Cancelled Catholic Comment

I received this from the authour of  Catechism On Call in response to a comment on Catholic Heaven vs. Buddhist Nirvana.

Thank you for your comment. I’ve decided not to publish it and I wanted to tell you why. I’ve looked at it a few times, and I don’t really understand the distinctions you draw.

Buddhism and Christianity … again … sigh

At the temple were I sit weekly, there are periodic comparative religion excursions of high school students. I try to help Suco when I can by showing up and answering a few questions. It is good that they get a small first hand experience. Sometimes kids show up to do some research themselves. This is cool.

So, I am wondering if there is some sort of curriculum drive elsewhere that is part of these seeming projects showing up in other places. Like blog posts. Like, hey, I’ve typed out this essay anyway why don’t I post it on my blog?

A comparative religions essays post at The Oracle Magazine  popped up in my tag surfer today.

Buddhism Salvation

I don’t go looking for these things. They show up in my Tag Surfer.

The Deliberate Ruminator is an evangelical Christian blog, and this comparative religions post posits the usual misunderstandings in order to prove there is only one true religion. In response to Salvation, Oh How We Count The Ways posted by tree63fan:

Buddhism salvation:
“Most Buddhists believe a person has hundreds or thousands of reincarnations”, 

The person, the personality, the soul does not reincarnate. The karma, the causes, the habits, the attachments incarnate.

“all bringing misery.” 

try to understand “Dukkha”. It is not Misery, it is not Suffering. It is clinging to concepts of self and other, it is wanting a drink of water, it is eating ice cream.

“And it is the desire for happiness that causes a person’s reincarnation.“

It is attachment to desire that brings about the incarnation. I could be attached to revenge.

“Therefore, the goal”

There is no goal, there is only practice. “Goal” is part of the discriminating, labeling mind.

“of a Buddhist is to purify one’s heart and to let go of all desires.” 

rather the practice is to let go of the discrimination between self and other, to let go of the attachment to things we think will make us happy, or the stories we tell ourselves about what we are.

“A person must abandon all sensuous pleasures, all evil, all joy and all sorrow.”

No. Relinquishing attachment to these things – as a way to define who we are and what we want – is the practice. These things are fleeting, moments, not solid, not what we are, not who we are. Denying them is the same as grasping them. These things come from a fixed view of person, personality, self and other. They do not exist other than as our own discriminating states of mind.

“To do so, Buddhists are to follow a list of religious principles and intense meditation.”

There is such a wide degree of difference in various practices and branches of Buddhism. There is practice for the layman, for ordinary persons, there is practice for monks. For instance the Five Precepts that laypeople can follow… and meditation is just one technique that the majority don’t even bother with.

“When a Buddhist meditates it is not the same as praying”

Maybe, maybe not. Since, in Buddhism, there is no god, and nothing outside of anything but this whole inclusive process of being, what exactly is there to pray to? Meditation practice is the process of seeing this whole thing and all the little discriminations we do to make ourselves different from it – as really false, illusory and completely unnecessary – and actually destructive in understanding “god”.

“or focusing on a god, it is more of a self-discipline.”

There is nothing outside of ourselves. There is nothing that is a self. There is no boundary between our body and our mind, there is no boundary between our body and the world, there is no boundary between the world and God.

Focusing on God as outside of self – focusing on self as different from God is the act of the discriminating mind. You need to practice self-discipline to see that.

“Through dedicated meditation”

doing, being, practice… not of a single technique, but practice of the Eightfold Path, and seeing (process, not goal) when discrimination and attachment, labels and stories arise… and letting these things pass away. These things are not who you are.

“a person may reach Nirvana — “the blowing out” of the flame of desire.”

or a person, having abandoned attachment and discrimination, labels and stories, a person may see that Samsara and Nirvana are one and the same thing. 

More closed-mind evangelists

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?

God’s location

Very funny twist on those “You are here” cartoon clichés.
You resonate at 7 mhz so does the earth
Google maps London Ontario
Self and Brain

More Spam for the Blue Box

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.

Hey, you kids, get The Christ outta’ my holiday

Yeah, yeah, it’s from FARK, but; While most Christians embrace Christmas, a few recall a more complex history presents a richer story.

Pastor John Foster [is] one of very few American Christians who follow what used to be the norm in many Protestant denominations-rejecting the celebration of Christmas on religious grounds.” People don’t think of it this way, but it’s really a secular holiday,” said Foster, a Princeton-based pastor in the United Church of God.               

Good on ya! A fundamentalist who rejects Christmas.

Here is the book;  Christmas: A Candid History at Amazon. 

It’s funny though, as the comments after the story waggle between rational and ranty. Guess who the Ranters are.

We note that Bodhi Day, marking the day of Buddha’s enlightenment is said to fall on December 8th—the Lunar calendar puts that at the full moon occurring on December 26th this year. 

Yoga ≠ Buddhism

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.