Is Buddhism pantheistic?

[Contarini]

Wow, I am offended. I honestly am offended. You are saying that Sri Lankan Buddhism has no pantheistic ideas in it.

You my friend, either have no clue what Pantheism and Therevada Buddhism is or you are using some other language.

OK, so explain the pantheism of Sri Lankan Buddhism to us.

How is pantheism compatible with the doctrine of anatta and the view that everything is made up of the five skandhas?

Don’t be offended when people say what any standard textbook on Buddhism says.

I recognize that cultural expression of a religion can look a lot different than the classic literary expressions of that religion, so I for one am willing to learn. But there’s no reason to take offense.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I’m hardly qualified to weigh in on this but I will anyhow. I don’t know much about either religion but I am finding Buddhism rather fascinating at the moment.

Isn’t the key to understanding this the idea that at a high philosophical level at least (if not at the level of folk religion) Hinduism and Buddhism are monist, i.e. they believe that the universe is one. Therefore the gods and goddesses that we see in a Hindu or Buddhist temple are merely expressions of a single god principle despite how they might appear to Westerners as discrete beings.

That is certainly a pretty good generalization about Hinduism in its classic expressions, but not Buddhism–at least not Theravada Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism teaching that reality is not one, but an every-changing flux made up of the “five aggregates” continually recombining.

*Mahayana *Buddhism posits (to oversimplify dramatically) that the total interdependence, or emptiness, of these ever-changing, impermanent things, is the ultimate reality or “Buddha nature.” In that sense, some forms of Mahayana approach the Hindu understanding of Brahman (and conversely, the most famous “nondualist” Hindu philosopher was accused of being a Buddhist by his contemporaries).

When I once asked a Sri Lankan monk about some of these ideas, he said that these are very advanced teachings in his tradition and seemed dubious as to whether he could really explain them to a non-Buddhist. So I would not be surprised to find that “ordinary” Sri Lankan Buddhists don’t think about this stuff.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Now the modern Therevada as you see today in Sri Lanka is a mixture of Hinduism.

That probably explains your perception that it is “pantheistic.” That’s certainly not the impression that one gets from the classic Pali texts or the standard secondary literature on Theravada Buddhism.

Edwin

 

[passer_by]

That probably explains your perception that it is “pantheistic.” That’s certainly not the impression that one gets from the classic Pali texts or the standard secondary literature on Theravada Buddhism.

Edwin

I think there might be a misunderstanding.

Therevada Buddhism in its purest form is is not incompatible with Christianity because it is pantheistic. It is incompatible due to set of other reasons which I listed down in my last post to Ahimsa.

In its current form found in Sri Lanka, it is of-course pantheistic. The Hindu teachings have influenced most of the thought process in Buddhism and even how temples are constructed are very different from how it used to be in the earliest day of pure Therevada Buddhism.

That is what I meant to say to Ahimsa. Ahimsa on the other hand doesn’t even seem to believe that Hinduism is pantheistic.

 

[Ahimsa]

Ahimsa, I have no clue what your agenda is and I am not going to assume it.

But here is the deal.

Therevada Buddhism in its purest form is Deistic at best.

Sorry, you have an incomplete understanding of Theravada Buddhism. To apply the word “deist” to a Theravada Buddhist is quite inappropriate, to say the least. If you insist on using the word “deist”, please define what you mean by “deus” before describing a Theravada Buddhist as “deist”.

It clearly holds that God’s cannot help you.

The gods (the devas, the brahmas) indeed can help you. What they can’t do is liberate you from bondage to lust, hatred, and delusion.

There is no such thing as Grace.

The fact that one can become free of lust, hatred, and delusion, when one has been in bondage to such factors for eons, is itself a grace.

Now the modern Therevada as you see today in Sri Lanka is a mixture of Hinduism.

What you see is Theravada Buddhists paying homage, or venerating various devas associated with Hinduism. Those devas are not essentially different from the devas the Buddha speaks about in the Pali suttas. The earliest lay Buddhists continued to venerate the devas, during the lifetime of the Buddha – because the devas served as models for higher stages of human development, even if the devas did not represent the highest stage (which is occupied only by Buddhas).

 

[Ahimsa]

That is what I meant to say to Ahimsa. Ahimsa on the other hand doesn’t even seem to believe that Hinduism is pantheistic.

That’s because there is no one form of Hinduism. Pick one form, lineage, or sampradaya, of Hinduism that you think is pantheistic, and then we can discuss that form of Hinduism.

 

[Sufjon]

Pick one form, lineage, or sampradaya, of Hinduism that you think is pantheistic, and then we can discuss that form of Hinduism.

That would be rather like nailing a drop of water to the wall. Good luck with all that

However, the consensus of most Hindu saints and those versed in scripture will have much the same view, and as I had mentioned before it is more panentheistic rather than pantheistic. I get the sense that most people have the view that pantheism gives some sort of exalted status to humankind. In Hinduism it is simply a matter of pealing away the illusionary barrier between God and living beings.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[Ahimsa]

However, the consensus of most Hindu saints and those versed in scripture will have much the same view, and as I had mentioned before it is more panentheistic rather than pantheistic. I get the sense that most people have the view that pantheism gives some sort of exalted status to humankind. In Hinduism it is simply a matter of pealing away the illusionary barrier between God and living beings.

Your friend
Sufjon

True. The standard definition of pantheism is that there is a one to one equivalence of “Nature” (the conditional cosmos) and “God”, such that “Nature is God”, “God is Nature”, and “There is no God that is apart from Nature”. In other words, “God” is just a label placed upon Nature. “God” doesn’t transcend Nature, because God is Nature.

Compare that to the panentheism of Hindu statements in which Nature is within God, but God transcends Nature:
“Self-resplendent, formless, unoriginated and pure, that all-pervading being is both within and without. He transcends even the transcendent, unmanifest, causal state of the universe.”

“He is God, hidden in all beings, their inmost soul who is in all. He watches the works of creation, lives in all things, watches all things. He is pure consciousness, beyond the three conditions of nature.”

“He is the God of forms infinite in whose glory all things are – smaller than the smallest atom, and yet the Creator of all, ever living in the mystery of His creation. In the vision of this God of love there is everlasting peace. He is the Lord of all who, hidden in the heart of things, watches over the world of time. The Gods and seers of Brahman are one with Him, and when a man knows Him, he cuts the bonds of death.”

“There the eye goes not, nor words, nor mind. We know not. We cannot understand how He can be explained. He is above the known, and He is above the unknown. Thus have we heard from the ancient sages who explained this truth to us.”

“He, the Self, is not this, not this. He is ungraspable, for He is not grasped. He is indestructible, for He cannot be destroyed,. He is unattached, for He does not cling to anything. He is unbound, He does not suffer, nor is He injured.”