The Dalai Lama, a sordid history of Nazi Mentors and forgiving Fascists

[HiPointDem]

183. Buddhism doesn't have a creator god because it doesn't have a creation. So what?

Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2013, 04:22 AM - Edit history (6)

Is there something special about a creation god as opposed to a supernatural being that grants good scores on exams or good harvests or fertility? when we pile fruits in front of a statue on a shrine, what is the significance? when we do repetitive chanting of certain names, who is listening? what is the significance and function today, and what was the significance and function 500 years ago?

The 9 point statement of the 1967 "Congress of the World Buddhist Sangha Council" does not encompass "what Buddhism is".

The congress wants to draw some artificial line between 'indigenous' custom and 'the true cross', but that's all it is, an artificial line drawn by modern people. From the moment buddha opened his mouth to teach, buddhism was 'polluted' by the indigenous.

Apparently you've never been to japan if you think people are driving trucks with jizos in them.

the first translator of the heart sutra and hundreds of other buddhists texts into chinese used the term 't'ien chung t'ien,' 'god of gods,' to signify the buddha.

Soyen Shakku, the first zen (probably the most 'atheistic' buddhist variant) monk to teach in the US, says:

At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience. Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent...

Thus, according to the proclamation of an enlightened mind, God or the principle of sameness is not transcendent, but immanent in the universe, and we sentient beings are manifesting the divine glory just as much as the lilies of the field. A God who, keeping aloof from his creations, sends down his words of command through specially favored personages, is rejected by Buddhists as against the constitution of human reason. God must be in us, who are made in his likeness. We cannot presume the duality of God and the world. Religion is not to go to God by forsaking the world, but to find him in it. Our faith is to believe in our essential oneness with him, and not in our sensual separateness. "God in us and we in him," must be made the most fundamental faith of all religion.

We must not, however, suppose that God is no more than the sum-total of individual existences. God exists even when all creations have been destroyed and reduced to a state of chaotic barrenness. God exists eternally, and he will create another universe out of the ruins of this one. To our limited intelligence there may be a beginning and an end of the worlds, but as God surveys them, being and becoming are one selfsame process. To him nothing changes, or, to state it rather paradoxically, he sees no change whatever in all the changes we have around us; all things are absolutely quiet in their eternal cycle of birth and death, growth and decay, combination and disintegration. This universe cannot exist outside of God, but God is more than the totality of individual existences; God is here as well as there, God is not only this but also that.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zfa/zfa04.htm


Buddhist practice and scripture are deep and wide and have encompassed philosophy & practices similar to the western notion of godhood as well as the opposite pole, just as christian scripture and practices have encompassed philosophy and practices similar to those found in the east.

examples of all can be found in the buddhist canon, and in actual practice.

The notion that there is some pure buddhism that can be described in a single sentence is western modernist bunk.

It's funny when 'buddhists' do personal attacks.

"You obviously are lacking in reading comprehension skills."

"Let's try this even more simply for you."

"You are being willful ignorant so that your mentally created construct and agenda are not disturbed."


Oh, the irony. Oh, the humanity.