Random amblings from another topic on Christ Buddha and the LDS.

yo. · 10-14-2009, 03:22 PM

(So I thought a good topic formed from a less than perfect set of responses from a ScottishBastard topic....
Here they are. This is how it started......)-SageTree

i get the feeling Al' Mukabarsomethin somethin is black.

**SageTree** · 10-14-2009, 03:38 PM

He's ginger as the rising sun.

His name means 'the delayer ' in Arabic. It's one of the attributes of Allah, who delivers all things in its time.

See # 72

I helped his choose the name when he wanted an Arabic one. I thought attributes of Allah was a good place to look.

yo. · 10-14-2009, 03:41 PM

so are you guys really Arabic?

scottishbastard · 10-14-2009, 04:26 PM

No...I think sage said al...Was ginger.

Btw...His name is Alibaba. Just alibaba.

**SageTree** · 10-14-2009, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by kiLLeRrrr

so are you guys really Arabic?

Are you asking me?

I have studied the Quran for some time now, as part of my regular interesting and application of many religious texts, ideas and understandings.

I'm not more Christian than I am Arabic (edit: Moslem) or a practitioner of Judaism than I am Hindu. I feel connected to many paths and ideas and feel they express my personal feelings in language and metaphor that I myself couldn't have expressed in such eloquence.

Do I see them all as infallible texts of God, no, but I feel the Gods they describe are or were possibly at the time, peoples high aspirations and ideals. Fear and distortion has certainly taken place and it's up to the practitioners to seek past that and find deeper meaning in their lives.

I consider myself closest to the path of Dharma, in terms the Buddha used to describe it. Yet these ideas and philosophies also have helped me understand and grasp meaning in many many spiritual and philosophical traditions.

yo. · 10-14-2009, 04:42 PM

yeah sage, and i'm not too into religion any more, but Buddhism sounds really interesting.

**SageTree** · 10-14-2009, 04:46 PM

right on, I feel we each have to find personal meaning in our own ways and if something isn't helping, it's not good to HAVE to figure it out via that route.

Metta
SageTree

stateofkane · 10-14-2009, 04:50 PM

Note to sagetree: Arabic isn't a religion.

scottishbastard · 10-14-2009, 04:50 PM

One day I might post this thing I wrote...Its basically summarizing my beliefs. It ties together quite nicely religious texts with science. Its sort of a christianity for the rationally minded.

scottishbastard · 10-14-2009, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by kiLLeRrrr

yeah sage, and i'm not too into religion any more, but Buddhism sounds really interesting.

Note to Killerrrr: Buddhism isnt really a religion either.

**SageTree** · 10-14-2009, 04:53 PM

thanks everyone you're right, I was just caught up in using the word he was.

I am quiet aware that Arabic and the Quran are synonymous, however Arabic and Muslem is not.

Originally Posted by scottishbastard

Note to Killerrrr: Buddhism isnt really a religion either.

He said he wasn't into religion, but found Buddhism interesting, no? So he really wasn't saying it was.

But since we're here.

Buddhism is tricky in terms of philosophy/religion definitions. I think that salvation based on faith in philosophy is a hard one to pin down. I think it's neither or both possibly, which is fitting to it paradoxes for understanding.

yo. · 10-14-2009, 06:02 PM

sage, you are an interesting human being.

yo. · 10-14-2009, 06:04 PM

and when i get a computer with sound, i'm going to watch those videos you just blogged.

scottishbastard · 10-14-2009, 06:13 PM

Straight buddhism COULD be called a religion, but they dont really seem to speak much of a god...They sort of treat the buddha himself as god. Zen buddhism (what Im far more aquainted with) is more focused on the teachings of nirvana, which I wouldnt call a religion at all..

**SageTree** · 10-14-2009, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by kiLLeRrrr

sage, you are an interesting human being.

Originally Posted by kiLLeRrrr

and when i get a computer with sound, i'm going to watch those videos you just blogged.

You can also use headphone jacks, jack.

Leonard Cohen does the narration, and he has a really good voice.

Originally Posted by scottishbastard

Straight buddhism COULD be called a religion, but they dont really seem to speak much of a god...They sort of treat the buddha himself as god. Zen buddhism (what Im far more aquainted with) is more focused on the teachings of nirvana, which I wouldnt call a religion at all..

This is the sound of talking about Buddhism and what it is at it's best I think.

"................... .................."

umm hmm.

Words are conceptual truths, but not ultimate ones.

A creator is important per say, yet its not denied either, and Buddha didn't talk much about it as it wasn't central to his ideas of what liberation entailed.

Zen still comes from the same philosophical schools as Mahayana, as it is part of it, which came from India and spread across Asia to the Japan. They speak of the same Nirvana as the Therevadin school, which is the oldest surviving school of Buddhism, which was expounded on by Buddha.

Zen/Chan Buddhism litterally means 'Meditation Buddhism', so while their means of attainment are different, they still come from the same Great Teacher.

Buddha isn't a god, more than I could debate our own godliness. Gods are a realm in the 6 states and are also impermanent as is all compound matter. Along with Anti-God, humans, hell beings, hugry ghosts, and animals. Buddhas are beyond these realms of cyclic existence.

In the Sutras, the gods actually implored of him to teach what he learned for the sake of 'gods and man'

Like I said, I think it's neither religion or philosophy and it's both of them as well. By definition I think it fits either but not at the same time, but some times it does.

It's up to each of us to determine. And I don't know that the western model helps settle it. Buddha's told last words are that we must each work out of own salvation. These sound pretty good to me.

Sage

flappy · 10-15-2009, 05:54 AM

Buddha may have only reached the Mental Plane,where most of the paradises, written about from man's holy books, exist. That is not enough to get you off the wheel of incarnations. Of course, a true master doesn't care if he reincarnates again to this world or any other physical planet. Service is the only thing he thinks about, whether on the physical,astral,caus ual,mental or spiritual planes. There is no end to the journey,where nothing is finite.

scottishbastard · 10-15-2009, 07:05 AM

I know a lot of christians who practice zen meditation and don't believe it contradicts their faith.

Buddhism should be described as spirituality in my opinion. It's not centered around a god so the idea of worship common in "religion" is missing. And it's more personal than philosophy.

The thing I find interesting is that when people were travelling on the silk trail back in the day historians all say they must have come across the many monks and buddhists and buddha carvings in the mountains (the ones the Taliban blew up a few years back). A lot of people believe that buddha was the inspiration for the Jesus story (i.e. Virgin birth, wandering teacher, enlightened at 30 etc.).

**SageTree** · 10-15-2009, 12:16 PM

I don't think the structure of Zen confounds Christian belief either. When you start to work into the ideas of emptiness and dependent origination, perhaps then, there would be a more wordy integration, but the practice of sitting and working in mindfulness is good.

I personally haven't integrated meditation on god. Beyond the time when I was studying Hindu intentions of meditation. And that conception of god, to me, felt much larger and inline with my 'god' ideas.

When I first found Buddhism, I felt I was seeing the inner workings of Jesus' mind perhaps, or finding a figure that was really helping me reach, what i thought was important to me all through my Christian life, and that was the love compassion and action in the Gospels.

For me that was the crux of everything and always had a really hard time wrapping my head around the resurrection and what not, although in recent years I have found good metaphors for overcoming death in the Hindu ideology

The thing I really value about Zen enlightenment is that it can come at anytime and not just through a next life or rebirthing process. This idea of chopping wood and carrying water, really fits and I it, concerning the type of work I happiest doing. Since I'm a gardening landscaper this is a good time to practice, which can so often be forgotten in more stress riddled jobs

I am glad to hear about your interest and understanding of Zen. I hope you sense I am not telling you your wrong about things. The concept of worship without a god can be confusing to the western religion programmed mind. And I think spirituality is a fine word for what we're talking here.

Originally Posted by flappy

Buddha may have only reached the Mental Plane,where most of the paradises, written about from man's holy books, exist. That is not enough to get you off the wheel of incarnations. Of course, a true master doesn't care if he reincarnates again to this world or any other physical planet. Service is the only thing he thinks about, whether on the physical,astral,caus ual,mental or spiritual planes. There is no end to the journey,where nothing is finite.

I agree with you wholly, because I don't feel that is a representation of what Buddha was teaching at all. Nothing you said sounds like anything I've learned in my years studying and practice of Buddhism.

yo. · 10-15-2009, 12:22 PM

how do people still believe in a book that has been edited and translated thousands of times, chapters removed and added, with normal human beings performing magic, splitting an ocean and walking through it, turning staffs into snakes, talking to burning bushes, getting pregnant with out performing intercourse, talking to angels? none of this ever happens any more yet people are still faithful to a religion that has been seceded from so many times? all protestant religions broke off from catholicism because of corruption... and it's been scientifically proven that we evolved from a species of monkeys....... goes to show how stubborn this world is and how scared we all are of death. it's natural human desire to want to belong to something higher than your self and no one wants to believe that there is nothing after death.

christianity has been disproved by the almighty science.

**SageTree** · 10-15-2009, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by kiLLeRrrr

christianity has been disproved by the almighty science.

Try reviving a Christianity is shit, or god doesn't exist thread in the spiritual smoke. We haven't had a good argument in there for a while

Just search back a few pages and maybe bump a few old ones.
I don't know if you've spent anytime there, but it could use a rise.