Compassion in Buddhist, Hinduism and Other Religions

[benedictus2]

I would then want to know whether you are referring to Jesus as a fully human being or Jesus as G-d Incarnate who suffers, or both, since they are regarded as a hypostatic union? Who actually suffers, dies, and is resurrected for the sins of humanity?

I missed replying to this part in my earlier reply.

It was God who suffered and died on the cross as strange as it may sound. In my earlier comment, I was not being Nestorian - claiming that it was the human Jesus that suffered.

What I am saying though is that the suffering God is an NT and not an OT reality.

Rabbi Kushner in his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” mentioned that he couldn’t understand the Christian idea of a God who suffers.

 

[rossum]

What are you saying Rossum?

I am saying that enlightened persons exist today. They generally don’t publicise the fact, but they do exist. Buddhist techniques have worked for 2,500 years and they still work today. There is a lot of accumulated experience behind those techniques and in finding the correct technique for each person.

Some people come to Zen expecting that Enlightenment will be the Ultimate Peak Experience. The Mother of All Peak Experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. Once I had an amazing vision. I saw myself transported through time and space. Millions, no, billions, trillions, Godzillions of years passed. Not figuratively, but literally. Whizzed by. I found myself at the very rim of time and space, a vast giant being composed of the living minds and bodies of every thing that ever was. It was an incredibly moving experience. Exhilarating. I was high for weeks. Finally I told Nishijima Sensei about it. He said it was nonsense. Just my imagination. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Imagination? This was as real an experience as any I’ve ever had. I just about cried. Later on that day I was eating a tangerine. I noticed how incredibly lovely a thing it was. So delicate. So amazingly orange. So very tasty. So I told Nishijima about that. That experience, he said, was enlightenment.

• source: Zen is Boring
  Nishijima Sensei knew what was enlightenment and what was not. He had the experience to know and to guide his pupil.

You may compare Thomas Merton’s experience to the two experiences in the quote above.

rossum

 

[Sufjon]

You will never find an enlightened person because they don’t exist. You are searching in the wrong place.

You are correct - you will never find an enlightenend person because you are looking in the wrong place.

You also have to know how to look. I know Christians who would do anything to meet Jesus Christ in person. And yet every day they flip Him off in traffic, cut Him off in line, and in general they pass Him without notice. These people are looking in the wrong place, or they are not looking. While it plainly says on scripture that people wil see Him and not know Him, they shrug it off as figurative. He said He would be hungry and people wouldn’t feed Him and so on. Perhaps it’s because it’s beyond comprehension. Or perhaps it’s downright inconvenient to have such a realization because then people would actually have to live in the manner they were told to. therefore it is easy to believe the most fantastic of things that don’t hit you in the face everyday, such as resurrections, ascensions and assumptions because they are far off events and you don’t have to deal with them on a street corner everyday. Yet the simplist thing gets passed off as figurative, perhaps because that is just too hard to deal with on a day to day, minute to minute basis basis.

If you want to meet an enlightened person, you need only look. Likewise, if you want to see Jesus face to face you need only look. Again, you are saying that things don’t exist because you simply aren’t looking.

Your friend
Sufjon

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Lisa44]

Sorry I missed Meltzer’s earlier reply. I have responded.

As to it is just a dog, well, it is just a dog. A dog is not a human being. We should tend and care for all creation but one cannot say that people and animals are the same. We must not confuse proper treatment of animals with how we should care for people.

If there was a burning building and you can save only one, you would not go for the dog, you would go for the human being.

As I have said before, when animals suffer we put them down. But only Kevorkian and his ilk would suggest the same be done for human beings

I’m sorry you feel that way.

 

[Lisa44]

You are correct - you will never find an enlightenend person because you are looking in the wrong place.

You also have to know how to look. I know Christians who would do anything to meet Jesus Christ in person. And yet every day they flip Him off in traffic, cut Him off in line, and in general they pass Him without notice. These people are looking in the wrong place, or they are not looking. While it plainly says on scripture that people wil see Him and not know Him, they shrug it off as figurative. He said He would be hungry and people wouldn’t feed Him and so on. Perhaps it’s because it’s beyond comprehension. Or perhaps it’s downright inconvenient to have such a realization because then people would actually have to live in the manner they were told to. therefore it is easy to believe the most fantastic of things that don’t hit you in the face everyday, such as resurrections, ascensions and assumptions because they are far off events and you don’t have to deal with them on a street corner everyday. Yet the simplist thing gets passed off as figurative, perhaps because that is just too hard to deal with on a day to day, minute to minute basis basis.

If you want to meet an enlightened person, you need only look. Likewise, if you want to see Jesus face to face you need only look. Again, you are saying that things don’t exist because you simply aren’t looking.

Your friend
Sufjon

Your friend
Sufjon

Please don’t confuse your religion with Christianity. You are making a mistake pertaining to relativism which seeks to merge all the common elements of religions into a new relgion. And what you are preaching is a belief, but it is not Christianity. You will have to ask Jesus sincerely from your heart to help you see the truth. I am saying this not be be insulting, but because the confusion is so great in this time of relativism that the devil has made people think they know who Jesus is when in fact they are looking at a modern fabrication of Jesus that is not Jesus at all, but a demon.
The devil always appears as an angel of light.

I do not dialoge with demons. They will ALWAYS win. They win by confounding the subject, mixing up the terminology, switching the topic, and deflecting off of themselves.
In short, it is not an honest conversation. The devil is the master of lies. And that is why it is impossible to dialoge with the devil.

If you want me to be specific I will.
You said, (or the voice speaking said) “You have to know how to look”.

Nonsense, everyone with eyes can see. A book is plain before the eyes and all one has to do is READ the words. But you suggest that there is an ART to looking.
When in fact, all anyone has to do is pick up a bible and read it.

Secondly, you said, (or the voice in your head said) “I know Christians who would do anything to meet Jesus Christ yet everyday they flip him off in traffic…”

How can anyone flip off Jesus in traffic, when Jesus is not on this earth?
Do you see how you take the real Jesus…and you turn him into EVERYONE walking around in traffic! This is relativism, and it is also a LIE.

Thirdly, “these people are looking for him in the wrong place”.
Who are “these people” you mention who are flipping off Jesus in the traffic. They don’t exist except in your mind. And, if you are trying to suggest that ALL people look for Jesus in the wrong place then that is also incorrect because not all people are looking for Jesus. Then, if you are trying to suggest that CHRISTIANS are looking for Jesus in the wrong place then you are also incorrect and lying. Christians look for Jesus in the bible, not in the traffic. Jesus is not on this earth and no Christian is looking for him in the traffic.

That is enough. I will not enter into discussions that are all fabrications and lies.

It is enough that you will have some glimpse into your own delusion.

 

[Xuan]

You are correct - you will never find an enlightenend person because you are looking in the wrong place.

You also have to know how to look. I know Christians who would do anything to meet Jesus Christ in person. And yet every day they flip Him off in traffic, cut Him off in line, and in general they pass Him without notice. These people are looking in the wrong place, or they are not looking. While it plainly says on scripture that people wil see Him and not know Him, they shrug it off as figurative. He said He would be hungry and people wouldn’t feed Him and so on. Perhaps it’s because it’s beyond comprehension. Or perhaps it’s downright inconvenient to have such a realization because then people would actually have to live in the manner they were told to. therefore it is easy to believe the most fantastic of things that don’t hit you in the face everyday, such as resurrections, ascensions and assumptions because they are far off events and you don’t have to deal with them on a street corner everyday. Yet the simplist thing gets passed off as figurative, perhaps because that is just too hard to deal with on a day to day, minute to minute basis basis.

If you want to meet an enlightened person, you need only look. Likewise, if you want to see Jesus face to face you need only look. Again, you are saying that things don’t exist because you simply aren’t looking.

Your friend
Sufjon

Your friend
Sufjon

Beautiful post, Sufjon.

Your friend,
Xuan

 

[Lisa44]

I am saying that enlightened persons exist today. They generally don’t publicise the fact, but they do exist. Buddhist techniques have worked for 2,500 years and they still work today. There is a lot of accumulated experience behind those techniques and in finding the correct technique for each person.

Some people come to Zen expecting that Enlightenment will be the Ultimate Peak Experience. The Mother of All Peak Experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. Once I had an amazing vision. I saw myself transported through time and space. Millions, no, billions, trillions, Godzillions of years passed. Not figuratively, but literally. Whizzed by. I found myself at the very rim of time and space, a vast giant being composed of the living minds and bodies of every thing that ever was. It was an incredibly moving experience. Exhilarating. I was high for weeks. Finally I told Nishijima Sensei about it. He said it was nonsense. Just my imagination. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Imagination? This was as real an experience as any I’ve ever had. I just about cried. Later on that day I was eating a tangerine. I noticed how incredibly lovely a thing it was. So delicate. So amazingly orange. So very tasty. So I told Nishijima about that. That experience, he said, was enlightenment.

• source: Zen is Boring
  Nishijima Sensei knew what was enlightenment and what was not. He had the experience to know and to guide his pupil.

You may compare Thomas Merton’s experience to the two experiences in the quote above.

rossum

So is your point then, enlightenment is a nice experience? Merton had a nice experience, the zen practioner has a nice experience.

…that’s it? What a complete waste of time. Sorry.

What you are not admitting, to anyone here on this Catholic forum, is the beliefs that are behind the fascade of Buddhism. Would you like to speak to those?
Are you not saying that Christians worship false gods? Are you not saying that the only thing that REALLY exists is the here and now, and that everything else is a fabrication of the mind? That even suffering is not real and only conditional? And a product of mind?

 

[Xuan]

I think the idea of compassion as “shared suffering” has been around as long as humanity has. When the mother who loves her small child sees him suffering, she suffers right along with him. Sometimes she suffers even more than the child does. This kind of compassion stems from selfless love.

Christ encouraged this kind of compassion when He said “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Buddha also encouraged this kind of compassion when he said “Love others as you love yourself.” - Bhadramayakara vyakarana sutra 91.

These are the same teachings.

This thread draws a distinction between different meanings assigned to the word “compassion.” We should also draw a distinction between different meanings assigned to the word “suffering,” without conflating them. When the Buddha talked about avoiding suffering, he was talking specifically about the kind of suffering (anxiety, angst, anguish) that results from giving in to selfish craving, desiring.

Loving compassion is high on the list of Buddhist virtues. Buddhist charities have been especially visible in helping and tending to victims of the tsunamis over the past few years.

I’m not a Buddhist, but I’ve been learning about Buddhism for a few years now, and I have a great deal of respect for it. If I’ve mis-stated Buddhist teachings at all, I would welcome corrections from rossum or Ahimsa.

Xuan

 

[rossum]

Secondly, you said, (or the voice in your head said) “I know Christians who would do anything to meet Jesus Christ yet everyday they flip him off in traffic…”

How can anyone flip off Jesus in traffic, when Jesus is not on this earth?
Do you see how you take the real Jesus…and you turn him into EVERYONE walking around in traffic! This is relativism, and it is also a LIE.

One of the problems with taking an overly literal reading of the Bible is that you miss so much of what is written there. Please, for your own sake, read what Sufjon said again. Compare it with what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46. Read what Jesus said very carefully; you are in danger of flipping Him off in traffic. I am sure that is not what you would want to do, but you appear to be in danger of doing so:

[40] The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
That is how you can flip Jesus off in traffic. You appear to be ignoring some excellent advice.

rossum

 

[rossum]

So is your point then, enlightenment is a nice experience? Merton had a nice experience, the zen practioner has a nice experience.

…that’s it? What a complete waste of time. Sorry.

Why is something nice a “complete waste of time”? Do we have to be nasty in order to be doing something useful? What a strange attitude.

What you are not admitting, to anyone here on this Catholic forum, is the beliefs that are behind the fascade of Buddhism. Would you like to speak to those?

Certainly. Beliefs in Buddhism are much less important than actions. The Abrahamic religions tend to emphasise belief, while the Dharmic religions emphasise actions:
To avoid all evil,
to cultivate good,
and to cleanse one’s mind -
this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

• Dhammapada 14:5
  From a Christian point of view, these three can be summarised as:

• avoid all evil - follow the Ten Commandments.
• cultivate good - love your neighbour as yourself.
• cleanse one’s mind - meditate.

There are religion neutral meditations, such as counting breaths, and there are Christian meditations for you to follow if you wish. One of the advantages of Catholicism is that, along with the Orthodox, it has preserved meditation techniques that the Protestant churches have mostly lost.

Are you not saying that Christians worship false gods?

No, the Abrahamic God is mentioned in Buddhist scripture; He appears in the Brahmajala sutta. Gods exist in Buddhism, it is just that they cannot grant you enlightenment. That is something you have to do for yourself.

Are you not saying that the only thing that REALLY exists is the here and now, and that everything else is a fabrication of the mind? That even suffering is not real and only conditional? And a product of mind?

One of the purposes of meditation is to enable you to determine what is actually real and what is overlaid onto your raw perceptions by your mind. That is an important distinction to make.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Beautiful post, Sufjon.

Indeed. Very beautiful.

rossum

 

[Ahimsa]

I think the idea of compassion as “shared suffering” has been around as long as humanity has. When the mother who loves her small child sees him suffering, she suffers right along with him. Sometimes she suffers even more than the child does. This kind of compassion stems from selfless love.

Christ encouraged this kind of compassion when He said “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Buddha also encouraged this kind of compassion when he said “Love others as you love yourself.” - Bhadramayakara vyakarana sutra 91.

These are the same teachings.

This thread draws a distinction between different meanings assigned to the word “compassion.” We should also draw a distinction between different meanings assigned to the word “suffering,” without conflating them. When the Buddha talked about avoiding suffering, he was talking specifically about the kind of suffering (anxiety, angst, anguish) that results from giving in to selfish craving, desiring.

Loving compassion is high on the list of Buddhist virtues. Buddhist charities have been especially visible in helping and tending to victims of the tsunamis over the past few years.

I’m not a Buddhist, but I’ve been learning about Buddhism for a few years now, and I have a great deal of respect for it. If I’ve mis-stated Buddhist teachings at all, I would welcome corrections from rossum or Ahimsa.

Xuan

I think you have it just about right. The “suffering” that Buddhism seeks to end is the “suffering” that is a result of lust, hatred, and delusion. That “suffering” that Buddhism does not seek to end is the “suffering” that is a result of compassion, generosity, and wisdom.

 

[Lisa44]

One of the problems with taking an overly literal reading of the Bible is that you miss so much of what is written there. Please, for your own sake, read what Sufjon said again. Compare it with what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46. Read what Jesus said very carefully; you are in danger of flipping Him off in traffic. I am sure that is not what you would want to do, but you appear to be in danger of doing so:

[40] The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
That is how you can flip Jesus off in traffic. You appear to be ignoring some excellent advice.

rossum

It is not prudent to take verses out of the bible out of context. In those same verses Jesus says: (25:46) And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Now, if you really believed in what Jesus was saying then you would believe that Jesus is our judge and that he will send us into eternal hell or to eternal life.

The bible is NOT a book of pithy sayings. I recommend Marcus Aurelius for a book of pithy sayings.

And since you reject the bible as the word of God, and since you reject Jesus as the only means to salvation, how is it that you use his words to judge others? Do you judge others by a different standard than you judge yourself? Why would you not also hold yourself up to the same standard that you judge Christians by?

Because if you did, you would have to judge yourself as being condemned to eternal hell.

So you see you make no sense. You do not condemn yourself to eternal hell for rejecting Jesus, but you will condemn Christians with the same book that you yourself reject.

 

[Ahimsa]

No, the Abrahamic God is mentioned in Buddhist scripture; He appears in the Brahmajala sutta.

The Abrahamic God, though, is understood in many different ways, some of those ways having some interesting similarities to Buddhist ways of understanding nirvana. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite described the Abrahamic God thus:
Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that [God] is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation- free from every limitation and beyond them all.
Speaking of nirvana, the Buddha said:
There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor staying; neither passing away nor arising: unestablished, unevolving, without support (mental object).

 

[rossum]

It is not prudent to take verses out of the bible out of context. In those same verses Jesus says: (25:46) And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Now, if you really believed in what Jesus was saying then you would believe that Jesus is our judge and that he will send us into eternal hell or to eternal life.

The bible is NOT a book of pithy sayings. I recommend Marcus Aurelius for a book of pithy sayings.

And since you reject the bible as the word of God, and since you reject Jesus as the only means to salvation, how is it that you use his words to judge others? Do you judge others by a different standard than you judge yourself? Why would you not also hold yourself up to the same standard that you judge Christians by?

Because if you did, you would have to judge yourself as being condemned to eternal hell.

So you see you make no sense. You do not condemn yourself to eternal hell for rejecting Jesus, but you will condemn Christians with the same book that you yourself reject.

Oh dear. Please, please read all of what Jesus said again. You truly need to. Please.

rossum

 

[meltzerboy]

Why is something nice a “complete waste of time”? Do we have to be nasty in order to be doing something useful? What a strange attitude.

Certainly. Beliefs in Buddhism are much less important than actions. The Abrahamic religions tend to emphasise belief, while the Dharmic religions emphasise actions:
To avoid all evil,
to cultivate good,
and to cleanse one’s mind -
this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

• Dhammapada 14:5
  From a Christian point of view, these three can be summarised as:

• avoid all evil - follow the Ten Commandments.
• cultivate good - love your neighbour as yourself.
• cleanse one’s mind - meditate.

There are religion neutral meditations, such as counting breaths, and there are Christian meditations for you to follow if you wish. One of the advantages of Catholicism is that, along with the Orthodox, it has preserved meditation techniques that the Protestant churches have mostly lost.

No, the Abrahamic God is mentioned in Buddhist scripture; He appears in the Brahmajala sutta. Gods exist in Buddhism, it is just that they cannot grant you enlightenment. That is something you have to do for yourself.

One of the purposes of meditation is to enable you to determine what is actually real and what is overlaid onto your raw perceptions by your mind. That is an important distinction to make.

rossum

Judaism tends to emphasize practice and actions more than orthodox beliefs; it is basically an orthoprax religion, having little dogma compared to Christianity.

 

[Contarini]

But that is still not compassion. I think before Christianity, the idea of compassion is just not there.

It’s definitely there in Mahayana Buddhism, though this famous expression of the idea appears to be from an 8th-century text. So that doesn’t necessarily refute your claim. Mahayana Buddhism seems to have originated about the same time as Christianity.

It seems to me that the Buddhist understanding of compassion (even pre-Mahayana) generally does involve “suffering with” because in Buddhism an enlightened person is free from the illusion that “selfhood” is permanent or ultimately real. Compassion is rooted in this enlightenment (or in the attempt to reach it)–it breaks down the barriers between your self and others, so that the suffering of others no longer seems less real than your own.

Or so it seems to me. The Buddhists who hang out here can correct me if I misunderstand.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I think in the case of the dog it can be called compassion (if the dog suffers from being left behind). I suppose this is just something that does not make sense to me because it is just a dog.

And I think you just blew your whole argument into little bits.

Not only have you been shown an example of compassion in a non-Christian (probably pre-Christian, though the Mahabharata was composed over a long period of time) text, but you yourself admit that it’s such an extreme example of compassion that it makes no sense to you. So perhaps not only do Eastern religions have real compassion, but we Christians have something to learn from them in that regard.

At least so it appears from your own words

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Buddhism seeks to escape suffering not join someone in his/her suffering.

Explain the Boddhisattva vows, then.

I think you are showing that you know little about Buddhism. For one thing, you clearly don’t understand what Buddhists mean by “suffering.”

Just as Rossum continues, in spite of my best efforts, to misrepresent the Western monotheist understanding of God.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I have pointed out to you repeatedly that this radically misrepresents the “Abrahamic” (if by that you mean Judaeo-Christian-Islamic) conception of God.

It is no more legitimate for you to engage in straw-man caricatures of our religion than for us to engage in straw-man caricatures of yours.

I do my best to avoid the latter. I wish you would put some effort into avoiding the former.

Edwin