots need a self to be saved! I have heard Buddhists argue that its non-existence is salvation. Ho ho ho.

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Yes, even Disney and Hollywood, as 'Inside out' showed... Protestantism in its modern evangelical incarnations is Pietism on steroids IMO, all about 'me' and God. I'm afraid I don't expect evangelicals to find anatman congenial to their theology.

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Originally posted by hatless:
I think there were comments where posters, perhaps feeling uncomfortable, tried to close down the discussion. A good illustration of dharmaphobia.

I value Buddhism, in particular the stories and style of a Zen monk I know.

Jesus did not acknowledge boundaries, and repeatedly dragged his students onto ground where they felt ill at ease.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Hang on, the quotes are not right in the above post, are they?

Joesaphat, I was chatting to a friend about no-self, and he made the interesting point that various mystics and modern neuroscience have arrived there, or rather, not arrived there!

Another strange historical point, that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect, I think. Presumably, the Prots need a self to be saved! I have heard Buddhists argue that its non-existence is salvation. Ho ho ho.

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Yes, even Disney and Hollywood, as 'Inside out' showed... Protestantism in its modern evangelical incarnations is Pietism on steroids IMO, all about 'me' and God. I'm afraid I don't expect evangelicals to find anatman congenial to their theology.

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Well, I wonder if the great mystics such as de Caussade, Eckhart, Traherne, 'The Great Cloud', and so on, have been erased by Prots? Maybe this isn't correct. I would think that the Orthodox keep the flame lit.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by hatless:
I think there were comments where posters, perhaps feeling uncomfortable, tried to close down the discussion. A good illustration of dharmaphobia.

I value Buddhism, in particular the stories and style of a Zen monk I know.

Jesus did not acknowledge boundaries, and repeatedly dragged his students onto ground where they felt ill at ease.

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Also went close to no-self?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Whether the quotes above are right or not, they do show why I take it a bit personally. I'm not thick skinned.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me if you say something happens to us in Purgatory, you're perforce presupposing there is something that is somehow contiguous with us that's there. Otherwise why use the pronoun? If it's just something happening to a something, it's not meaningful to say it's me. Is there something (like, say, a soul or self) that continues from the me in this life to the me that's there in Purgatory being purged? Or is it just a play of language?

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I wonder if the great mystics such as de Caussade, Eckhart, Traherne, 'The Great Cloud', and so on, have been erased by Prots? Maybe this isn't correct. I would think that the Orthodox keep the flame lit.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Whether the quotes above are right or not, they do show why I take it a bit personally. I'm not thick skinned.

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I've read the same posts you have and do not see them as a personal attack on you. Indeed, I do not see them as an attack at all. Your premise is being challenged, that is part and parcel of Purg. I cannot tell what to feel, but I will say I think you are interpreting intention incorrectly here.

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Now I'm feeling a bit guilty Joesaphat. Several of your citations come from me. I am sorry if you took it personally. It wasn't meant to be. I'm just puzzled, and still am, what the question is. I tried to set out what I thought were three different questions. They aren't the same, but I'm still not clear which of there three we're talking about.

I'll admit that I know next to nothing about Buddhism. I'd always thought I did have a reasonable knowledge of comparative religion. It was only when a family member was doing a short term job among Buddhists some years ago, that I realised my knowledge was restricted almost entirely to Judaism, Islam and paganism in the classical world.

So I just don't know enough to understand what phrases like 'no-self' mean.

I was intrigued a few years ago when I read an article by someone actively involved in interfaith dialogue that he's been both surprised and struck when a representative of another faith (not Buddhism) had told him that a key Christian belief - from memory, I think it was saving faith - was the answer to a question he'd never asked. He hadn't said this as though he was challenged by it. It was clear he wasn't asking it and it wasn't part of his spiritual universe.


I'd agree that a lot of Protestantism, with its fondness for worthiness and for all its strengths in daily living and social action has been a bit short on what we now call spirituality.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
We're seeing tons of deconstruction of the white, Eurocentric, "this is the way we've always done it therefore it is God's will", in the Canadian north, in Anglicanism. It is not merely translation of things into local languages. It is wholesale revamping and making relevant because otherwise it doesn't fit.

It's been going for a while. I am frankly confused as to why Christians would be hostile to Buddhism. Unless it is out of cultural imperialism, conversionism and ignorance. We are far better off talking than being jerks to each other. Murderous jerks if we pay attention at all to history. We need to be clear on the nightmare history of Christian Europe, and not just focus on its happy legacies.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Difficult to explain, but not, I would venture, difficult to experience.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Difficult to explain, but not, I would venture, difficult to experience.

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Wow, I'd say you are lucky. I find it hugely difficult to experience. The ultimate and deepest-rooted delusion. I think I may have caught a glimpse of it a couple of times, something that vaguely sounded like Dogen 'collapse of body and mind.'

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
, that others use its largely hellenistic philosophical vocab.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Thank you, Enoch. I do tend to overreact. No-self is difficult to explain. Maybe we would be better advised to call it no-soul. It stems from the Buddha's repudiation of the late Vedic/early Hindy notion of atman, of something akin to the platonic soul, I guess, that travels from one physical, bodily life to another till it manages to free itself and merge with Brahman, God or ultimate reality, with which it is really identical (at least with which it is non-dual), as exposed in the early Upanishads.

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But the central tenets of Gautama's thought: impermanence, no-self, the nature of suffering, the eightfold path, co-dependent origination. The actual building blocks of Buddhism are never engaged.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me if you say something happens to us in Purgatory, you're perforce presupposing there is something that is somehow contiguous with us that's there. Otherwise why use the pronoun? If it's just something happening to a something, it's not meaningful to say it's me. Is there something (like, say, a soul or self) that continues from the me in this life to the me that's there in Purgatory being purged? Or is it just a play of language?

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I would fairly predictably say it's a play of language, Mouse, a name put on a constantly changing and impermanent set of habits, abilities, faculties, etc. It's a word we can speak without only with the greatest difficulty, but it need not mean it has a real or permanent reference. Many Buddhist thinkers would have no problems talking loosely about a self as convention, or as a necessity to lead people to another, ultimate truth... as long as nothing like the Vedic-Hindy atman is envisaged.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It's been going for a while. I am frankly confused as to why Christians would be hostile to Buddhism. Unless it is out of cultural imperialism, conversionism and ignorance.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me if you say something happens to us in Purgatory, you're perforce presupposing there is something that is somehow contiguous with us that's there. Otherwise why use the pronoun? If it's just something happening to a something, it's not meaningful to say it's me. Is there something (like, say, a soul or self) that continues from the me in this life to the me that's there in Purgatory being purged? Or is it just a play of language?

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I would fairly predictably say it's a play of language, Mouse, a name put on a constantly changing and impermanent set of habits, abilities, faculties, etc. It's a word we can speak without only with the greatest difficulty, but it need not mean it has a real or permanent reference. Many Buddhist thinkers would have no problems talking loosely about a self as convention, or as a necessity to lead people to another, ultimate truth... as long as nothing like the Vedic-Hindy atman is envisaged.

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I'm not sure what all that means, but it seems clear at least that it doesn't answer my question, which was very simple and straightforward. If *I* go to Purgatory, what is this *I* that goes to purgatory? If there's not something, then what does it mean to say that I go to purgatory? The theology of Purgatory isn't entirely clear to me, but it seems quite clear that the RCC church teaches that the thing that's in Purgatory is the same thing that is me here now on earth in some way.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It's been going for a while. I am frankly confused as to why Christians would be hostile to Buddhism. Unless it is out of cultural imperialism, conversionism and ignorance.

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Or because they find it incompatible with the beliefs of historic Christianity.

It seems on this thread there has been a lot of sidestepping of this issue. Any time such a contradiction is mooted, the Christian half of the pair of contrasting ideas/beliefs* is deconstructed or blamed on the infiltration Roman-Greco philosophy into some pure pre-Greek Christian faith (starts to sound like anti-Catholic Reformed rhetoric).

The idea seems completely rejected out of hand, at the outset, prima facie, that there are real contradictions between the two (Christianity and Buddhism). Further it is asserted that we who believe there are are being hostile and big bad blue meanies, especially if we continue to believe so even when presented with contrary opinion (I don't say "evidence").

It seems to me that if someone really wants to understand where another person is coming from, the thing to do when told where the other person is coming from is not to say, "No, you're wrong, you're interpreting your own religion incorrectly."
_____
*or whatever the fuck you want to call them

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me if you say something happens to us in Purgatory, you're perforce presupposing there is something that is somehow contiguous with us that's there. Otherwise why use the pronoun? If it's just something happening to a something, it's not meaningful to say it's me. Is there something (like, say, a soul or self) that continues from the me in this life to the me that's there in Purgatory being purged? Or is it just a play of language?

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I would fairly predictably say it's a play of language, Mouse, a name put on a constantly changing and impermanent set of habits, abilities, faculties, etc. It's a word we can speak without only with the greatest difficulty, but it need not mean it has a real or permanent reference. Many Buddhist thinkers would have no problems talking loosely about a self as convention, or as a necessity to lead people to another, ultimate truth... as long as nothing like the Vedic-Hindy atman is envisaged.

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I'm not sure what all that means, but it seems clear at least that it doesn't answer my question, which was very simple and straightforward. If *I* go to Purgatory, what is this *I* that goes to purgatory? If there's not something, then what does it mean to say that I go to purgatory? The theology of Purgatory isn't entirely clear to me, but it seems quite clear that the RCC church teaches that the thing that's in Purgatory is the same thing that is me here now on earth in some way.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
If *I* go to Purgatory, what is this *I* that goes to purgatory? If there's not something, then what does it mean to say that I go to purgatory?

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What is this 'I' you're talking about that will somehow endure into the afterlife?q

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

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I’m a Dharma brat, I was born into it, I was brought up on it and for the life of me I cannot understand why fellow Christians have a problem with it. I’m fed up with having to explain myself all the time as I don’t understand the objections. Would someone care to explain?

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Originally posted by RuthW:
If you truly want to understand why some Christians have problems with it, you're going to have to first accept and to some degree be okay with the fact that we do have problems with reconciling Buddhism and Christianity.

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Originally posted by RuthW:
And I think I now have a stronger understanding of why Easwaran's writing doesn't do anything for me -- nothing I've read by him makes me want to be like him. And nothing I've read by him or anyone else about the Buddha makes me want to be like the Buddha or follow him. [/QB]

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
If *I* go to Purgatory, what is this *I* that goes to purgatory? If there's not something, then what does it mean to say that I go to purgatory?

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What is this 'I' you're talking about that will somehow endure into the afterlife?q

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That's what I'm asking you. You want to posit Purgatory as some rough equivalent to Buddhist reincarnation. Purgatory, as I understand it, is a place where the soul is purged to make it ready for Heaven. Purgatory is not part of my faith tradition but yours. If you are going to appropriate Purgatory and try to fit it into Buddhist understanding of the afterlife, you are the one who has to answer for what it means and how to interpret it.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A tangent, maybe, but I find one statement above odd: Do you really find nothing of the six-year-old you-that-was in the present-day you-that-are-right-now? I see quite a lot of my childhood, even toddler self in me. Mainly personality traits.

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Originally posted by RuthW:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

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I think this comes pretty close to why I don't find Buddhism attractive.

I attend a weekly meditation group at my church where one of the things we do is read a passage from a book by Eknath Easwaran. Occasionally I find the passage helpful, but most of the time I find it rather off-putting. The life he describes seeking seems dull, boring, colorless -- honestly, a waste of the short time we have in this life. My experience of attempting to follow Christ has been that it encourages to be more myself, my best self.

Joesaphat, you began in the OP by saying,

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I’m a Dharma brat, I was born into it, I was brought up on it and for the life of me I cannot understand why fellow Christians have a problem with it. I’m fed up with having to explain myself all the time as I don’t understand the objections. Would someone care to explain?

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If you truly want to understand why some Christians have problems with it, you're going to have to first accept and to some degree be okay with the fact that we do have problems with reconciling Buddhism and Christianity.

If you can, great - whatever floats your boat. But I was born into Christianity, I was brought up on it, and it has supported the growth of my spiritual life quite sufficiently for many years. Christianity makes specific claims about the person of Jesus Christ which make it uniquely non-compatible with other religions. Whether one is an evangelical Christian who believes that accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is necessary for eternal life or someone like me more interested in the Christus Victor theory of the atonement, a Christian has by definition devoted her or his life to following Christ -- and however much other religions may hold him in great esteem or even teach some similar things, however much the specific practices of meditation they teach may be helpful to my prayer life, they don't make the same strong claims that Christianity does about Christ and are thus at that fundamental level incompatible with Christianity.

And I think I now have a stronger understanding of why Easwaran's writing doesn't do anything for me -- nothing I've read by him makes me want to be like him. And nothing I've read by him or anyone else about the Buddha makes me want to be like the Buddha or follow him.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

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Pretty good.

Hui-Neng taught that after eating, one washes up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I was earlier on complaining that some people were making the arguments personal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A tangent, maybe, but I find one statement above odd: Do you really find nothing of the six-year-old you-that-was in the present-day you-that-are-right-now? I see quite a lot of my childhood, even toddler self in me. Mainly personality traits.

---

Not many, to be fair and nothing that will not disappear. I cannot even remember with sufficient clarity whether some of the traits I live with now were already there for certain. It's a very gradual change, for sure, but after a while it's fairly thorough. I'm comfortably with the Buddha on this one our experience of self is impermanent. It's no indication of a changeless soul that would bear these psychological characteristics.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A tangent, maybe, but I find one statement above odd: Do you really find nothing of the six-year-old you-that-was in the present-day you-that-are-right-now? I see quite a lot of my childhood, even toddler self in me. Mainly personality traits.

---

Not many, to be fair and nothing that will not disappear. I cannot even remember with sufficient clarity whether some of the traits I live with now were already there for certain. It's a very gradual change, for sure, but after a while it's fairly thorough. I'm comfortably with the Buddha on this one our experience of self is impermanent. It's no indication of a changeless soul that would bear these psychological characteristics.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

---

Pretty good.

Hui-Neng taught that after eating, one washes up.

---

Jesus taught us to 'love more, feel more'? Seriously? I don't think he equated love with feelings, that's a romantic, pietist thing to do and he was a 1st century rabbi.

---

quote:

---

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

---

Pretty good.

Hui-Neng taught that after eating, one washes up.

---

Jesus taught us to 'love more, feel more'? Seriously? I don't think he equated love with feelings, that's a romantic, pietist thing to do and he was a 1st century rabbi.

---

That was a short statement to give a general impression, not a theological thesis. ISTM you are reading through tinted specs, be they not rose in colour.

Matthew 22:36-40

quote:

---

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

---

This is a pretty intense statement and isn't the same as the Buddhist emptying of self.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more.
Buddha instructs people to release those feelings.
Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self.
Buddha taught release of the concept of self.

---

Pretty good.

Hui-Neng taught that after eating, one washes up.

---

Jesus taught us to 'love more, feel more'? Seriously? I don't think he equated love with feelings, that's a romantic, pietist thing to do and he was a 1st century rabbi.

---

That was a short statement to give a general impression, not a theological thesis. ISTM you are reading through tinted specs, be they not rose in colour.

Matthew 22:36-40

quote:

---

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

---

This is a pretty intense statement and isn't the same as the Buddhist emptying of self.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Jesus taught us to 'love more, feel more'? Seriously? I don't think he equated love with feelings, that's a romantic, pietist thing to do and he was a 1st century rabbi. Care to give us a few quotes from the Lord that enjoin us to bolster our sense of self?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I cannot believe that Jesus meant that you should 'feel' warm fuzzy thoughts towards God as you would towards a human beloved.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And I never, ever asserted that this was a Christian answer to Buddhist self emptying. Try "it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.' 'Whosoever will save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will find them.' He who doe snot take the cross, etc... There's quite a few sayings from the Lord about laying self aside.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Try "it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.' 'Whosoever will save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will find them.' He who doe snot take the cross, etc... There's quite a few sayings from the Lord about laying self aside.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Try "it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.' 'Whosoever will save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will find them.' He who doe snot take the cross, etc... There's quite a few sayings from the Lord about laying self aside.

---

Laying self aside presupposes the existence of a self to lay aside. If there is no self, as you seem to be saying, this is a perfect disproof of your claim.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] I cannot believe that Jesus meant that you should 'feel' warm fuzzy thoughts towards God as you would towards a human beloved.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
"Without a self, there is nothing to judge."

Bingo. There is a summary of years of discussion that I have had with various people, and seems to go to the heart of salvation, versus enlightenment.

Well, what is this self, then? Soul, spirit, and body, I suppose. I get it, I really don't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Joesaphat:
[qb] I cannot believe that Jesus meant that you should 'feel' warm fuzzy thoughts towards God as you would towards a human beloved.

---

Something I never said. Feeling =/= warm fuzzy, feeling is of variable meaning. Welcome to the English language.

I don't know how to read you, then: "Jesus exhorts people to love more, to feel more." and "Jesus taught release of the importance of the desires of self."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Try "it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.' 'Whosoever will save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will find them.' He who doe snot take the cross, etc... There's quite a few sayings from the Lord about laying self aside.

---

Laying self aside presupposes the existence of a self to lay aside. If there is no self, as you seem to be saying, this is a perfect disproof of your claim.

---

or getting rid of a delusion.

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quote:

---

Furthermore the Lord does not ask us to 'lay self aside,' he asks us to die, to lose our lives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Easwaran is not a Buddhist. I don't know what else you have read but using a Hindu meditation teacher to evaluate Buddhism is a bit suspect. Is like using Muslim ideas about Christ to judge Christianity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Easwaran, by the way, is a fairly dyed-in-the-wool Hindu, it's not fair to invoke this author as representing Buddhist philosophy.

---

All I know is what I've read in this group, and in the things I've read there he spends so much time talking about the Buddha that I figured he was a Buddhist.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
So far, the only problem people have pointed out is the possibility of multiple lives, about which I'm quite agnostic. The Buddha himself taught that if his dharma is followed liberation can be a achieved in a single human life, heck, in a matter of months even, so it's not a hugely central problem to me or to a great many Buddhist teachers (and I don't count myself as one). Again, I cannot see how your soteriology would require me to abandon the central teachings of the Buddhadharma.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, what is this self, then? Soul, spirit, and body, I suppose. I get it, I really don't.

---

"What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. What is the soul? It is immaterial." - Thomas Hood

(Has occasionally been helpful, when I've gotten myself into that kind of tangle--and it's funny. )
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Could I ask a question? By even asking it, I'm probably revealing to you all quite how ignorant, ill-informed and unperceptive I am. Or how unfamiliar I am with how other people allocate the various aspects of human personality. If so, my apologies.

If there is no soul, what is it that experiences joy, pain whether physical or emotion, sorrow, or even heat or cold and realises that it is experiencing them? Or if this is all an illusion, what is it that comes to realise that?

Is saying there is no such things as a soul, the same as saying there is no such thing as personhood? Or is saying there is no soul, more to do with making a semantic distinction of some sort?
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Could I ask a question? By even asking it, I'm probably revealing to you all quite how ignorant, ill-informed and unperceptive I am. Or how unfamiliar I am with how other people allocate the various aspects of human personality. If so, my apologies.

If there is no soul, what is it that experiences joy, pain whether physical or emotion, sorrow, or even heat or cold and realises that it is experiencing them? Or if this is all an illusion, what is it that comes to realise that?

Is saying there is no such things as a soul, the same as saying there is no such thing as personhood? Or is saying there is no soul, more to do with making a semantic distinction of some sort?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Could I ask a question? By even asking it, I'm probably revealing to you all quite how ignorant, ill-informed and unperceptive I am. Or how unfamiliar I am with how other people allocate the various aspects of human personality. If so, my apologies.

If there is no soul, what is it that experiences joy, pain whether physical or emotion, sorrow, or even heat or cold and realises that it is experiencing them? Or if this is all an illusion, what is it that comes to realise that?

Is saying there is no such things as a soul, the same as saying there is no such thing as personhood? Or is saying there is no soul, more to do with making a semantic distinction of some sort?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Easwaran is not a Buddhist. I don't know what else you have read but using a Hindu meditation teacher to evaluate Buddhism is a bit suspect. Is like using Muslim ideas about Christ to judge Christianity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Easwaran, by the way, is a fairly dyed-in-the-wool Hindu, it's not fair to invoke this author as representing Buddhist philosophy.

---

All I know is what I've read in this group, and in the things I've read there he spends so much time talking about the Buddha that I figured he was a Buddhist.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
So far, the only problem people have pointed out is the possibility of multiple lives, about which I'm quite agnostic. The Buddha himself taught that if his dharma is followed liberation can be a achieved in a single human life, heck, in a matter of months even, so it's not a hugely central problem to me or to a great many Buddhist teachers (and I don't count myself as one). Again, I cannot see how your soteriology would require me to abandon the central teachings of the Buddhadharma.

---

How can someone simultaneously believe that liberation can be achieved by following the dharma of the Buddha and that salvation is achieved through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Even for those who think all will be saved, for Christians that happens through Christ alone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Why would it be impossible to be saved through Christ by practising the Dhamma?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Could I ask a question? By even asking it, I'm probably revealing to you all quite how ignorant, ill-informed and unperceptive I am. Or how unfamiliar I am with how other people allocate the various aspects of human personality. If so, my apologies.

If there is no soul, what is it that experiences joy, pain whether physical or emotion, sorrow, or even heat or cold and realises that it is experiencing them? Or if this is all an illusion, what is it that comes to realise that?

Is saying there is no such things as a soul, the same as saying there is no such thing as personhood? Or is saying there is no soul, more to do with making a semantic distinction of some sort?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Why would it be impossible to be saved through Christ by practising the Dhamma?

---

No one on this thread has said this. That is not what RuthW said in the post you quote.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does this mean that you think that there is an entity which experiences joy and pain, hot and cold? I wonder where you think this thing is situated?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does this mean that you think that there is an entity which experiences joy and pain, hot and cold? I wonder where you think this thing is situated?

---

I do. If you are prepared to tell me you don't, I'll have to take your word for it. But assuming you do, It's a sort of pilpul then to regard it as relevant whether we each categorise 'an entity' as including each other or not. The answer we reach to that semantic question has nothing really to offer any of the more fundamental ones.

Mdijon's answer seems fair enough to me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Well, she seems to say that both cannot happen concurrently, as she wonders how anyone can "simultaneously believe that liberation can be achieved by following the dharma ... and that salvation can be achieved through he incarnation' which she takes to mean that is is worked 'by Christ alone.'

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quote:

---

It's an old debate, I'm of the view that even non believers will be saved if they do right, as Peter bore witness: 'anyone who does right is acceptable in God's sight,' no mention of the incarnation here. Conversely, believers are perfectly free to have a Buddhist practice if helpful.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Well, she seems to say that both cannot happen concurrently, as she wonders how anyone can "simultaneously believe that liberation can be achieved by following the dharma ... and that salvation can be achieved through he incarnation' which she takes to mean that is is worked 'by Christ alone.'

---

If you fall off a cliff, gravity will speed you to a meeting with whatever lies at the bottom. Whether or not you believe in gravity, you will become a rather messy example of Newton's Second law of motion.
I think that is more along the lines she is expressing.

quote:

---

It's an old debate, I'm of the view that even non believers will be saved if they do right, as Peter bore witness: 'anyone who does right is acceptable in God's sight,' no mention of the incarnation here. Conversely, believers are perfectly free to have a Buddhist practice if helpful.

---

If you are a Christian, I can see adopting some Buddhist practice, but not Buddhism itself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I seriously do not comprehend the manner in which you draw conclusions.
I shall need to consider another tack as you do not respond to what I think I wrote.

ETA: This is not an attack, personal or otherwise. I am a bit nonplussed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Trying to understand: so, fundamentally, you are not your body? It's not your body that experiences pain, pleasure, hot, cold?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
If indeed salvation is found in no one else (and I do know that passages of Scripture claim as much): what are the teachings, practices, things... taught or performed by our Lord that have not been taught by others and are therefore absolutely essentials to accept or practice in order to be saved?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
How can someone simultaneously believe that liberation can be achieved by following the dharma of the Buddha and that salvation is achieved through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Even for those who think all will be saved, for Christians that happens through Christ alone.

---

Because it's the same thing, IMO. Why would it be impossible to be saved through Christ by practising the Dhamma?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
OK, let me put it in question form. It seems to me that a lot of the arguments made above are a form of Christian exceptionalism. If indeed salvation is found in no one else (and I do know that passages of Scripture claim as much): what are the teachings, practices, things... taught or performed by our Lord that have not been taught by others and are therefore absolutely essentials to accept or practice in order to be saved?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I seriously do not comprehend the manner in which you draw conclusions.
I shall need to consider another tack as you do not respond to what I think I wrote.

ETA: This is not an attack, personal or otherwise. I am a bit nonplussed.

---

OK, let me put it in question form. It seems to me that a lot of the arguments made above are a form of Christian exceptionalism. If indeed salvation is found in no one else (and I do know that passages of Scripture claim as much): what are the teachings, practices, things... taught or performed by our Lord that have not been taught by others and are therefore absolutely essentials to accept or practice in order to be saved?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
OK, let me put it in question form. It seems to me that a lot of the arguments made above are a form of Christian exceptionalism.

---

quote:

---

If indeed salvation is found in no one else (and I do know that passages of Scripture claim as much): what are the teachings, practices, things... taught or performed by our Lord that have not been taught by others and are therefore absolutely essentials to accept or practice in order to be saved?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I mean Christ preached and taught some things that others also have taught. Are we not saved by these simply because they are not taught by Christ alone?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Trying to understand: so, fundamentally, you are not your body? It's not your body that experiences pain, pleasure, hot, cold?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I mean Christ preached and taught some things that others also have taught. Are we not saved by these simply because they are not taught by Christ alone?

---

We're not saved by them because those don't save anyone no matter who teaches them. Christianity teaches that the work of salvation was performed by Christ, through his death and resurrection. It doesn't happen through our meditation, prayer, following certain teachings, etc.

Edited to add that I should have read more carefully what Paul said, as I'm mostly repeating what he said.

And to add that one of the clearest expressions of this I ever heard was that in Christianity it's not about what you know, it's about who you know.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Paul.:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
OK, let me put it in question form. It seems to me that a lot of the arguments made above are a form of Christian exceptionalism.

---

I think that's true.

quote:

---

If indeed salvation is found in no one else (and I do know that passages of Scripture claim as much): what are the teachings, practices, things... taught or performed by our Lord that have not been taught by others and are therefore absolutely essentials to accept or practice in order to be saved?

---

None of the above. It's Jesus himself that is unique. We are saved through him, by believing in him, not by believing in any of the specifics of what he did or taught per se (though doing so will be helpful in leading us toward him hopefully).

At least that's my understanding of the Christian gospel. Under it Buddhist ideas and practice - to which I claim almost total ignorance - can be judged helpful or unhelpful, compatible or not with Christianity to the extent that it helps or hinders us to come to Christ. And that will vary from person to person - what one finds useful another will find a stumbling block.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
... Having said that I'm not sure how we get from any of these to debates to Buddhism. I'm still left wondering what the problem is in Christianity to which Buddhism is the answer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:
We've had this discussion of faith and works and whether particular strands within Christianity emphasize one over the other. And a similar discussion regarding sacraments.

My take is that it is a foolish quest combing scripture for parables or proof-texts to answer the question "What are the minimum sets of things/beliefs/practices that I need to be saved?"

Whoever put the bible together doesn't want us to live like that.

Having said that I'm not sure how we get from any of these to debates to Buddhism. I'm still left wondering what the problem is in Christianity to which Buddhism is the answer.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
On the subject of Calvinism and Buddhism, from all I've heard of Amida Buddhism, it is essentially Calvinism with the name changed.

Within Christianity salvation by faith alone is by no means restricted to Calvinism. Even Roman Catholicism holds the doctrine (with heavy amounts of 'on the other hand').

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
The only 'problem' I would see is the delusion that Christianity can stand on its own, the New Testament having next to nothing to say about philosophical matters or hermeneutics.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Their distinction between ji-riki and ta-riki, self and other-power, is amazingly similar to salvation by grace alone... now that form, I'd say, would be squarely incompatible with the Christian faith, as it places faith in another divine or supernatural power.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Golden Key:
Joesaphat--

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Their distinction between ji-riki and ta-riki, self and other-power, is amazingly similar to salvation by grace alone... now that form, I'd say, would be squarely incompatible with the Christian faith, as it places faith in another divine or supernatural power.

---

Is that related to Pure Land Buddhism, by any chance? From what little I understand, PLB seems like the kind of born-again Christianity where you simply ask Jesus to save you, and you're in. In PLB, AIUI, you ask Buddha or Quan Yin (are there others?) to take you to their Pure Land when you die.

Thanks in advance.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Before I say anything that comes across as too heretical let me hasten to add that I confess Christ's full divinity too; this being said, if this is the be all and end all of Christian salvation, to require a God to become incarnate to teach what others, thoroughly human, have taught, to die as others, thoroughly human, have also died... does cheapen the idea of divinity a little, don't you think?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To be perfectly fair, however, he does not 'save you,' not quite, he grants you re-birth in his own paradise where you can then practise unimpeded and one day reach Nirvana/satori. You'll still have to do the hard work, only in a real nice place, with lots of guidance and help from Amida. I'm not sure. In order to buy it you have to believe that our world has entered Mapo, the age of degradation, where practicing the dharma has become impossible and therefore futile... it's not that different from the doctrine of 'total depravation in Calvin. get humankind to seriously doubt its abilities and feel terribly guilty at the smallest mistake then you can sell them anything, really. Hate the guy.'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that was the key to Christianity - feel guilty, then rise to the bait of being forgiven, instead of condemned, when in fact, you had condemned yourself.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me from what's been said in the last page or so, before we can answer the question "Is Christian compatible with Buddhism?" we must first specify which Buddhism we're referring to. It seems like there are a legion of different belief systems or religions or whatever-you-want-to-call-them that go by the same name. (We might make a similar point about Christianity, of course.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that was the key to Christianity - feel guilty, then rise to the bait of being forgiven, instead of condemned, when in fact, you had condemned yourself.

---

So what's the bait in Buddhism?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Let's try a close reading of the parable of the prodigal son.

When he initially leaves his father's house, he takes with him everything that bolsters his sense of self, i.e. his riches. He lives on those, using them in particular to attract the social status which likewise bolsters his sense of self.

When those riches are exhausted, he then lives in the ashes of that same sense of self, tending it at the same time as he tends the pigs. He is unclean in his own judgement because that self is not being fed by the markers of social status his wealth had purchased.

To return to his father requires him to give up everything of that self for which he has sacrificed so much, living under its judgement when his capacity to sustain it was exhausted. When he sets off, he is still determined to live under its judgement, becoming his father's slave in the way that his failure to live up to his own estimation of his former status requires. Instead, his father insists that he give up everything to do with that self and its judgement of him, becoming again what the father's love makes him, i.e. a true son. This requires the construction of a new self, one which is a pure gift from the father.

This is absolutely and definitively a death of the self, of the constant pursuit of brownie points which defines so much religious "life" as well as the materialistic version which entirely possesses so much of life. It is also a clear depiction of union with God as a condition of receiving our true self.

The same of course is true of baptism, and indeed the eucharist: something has to die - our sense of self-reliance, our hold on ourselves, our determination to remain individuated in relation to God, in order for any of the sacraments to work, because they require us to live in God and to allow God to live in us in order for them to carry out their work. That is the closest I come to having an account of salvation, and to me it is found precisely in the death of the self, and the birth of a new, received, newly given self.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joesaphat:
There's no problem, as far as I'm concerned. I was merely asking whether Buddhist philosophy is an acceptable or legitimate way of approaching Christianity, rather than the Platonism or Aristotelianism of the Fathers. The only 'problem' I would see is the delusion that Christianity can stand on its own, the New Testament having next to nothing to say about philosophical matters or hermeneutics.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What is the true self?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What is the true self?

---

Good question. I'd say that it's the self that bears the image of God, that is loved by God and that can receive and reflect that love.

Which may be one reason that the idea that the key to Christianity is being made to feel guilty and surely condemned, but come to us and we can offer forgiveness, sounds strange to me. I'm sure it is the experience of some, but it's not my experience. For me, the key was being taught I am a child of God who is loved by God, as is everyone else.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To be perfectly fair, however, he does not 'save you,' not quite, he grants you re-birth in his own paradise where you can then practise unimpeded and one day reach Nirvana/satori. You'll still have to do the hard work, only in a real nice place, with lots of guidance and help from Amida. I'm not sure. In order to buy it you have to believe that our world has entered Mapo, the age of degradation, where practicing the dharma has become impossible and therefore futile... it's not that different from the doctrine of 'total depravation in Calvin. get humankind to seriously doubt its abilities and feel terribly guilty at the smallest mistake then you can sell them anything, really. Hate the guy.'

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From your description, and from the perspective of having been pretty fairly seeped in Calvin and Westminster my entire life, it does sound somewhat different from "total depravity." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it seems the alternative to what you portray as "total depravity" is more akin to Pelagianism than to other major non-Calvinistic forms of Christianity.

Given that much of the dynamic of this thread has involved possible misunderstandings and misconceptions about what the Buddha taught and what various schools of Buddhism teach, might I invite consideration of the possibility that the same dynamic may occur with Calvin and with the various forms of what people describe as Calvinism.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that was the key to Christianity - feel guilty, then rise to the bait of being forgiven, instead of condemned, when in fact, you had condemned yourself.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
So what's the bait in Buddhism?

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to deny that there is Christian bait.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I'm not a Buddhist, but I suppose long hours in the meditation room, a breaking back, days and days of utter emptiness, meagre food, a splitting headache, well, I thought this is a fine way to spend several days. Then all the emptiness seemed grand.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
It seems to me from what's been said in the last page or so, before we can answer the question "Is Christian compatible with Buddhism?" we must first specify which Buddhism we're referring to. It seems like there are a legion of different belief systems or religions or whatever-you-want-to-call-them that go by the same name. (We might make a similar point about Christianity, of course.)

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Any system of belief large enough and around long enough will generate variation. Even to the point of contradicting the original source.
So, yes, which form of Buddhism and which form of Christianity can vary the verdict somewhat. However, I do think it is as simple as the stated end game makes Buddhism and Christianity incompatible as wholes, even though pieces match.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I'm a semi-Pelagian to be precise, I do not deny the reality of grace, merely that the work of our salvation is utterly and entirely dependant on it. I'm with the orthodox and the East on this: synergy, with the caveat that it's rather difficult to figure who does what, God or you.

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It's awfully difficult to say, I'm not sure how Augustine managed it.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that was the key to Christianity - feel guilty, then rise to the bait of being forgiven, instead of condemned, when in fact, you had condemned yourself.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What is the true self?

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Originally posted by Enoch:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
There's no problem, as far as I'm concerned. I was merely asking whether Buddhist philosophy is an acceptable or legitimate way of approaching Christianity, rather than the Platonism or Aristotelianism of the Fathers. The only 'problem' I would see is the delusion that Christianity can stand on its own, the New Testament having next to nothing to say about philosophical matters or hermeneutics.

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I can see the point of looking at this if one came from a Buddhist background. I would be a bit like St Paul quoting Greek poets to evangelise the Athenians. However, would there be any point in learning about Buddhist philosophy just so that one could approach Christianity through it, if one already has a Christian background?

I accept that this might sound a bit abrupt. Please do not be offended by this question or by the way I'm expressing it. I regret I can't find a better way of putting it.

From a position of more or less complete ignorance of Buddhism, what ingredients does it have that would enhance my Christian life if I did but know about them?

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Originally posted by rolyn:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I thought that was the key to Christianity - feel guilty, then rise to the bait of being forgiven, instead of condemned, when in fact, you had condemned yourself.

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It would be quite interesting to understand where and how this whole Christian affliction of guilt came about. The disciples didn't seem to suffer from it. From what we can glean from the Gospel they left their families to follow the New experience and never looked back.
The theology of St. Paul might be where it came from .The fact that Saul had done a lot of persecution of the very thing he succumbed to might have fostered a deep personal desire to make amends as it were.

Can all of humanity's guilt be laid squarely at the door of Christian institutions? I wonder if Buddhists ever get burdened with guilt.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What is the true self?

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Good question. I'd say that it's the self that bears the image of God, that is loved by God and that can receive and reflect that love.

Which may be one reason that the idea that the key to Christianity is being made to feel guilty and surely condemned, but come to us and we can offer forgiveness, sounds strange to me. I'm sure it is the experience of some, but it's not my experience. For me, the key was being taught I am a child of God who is loved by God, as is everyone else.

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That sounds nice. But when you say 'the self that ...', I don't know what you mean by that. Do you mean your personality?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
What body? The body is illusory. All there is is the self, and other selves.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
This being said, I think Buddhism would have a thing or two to teach Christians. Most contemplative practices (unless you're an athonite monk) are moribund in Christianity. It's not our fault, it's the Reformation/Aufklarung/Revolution dissolving monasteries everywhere.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
What body? The body is illusory. All there is is the self, and other selves.

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Hey, that's my line.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
What body? The body is illusory. All there is is the self, and other selves.

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Hey, that's my line.

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Gottfriend Willhelm? Is that you?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
[qb] What is the true self?

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Good question. I'd say that it's the self that bears the image of God, that is loved by God and that can receive and reflect that love.

Which may be one reason that the idea that the key to Christianity is being made to feel guilty and surely condemned, but come to us and we can offer forgiveness, sounds strange to me. I'm sure it is the experience of some, but it's not my experience. For me, the key was being taught I am a child of God who is loved by God, as is everyone else.

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That sounds nice. But when you say 'the self that ...', I don't know what you mean by that. Do you mean your personality?

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Yes, what is it that is the image-bearer. It's a fairly important question and I've never been able to understand it. Rationality, Aquinas says, which sounds awfully limiting. Also, where does it begin, where does it stop? Are clever people more in His image? Are severely mentally impaired people not?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To answer Nick Tamen, as with sin so with Calvinism: hate the doctrine, love the believer. Some of my best friends are Calvinists.

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I can live with that, I think. (I wonder if the Lutherans will feel left out on the whole justification by grace through faith thing, though, since we got it from them. )

I keep thinking that I need to ask you if you've read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think you might like it.
 

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Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :
 

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
To answer Nick Tamen, as with sin so with Calvinism: hate the doctrine, love the believer. Some of my best friends are Calvinists.

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I can live with that, I think. (I wonder if the Lutherans will feel left out on the whole justification by grace through faith thing, though, since we got it from them. )

I keep thinking that I need to ask you if you've read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think you might like it.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
[qb] What is the true self?

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Good question. I'd say that it's the self that bears the image of God, that is loved by God and that can receive and reflect that love.

Which may be one reason that the idea that the key to Christianity is being made to feel guilty and surely condemned, but come to us and we can offer forgiveness, sounds strange to me. I'm sure it is the experience of some, but it's not my experience. For me, the key was being taught I am a child of God who is loved by God, as is everyone else.

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That sounds nice. But when you say 'the self that ...', I don't know what you mean by that. Do you mean your personality?

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Yes, what is it that is the image-bearer. It's a fairly important question and I've never been able to understand it. Rationality, Aquinas says, which sounds awfully limiting. Also, where does it begin, where does it stop? Are clever people more in His image? Are severely mentally impaired people not?

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i suppose it is a rather important question to some, and I'm sure I don't have an answer that will be satisfactory, because to me it's really not that important. Perhaps I just lack proper aptitude and/or patience for much philosophical thought, but the reality is get bored with these questions pretty quickly. I'm quite happy to affirm the mystery of the imago Dei and entertain a variety of ways that it might be manifest or experienced without trying to pinpoint exactly where it resides. To me, that question really isn't important. The important question to me is what does being created in the image of God, and knowing that every other human is equally created in the image of God, mean for how I live my life?

Likewise, it's enough for me to say that my "self" is what makes me "me" and not anyone else. That includes body, mind, soul—all that is me.

But clearly, that's not enough for everyone. We all have different itches that need scratching.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I cannot help asking myself questions, all the time. If I'm to be saved, what is it that will be saved, as I'm unlikely to carry on in my current physical form. At least I hope I won't, an eternity of this would not be nice. Then again, the same is probably true of my mind and I don't think God will zap our minds so that we suddenly become eternally blissful. So what will endure? How will we be transformed? What must I do? Sooo many questions. Think I'd better go and meditate because one thing's sure: we'll die without the answers.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I am willing to bet that nobody was ever saved by knowing the answer to religio-philosophical brain-busters. Better to go serve the least of these.

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I am willing to bet that nobody was ever saved by knowing the answer to religio-philosophical brain-busters. Better to go serve the least of these.

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Which is why (IMHO) belief, not knowledge is key to faith. Otherwise, at mousethief suggests, one's brain will explode.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I am willing to bet that nobody was ever saved by knowing the answer to religio-philosophical brain-busters. Better to go serve the least of these.

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Which is why (IMHO) belief, not knowledge is key to faith. Otherwise, at mousethief suggests, one's brain will explode.

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I'd say it's not belief but trust and obedience. Even the devils believe.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I keep thinking that I need to ask you if you've read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think you might like it.

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Oooh, thanks for the suggestion, but I'll get it from Wordery. God rot Amazon and the way they treat their little elves.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
I cannot help asking myself questions, all the time. If I'm to be saved, what is it that will be saved, as I'm unlikely to carry on in my current physical form. At least I hope I won't, an eternity of this would not be nice. Then again, the same is probably true of my mind and I don't think God will zap our minds so that we suddenly become eternally blissful. So what will endure? How will we be transformed? What must I do? Sooo many questions. Think I'd better go and meditate because one thing's sure: we'll die without the answers.

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And we'll die with them. I am willing to bet that nobody was ever saved by knowing the answer to religio-philosophical brain-busters. Better to go serve the least of these.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Indeed, better serve those Christ loves, this being said, we must not rubbish the brain too much lest we all become scientologist or Islamists or what have you.

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I'v never claimed to be saved by solving metaphysical conundrums but fideism is equally undesirable IMO

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Indeed, better serve those Christ loves, this being said, we must not rubbish the brain too much lest we all become scientologist or Islamists or what have you.

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A straw man. You conflate doing theology with doing the kind of mental gymnastics you are promoting. They are not the same thing.

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I'v never claimed to be saved by solving metaphysical conundrums but fideism is equally undesirable IMO

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See above comment.

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
The "mental gymnastics" or study is important but without Christ you cannot have Christianity. You won't find Jesus by reading about him. That would be like becoming an artist by reading about artists.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
But in what way does Platonism/ Buddhism/ other philosophy help us find Christ?

The discussion about potential incompatibilities regarding reincarnation strikes me as all about theologies, but the OP seemed to be about needing the philosophy.

Is it possible to illustrate which bits of Buddhist philosophy help us find Christ?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Frankly, I have yet to be convinced by any of the counter-arguments to my mental gymnastics.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Frankly, I have yet to be convinced by any of the counter-arguments to my mental gymnastics.

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You've got the burden of proof backwards. If you want to make the case that buddhism is useful, or necessary, or compatible, that's on you. We don't have to convince you of squat.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Frankly, I have yet to be convinced by any of the counter-arguments to my mental gymnastics.

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You've got the burden of proof backwards. If you want to make the case that buddhism is useful, or necessary, or compatible, that's on you. We don't have to convince you of squat.

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Why so defensive? I was merely asking in the OP where people saw problems. I don't have to do any of the things you say. I'm not trying to convert you, stick to hesychasm and have fun.

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Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Frankly, I have yet to be convinced by any of the counter-arguments to my mental gymnastics.

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You've got the burden of proof backwards. If you want to make the case that buddhism is useful, or necessary, or compatible, that's on you. We don't have to convince you of squat.

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Why so defensive? I was merely asking in the OP where people saw problems. I don't have to do any of the things you say. I'm not trying to convert you, stick to hesychasm and have fun.

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You suggested that because the New Testament doesn't address more aspects of Life, the Universe and Everything else besides, that it is deficient, but Christians don't actually expect more from it than what it provides: an account of Christ's life and what happened just afterwards, letters to some early churches and one book of prophecy. I can't speak for others but, with the Old Testament, it provides me with a basis for faith, but it isn't the only element: if you don't have the spiritual side, scripture, any scripture, is a dead letter.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Is it possible to illustrate which bits of Buddhist philosophy help us find Christ?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Happy to have a try...

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Is it possible to illustrate which bits of Buddhist philosophy help us find Christ?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Happy to have a try...

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It does seem to me that most of those insights are there in the gospels. Except perhaps for understanding how.

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Yes, what is it that is the image-bearer. It's a fairly important question and I've never been able to understand it. Rationality, Aquinas says, which sounds awfully limiting. Also, where does it begin, where does it stop? Are clever people more in His image? Are severely mentally impaired people not?

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
And yes again, I was not concerned with ditching salvation by faith alone, but 'salvation by faith only,' as someone wrote: "We are saved through him, by believing in him, not by believing in any of the specifics of what he did or taught per se.' Not by believing in what he did or taught is a pretty thorough kind of denial, let alone denying salvation by 'what he did or taught.'

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Frankly, I have yet to be convinced by any of the counter-arguments to my mental gymnastics.

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You've got the burden of proof backwards. If you want to make the case that buddhism is useful, or necessary, or compatible, that's on you. We don't have to convince you of squat.

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Why so defensive? I was merely asking in the OP where people saw problems. I don't have to do any of the things you say. I'm not trying to convert you, stick to hesychasm and have fun.

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
If there had been some mindfulness/meditation group in my church I believe it would have helped me a lot during my adolescence.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
[QUOTE] Or are aspects of a distinctively Buddhist philosophy implicit in mindfulness in a way that one couldn't get out of the gospels? (e.g. every day having its own trouble).

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
If there had been some mindfulness/meditation group in my church I believe it would have helped me a lot during my adolescence.

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I can certainly see how meditation practices would be helpful, especially mindfulness. That seems to me somewhat different from applying Buddhist philosophy to Christianity. Or are aspects of a distinctively Buddhist philosophy implicit in mindfulness in a way that one couldn't get out of the gospels? (e.g. every day having its own trouble).

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
If there had been some mindfulness/meditation group in my church I believe it would have helped me a lot during my adolescence.

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I can certainly see how meditation practices would be helpful, especially mindfulness. That seems to me somewhat different from applying Buddhist philosophy to Christianity. Or are aspects of a distinctively Buddhist philosophy implicit in mindfulness in a way that one couldn't get out of the gospels? (e.g. every day having its own trouble).

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In my experience what I needed was not more philosophy. But a physical practice.
Not an explanation but as a Buddhist friend of
mine loves to say an alternative to explanation.
I had many doubts and when I asked I got "answers". But what I needed was a way to live with doubt and find my own answers. Someone else's answers would not do. An old Zen saying goes: "Great Doubt, great awakening; small doubt , small awakening; no doubt , no awakening"

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Originally posted by mdijon:
While I can empathize with the feelings (and share some of them myself) it is somewhat ironic that both of these answers regarding the merits of viewing Christianity through Buddhist philosophy in fact were part of a story of leaving Christianity.

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Originally posted by Ikkyu:
In my experience what I needed was not more philosophy. But a physical practice.
Not an explanation but as a Buddhist friend of
mine loves to say an alternative to explanation.
I had many doubts and when I asked I got "answers". But what I needed was a way to live with doubt and find my own answers. Someone else's answers would not do. An old Zen saying goes: "Great Doubt, great awakening; small doubt , small awakening; no doubt , no awakening"

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