Is it possible for a catholic , to respect Buddhism aswell ?

[Vouthon]

The cleansing and emptying of ones mind is in direct conflict with Christianity where we are to always seek and follow Christ. Our minds should always be occupied and seek knowledge of our God. We should be in a state of state of continuous prayer and communication.

Buddhism does not teach you to empty your mind. It teaches one to develop the necessary skills to observe and direct the mind, calmly and without attachment. Great concentration is involved in this. Plus, while they do not believe in a creator deity, they aim for liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth which leads to nirvana which is an unconditioned, unknowable, incomprehensible state much akin to how apophatic mystics in our own tradition describe God by negation.

The cleansing of the mind from sin, images and attachments to attain a state of purity of heart is at the very core of Christian contemplative prayer. Self-activating prayer of the heart, in which the powers of our soul are bowed down in inner silence before the Presence of the Father at all times and in all places no matter what we do, is though a genuine goal of Christian mysticism, otherwise known as “remembrance of God”.

In Buddhism the mind is actually very focused and it takes considerable endeavour to hone the mind in this way.

In Samadhi meditation the mind is focused on an object, such as the breath, and one simply observes.

In Vipassana meditation it is focused on observations of one’s body and inter state so that one can gain insight into the conditioned link between thoughts and emotions and attain to understanding of the three marks of existence. One observes the arising and passing away of bodily sensations, for example. All very focused, rather than the normal disordered state which our mind is usually in, where our thoughts swarm about like hordes of locusts.

Henepola Gunaratana defined Vipassana as:

Looking into something with clarity and precision, seeing each component as distinct and separate, and piercing all the way through so as to perceive the most fundamental reality of that thing

In other words its less about an emptiness of mind than it is about a clarity of mind, a “luminous mind”.

This is also at the heart of Christian mysticism:

“…An experienced person achieves liberation from the outer senses, which earlier were much to eager too break loose, and his spirit achieves a fading way of its higher powers…Then the spirit losing the creatureliness adhering to it, presses on into the circle, which signifies the eternal Godhead, and attains spiritual perfection…Such a person can see things in their secret natures and deal with them prudently with careful discernment…He acts as one returning from deep contemplation, perceiving things as they are in their own nature…”

- Blessed Henry Suso (1290-1365), Dominican mystic

This teaching was taught from earliest times by the early desert fathers:

"…Christianity is the teaching of Christ our Saviour. It is composed of the ascetical life, of the contemplation of the physical world, and of the contemplation of God.

The Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia [imperturbable calm, dispassion] of the soul along with true knowledge of existing things.

The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquillity in the presence of the images it has during sleep, and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.

The spirit that possesses health is the one which has no images of the things of the world at the time of prayer.

The ascetic life is the spiritual method for cleansing the effective part of the soul…"

- Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), Early Desert Father

The Buddhist seeks knowledge - infused wisdom into the very reality of things, into the impermanence of things and of the fleeting, ephemeral illusion of the self.

To be honest, I have found more uses of the word emptiness in relation to the mind in Christian mysticism than I have in Buddhism. The word isn’t really significant in the Pali canon, although it is used in Mahayana Buddhism but meaning something quite different from what you appear to think it means.

In the non-infused dimension contemplative prayer - as preparation for the coming of our Bridegroom - we try to control the flow of our thoughts and in a sense empty the mind of attachment or identification with them, so as to reside in an interior silence of heart where God, in his grace, can fill the void with his light and fullness.

Therefore Saint John of the Cross teaches, a Doctor of the Church, as the old Catholic Enyclopedia explains:

"…His axiom is that the soul must empty itself of self in order to be filled with God, that it must be purified of the last traces of earthly dross before it is fit to become united with God…"

newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm

Thus he tells us:

“…The soul is not empty, so long as the desire for sensible things remains. But the absence of this desire for things produces emptiness and liberty of soul, even when there is an abundance of possessions…Learn to be empty of all things — interiorly and exteriorly — and you will behold that I am God…”

***- St. John of the Cross (1542 – 1591), Doctor of the Church ***

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

And Ruusbroec takes it even further:

“…We must go forth into God with our feeling, above reason and there we must abide, unified, empty of ourselves, and free from mental images, lifted up by love into the open bareness of our mind, for when we transcend all things in love and die to all rational observations in a dark state of unknowing, then we are wrought and transformed through the working of the Eternal Word, who is an image of the Father. And in **this emptiness of spirit **we receive the Incomprehensible Light, Which enfolds and penetrates us as air is penetrated by the light of the sun; And this Light is nought else but a fathomless gazing and seeing. What we are, that we gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are. For our thought, our life, our being, are lifted up in simplicity, And united with the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this simple gazing we are one life and one spirit with God —And this I call the seeing life…”

- Blessed Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293 – 1381), Catholic mystic

BTW The ultimate goal of Christian mysticism is not “knowledge” but a direct experience of the Presence of God beyond concepts and images through love. Knowledge can only take you so far. Eventually one has to resign one’s intellect under a cloud of forgetting before the incomprehensible, unconditioned majesty of God and cleave to him through a wordless, thoughtless ascent of unknowing love.

Therefore Saint John of the Cross tells us in his, “Verses on the ecstasy of deep contemplation”:

I entered where there is no knowing,

and unknowing I remained,

all knowledge there transcending

Where no knowing is I entered,

yet when I my own self saw there

without knowing where I rested

great things I understood there,

yet cannot say what I felt there,

since I rested in unknowing,

all knowledge there transcending.

 

[flameburns623]

My sense is that those who take a more mundane or pragmatic (there must be a more accurate descriptor but I’m not finding it at the moment) approach to living within the Will of God often struggle with what they perceive as the flights-of-fancy and the excesses of the contemplative way of knowing God.

On a webforum dedicated to apologetics and truth-seeking, the former sort tend to predominate; and so one hears much more in terms of cautionary warnings and even a high degree of antipathy towards the language of mysticism. And indeed, as I said earlier, there is a danger of slipping into syncretism and a sort of indifferentism which must be guarded against.

 

[Vouthon]

And indeed, as I said earlier, there is a danger of slipping into syncretism and a sort of indifferentism which must be guarded against.

Au contraire most of our mystics, such as St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, Bl. John Ruusbroec, Bl. Henry Suso and others were completely orthodox in sensitivity, indeed I would say more so than many without mystical experiences. Hence why the aforementioned mystics were canonised and beatified by the church - which recognised both their outstanding lives of virtue and impeccable orthodoxy.

The truth is that mystics whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or indeed Buddhist were more often than not dedicated followers of their religion with an above-average adherence to its teachings. Thus we find that the celebrated Islamic mystic Rumi was an expert on Shari’ah law and a learned jurist. The other great Muslim mystic Hafiz, had learned the Qur’an off-by-heart (Hafiz is a title given to a Muslim who has memorised the Qur’an off-by-heart). The entirely modern notion that mystics are somehow secret heretics, rebels or universalistic religious indifferentists has no basis in historical fact, it is simply New Age, hippy clap-trap nonsense

Ruusbroec, certainly, was not “syncretistic”. Have you read his view of non-Christian beliefs? It reflected very much the attitude of the period which was not exactly embracing of other religions and generally utterly ignorant of their teachings (other than recognising their right not to be coerced into believing in Catholicism and the eclectic usage of the works of Greek philosophers, Plotinus and Muslim theologians such as al-Ghazzali, Avicenna and the Jewish sage Maimonides which all medieval Christian thinkers, mystic or not, respected for their genius including St. Thomas Aquinas).

The mystics simply had a deeper insight into the faith than the majority of us. They were not at all influenced directly by other religions since only Jews lived alongside Christians at that time in continental Europe (apart from Spain where one found Muslims under Christian rule after the Reconquista).

It is only in the later Middle Ages that Christian Europe, returning to the writings of Fathers such as St. Justin Martyr and St.Clement of Alexandria and influenced by the new Christian Humanism of the Renaissance, took a more open view towards other religions which climaxed in the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate in the 20th century. This had nothing to do with mysticism, since many of these interreligious Catholic thinkers were not mystics but rather standard theologians. We can find early antecedents to this in the writings of the mystic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa however, I will concede, who was an early proponent of interfaith dialogue, a mystic who had read the Qur’an and who was also the church’s most powerful prelate after the pope himself and the defender of orthodoxy.

Mysticism and interfaith dialogue do not go-hand-in-hand. Some mystics were not open to other faiths (mostly because they lived in the middle ages and knew nothing about them having never met a non-Christian), whereas some standard theologians were.

However there is a recognition in modern times that mysticism is a particularly fruitful platform for interreligious dialogue because of the genuinely stark universal nature of the mystical experience no matter what religion a person belongs too. Mystics tend to describe very similar states of being no matter what religion one finds the in and even similar practices. Mankind is one. We all have the same human mind and body and spirit, so this is not at all surprising. That is a very different matter nonetheless, and one which our pope emeritus Benedict XVI was cognizant of:

“…The dialogue with other religions is under way. We are, I think, all convinced that we can learn something, for example, from the mysticism of Asia and that precisely the great mystical traditions also open possibilities of encounter…The Christian can also find the secret working of God behind them. Through the other religions God touches man and brings him onto the path. But it is always the same God, the God of Jesus Christ…”

***- Pope Benedict XVI, Salt of the Earth (1997 when still Cardinal Ratzinger, republished in 2005 as pope) ***

 

[robwar]

This is one of the major differences between Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism has neither the concept of sin, nor the concept of forgiveness of sin. Instead it has actions and consequences. Whatever actions you take you will reap the consequences; there is no way to avoid the consequences so it is important to think carefully before you act. There is no “Get out of Hell Free” card in Buddhism.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with an evil mind then suffering will follow you,
as the wheel follows the draught ox.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with a pure mind then happiness will follow you,
as a shadow that never leaves.

– Dhammapada 1:1-2

rossum

thanks for the explanation
peace

 

[Vouthon]

That is not to say that when mystics have encountered mystics of other religions that they have not found kindred spirits. Mysticism does cross religious-barriers but not because the individual mystic is a dedicated ecumenist, rather because he has had a profound experience and can recognise that same enlightenment in another, even a person not of his faith. Thus the Catholic mystic Blessed Ramon Llull remarked of Muslim Sufis:

“…The Muslims have various holy men called Sufis. They offer words of love and brief exempla that inspire a person to great devotion. Their words require exposition, and thanks to the exposition the intellect rises higher, which develops it and spurs the will to devotion…If there is only one language, people [of different faiths] will understand one another, and from this understanding they will love one another and adopt from one another similar customs, which will create concord among them…Through the participation of one people with another there will be love and concord…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 & Franciscan missionary ***

Llull was Spanish so unlike most Catholic mystics he actually did encounter Muslims directly and yes, he was cordial and respectful towards them, particularly Sufism.

In more modern times, Blessed Pope John XXIII back in the 50s praised the Muslim mystic Rumi on behalf of the entire Catholic World:

"…In the name of the Catholic World, I bow with respect before the memory of Rumi…”

***- Pope John XXIII, Message to Mevlevi Order in Turkey, 1958 ***

 

[rossum]

Buddha claimed to have achieved enlightment and then proceeds to show the way to that same experience. Big question: How can the Buddha be absolutely sure that he achieved the ultimate goal?

It does not really matter. The Buddha pointed out a path and gave us a guide for following the path. How far along the path the Buddha got is not important to us; what is important is how far along the path we ourselves progress.

Obviously Buddhists believe that the Buddha did reach the end of the path. We can test that by reaching the end of the path ourselves and comparing what we experience there with the Buddha’s description of his experience. Once we have reached the end we no longer have to believe, or not. We will know from our own direct experience.

At the beginning of the path you have to believe the guidebook, otherwise you would never set out. As you progress along the path you can constantly check that the guidebook is giving you the right directions. Once you reach the goal, you don’t need the guidebook at all – you have arrived.

Belief becomes less important as you progress along the path.

rossum

 

[Vouthon]

Once we have reached the end we no longer have to believe, or not. We will know from our own direct experience.

That is similar to Catholic mysticism as well:

“…You and I do not meet on one branch or in one place. You make your way along one path and I along another. Your questions arise from human thinking, and I respond from a knowledge that is far beyond all human comprehension. You must give up human understanding if you want to reach the goal, because the truth is known by not knowing…This is the highest goal and the ‘where’ beyond boundaries. In this the spirituality of all spirits ends. Here to lose oneself forever is eternal happiness…In a detached person nothing merely temporal is born in possesiveness. His eyes are opened. He becomes fully aware and, receiving his blessed existence and life, is one with Him; for all things are here one in the One…No one can explain this to another just with words. One knows it by experiencing it…”

***- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest ***

 

[dominic_aquinas]

It does not really matter. The Buddha pointed out a path and gave us a guide for following the path. How far along the path the Buddha got is not important to us; what is important is how far along the path we ourselves progress.

Obviously Buddhists believe that the Buddha did reach the end of the path. We can test that by reaching the end of the path ourselves and comparing what we experience there with the Buddha’s description of his experience. Once we have reached the end we no longer have to believe, or not. We will know from our own direct experience.

At the beginning of the path you have to believe the guidebook, otherwise you would never set out. As you progress along the path you can constantly check that the guidebook is giving you the right directions. Once you reach the goal, you don’t need the guidebook at all – you have arrived.

Belief becomes less important as you progress along the path.

rossum

The Buddha, a man, said he arrived at the goal in his lifetime. Jesus, the God of the Universe, said that we only reach the goal after we die and live with Him in Heaven. The Catholic mystic gets a taste of Heaven on Earth but it’s just a taste. The real goal won’t be reached until after they die. What did Buddha say will happen to him after he dies? And how can he know? He was just a man that had some kind of experience. He could be seriously wrong. The Catholic mystic does not derive dogma from their experience. The experience is not the source of knowledge, it is merely the gift of being in the precense of God. Knowledge of the faith comes from God, not the experience. That’s a big difference.

 

[Vouthon]

The Catholic mystic does not derive dogma from their experience. The experience is not the source of knowledge, it is merely the gift of being in the precense of God. Knowledge of the faith comes from God, not the experience. That’s a big difference.

That is true. The catholic mystic actually interprets his experience through the lens church doctrine and dogma, rather than the reverse. He does not derive his faith from the experience, rather the experience is more like the fully grown tree from the mustard seed of his already present baptismal faith.

Nonetheless the Buddha was a pre-Christian religious founder, Clearly he advanced greatly into the mysteries of the universe, as far as any man through purely natural means can surely go (although I believe that unbeknown to him the Spirit also guided him). The proof is in the way he lived his life, which was exemplary by all accounts, and his sublime moral teachings - such as on showing compassion to enemies. His schema of the psychological path to liberation also bears great similarities in key respects to experiences of our own Catholic mystics. Vatican II taught us not to reject anything good and true in other religions but to embrace them. Only a man touched by a genuine experience can come to such an advanced state awareness and personal morality that the Buddha reached, IMHO.

We cannot and should not judge him by Christian standards of belief which as yet did not exist, or in the case of the Muslim Sufis which they did not know enough about. That is unfair.

The only law which the Buddha or any sincere non-Christian then or now is liable to adhere too is the natural law ingrained in their conscience.

Hence why the orthodox St. Nikolai Velimirovich said of the Buddha:

"…All the prophets have from the beginning cried out to my soul, imploring her to make herself a virgin and prepare her*self to receive the Divine Son into her immaculate womb;

Imploring her to become a ladder, down which God will descend into the world, and up which man will ascend to God;

Imploring her to drain the red sea of sanguinary passions within herself, so that man the slave can cross over to the promised land, the land of freedom.

The wise man of China admonishes my soul to be peaceful and still, and to wait for Tao to act within her. Glory be the memory of Lao-tse, the teacher and prophet of his people!

The wise man of India teaches my soul not to be afraid of suffering, but through the arduous and relentless drilling in purification and prayer to elevate herself to the One on high, who will come out to greet her and manifest to her His face and His power. Glorious be the memory of Krishna, the teacher and prophet of his people!

The royal son of India teaches my soul to empty herself completely of every seed and crop of the world, to abandon all the serpentine allurements of frail and shadowy matter, and then—in vacuity, tranquility, purity and bliss—to await nirvana. Blessed be the memory of Buddha, the royal son and inexorable teacher of his people!..

if somebody thinks still that a few thousands of Christian saints are not a sufficient argument to show that saintliness is practicable, then the Church has still not to give her ideal up and to take as her ideal thousands of great and small Napoleons and Bismarcks, and Goethes and Spencers, or Medics and Cromwells or Kaisers and Kings–no, in the latter case it would be much nicer for the Church to point out the saintly men outside of Christian walls, like St Hermes and St Pythagoras, or St Krishna and St Buddha, or St Lao-Tse and St Confucius, or St Zoroaster and St Abu-Bekr. Better even is unbaptised saintliness than baptised earthliness…"

*** – (Chapter XLVIII; Prayers by the Lake; St Nikolai Velimirovich)***

I think that he is correct in his attitude in this respect IMHO. Judge and be judged.

The Buddha, who lived centuries before Jesus, attained to a level of sanctity and spiritual genius that would leave many of us stammering. As St. Nikolai says, “Better is unbaptised saintliness than baptised earthliness”.

 

[Love4All]

Buddhism is incompatible with catholicism. There is no way a catholic can acknowledge any other God that Abraham’s God, for there is no one. There is only one God, expressed in the holy trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Any priest will agree with that, and so will our catechism.

Besides, I am very curious to know how a buddhist should avoid “evil” and cultivate “good” without a clear definition of those concepts to begin with.

I think there is a conception, in Buddhism and elsewhere, that a human being with a heart knows the difference between a good and an evil action.

To do what the Church calls good and avoid what the Church calls evil, strictly and only because it is what the Church teaches, seems to me like the heresy called Fideism. I do not believe that God would ask us to abandon our own sense of things completely and embrace what one particular body teaches as “the truth,” on no other basis than that that body teaches it to be so. I think, rather, that Catholic morality appeals to something within us that knows truth when it encounters it. Reason, perhaps.

While I accept that moral theology can better form a conscience that is not yet fully formed, at the same time, the Church never asks us to abandon reason in our search for the truth. We possess reason naturally, and reason points us in the direction of the good and away from the bad. Otherwise, what would be the point in being Catholic at all?

So, a Buddhist’s reason as well, tells him what is good and what is evil, and points him toward pursuing the former and avoiding the latter. The Buddha was actually a great philosopher, and Buddhist philosophy provides a base for Catholicism just as surely as Greek philosophy did. Far from being incompatible, authentic Buddhism can actually provide a preparation for hearing the Gospel.

 

[Vouthon]

The Buddha was actually a great philosopher, and Buddhist philosophy provides a base for Catholicism just as surely as Greek philosophy did.

Amen, amen I say to thee!

“…In preaching the gospel, Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy; but this does not mean at all that other approaches are precluded…My thoughts turn immediately to the lands of the East, so rich in religious and philosophical traditions of great antiquity. Among these lands, India has a special place. A great spiritual impulse leads Indian thought to seek an experience which would liberate the spirit from the shackles of time and space and would therefore acquire absolute value. The dynamic of this quest for liberation provides the context for great metaphysical systems. In India particularly, it is the duty of Christians now to draw from this rich heritage the elements compatible with their faith, in order to enrich Christian thought…”

***- Blessed Pope John Paul II, FIDES ET RATIO, 1998 ***

Buddhism is in origin an Indian religion. It thus falls under JPII’s definition of “great metaphysical systems” from India that Christians need to “draw” from - not syncretistic-ally but just like we did with Greek philosophy - to enrich Christian thought just like Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus did.

I have long argued that it is time for Christianity to break out of its European stranglehold in the area of philosophy. Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus were all brilliant and served us very well as a medium for enriching Christian thought.

However we need to utilize other philosophies too, particularly those of India as Bl. John Paul II directed in the aforementioned encyclical.

 

[Love4All]

That is not how Christianity comes across to me, as a non-Christian, today:

• Give a million dollars to charity. Result: an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell, depending.
• Give one dollar to charity. Result: an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell, depending.
• Steal one dollar. Result: an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell, depending.
• Kill one million people. Result: an eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell, depending.

Here, “depending” may mean what God has predestined, praying hard enough, faith alone, confession and true contrition, or whatever means of salvation/damnation is proposed by whatever Christian denomination.

I might also cite the bicycle joke by Emo Philips here:

When I was a kid, I used to pray to God every night for a new bike, but I never got one. Then I realised, the Lord doesn’t work that way. So I just stole one and asked Him to forgive me. And you know what? He did.

For some people Christianity appears to provides ways to avoid the consequences of their actions. That is a dangerous delusion, and can only lead to suffering.

rossum

Speaking as an inveterate sinner, for one thing I am glad of the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins for that reason. I am aware, to my shame, that if I had to rely on a simple law of karma, of cause and effect, and if there were no forgiveness of sins, I do not think I could be saved.

So as a Buddhist, is it your experience that your moral behavior is impeccable? If so, do you attribute that fact to your practice of meditation, or are you naturally just that good? If not, then how will you escape the karma of your imperfect actions?

For me, Christianity does not provide an excuse to keep sinning, as much as it does provide a way of escape from an otherwise impossible situation. In other words, while I do desire to be free from sin, I also recognize that I am caught in a cycle of experiencing pleasure from my sins, and repeating them so as to experience that pleasure. I am, alas! addicted to pleasure. I do meditate, every day, and while I do experience temptations subsiding as a result, I do not experience utter freedom from them, in permanence, the way one might be led to expect if one strives for a state described as Nibbana.

I experience, rather, that no matter what amount of effort I put forth to free myself from sin, I can’t do it. All my efforts — and I admit that my exertion of effort is far from constant, but that in itself is part of the problem — result in becoming closer to freedom, but do not take me all the way there. That is why I feel a need for Jesus and His forgiveness of my sins. Not as an excuse to keep committing them, but as the only possible way to ever be completely free of them. I need Jesus because I can’t do it on my own.

My sense of the teachings of Buddhism is that Buddhism says not only is it not true that I can’t, but further, it is true that I must and that eventually, I will do it all on my own — because there is no such thing as anyone who can help me.

Do I have it right? And if that is how it is in Buddhism, is it likewise a tenet of Buddhism that salvation is only for the strong? It seems like, if a person is too weak to overcome all of his sins by himself, then he is too weak to be saved, and there is no one who is both compassionate enough and powerful enough to rescue him from himself. Perhaps this is why the doctrine of reincarnation is necessary to Buddhism — because evidently, if the requirement were (as the Catholic Church solemnly professes) that you must overcome all your sin in this life — then Buddhism would be nothing more or less than a recipe for despair.

But it seems that, given the consideration above — namely, that it is practically impossible for anyone to attain Nibbana in one life and so we keep coming back — that Buddhism, for the average person at least, is a recipe, not so much for overcoming sin, but for excusing oneself and remaining in it. In other words, in contrast to what you said earlier, it seems to me that it is Catholicism that teaches you have to overcome your sins NOW (with God’s help), while Buddhism teaches that you more or less have eternity to make up your mind, and if you die from this life in a state of mortal sin (whatever is the equivalent in Buddhist terms) you will not be permanently in hell, you will eventually have the opportunity to overcome your sins and enter Nibbana anyway.

 

[Love4All]

Buddhism is not Christianity. You cannot assume that what is true for one is also true for the other.

Is there “truth?”

If there is truth, it is the same for everyone. Opinions are not truth.

 

[Love4All]

But God does not exist He is not a “thing” but literally “no-thing”. Some theists probably believe in a God they have thought up in their own head, one who corresponds to their personal needs, a comfort and a crutch to lean upon. That God, the God of “reward and punishment”, the God of nationalisms and narrow belief systems, he certainly doesn’t exist. I would be more than happy to let that God die and write the obituary for him.

The true reality of God is unknowable and unconditioned, neither This nor That, neither here nor there, except that we are made in its Image and that Christ is its incarnation in the material universe. Christ is God made man.

You cannot declare God “unknowable.” That isn’t Catholic teaching. Catholic teaching is that God wishes to be known and loved. Catholic teaching is also very explicitly that God rewards the just and punishes the wicked. Thus, the God of “reward and punishment” that you attempt to dismiss, above, is the only God there is. We know this, because He has revealed it.

 

[Love4All]

Whil I am in full agreement with your statement, should not the word “it” be changed to “God”? He is not a thing, as you say, rather he is God.

The proper personal pronoun to refer to God is “He.”

Stop being so politically correct!

 

[Vouthon]

You cannot declare God “unknowable.” That isn’t Catholic teaching. Catholic teaching is that God wishes to be known and loved. Catholic teaching is also very explicitly that God rewards the just and punishes the wicked. Thus, the God of “reward and punishment” that you attempt to dismiss, above, is the only God there is. We know this, because He has revealed it.

Dear Love,

As he is in Himself, in his Essence, God is unknowable. That is very much Catholic teaching, particularly in the Eastern tradition of the church. Hesychasm teaches that God is unknowable in his Essence but knowable in his energies.

He is knowable in as much as he reveals Himself to us - through his attributes, his mercy, his love, the presence of his Holy Spirit within us.

However in Himself, in his Essence, we will never penetrate or fully comprehend Him because He is Incomprehensible in Himself.

As one poster described in the Eastern Catholic section:

In the East, the Fathers maintained the transcendence of God by insisting that God’s essence remains eternally unknowable and impenetrable. However, it is clear that God has revealed Himself to man and is encountered by man. It is through God’s energies that we encounter God. Because God does not change, God’s energies are eternal. Take, for example, God’s love. God has never been without love, so God’s love must be eternal

We will never comprehend God through our created intellect. Only through love.

On reward and punishment, God does not change. He is beyond time. He does not one minute punish and the other reward. He simply is.

On Hell, as a CAF article explains:

catholic.com/magazine/articles/hell-yes-part-i

Our Choice, Not God’s

Let’s start by defining what Catholics mean by hell. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers the following explanation:

We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves . . . To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.” (CCC 1033)

This definition presumes what Christians—indeed, most anyone who believes in God—agree on: that the true life and happiness for which we were created can be found only in God’s presence. Separation from God means the loss of that life and happiness and thus results in suffering. This is one reason why hell is always depicted as a place of torment.

But we must understand that hell is a choice. To experience hell, one must die in the freely chosen state of mortal sin. The Catechism explains that mortal sin is “sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent” (CCC 1857). Such an act is contrary to the love we owe God so, in essence, the state of mortal sin is the freely chosen state of not loving God. If one dies in such a state, God honors that choice and allows such a soul to remain separated from him.

So Blessed Henry Suso is correct when he says that God does not actually “reward or punish”, as are the other mystics who have taught this. He offers his love to us, it is our choice whether to accept it or not. Hell is a self-chosen state rather than something which God does to a person.

In more advanced stages of spirituality, Suso is explaining that the myth of a “punishing and rewarding deity” is dispensed with.

His Exemplar, in which he writes this, was the most popular mystical text after the Imitation of Christ in medieval Europe. It is doctrinally approved by the church as having nothing contrary to faith and morals.

 

[Love4All]

There’s also another big difference. Catholic mysticism is rooted in the authority of God. Buddhism is based on the experiences of a man. Buddha claimed to have achieved enlightment and then proceeds to show the way to that same experience. Big question: How can the Buddha be absolutely sure that he achieved the ultimate goal? Perhaps there is another level of enlightenment beyond what he achieved. The Buddha cannot know the answer to this since he is but a man. However, the Catholic can be sure of their end goal because it is God. And God, being the Creator of everything, has the authority to tell us what is the ultimate goal. It is Himself. In fact, the end goal took on flesh and dwelt among us. May we deny the flesh so we can journey to Him.

I hold that Gautama could and did know that there was no further enlightenment it was possible for him to reach. Insofar as it was and is possible to reach enlightenment through meditation without any assistance, he reached that goal and taught others how to strive for it.

The difference between Buddhism and Christianity is that the Christian way is not about what we can achieve on our own, but about what God has done and can do for us.

 

[Love4All]

BTW The ultimate goal of Christian mysticism is not “knowledge” but a direct experience of the Presence of God beyond concepts and images through love.

I believe that experience beyond knowledge is closer to the goal, but it is not the goal. The authentic goal of any mysticism deserving the name Christian can only be union with God in the will, not any experience. Experiences can occur, and they can help one to attain to the goal, but the real goal is just to cease sinning and offending God, to be in union with God in the will, to “do” God’s Will. Even though, no one except God actually “does” God’s Will. We speak of it in terms of doing because, what else would you do with a will?

The simplicity is that in heaven, God gives a desire and then He gives the fulfillment of that desire, without in the interim any longing or incompletion. On earth, we have desires, but we cannot immediately be certain that simply because we have a desire, it came from God. Unfortunately for us, desires also come from the devil, the flesh, and the world.

The purpose of learning, then, is to understand what is God’s Will and what is not. And the goal in life is to do only those things that are God’s Will and none of those things that are not. So this is the goal of the mystic as well as the non-mystic. Saint Mary chose the better part (mystical contemplation) but Saint Martha her sister is also a canonized Saint. Both of them attained, not so much to experience, but to union with God in their wills.

Another word for union with God in the will is, of course, Love.

 

[Vouthon]

I believe that experience beyond knowledge is closer to the goal, but it is not the goal. The authentic goal of any mysticism deserving the name Christian can only be union with God in the will, not any experience. Experiences can occur, and they can help one to attain to the goal, but the real goal is just to cease sinning and offending God, to be in union with God in the will, to “do” God’s Will. Even though, no one except God actually “does” God’s Will. We speak of it in terms of doing because, what else would you do with a will?

The simplicity is that in heaven, God gives a desire and then He gives the fulfillment of that desire, without in the interim any longing or incompletion. On earth, we have desires, but we cannot immediately be certain that simply because we have a desire, it came from God. Unfortunately for us, desires also come from the devil, the flesh, and the world.

The purpose of learning, then, is to understand what is God’s Will and what is not. And the goal in life is to do only those things that are God’s Will and none of those things that are not. So this is the goal of the mystic as well as the non-mystic. Saint Mary chose the better part (mystical contemplation) but Saint Martha her sister is also a canonized Saint. Both of them attained, not so much to experience, but to union with God in their wills.

Another word for union with God in the will is, of course, Love.

It is through likeness of will (similitudo voluntatis) that the unity of spirit (“unus cum deo spiritus”) or union with God comes about. We relinquish our own will - our own desires, wants and even thoughts and feelings - and become one with God’s will. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux says that we “melt” (metaphorically speaking ) into the Will of God. Our wills become so one that we want only what God wants.

To reach that stage of union with the will of God who is above our intellect, beyond all images and ideas we can imagine, the early Desert Fathers taught that the contemplative must still and re-focus the mind so as to cease from being attached to any thoughts or images at the time of prayer. This way, we open ourselves up to the grace of God and he blesses us with infused contemplation, and we sink into his infinite will and become one with him, deified.

Contemplative prayer is about meeting God in our own depths, in silence, beyond thoughts, images, conceptions, observations. It is in this way that we unite with God’s will - it in this form of prayer that we find God. And then we go down from those contemplative heights into the world through loving works of kindness to all.

This is how Blessed Henry Suso describes it:

“…Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God’s house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall become all things in all things. Certainly one’s being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self…”

- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1300 - 1366), Catholic mystic