Next why is it when I show thingâs that I feel are in contadiction with our teaching I bring about so much anger. I am only explaining my view of what I see.
Itâs the cavalier way you jump to the conclusion that you understand the Buddhist teachings youâre criticizing. In a number of cases you clearly donât.
My point about the Trinity and Eucharist is that these are teachings that non-Christians and unorthodox Christians often dismiss as ânot making senseâ without trying to understand what orthodox Christians mean by them.
Itâs generally a good rule of thumb that if something many intelligent people believe doesnât make any sense to youâif you canât see why a reasonable person would believe itâthen you donât understand it.
What is the purpose of being here if we canât disagree.
No one has a problem with your disagreeing with Buddhism. I disagree with a number of Buddhist beliefs insofar as I understand them. This isnât about disagreementâitâs about blanket statements like âthat just doesnât make any senseâ or âthat obviously contradicts Catholicism in this way.â Those are two very different kinds of statements, thoughâas I said, I think the first is almost always unjustified, at least when said about a belief held by a major religious tradition, while the second of course may be justified under certain circumstances. I just donât think that your statements of disagreement in most cases reflect a good understanding of what youâre disagreeing withâand it seems that the Buddhists on here (and some of the other non-Buddhists) agree with me.
Iâll combine the two objections into one: if the doctrine doesnât make sense to you, you are not yet in any position to say whether you agree with it or not, because you almost certainly do not understand it. When you understand why itâs appealing and why it makes sense to people no less intelligent than yourself,
then you are in a position to say, âBut hereâs how it differs from the Catholic position, and hereâs how I think the legitimate concern it addresses is better addressed in Catholicism.â But that takes considerable time and care, particularly with a tradition as ancient and complex as Buddhism.
Where am I breaking the golden rule.
Perhaps you arenât. Perhaps you would have no problem if a Protestant said:
âThe Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist doesnât make any sense, because it says that something that is obviously bread is really Jesus. I believe that we should worship only Jesus and not bread, and I donât believe Jesus is sacrificed over and over again.â
Wouldnât you be a bit offended that the Protestant didnât bother to ask why someone as brilliant as St. Thomas Aquinas would believe something so apparently absurd? Wouldnât you be offended that the Protestant accused you of worshiping bread instead of Jesus and believing that Jesus is sacrificed over and over, without trying to understand that thatâs not how you understand your own belief?
I see you doing essentially the equivalentâwith the best intentions, of course.
I am just asking questionâs and stating why I disagree and how it makes no sense to me.
But if you are asking questions, then youâre not yet in a position to disagree. And if by âit makes no sense to meâ you mean that you donât understand it, then again, youâre not in a position to disagree. It sounded as if you were saying that emptiness didnât make sense, period, and thus you rejected it as obviously irrational. Thatâs quite different from saying âI need to understand it better.â
Again, Iâm not saying that if you understood it you would accept it. Masao Abe, a Zen teacher, gave a great talk to some Christian missionaries in which he explained the Zen conception of emptiness and how in his view it compared with Christianity. He stated the contrast quite clearly, and I certainly donât agree with emptiness as he explained it. The basic conflict (at least with regard to Zen) is that âemptinessâ is the total interdependence of everythingâand so they donât see room for the Christian concept of God, on whom we are dependent but who is not dependent on us.
But I think âemptinessâ may have a lot to say about the condition of
creatures; and even with regard to the Godhead, as I said earlier, it may be significant that Paul speaks of Jesus as âemptying himselfâ and ânot regarding equality with God as something to be grasped.â I think the difference is that we believe that this is a choice on Godâs part. I know a theologian who argues that Godâs nature is âessential kenosisââbut attractive though this idea is, I donât think itâs orthodox if kenosis is identified with Buddhist âemptiness.â
So as you can see, I have no problem disagreeing with or critiquing Buddhism. It would be very surprising indeed if there
didnât turn out to be basic conflicts between Christianity and Buddhism (though surprises do happen). Iâm simply opposed to premature, overly glib and sweeping dismissals.
Why is it when I say I donât understand or agree it is considered a underinformed judgement.
First of all, as I said it makes no sense to say simultaneously that you donât understand and that you donât agree. If you donât understand, you canât possibly know whether you agree or not. You can only disagree with something you understand. And in the second place, the reason I call your disagreements âunderinformedâ is not because they are disagreements but because the specific things you say do seem to be underinformed. I say âunderinformedâ not âuninformed,â because itâs not that you have no correct informationâjust not enough to justify the statements youâre making. With all due respect, I think I understand Buddhism a bit better than you do, and I try to be very cautious in stating my own disagreements.
The Catholic faith teaches nothing is possible without the grace of God.
Indeed. Which might be translated into Buddhist-speak by saying âall creatures are empty.â Iâm not sure that this is a good âtranslationââand even if it is, it would still be very different from the Buddhist view because it wouldnât apply to God.
At the same time, itâs certainly true that Buddhismâparticularly Theravadaâis in Christian terms highly âPelagian,â emphasizing the human ability to âpull ourselves up by our bootstraps.â And I agree that this is a radical difference between Christianity and Buddhism.
The Catholic faith teaches we all have a soul.
But there are different views historically on what a âsoulâ is. Aquinas and Augustine have rather different positions, for instance. A soul might not be understood necessarily in terms of âatman,â which is what Buddhists deny.
The Catholic faith teaches lfe after death.
So do most forms of Buddhism.
The Catholic faith teaches we donât come back for another shot
Buddhism thinks that there is no permanent âweâ to come back! Iâm not denying that there are differences, just that, again, the way you state the issue shows a certain lack of understanding of the Buddhist position.
They say there is no such thing as Sin.
Some Buddhists say this. But in my opinion Buddhists are often responding to the overly âjuridicalâ ways sin has been approached in Western Christianity, or even to their own flawed understanding of what we mean by sin. To me the Second Noble Truth sounds an awful lot like original sin. Here Zen Buddhism is in more conflict with Christianity than Theravada (in some other ways itâs the other way round), because as I understand them they teach a kind of âoriginal purityâ in which our true nature is Buddha nature and we just need to realize this. (This is why Fr,. Thew Forrester was never confirmed as bishop of Northern Michigan in my own denominationâit wasnât just that he practiced Zen but that he had taken on this idea and rejected the Christian understanding of sin.) So again, you can look at one aspect of Buddhism and see conflict and another aspect and see interesting points of agreement.
The Church teaches there is no way to purify yourself, It can only be done by the blood of Christ.
But doesnât the Catholic Church, in contrast to some forms of Protestantism, teach that human effort is both necessary and valuable in this process?
This meditation can be done with or without Christ? What does common sense tell you there?
Common sense tells me nothing on this point. Faith tells me that nothing can be done without Christ, whether Buddhists recognize the fact or not.
Edwin
So here we go, My favorite part, any attempt to find a permament SELF or SOUL is DOOMED to fail.
