Buddhism Dialogue at our church

[Sochi]

I think people should take care to examine closely what it is they think they love and to be very sure that what they love is not an abstract…The question, I wonder, is who is having the illusion.

Without you there is no experience of the world. Without you there is no experience of God. Someone else’s experience of the world and of God is of little use to you. It should be apparent that they don’t even exist without you. You are the means by which you come to know God, and ***you are the enabler by which God comes to know and love you. ***Without you, none of it happens. The relationship you have with God is codependent. We are not worthless, and insofar as our sinfulness is concerned, I have to believe that we are made by That which is good, from goodness, goodness comes.

Thank You,
Gary

This is a beautiful, accurate, and compassionate statement of what more and more are coming forth with as their understanding. But it has been thus, ever since at least recorded history, and most likely way, way before. What you have stated in short, Gary, is a synopsis of what the Saints and Sages of the Ages have come to, whether as an independent discovery, or in some community of like hearts. And even in those communities it was always a singular recognition of a singular truth. Therefore it has been extemporaneously and accurately delineated with authority by any of its exponents who chose to do so. This Recognition has happened since the Garden, I’m sure, without regard to time, place, culture, status, intellect, gender, religion or lack of it, or any other factor. It is why it was called by Aldous Huxley the Perennial Philosophy. It has emerged as an essentially singular understanding in every part and time of Earth. If one has had this recognition, certain conclusions can be easily reached about the Scriptures of nearly any religion, and there is consensus on those conclusions. So if anything in “philosophy” comes under the aegis of repeatably as required by science, this would be it.

Part of what is contentious to those who are contrary about the delineation of non duality is that the Recognition entails the discovery of the fact that the mind is an excretor of concepts about sensory (name removed by moderator)ut, and fails in observation to include its own nature in the correlation of data. It is proceedurally demonstrable that one’s entire world is but a subjective assessment of an infinity it sees but a fraction of a fractions of, due to sensory limitations. So this discovery by one who deliberately or by accident is graced with such insight is literally earth shaking.

That is why we say and agree on two things: The search for Reality is the most dangerous undertaking. It will destroy your world (as you think it is.) And that there is no difference in the world before or after, though it is absolutely and irrevocably changed. I can’t be completely sure, but it kind of sounds to me like what happened to Paul on the way to Damascus, including the recovery/re-stabilization period. For some it is as long as two years, and gives one good reason to have safe havens like monasteries! Believe me, it ain’t easy to have the entire world pulled out from under you like a rug, including every last shred of concept of who or what you though you were and then try to function normally.

It is why I left the Church, Tigg, and others. Not only was there no support, there was direct antagonism. There was no compassion for what may have been misunderstood, but for me is more real than air, water, and a pumping heart. And yet, reading the Gospels now, He had to know. I’m kind of guessing it is what Mark 4:33,34 is about.

So Buddhists, even if inexperienced, at least have a cognitive structure for what this potentially universal experience of awareness maturation is about. The lecture in the church might save someone a lot of grief, if like for me, lightning strikes unbidden. Only in retrospect, it was an answer to decades of intense prayer.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

"I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no God, besides me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me:

That they may know who are from the rising of the sun, and they who are from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else:

I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things." - Isaiah 45:5-7

I like the way you make connections Matthew. I hadn’t made that connection, but I’m glad you did.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Sochi]

"I am the Lord, and there is none else: there is no God, besides me: I girded thee, and thou hast not known me:

That they may know who are from the rising of the sun, and they who are from the west, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else:

I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things." - Isaiah 45:5-7

Yep. As The Lord sayeth. And has been hidden and glossed over. Mark 4:33,34

Thank you for the references!!!

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

It is why I left the Church, Tigg, and others. Not only was there no support, there was direct antagonism. There was no compassion for what may have been misunderstood, but for me is more real than air, water, and a pumping heart. And yet, reading the Gospels now, He had to know. I’m kind of guessing it is what Mark 4:33,34 is about.

Hi Sochi: Your whole post was very eloquent. I’m sorry you had this experience with the Church. I probably would have had the same one, but a nun pulled me aside once after I got smacked by a priest because of one of my points of view, and told me not to let him or anyone keep me from my church. She said that such people simply don’t understand the depth of what they have waded into. I think she was very wise.

Thanks as usual,
Gary

 

[Sochi]

But doesn’t saying “everything is 100% subjective” claim a truth which, since it’s true regardless of our opinion, can only be called “objective”?

(And doesn’t that, consequently, prove that objective truths must exist?)

No. The known is always the subject itself. The knower and known are one. Sound familiar? Nice solecism, though. Subject/object is a conceptual convenience. It can be seen through.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

But doesn’t saying “everything is 100% subjective” claim a truth which, since it’s true regardless of our opinion, can only be called “objective”?

(And doesn’t that, consequently, prove that objective truths must exist?)

There’s some food for thought.

 

[Tigg]

Good Evening again Tigg: You have been taught what Catholics believe by Catholics and therefore you are a Catholic.

Actually, Gary, this is incorrect except for the fact that yes, I am a Catholic. (Catholics did not direct my way to the Catholic Church as it was purely an action of the Holy Spirit.) But I will exit this thread as it appears futile to discuss it and praise God for my Catholic faith as I do so.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Actually, Gary, this is incorrect except for the fact that yes, I am a Catholic. (Catholics did not direct my way to the Catholic Church as it was purely an action of the Holy Spirit.) But I will exit this thread as it appears futile to discuss it and praise God for my Catholic faith as I do so.

Good Morning Tigg: It sounds as though you have an interesting story to share. Why would it be futile to discuss it?

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Taurks]

No. The known is always the subject itself. The knower and known are one. Sound familiar? Nice solecism, though. Subject/object is a conceptual convenience. It can be seen through.

Maybe it’s a problem of definition, but I confess I don’t see how this makes it any less objective. My definition of that, by the way, is “anything which exists regardless of one’s opinion.” And it seems you believe in this too: you believe the unity of knower and known regardless of my opinion about it, right? You believe in an objective truth (using my definition of that term) just as much as I do, except yours has to do with the “known” being in the subject - this is the way you believe reality works. And the very fact that one of us can be wrong (me, as you state) shows you believe in truth and falsehood, incorrect and correctness: if subjective beliefs were always true, you couldn’t call mine in this matter wrong or say I committed a solecism (i.e. “a grammatical mistake”)

 

[Taurks]

Good is good relative to evil. It is through evil that good is known. The same is true for light and dark and all gradations in between. God is the source of both ends and all that lies in between. There is peace in this. There is havoc in denying it.

I wonder what you would make of St. Maximos the Confessor, who says the below. (I’m not claiming he contradicts you, by the way - I’m just mentioning this for the sake of discussion):

“Since God is absolute existence, absolute goodness and absolute wisdom, or rather, to put it more exactly, since God is beyond all such things, there is nothing whatsoever that is opposite to Him. Creatures, on the other hand, all exist through participation and grace, while those endowed with intelligence and intellect also have a capacity for goodness and wisdom. Hence they do have opposites. As the opposite to existence they have nonexistence, and as the opposite to the capacity for goodness and wisdom they have evil and ignorance.”
-Four Hundred Texts on Love, 3:27

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

I wonder what you would make of St. Maximos the Confessor, who says the below. (I’m not claiming he contradicts you, by the way - I’m just mentioning this for the sake of discussion):

“Since God is absolute existence, absolute goodness and absolute wisdom, or rather, to put it more exactly, since God is beyond all such things, there is nothing whatsoever that is opposite to Him. Creatures, on the other hand, all exist through participation and grace, while those endowed with intelligence and intellect also have a capacity for goodness and wisdom. Hence they do have opposites. As the opposite to existence they have nonexistence, and as the opposite to the capacity for goodness and wisdom they have evil and ignorance.”
-Four Hundred Texts on Love, 3:27

Good Evening Taurks: I wish I knew enough to say. Anything I do say is simply a matter of what I have reasoned. I think God has both a temporal and non-temporal aspect, and I think we have the same. I think that what we most often take to be “ourselves” is simply a matter of misidentifying ourselves with the physical agents of sentient experience that we are somehow enmeshed with. But I don’t think these are the sum of our true nature. I think they are expressions of it. I think that the universe craves experience, and we are one of the ways in which it accomplishes experience, and there are probably multitudes of other ways in which it does this. Clearly we are made entirely of matter left over from dead stars, which in turn look back at the night sky. I think we are the way in which the universe comes to know itself, and in and of itself it is not something other than God.

But this is all simply my best reasoning, and whether or not you take it seriously or give it any purchase, well, you can think on it as well as I can

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Taurks]

Good Evening Taurks: I wish I knew enough to say. Anything I do say is simply a matter of what I have reasoned. I think God has both a temporal and non-temporal aspect, and I think we have the same. I think that what we most often take to be “ourselves” is simply a matter of misidentifying ourselves with the physical agents of sentient experience that we are somehow enmeshed with. But I don’t think these are the sum of our true nature. I think they are expressions of it. I think that the universe craves experience, and we are one of the ways in which it accomplishes experience, and there are probably multitudes of other ways in which it does this. Clearly we are made entirely of matter left over from dead stars, which in turn look back at the night sky. I think we are the way in which the universe comes to know itself, and in and of itself it is not something other than God.

But this is all simply my best reasoning, and whether or not you take it seriously or give it any purchase, well, you can think on it as well as I can

Thanks,
Gary

Thanks for the reply. I just read a book from an Abbot in Alaska (St. Herman Brotherhood) who agrees about the temporal and non-temporal aspects of our souls. Part of us is, apparently, non-temporal. And Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation) says that our highest state of being is to contemplate God and therefore echo back to him: kind of like the universe looking at itself that you mentioned.

 

[Sochi]

Hi Sochi: Your whole post was very eloquent. I’m sorry you had this experience with the Church. I probably would have had the same one, but a nun pulled me aside once after I got smacked by a priest because of one of my points of view, and told me not to let him or anyone keep me from my church. She said that such people simply don’t understand the depth of what they have waded into. I think she was very wise.

Thanks as usual,
Gary

What a wonderful soul that nun is!!! One of my favorite Catholics is, as I may have mentioned, a former Carmelite, Bernadette Roberts. Her explication of her recognition is priceless, even though I can’t quite agree precisely on her rationalization about Jesus. That in itself is a a tract of interest!

 

[cheese_sdc]

Here’s what the Vatican II Documents have to say about it:

Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

 

[Sochi]

Here’s what the Vatican II Documents have to say about it:

It fascinates me that in some, or many, cases the actual stand of the Church is far saner than the sometimes nearly rabid paranoias of its misinformed adherents.

 

[Servant19]

It fascinates me that in some, or many, cases the actual stand of the Church is far saner than the sometimes nearly rabid paranoias of its misinformed adherents.

And there lieth our greatest challenge dear friend…

I often wonder, did the Chirch always have such “sane” teachings? Or is the thought process of some of it’s misinformed adherents a product of Church teachings from the past which have changed somewhat more recently?

I often wonder if Church teaching has “always” been that Muslims worship the same one God of Catholicism, for example?

.

 

[nmgauss]

I often wonder if Church teaching has “always” been that Muslims worship the same one God of Catholicism, for example?
.

Since Yahweh is the most popular concept of God in the OT, did Jesus have a different concept of God? If so, was Jesus’ God the same God as Yahweh?

Was Yahweh the God of Isaiah, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Hosea?

Islam teaches that Allah is only one substance. Catholics teach that God is three substances. Is that the same God?

 

[Sochi]

Just quickly, pertinent to earlier posts:

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg

Also

themindunleashed.org/2014/04/5-thought-provoking-quantum-experiments-showing-reality-illusion.html

and

themindunleashed.org/2014/04/proof-human-body-projection-consciousness.html

 

[Vouthon]

I often wonder if Church teaching has “always” been that Muslims worship the same one God of Catholicism, for example?

.

Would you say that 1076 is early enough for you?

“…This good action was inspired in your heart by God, the Creator of all things, without whom we can neither do nor think any good thing. He who enlightens all men coming into this world (John 1.9) has enlightened your mind for this purpose. Almighty God, who wishes that all should be saved and none lost, approves nothing in so much as that after loving Him one should love his fellow man, and that one should not do to others, what one does not want done to oneself. This affection we and you owe to each other in a more peculiar way than to people of other races because we worship and confess the same God though in diverse forms and daily praise and adore Him as the creator and ruler of this world…For God knows that we love you purely for His honour and that we desire your salvation and glory, both in this life and in the life to come. And we pray in our hearts and with our lips that God may lead you to the abode of happiness, to the bosom of the holy patriarch Abraham, after long years of life here on earth…”

- Pope St. Gregory VII, Letter XXI to Al-Nasir the Muslim Ruler of Bijaya (Algeria), 1076

Of the above Pope John Paul II said in 1990:

“…I close my greeting to you with the words of one of my predecessors, Pope Gregory VII who in 1076 wrote to Al-Nasir, the Muslim Ruler of Bijaya, present day Algeria…These words, written almost a thousand years ago, express my feelings to you today as you celebrate ‘Id al-Fitr, the Feast of the Breaking of the Fast. May the Most High God fill us with all His merciful love and peace…”

- Pope Saint John Paul II, Message to the faithful of Islam at the end of the month of Ramadan, April 3, 1991

How about two centuries later…

“…Through the participation of one people with another there will be love and concord…one manner of loving and honouring God and we should love and help one another, and make it so that between us there be no difference …] which causes us to be enemies with one another and to be at war, killing one another and falling captive to one another. And this war, death and servitude prevent us from giving the praise, reverence and honour we owe to God every day of our life…[And so] all men might be brought together, that they might have understanding, and love one another, and agree in the service of God…Let Christians who are well schooled and proficient in the Arabic language go to Tunis to demonstrate the truth of their faith and let Muslims who are well schooled come to the kingdom of Sicily to discuss their faith with Christian scholars. By acting in this way, maybe, there can be peace between Christians and Muslims, when in the whole world the situation will take effect that neither Christians want to destroy Muslims nor Muslims want to destroy Christians…”

- Blessed Ramon Llull (1232 – ca. 1315), Catholic mystic, philosopher,
logician and Franciscan missionary

And another two centuries after that…

“…The whole concern of him who wrote that law [Muhammad], therefore, appears to have been primarily to avert the people from idolatry. And to this end he made these kinds of promises and wrote down everything. However, he did not condemn the Gospel, but rather praised it, and thereby intimated that the felicity which is promised in the Gospel would not be less than that corporeal felicity…You will find that not another faith but the one and the same faith is presupposed everywhere…Moses had described a path to God, but this path was neither taken up by everyone nor was it understood by everyone. Jesus illuminated and perfected this path; nevertheless, many even now remain unbelievers. Muhammad tried to make the same path easier, so that it might be accepted by all, even idolaters. These are the most famous of the said paths to God, although many others were presented by the wise and the prophets…”

- Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1453), De Pace Fidei (Catholic mystic & prelate)

How about we go to the 1930s now:

"…Do not think you are going to a country of heathens [or “among infidels”]. Muslims attain to salvation. The ways of God are infinite…”

***- Pope Pius XI, 1934 (L’Ultima, Florence, Anno VIII) ***

And finally, here is the 1980s:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1985/august/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19850819_giovani-stadio-casablanca_en.html

“…Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common, as believers and as human beings. We live in the same world, marked by many signs of hope, but also by multiple signs of anguish. For us, Abraham is a very model of faith in God, of submission to his will and of confidence in his goodness. We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection…The Catholic Church regards with respect and recognizes the equality of your religious progress, the richness of your spiritual tradition…On this path, you are assured, of the esteem and the collaboration of your Catholic brothers and sisters whom I represent among you this evening…”

- Pope Saint John Paul II: Address to young Muslims in Casablanca, 1985

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Would you say that 1076 is early enough for you?

Of the above Pope John Paul II said in 1990:

How about two centuries later…

And another two centuries after that…

How about we go to the 1930s now:

And finally, here is the 1980s:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1985/august/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19850819_giovani-stadio-casablanca_en.html

Good Morning Vouthon: The way I have been thinking about this for some time now is like this: I think that Christians are running on an Abrahamic Operating System and clicking on a Jesus icon, whereas Muslims are on the same operating system and clicking on Mohammed. Vaishnavites are clicking on a Krishna icon on a Hindu Operating System, while Shaivites are on the same Hindu Operating System but clicking on a Shiva icon, and Buddhists are on a variant of the Hindu Operating System clicking on Siddhartha Gautama. And they’re all using various platforms like towers, laptops, tablets and smartphones (prayer, contemplation, ritual and tradition), but ultimately they are all using these different methods to access the same program, which is God, and God is in turn the Inmost Self of anyone and anything using any Operating System or device to do anything. And I think they’re all getting there just fine, because there is no place to get to. What we are looking for is right here, right now. We just have to catch the wave and ride it, but this is hard to do when we’re looking at everyone else and comparing the virtues of one vs. the other.

I’m sure many will disagree, but I think it’s an interesting idea.

Thank you,
Gary