cartoon life

My tag surfer has Buddhism as a tag to catch posts I’d like to read. Of course, so much Evangelism shows up because they want to tell us how wrong we are. What is worse is, the blog which showed up today doesn’t allow comments. Really folks, You must be very secure in your belief that no one can, uhm, question?, ask or comment?, or try to correct some untrue or misunderstood information? - or is that just your closed-mindedness showing? Do you folks read other genuinely accurate posts on understanding Buddhism? Rather than merely pronouncing, are you so confident in your self-affirming identity that you can’t talk about it?

Practicing a deeply Buddhist understanding, Dr. Gabor Mate works on the ground in the Hell Realms

For over ten years Gabor Maté has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV and, in many cases, all four. But if Dr. Maté’s patients are at the far end of the spectrum, there are many others among us who are also struggling with addictions. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling and excessive inappropriate spending: what is amiss with our lives that we seek such self-destructive ways to comfort ourselves? And why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our lives?

I listened to Sounds Like Canada this Friday; April 11, 2008 am where he was interviewed regarding the new book In The Realm Of The Hungry Ghosts Close Encounters With Addiction. Links to his other books are at his own web site.

CBC podcasting will, I hope, have a podcast up soon of this interview, which should show up here very very soon. (no, It doesn’t seem likely) From the preface of the book:

The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present. …

Some people dwell much of their lives in one realm or another. Many of us move back and forth between them, perhaps through them all in the course of a single day. …

No society can understand itself without looking at its shadow side. I believe there is one addiction process, whether it is manifested in the lethal substance dependencies of my Downtown Eastside patients, the frantic self-soothing of overeaters or shopaholics, the obsessions of gamblers, sexaholics and compulsive internet users, or in the socially acceptable and even admired behaviours of the workaholic. …

Yes, it’s from BoingBoing and many thanks for discovering it. Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight. We all can do it. We don’t need to have a stroke.

From The Secret Museum an image of Bodh Gaya in the early 1900’s (?) 

 I have two copies of one of these little volumes. Ian Macky at Secret Museum of Mankind has scanned and put up all the pictures  - an astounding bit of work. Thank you!

Tagged by Gerald at Five Favorite Buddhist Books

First, refer to Buddhist Books, an older post where I mention Selling Water By The River, The Mind of Clover, and Hardcore Zen.

I was wandering up and down the aisles of our city public library one day, long ago, and serendipitously, Selling Water By The River found me. It’s long out of print. I don’t remember much except the absolute truth of the metaphor.

The Mind of Clover also was seminal for me for the way  Robert Aitkin Roshi dealt with the ten precepts.

Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen re-speaks for today. But is it one of my favourites?…. let’s see…Three Pillars of Zen? Old Path White Clouds? Never got Suzuki. Hmmm… two? three more…?

Read the rest of this entry »

At Once Delivered, rphilli posts a series of comparative essays contrasting Christianity against various other religions and systems. In response to Comparing Christianity and Buddhism I commented:

No Responses to “Comparing Christianity and Buddhism” dougrogers Says:
December 19, 2007 at 8:54 am              

 
“Mahayana Buddhism worships the Buddha as a god, along with other gods.”


Nope. Wrong.


“Other forms of Buddhism add shamanism and elements of the occult.”


Such as?


“What Buddhism says about salvation: The goal of life is to achieve nirvana to eliminate all desire, particularly by following the Eight-fold Path.”


This isn’t really a very clear statement. Salvation isn’t necessary because there is nothing to save, nor some state where salvation - whatever that is - is outside of or not a part of what we already are. 
To “eliminate all desire” is wrong. The desire to save all beings is a Bodhistava vow. This is not Nihilism. The Eightfold Path isn’t a choice amongst or against other paths to choose.


“What Buddhism says about man: Man is worthless, having only temporary existence.”


Uhm, no. I don’t know where you get this from unless you are mistaking Buddhism for some kind of Nihilism. That is a fundamental error.


“What Buddhism says about sin: There is no such thing as sin against a supreme being. The human condition is suffering,”


Gee. looking up Dukkha on Wikipedia [or Google] seems a difficult task for those whose mind is made up. Sin is a discriminatory judgment applied to actions. Look up the 5 Precepts that Buddhist Laypersons keep.


“There is no reincarnation, in which the eternal soul after death inhabits a new body. ”


Correct, there is no self or personality which reincarnates. There is no soul in Buddhism, so as you cast this statement in a Christian perspective, it really is a bit skewed against understanding what does incarnate.

and in response to Buddhism: An Overview I commented:

No Responses to “Buddhism: An Overview” dougrogers Says:
December 19, 2007 at 9:04 am              


“Buddhism is an impersonal religion of self-perfection, the end of which is death (extinction) - not life.”


This is truly laughable.


“After Gautama’s death, Buddhism eventually died out in India”


This seems to imply that Buddhism died out when Buddha died - actually wrong, if this is what this sentence means to imply.


“The Buddha taught that there are five ways people attach themselves to the world and to self:”


Error in conception here. People do not attach themselves to the 5 Skandhas. The 5 Skandhas are in fact what makes us believe we are people separate from the Skandhas.


“The Buddha taught that the sum of these five parts does not make up a greater whole called the Self.”


This is more correct, but does not address that what we as persons are depends also on the vast and subtle interactions between each of us as individuals and the Universe itself.

Now rphilli also says:

Our purpose in this study is not to condemn anyone or to assume God’s role as sovereign judge of the universe; rather, it is to compare the teachings of some of the world’s major religions and cults with biblical, historical Christianity so that we might be more effective in praying for and witnessing to the lost, and wiser in our ability to discern false doctrines. Every person, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, is precious in the eyes of God and is someone for whom Christ died. Our attitude as we study these false religious systems should be one of humility, love, and grace.     

My bolding. At least rphilli admits bias going into this, but you cannot fairly compare and contrast when you admit to beginning the exercise with a closed mind, and you post errors in understanding as facts to be disputed.

Second; blogs are about conversation. Comments on that site are moderated, and my comments on the posts have not been put up after a day.

 The thing is, I don’t ask to see these things in my Tag Surfer. If you are going to come and knock on my door and tell me things that are wrong or misunderstood, I’m going to close the door in your face and discount all of the rest of the - likely more reasonable - people of your persuasion as kooks too. Junk mail doesn’t even get into my house. I keep the blue box on the porch.

At To Live Is Christ, Angela commits some of the most outrageous fuzzy-headed illiterate thinking I can imagine. It’s people like this who make me aghast at some of the thinking that passes for comparative religion, least of all from evangelical hard-core Christians. A single post like this is enough, in my mind to warrant removal of her Thinking Blogger Award.

Is Yoga A Harmless Exercise?

You really understand very little. You cannot attribute Vedic sources, Hindu sources, to Buddhism. Hinduism and Buddhism are not the same thing.

Yoga began in the ancient civilization of India where Buddhism is ardently practiced. To understand yoga, one must understand a bit of Buddhism and its history.    

This is simply wrong. Yoga predates Buddhism as a practice. You can study Yoga very deeply and need never touch any Buddhism. There are no Yogis, or Brahman, or God in Buddhism. Brahman is a Hindu concept. The Buddha repudiated Brahman and Atman.

The central theme of Buddhism is the mantra “Atman is Brahman”      

Politely, this is bullshit. This has nothing to do with Buddhism. There is no Atman, there is no Brahman. And as to the site you recommend, I really don’t think you can read. The very first line of text on the page says, “One of the key concepts of Hinduism is the belief in an ultimate reality called Brahman which is the source of all living things in this universe.”

Considering Yoga’s inseparable tie with Buddhism, it is unwise for Christians to practice yoga.       

Buddhism has no “inseparable tie” with Yoga. None. Nada, zip, zilch zero. Siddhartha Gautama studied many esoteric spiritual paths. Yes, Yoga was one of them, one of the many he abandoned before realizing the Middle Path which lead to his enlightenment.

I am asserting that it is impossible to separate yoga from Buddhism and it’s pantheistic beliefs.        

Buddhism holds no panthiestic beliefs. Your argument is not with Buddhism. Yes, there are realms of Gods in the Buddhist cosmology, but they are irrelevant and distractions to Liberation.

Yoga is basically a tool that is used by Buddhist to unite with the Universal Soul (Bramhan).        

Buddhists do not use Yoga as a tool to unite with anything. There is no Universal Soul, there is no Brahman, there is no individual soul - Anatman - there is nothing to unite with. You already are part of it, just get out of the way.

Make some proper arguments.

It says everything that I could say about how I feel. There’s no magic, no mumbo-jumbo, no airy-fairy, no mysticism.

We all have a stack of Buddhist books. I have too many. There are a few I have read which are worth it. Selling Water by the River, The Mind of Clover and Hardcore Zen.

Update: 06/07/07 Following the links off of Sit Down and Shut Up yields results. Hardcore Zen Blog and Dogen Sangha Blog