Buddist on Catholic answers?

[eddie_too]

grym,

why could you not say that

 

[eddie_too]

grym,

is it your point that the buddhist monk who instructed brendan in buddhism misrepresented buddhism?

 

[Grym]

grym,

is it your point that the buddhist monk who instructed brendan in buddhism misrepresented buddhism?

It is and probably misunderstood buddhism as well.

Just because people wear a yellow robe and chant gathas does not make them a member of the Aryan Sangha. Just as little as wearing the robes of a Cardinal makes you a Holy Man of the Catholic Church.

/Victor

 

[Brendan_64]

By the same logical deduction you make here then It is fair to judge the entire Catholic Community by the deeds of 400 perverted childmolesting priests?

I think not.

:tsktsk:

No, it is not the same. The core of Buddhism is self-interest, not love. In fact love is seen as an attachment that one aims to be released from. Ultimately the aim is not to care for one’s fellow man, but to get to a point beyond that, to a point where ones fellow man does not matter.

Buddhism is a self-centred belief system, it’s all about a person achieving their own enlightenment through removing attachments. This also involves removing one’s attachment to humanity.

The monk that advised me did so from an orthodox Buddhist theological standpoint. Why ought I to care about someone else taking the ‘karmic rap’ on my behalf? Why should I develop an attachment? That’s his karma, not mine.

 

[eddie_too]

grym, thanks for the clarification.

on a different point, is it not a fact that the principles of buddhism are not codified, meaning they are neither written down nor determined by an authoritative source, they are primary subjective to the individual practitioner?

 

[openmind77]

No. Buddhists believe that to kill anotheer creature has a negative effect on one’s karma. I was advised, by a very emminent Buddhist monk, that it would be better for me to get someone else to kill the rats, so as to avoid the negative karmic effects on me. So it’s OK to have someone else take the rap for something on my behalf?

You are wrong. Religion is not an intellectual pastime, religion is about truth. Truth is absolute.

The four noble truths and the eight-fold path are really not that difficult to grasp. Buddhism really is not so complex. However it is an inherently self-centred belief system, it’s all about one’s own karma, and one’s own search for enlightenment. It is a belief system where compassionate acts are driven by self interest.In fact love for one’s fellow man is ultimately seen as an attachment to be broken free from. At the core of Christianity is Love, at the core of Buddhism is self-interest.

Christianity as preached by Jesus is indeed about Love - but to say that compassion for the suffering of all creatures as the Buddha taught is about ‘self-interest’ is ridiculous.

Trying to prove that your religion is superior to someone else’s is hardly about love.

Both religions have a lot to teach us. I think Buddhist’s concepts of Sunyata or the nature of the Self is not something the average person can understand. For such people Christianity is much better.

 

[Brendan_64]

Christianity as preached by Jesus is indeed about Love - but to say that compassion for the suffering of all creatures as the Buddha taught is about ‘self-interest’ is ridiculous.

It is not ridiculous. Buddhism is about an individual seeking enlightenment and moving towards it through karma. Care for one’s fellow man is an attachment to one’s fellow man, and the ultimate aim is to remove oneself from attachments. Buddhism is ultimately focussed on the self, until such point as one removes attachment from the self (which is the last attachment).

 

[Grym]

I think you are getting things mixed up Brendan. Let me try to explain.

No, it is not the same. The core of Buddhism is self-interest, not love. In fact love is seen as an attachment that one aims to be released from. Ultimately the aim is not to care for one’s fellow man, but to get to a point beyond that, to a point where ones fellow man does not matter.

Buddhism is a self-centred belief system, it’s all about a person achieving their own enlightenment through removing attachments. This also involves removing one’s attachment to humanity.

Theravada for instance is a “selfcentered” system aiming at the Awakening of the individual. They have never promised anything else. But that does not mean that bad sila (unskillfull behavior) is ok!

Mahayana is not selfcentered in the same way. Many there aim to save as many souls as possible. Some even wow not to reach final Awakening before all other sentient beings in this world are saved!

The monk that advised me did so from an orthodox Buddhist theological standpoint. Why ought I to care about someone else taking the ‘karmic rap’ on my behalf? Why should I develop an attachment? That’s his karma, not mine.

That was because that monk was an idiot.

 

[Grym]

grym, thanks for the clarification.

on a different point, is it not a fact that the principles of buddhism are not codified, meaning they are neither written down nor determined by an authoritative source, they are primary subjective to the individual practitioner?

The principles of Buddhism are written down. But it is very important that each and every one understand that they are responsible for their own salvation. That they try to understand and interpret the Dhamma for themselves. Thinking and evaluating the dhamma for yourself is encouraged before believing in Authority.

But of course there are different paths. Some are liberated by pondering and understanding the word of the Dhamma only and some by mere Faith in the path or the Buddha (which is clinging to Authority in my opinion) yet others by deep concentration practises.

Well at least that is what I have heard.

 

[openmind77]

It is not ridiculous. Buddhism is about an individual seeking enlightenment and moving towards it through karma. Care for one’s fellow man is an attachment to one’s fellow man, and the ultimate aim is to remove oneself from attachments. Buddhism is ultimately focussed on the self, until such point as one removes attachment from the self (which is the last attachment).

I don’t see that much difference qualitatively between the Christian goal of salvation by getting rid of sin and the Buddhist goal of enlightenment and getting rid of karma and attachment.

There is a story (probably apocryphal) of the Buddha offering his body as food to a tiger who was hungry. Even if it is just a story, it shows how far Buddhists think you should go for the sake of others.

Jesus’s concept of unconditional love even for your enemies is just as radical.

But I am not sure that that many Christians share Jesus’s love for his enemies.

 

[eddie_too]

christians greatly desire attachment. that being ultimately perfect attachment to Perfect Being.

also, christians sin by omission as well as commission.

from our Savior come the words, depart from me you evil ones, when i was hungry you did not feed me, when i was naked you did not clothe me …

also, why is it reasonable to equate an animal with a human being?

 

[Grym]

what a red herring, whoever claimed the soul does not change.

You did. You said the soul does not change. Eariler in this thread.

Here is the conversation: (Please correct me if I am wrong)

You said

• that i am a different person from one moment to the next makes no sense to me.
  it defies my experience of reality.that i change over time i agree. that such change makes me someone else, i disagree.*

I asked
…]So what part of you is the you that does not change?

You answered
***my soul. ***

What did I miss?

 

[eddie_too]

i see the confusion. i worded my concept poorly.

the soul is what makes me a person. the person i am is always the same person. i am never two persons or multiple persons.

so, i am always the same soul, but that soul always is either growing in love or rejecting love.

if that is a difficult distinction to understand, both you and i will have to wait for someone more eloquent than i to explain it.

however, i am always the same soul. just as i am always the same body. the fact that my body replenishes at a molecular level does not mean, at least in my mind, that the body that developed a disease twenty years ago and still suffers from that same disease now is a different body.

i do not know how to explain it any differently. it makes sense to me to say that i have one body from conception until death. perhaps, it is the distinction that exists between form and substance?

my form may change, but the substance does not and i mean substance in the metaphysical sense, not in a subective or physical sense.

 

[ProdigalSun]

Correct:

• Avoid injury to living things.
• Avoid taking what is not given.
• Avoid sensual misconduct.
• Avoid false and malicious speech.
• Avoid intoxication.

rossum

Why do we need to avoid these. They are mostly fun especially the sensual misconduct. I’m not sure why we need to avoid these things if there is no such thisg asa sin. So I dont go to whereever and I’m reborn to do it all over again. SOunds like fun to me not toture?

By the way how do you kow that Buddha was not reborn. Have you checked everywhere for him. Maybe he was reborn but too embarassed to let you know?

 

[eddie_too]

the person who was conceived fifty years ago, is still that person today even though change has occurred.

if you plant a tree in your yard, to me ten years from now, it is the same tree you originally planted. i think this is the reality of most human beings.

they could understand your point that the tree has changed without accepting your point that it is a different tree.

 

[rossum]

i already said that if by reincarnation you mean the growth and develpment of individual human beings until their deaths then i agree.

Everything changes, humans included.

if you mean by reincarnation that this growth and development results in the same soul being given to a new mortal body, than i disagree.

I do not mean that. Buddhism denies the existence of souls. That which passes from life A to life B is not the same as that which passes from life B to life C. It changes during each lifetime and in never the same from moment to moment. Everything changes. Permanent souls are a common illusion that needs to be overcome through meditation.

there is absolutely no reason to believe that the soul a human being possesses throughout their lives will someday have a new MORTAL body.

There is no soul anywhere at any time, so it can never possess anything.

You still have to explain how an your proposed unchanging can ever change from unsaved to saved, or vice versa. If a your soul cannot change then all religion is useless.

rossum

 

[Grym]

the soul is what makes me a person. the person i am is always the same person. i am never two persons or multiple persons.

so, i am always the same soul, but that soul always is either growing in love or rejecting love.

if that is a difficult distinction to understand, both you and i will have to wait for someone more eloquent than i to explain it.

however, i am always the same soul. just as i am always the same body. the fact that my body replenishes at a molecular level does not mean, at least in my mind, that the body that developed a disease twenty years ago and still suffers from that same disease now is a different body.

i do not know how to explain it any differently. it makes sense to me to say that i have one body from conception until death. perhaps, it is the distinction that exists between form and substance?

my form may change, but the substance does not and i mean substance in the metaphysical sense, not in a subective or physical sense.

The only thing I can say for sure is that mostly is *not *same body. Because the cells are replaced so often. And about your brain. The neuron pathways change as I understand it until Death.

But concerning the inner world I must say that I have been watching myself intently for a very long time and I cannot honestly say I have found even a peice of a fragment of a shard in my soul or mind that does not change with time.

I would say the the wording for what does not change in you eludes you because there simply is nothing there to dress in words.

/Victor

 

[rossum]

what a red herring, whoever claimed the soul does not change.

when i explained that the soul is the source of a human beings intellect and free will, how do you conclude that i am saying the soul does not change?

who besides rossum and gryn have ever wrote that the soul does not change.

You did. Logically a single thing cannot have two opposed properties. A number cannot be even and not-even. It can only be one or the other. If object X is said to be saved and not-saved, then there must be two different X’s. One X is saved while the other X is not saved. This is the logical rule of the excluded middle. If object X is saved at one time and no-saved at another time then that does not change the fact that the two X’s must be different. Just as you at 3 weeks old are different to you at 30 years old. If you say that there is only one soul to a human being, then that soul can never be both saved and non-saved. That requires two souls, not one soul.

rossum

 

[Grym]

Why do we need to avoid these. They are mostly fun especially the sensual misconduct. I’m not sure why we need to avoid these things if there is no such thisg asa sin. So I dont go to whereever and I’m reborn to do it all over again. SOunds like fun to me not toture?

No fun not really, not anymore. The world was fun and strawberry fields until Vanilla Ice made “Ice Ice Baby” and now it is a desecrated, dark place for ever.

By the way how do you kow that Buddha was not reborn. Have you checked everywhere for him. Maybe he was reborn but too embarassed to let you know?

That is the real reason why we are told to “Kill the Buddha” if we ever see him. But it is a Buddhist secret that is never told to outsiders.

/Victor

 

[eddie_too]

i know that i am the same person who i was twenty years ago.

change is an action, it is not the actor. i distinguish between the action and the actor. you do not. in my understanding, for an action to occur it must someone who acts.

for me the actor is permanent and a change is temporary although the element of change may be continuous until the actor is perfected. at the point of perfection, change to the actor no longer occurs because the actor has completely fulfilled his or her nature.

i have no desire to become nothing. i have no desire to be detached from Perfect Being.

i see no reason to desire such things.

my greatest desire is to become what my Creator intended me to become.

i completely understand that this is contrary to buddhism.

but, i want to be fulfilled not to become empty. i do not want to lose myself at death or any other time, in nirvana (whatever that means) or anywhere else. i want to become all that my Creator desires me to become.

i realize that you cannot understand that. but, you should be able to understand the empty tomb that was found after Jesus raised Himself from the dead.