The idea in Buddhism is that when you meditate, you exercise or focus your mind such that you become aware of the true nature of reality. I don’t believe there are Buddhist texts or teachers that suggest you do this exclusively and not engage the world.
But we’re drifting away from my initial issue with your post - that you characterise Buddhism/meditation as “nihilism” (and “relativism”). Nihilism is the view that there is no ultimate truth or meaning to existence. Buddhists certainly believe in an ultimate truth, and the purpose of meditation is to experience or realise that truth directly (Nirvana). That’s why I wrote that mysticism and Buddhism are more like the opposite of nihilism.
On the issue of suffering, you have a peculiar take on that word, as if it’s a good thing. When Buddhists talk about the removal of suffering, they’re using the word in the common-sense way, that what remains after its removal is happiness. So this claim of yours is particularly silly:
Whilst I appreciate your courage, I must disagree on a few points. You have been duly corrected because of your misrepresentation of Mysticism and Buddhism, and have gotten into a tiswas about the Bible being “a Myth†– which is also a misrepresentation.
First of all, the Gospels have portrayed Jesus in a way that expresses the divine intervention and his unity with the Holy One. They have done so by describing a string of encounters with this extraordinary young man and his popularity amongst those who knew him. The fact that these encounters are not notes taken from a diary, but far more complex, is quite obvious. This points clearly to the fact that these encounters are compositions inspired by people who believe in the uniqueness of Christ. The encounters are intended to confront the readers with Jesus in a similar way to how the disciples met him. It is intended that these confrontations are an ongoing process, timeless and not just something that happened 2000 years ago.
The thing that I observe is the fact that many people who oppose the description of the Gospel accounts as myths actually unwittingly use them as such, because they are clearly very suitable as myths. These people talk about having a personal confrontation, a personal Saviour, or about how Jesus speaks to them through scripture and the Spirit. This is the kind of effect the Gospels are supposed to have. That is what Myth does.
The next step is to then suppose that the things written actually happened in the way we would write an account of something we had experienced. The problem is, that people didn’t have the inclination to write something as boring as our accounts. Paper (or whatever was at hand) was too rare for such reports – which are dated before the ink is dry. The Gospels were far too important to be mere chronological stories of what happened. What Jesus initiated was a thriving movement and not something of the past. That is why it is not correct to say it was fiction, nor that it was non-fiction. Rather it is a composition intended to be a living witness to the uniqueness of Christ Jesus.
Which is derived from it’s hindu roots that reality is Maya. So they remove themselves from the “dream of reality”, to a dream of anti-reality. Why deny it? when you meditate it is a purely selfish act and is not drawing you closer to the nature of reality at all. It’s drawing you further inward into maya.
If done on a less frequent basis it can be a great way to clear the mind of clutter… but clutter is life… The ultimate goal of any buddhist monk is not only to clear the clutter but to avoid it.
Nihilism is related to relativism. And both can happen in degrees. I think first comes relativism, the equal of all truths and not holding any higher… when there are no great truths, there are NO truths. That’s where the downward spiral to nihilism can begin. When you withdraw within trying to escape maya and “higher truths”, you are forcing nihilism upon yourself. What else could it be called when one is not experiencing the world?
Buddhist doctrine does not call for most people to withdraw that far from the world… but it does try to equate all suffering to desire, and then states, “the goal is to avoid suffering.”
Why? And that’s my point. When we withdraw from suffering and desire the world has no meaning. It’s nihilism.
Disagree. But how can you know when you aren’t experiencing all the suffering and desire of the world? The buddhist desires friends, but avoids close relationships because of the suffering caused by death. The buddhist desires a family, but the monk knows the suffering that will come when their kids get hurt or possibly die, and avoids having family.
If that’s not nihilism what is it? The ultimate truth is to withdraw into yourself and avoid the world like an ostrich sticking it’s head into the sand? To be like the turtle that is afraid of getting hurt so we just keep our head inside of our shells?
Do you really think that is the ultimate truth? Because that’s what meditation IS…
That’s nonsense… Suffering and happiness are like yin and yang. You can’t have one without the other. We suffer because we are happy, we are happy because we suffer. Every day you go out in the world you risk extreme suffering but you do so to experience fleeting happiness. How can you find such happiness by removing both suffering and pleasure?
What you have after removing those two, is a deeper maya, and ultimately you have nothing left. So I ask again.
Do you think the ultimate meaning of life, is non-meaning? Do you think the goal of life is to avoid life?
how can one know pleasure without pain?
how can one know the highest highs, without the lowest lows?
how can one live, if they are always meditating to remove themselves from the world of suffering?
and… how many buddhists have reach that state? I’m gonna take a stab in the dark here… none.
Like my statement 2 above says… how can you know the highest happiness when you come across it if you’ve done your damndest to avoid both pleasure and suffering?
misrepresentations because they run counter to what people believe currently. I liken it to when people do something the same way because that’s the way it’s been done. Then along comes an iconoclast who asks why it can’t be different? Of course there’s going to be resistance. And I think that’s a good thing.
Unity being the trinity? The gospels reflect what you’ve been taught to believe about them. If you look at it from a neutral perspective, would the story of Jesus be any different than stories written about other influential men? In looking back they always come out greater than they actually were. Walking on water, driving demons out, etc.*
The stories aren’t written from a perspective of someone who knew him or saw the facts. It is obviously a theologian of some type recording his opinions of the events based upon stories he’s told. The synoptics are a great example of this… we have three people in the room (three that were chosen to be put into the bible) The story started before “mark” recorded it, then he recorded it and added his own beliefs on top of it. Matthew then got a hold of the story and changed it to his vision. Then much later, Luke recorded the way he saw the events. (saw in the allegorical, he was not an actual historical witness.)
The best way to realize it’s fiction is to look at events that would be impossible for any christian author to know. The time in the desert that matthew put in there, the fictional story of the baby killing in matthew (exodus xeros?) the prayer in the garden… There’s alot of them if you examine it critically. It’s like the original ten commandments that moses shattered into stone. The easy answer is that moses recorded them, but is that the answer that is correct? Isn’t it more likely that the story got fantacised and the priests put in the laws they saw as important? That’s why there are two copies of the ten commandments within exodus.
From a literal standpoint though of critical thought about the bible, it’s not a good idea to compare books or jump around. The books were written under vastly different circumstances and by different authors.
Not to me.
I can agree with that… it doesn’t make the events real though.
Here’s another analogy… Alot has been written about Krishna, and his “trinity” between shiva and himself and vishnu ( I believe?), What makes the stories of christ any more “factual” than the stories of Krishna? Or what about Quextocal? He was a “savior” that came to the middle americas. There are lots of stories about his deeds, does that mean that most of it is not myth?
Great people take on mythological proportion, especially in the “ancient” times (for lack of a better term). It’s not even that people are more skeptical today than they were then… There’s people that believe in Alien abductions and that the human race was spawned by an alien race and not god. (but what spawned the alien race?)
I think a greater number of people connected supernatural events to natural ones in those times. An erupting volcano that we’d look at as a natural event, was explained as “god’s angels being rejected and nearly raped” by the ancients. Does that mean angels actually came down from the sky?
Another way you can see this happening even in the story of the gospels, is that the further away the writing got from the event, the longer it got, and the more miraculous.
Like I said, I agree confrontation is important.
Right. That’s the power of myth, but a myth can also enslave you. You can believe in it so strongly that it will make you do things that you ordinarily wouldn’t do.
They aren’t written as such though… the gospels style more closely matches that of Job, then that of Joshua or Kings, which records campaigns. I think it goes back to the way they thought of the world though… I don’t believe that Jesus the man never existed like some skeptical scholars are ascertaining today… certainly some form of the christ did exist, in order to have the effect over the world that he did… but at the same time I think it’s possible his existence didnt’ happen. Mithras had an extraordinary influence over the same area during the same time frame… the only difference between mithras and jesus is that jesus won. Jesus story survived history where as the story of mithras did not.
Does that make jesus’ story more real?
Who in looking at other savior gods, isn’t that unique?
Have you heard of Lord Raglan? He surmised a “hero scoring scheme” of 22 points of interest:
He is born of a virgin mother.
His father is a King.
The father has a unique relationship with the mother.
The circumstances of the child’s conception are unusual, often humble.
He is reputed to be the son of a god.
There is an attempt to kill the child/god shortly after birth.
He is spirited away, escaping a premature death.
The child is raised by foster parents in a far country.
We are told virtually nothing of his childhood years.
On reaching manhood, usually at age 30, he commences his mission in life.
He successfully overcomes the most severe trials and tests.
He marries a princess.
He is acknowledged as a king.
He rules.
He prescribes laws.
He loses favor with the Gods or his subjects.
He is forcibly driven from authority.
He meets with a violent death.
His death occurs on the top of a hill.
His children, if any, do not succeed him.
His body is not buried conventionally.
He has one or more holy resting places.
he surmised that any character that scores above a 6 has more archetypal mythology about his life, than actual fact.
What you are not observing is the use of language. Words lose their meaning or take on new meanings. Cultural habit changes, new influences, new answers to questions, new challenges change the use of language – which makes translation into another language which is two thousand years away difficult. You can’t just say “Myth†and expect people to understand. There have been so many developments over that time span that we could fill volumes just writing about them.
To many people, these developments have been progress, but the heart, soul, or core of our being is still where it was, only bereaved of a few reassuring illusions. In my view, it is the disharmony of the soul that causes the disharmony in the world, and the numerous illnesses that our immune system cannot come to grips with. Everything in our existence is intertwined and yet the modern man pretends he is able to live in a particulated world, incomplete as he is.
I don’t think of Jesus as an iconoclast, he used the images at hand, but as the alternative that most people don’t have in their perspective. At a demoralizing time when heroes were being felled like trees, occupation forces were dictating and taxes were oppressive, a quiet voice was heard saying, “it doesn’t matter, since what you are isn’t decided by what you have!†It wasn’t one of the recognised authorities, but someone nonetheless authentic in his way of life and teaching. He was young, but he spoke the wisdom of ages. He wasn’t of a particularly prominent stature, but marched on to his goals.
When he was executed, he was ridiculed, it having been thoroughly proved in the minds of many, that such “upstarts†lead to nothing. But he led to much and became the human root of a divine idea, which spread all across the world. Two thousand years later people are still inspired by his story, and many of the people who have made a difference did so by following his example.
Unity being an unreduced or unbroken completeness or totality – i.e. God. The trinity is a mystical construction that helps us sort out the diverse means by which we have been touched by that Unity. What stories do you know about other influential men so long ago that have been so meticulously preserved, that there is as much manuscript witness as in his case? Agreed, the mystical and allegorical language is foreign to us today, but that is our fault, not that of the people those many years ago.
This is obviously to a certain degree in agreement with what I wrote later, but it isn’t just opinion that these people are contributing, but these people are masterly composing symphonies to the one and the same theme. In a similar way to how music has an effect on us today, so these Gospels were inspiring then. You wouldn’t expect an opera to portray an event absolutely historically reliable, neither can a Gospel.
Now Scythe, what do you want? Myth or fiction? You can’t have it both ways. I think the example with the opera or musical is appropriate (although not exact) and the things you mention are also represented in such compositions.
Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, Johann Sebastian Bach’s works include the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, The Musical Offering, and a large number of cantatas. An example of some of these stylistic traits appears in the chorus Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe from the Christmas Oratorio, written in 1734. These were works of faith – not just artistic genius. In the same way, in a time when there were no symphonic orchestras, people used words to express occurrences that enthralled them.
Anything can be misused …
I have no doubt that there has been the assimilation of various influences in the portrayal of the Gospels, but this again means that language is also culturally bound. Many Hebrew or Aramaic expressions, when translated into Greek, used words that hadn’t been used in that way before (as we can see in the Greek classics). It didn’t mean that it was wrong, but just “unusualâ€.
If each personality is unique, then so can Christ be unique!
I understand that, I’m becoming the iconoclast, the confronter. When I say myth their immediate thought is of dead gods, and dead revelation. They do not think of myth as alive… but as the belief of the dead.
well, we are social creatures and our modern world has closed us off from one another… that’s why the myths of the old world are still appealing. Christianity and Islam bring communities together.
But each has a taint of madness… To describe just one for each, (and to limit it, just these two.) Christianity; the eucharist… drinking the representative body and blood of their savior god. Islam; Lowering yourself to the level of dirt every day to pray to the Kaaba. (does god live in it?)
right, and then he damned those who were rich on earth to eternal damnation. But it wasn’t only the rich, it was those who took part in “earthy” activities… sexuality, desire of the opposite sex, desire of material goods… any of these things he condemned and told his “followers”, “it’s better to cut off your arm, then to have your whole body cast into hell.”
All these things make him an iconoclast… the jews didn’t believe in hell, and they didn’t believe in damning the rich.
These things also make for a contradictary message… on the one hand he tells us to love unequivocally, on the other he tells us if we don’t we’ll be eternally tortured in the flames of hell.
Instilling the fear of hellfire is the wisdom of the ages?
The point is there were probably many lost stories of dead savior gods, that the world has forgotten… christianity has survived so the stories of their sole revelator have survived… many of them are considered complete fabrications, like the gospel of thomas where jesus gets spiteful (just like good ol’ dad.) and pushes a boy off the roof.
The gospels chosen, weren’t chosen for “truthiness”, as you know gospels don’t speak to facts… they speak to the story of belief.
is that mystical look at the world useful? would such a look of the world inspired mankind to send a rocket to the moon? Such a look at the world instills fear, we would fear being struck down by god, like happened with the tower of bab’el.
So, my Julius Ceaser analogy was a better one… Your symphony one is a good one, and any good story is like a symphony. Julius Caesar existed and was killed for the throne… but nothing in Shakespeare’s story is historically acurate… much like the gospels, it aims to tell a story of a hero who was betrayed. Betrayal is a common theme of the human condition, because many people will act for their own will, for a few coins, or for what they deem the good of the empire.
But like I told christian thinker… Judas was a common name for the jew… judah, judas, etc. The meme of the gospel story is that the jews betrayed christ. It was not a misrepresentation of mel gibsons movie to make that the case, he was merely transcribing the bloodiest event in christian worship to the big screen and properly blaming the jews for it. According to the story, a jew turned him into the authorities, and a council of jews met to have him crucified.
This goes back to mythology being mis-used. Because Mel believes in the story to be literally true, he thinks that the jews did reject christ. And he’s not the only one. I once heard a televangelist say this; “For how can god hear the prayer of a jew, the people that rejected his only begotten son!”
It’s not that the myth is being misused, it’s that it’s being misinterpreted as something other than what it is. Can we blame people for that though? 2000 years of dogmatic thought have confined christianity to believe in the literal power of the scriptures, it’s only been very modern theologians who have stated that the gospel writers themselves didn’t believe they were writing a literal history.
I disagree and agree… Somethings when used properly are more horrific then when they are misused for better results. Communism in China is a great example… when it was used properly to equalize the people, freedom of thought and freedom of religion were suppressed, now that they are misusing it and mixing it with capitalism, the people are becoming more free to express themselves… but they still have ALONG way to go.
I think Islam is similiar, if you apply the hadith and the quran, you get “extreme” Islam. It takes misapplication to make it a “free” religion…
Christianity and judaism are somewhere in the middle… judaism has strict rules about belief, but doesn’t require control over other people, (even though in the bible it clearly states that it does… they’ve adapted though.) Christianities “misapplication” is merely application of the literal form… it’d be no different if a jew “misapplied” the torah and started stoning their children. The proper application is determined by the society the religion is within, and the problem with Islam is that IT controls the society it is within… it’s all clearly laid out so that it can’t be misapplied to fit the society it is within.
There was cultural assimilation during this time period… the “reap what you sow” verse is no doubt a hebraic application of Karma… It’s also no doubt that the gospel writer who wrote jesus’ words was familiar with buddha and his golden rule.
I don’t see each persona as unique… I see a gradual cultural building to the christ persona…
Is it really madness? We say “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes†and understand that we are part of the cycle of growth and decay. Christians drink wine and eat bread as celebration of the saving acts and presence of Christ, the words are remembered: “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” I often think when biting the host (hostia), that small, round, thin but dry “bread†used for Holy Communion, ‘you certainly give me something to chew on!†It portrays the bread (without sourdough or yeast) of the Passa.
The wine then reminds me that he wants to be good for me, and is a reminder of the “feast†at the end of time. Christ in our midst becomes very present at Communion and empowers us to be the body of that one head, each with our own ability. Many metaphors and allegories come to mind if you are steeped in the tradition (the Grapevine etc.) indicating that the same “sap†that comes from the root flows through the vines to help us bear fruit. The word for “sap†or “juice†is the same in Aramaic as the word for “blood†which is essentially the “sap†of the human body – there is the connection.
You’re forgetting to quote again and thereby blanketing your claims. He didn’t condemn “earthy” activities, but instead showed mankind to be devoted to possessions, which is in fact idolatry. Making a woman into an idol or possession was the same offence. When Jesus was saying “But if your right eye offends you, take it out and throw it from you, for it is profitable to you that one of your members should perish and all your body not be thrown into Hell†he was speaking allegorically, pointing out that the Torah is intended to liberate and even if the loss is equivalent to the loss of an eye, it is better than the loss of life itself. Even if it was equivalent the loss of an arm, do away with a part for the sake of the whole.
Useful? It is part of our facilities to understand, just like our ability to reason and feel, so we are able to communicate in the mystical and prophetic “modeâ€. The thing is that we haven’t lost the habit, but pretend we have. We pretend to be such reasoning beings, but all the time we secretively use the mystical (like an alcoholic with his booze covered by a paper bag) because we are ashamed of it – but we are hooked!
The irony of the matter is that the Judeans (not “Jewsâ€), that remnant of Israel, is said to have killed Jesus. This is pointing to the fact that the last of the people of the Covenant rejected the last true heir of that Covenant (as the prophecy in Joel and Amos indicates), and at this point of time, it opened up a new Covenant of Forgiveness in the blood (or sap) of Christ to all nations. I agree, this has been terribly misused, since the liturgy of the suffering servant clearly states that it is for my sin that he suffered.
Your post unfortunately confuses two separate issues - your disbelief in Buddhist claims and the nature of these Buddhist claims. Of course you’re free to believe what you like, and I’m not interested in arguing about, for example, your view that no-one has achieved the state of Nirvana or “highest happiness”. The problem is that your disbelief is colouring your characterisation of Buddhism/mysticism. Mystics do claim that meditation enables one to see through the maya/illusion of everyday reality to a more genuine, spiritual reality, and the claim itself means - by definition - they’re not nihilists, who would scoff at such a claim. Your own belief about meditation causing one to go “further inward into maya” or into “a dream of anti-reality” (whatever that means) is not relevant to the meaning of the terms “Buddhist” and “nihilist”.
I agree with the first half of this paragraph. But how can you say they “escape maya and ‘higher truths’”? Mystics escape maya (illusion) to reach a higher truth (reality). Once again, your scepticism of such a claim is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that a relativist would be - by definition - sceptical of such a higher truth, hence mystics cannot be relativists.
If Buddhists aim to remove suffering and desire, and replace them with nothing, you might have a point. But they try to replace them with a deeper happiness, a deeper reality, a deeper meaning to life. At the very least, that’s what they believe. Hence Buddhism cannot be nihilism, regardless of your view that Buddhists are unsuccessful in their aims.
In response to the rest of your post (a negative spin on Buddhists’ motives), let me use an analogy to illustrate what “suffering” and “attachment” may refer to in Buddhism. When you were a child, you probably had a favourite toy, say, a teddy bear. Suppose it was taken from you, which made you cry. Now that you’re grown up, you of course realise that a teddy bear is not worth having a tantrum about. So, as a child your tantrum or “suffering” was caused by your “attachment” to the teddy bear, but once you’ve matured, the loss of the toy is put in perspective and you no longer suffer because of it. This maturing is a good thing, is it not? The idea in Buddhism is that meditation advances this maturation process, so that more things are put in perspective and you suffer less.