Buddhism saves. Compatible with Christianity. Short read.

a reply to: andy06shake


you mean like Ashrams?



on July 20, 1969 @ 4:17 PM at the Church-of-the-Pilgrim on 'P' street vicinity of DuPont Circle,,,
the wife & I vowed I Do even as Apollo 11 said the Eagle has Landed
(the twist is 'we' already had the marriage license dated for June 15th to be wed in the middle-of-the-year...a day of no significance or importance )

modesty /humblest thinking like Buddhist
backfired on the couple of hippies with his adopted surname of -LUNAS.... the prominence of moon landing equal to that of September 11th as dates-of-infamy burned into our collective memory

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
Pieces of the whole...are still..the whole.

Do you follow Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and all 2,000 Protestant sects simultaneously, if pieces of the whole are still the whole?

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
Bushism teaches that "To not be lost", to find oneself, one must lose oneself". Jesus said basically the same thing. To find eternal life, one must let go of one's attachment to life and its things.

Maybe, but the meditations have been made accessible by many skilled teachers and they can lessen unhealthy attachments to things or to resentments and so forth.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
One man searched the world for the meaning of life. Got to the last mountain, last guru, eyes closed. He opened one eye and laughed and laughed at him!

"You spent a lifetime searching for the meaning of iife? My son? The meaning of life...is to LIVE. And apparently you spent all yours searching!"

As a stiff little Catholic uniform ( "Yes! Sister!") marching lemming School kid, disillusionment was quick as a teen hippie in the 60's. Catholics arent the only way, and mom was Methodist.

You've been trained to throw shade. Perhaps they even trained you to feel you knew better, which you sublimated into feeling your experiences made you too wise.

I've heard from the likes of trained shade throwers that it's about staring at your belly button or "don't just do something, sit there."

There are useful meditations that have been made readily available and it is not about climbing mountains to ask gurus the meaning of life. Recognizing and getting over unhealthy attachments, for example, facilitates living. It does not 'search for the meaning of life by climbing mountains to talk to gurus.'

originally posted by: Astyanax

Try some modern materials on Buddhism which are intended for lay westerners.

I suggest that you make your recommendation more specific. There’s a ton of garbage out there.

mysteriousstranger to OP: You propose the Buddhist "Cliff Notes"? Study, my friend...the same studies the Masters did.

The only way to study Buddhism is to become a practising Buddhist and find a bikkhu of exemplary character and life to guide you.

Why do you have to do all that? You can learn useful meditations by reading respected authors.

As far as I’m concerned you’d be wasting your time — you won’t become a better or even a happier persons, just a more hypocritical one — but each to their own.

Why? Is the point to tell people you are an official Buddhist? The meditations are useful. Are you a hypocrite if you don't tell anybody?

a reply to: Solvedit

In many ways. My ggggg grandfather was a famous Methodist revivalist. My father, Catholic. Mother was Methodist as well. I went and left Catholic School.

Simply, I am Gnostic. Bless you!!

a reply to: Solvedit

Often is said one shouldn't have to tell anybody, where it's obvious...

a reply to: Solvedit

Wow...did you completely miss the guru metaphor.
Answers are within. They are always within.

Over your head...

originally posted by: Solvedit

originally posted by: mysterioustranger

Zen Buddhist monk I know notes it takes a lifetime...to learn to shed....that lifetime.

Are you sure you're grasping the point? Plus, there is more to Buddhism than monastic practices.

Yep, war (during World War II, while Catholics and Protestants in Great Britain and the United States were killing Catholics and Protestants in Italy and Germany, Buddhists in Japan were doing the same to their Buddhist brothers in southeast Asia, but what kind of religion would put government above God and offer its own members as political sacrifices on the altar of the god of war?), inciting hatred, violence and genocide (the behaviour of the predominantly Buddhist population and army of Myanmar towards the Rohingya minority is encouraged by Buddhist nationalist monks who are inciting the hatred against this minority Islamic population, promoting acts of violence against them), collecting donations predominantly in the most populated rich areas, selling religious paraphernalia, increasing profits from (religious) tourism by using golden Buddha statues and fancy temples to atttract more customers (materialistic greed). Just to name a few things that are quite characteristic of Buddhism (and other religions that make up what the Bible refers to as "Babylon the Great").


Revelation 18:2,3

And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: “She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a place where every unclean spirit and every unclean and hated bird lurks! 3 For because of the wine of the passion* [Or “anger.”] of her sexual immorality, all the nations have fallen victim, and the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth became rich owing to the power of her shameless luxury.”

2 Peter 2:3

Also, they will greedily exploit you with counterfeit words. But their judgment, decided long ago, is not moving slowly, and their destruction is not sleeping.

Coming back to the part in the book of Revelation that talks about Babylon the Great getting in bed with "the kings of the earth" (symbolically referred to as 'committing sexual immorality').

“We called the war [World War II] a holy war and sent people to battlefields,” admitted Shingen Hosokawa, the secretary-general of the Temple Office of the Buddhist True Pure Land Otani Sect in Japan. “We cannot but be overwhelmed with shame in front of the holy Buddha.” At a “Memorial Service for All War Dead,” 45 years after the end of World War II, the sect, with over five million believers, admitted its responsibility in “willingly cooperating in [the war efforts of] World War II.” “There is no precedent for a traditional Buddhist order clearly to state its own war responsibility at a religious ritual,” noted the Asahi Shimbun.

However, should not far more religions be “overwhelmed with shame” for having urged many young men to go to war? According to the Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, virtually all Buddhist, “Christian,” and Shinto denominations in Japan formed a Religious League in 1941 “to provide a spiritual bulwark for the nation in wartime.”

Keep in mind that about 70% of Japan's population is Buddhist, the same statistic holds up when it comes to worship of the state (nationalism), support of the war and expansion policy during WWII and military service (i.e. most Japanese soldiers during WWII were buddhist, as were those running the prison camps, and we all know how these people treated their prisoners don't we? Or have we conveniently forgotten?). The true face or colors of Buddhism (and its fruits). Not a whole lot of forgiving or peaceful attitudes there.

a reply to: whereislogic
No religion including atheism has solved war.

a reply to: whereislogic

Keep in mind that about 70% of Japan's population is Buddhist, the same statistic holds up when it comes to worship of the state (nationalism), support of the war and expansion policy during WWII and military service (i.e. most Japanese soldiers during WWII were buddhist, as were those running the prison camps, and we all know how these people treated their prisoners don't we? Or have we conveniently forgotten?). The true face or colors of Buddhism (and its fruits). Not a whole lot of forgiving or peaceful attitudes there.

Buddha taught "Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile. You are not following my teaching".

Buddhism was the state religion prior to the Meiji era. The official religion of Japan from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the end of World War II was Shintoism. It was General MacArthur that ordered the end of Shinto as the Japanese state religion. Only now does Buddhism have that 70% popularity you quote.

a reply to: glend

Buddhist influence on Shinto has been especially strong. This explains why many Japanese are Buddhist and Shintoist at the same time (which is why I took the most recent statistics, regardless what the official state religion was at the time, cause it was a little tricky to find the exact statistics for the period 1920-1945). A traditional Japanese house has two altars, a Shinto altar to honor the kami*, and a Buddhist altar to honor one’s ancestors.

*: the various gods or deities. Kami came to refer to any supernatural force or god, including nature gods, outstanding men, deified ancestors, or even “deities who serve an ideal or symbolize an abstract power.” (The Encyclopedia of Religion)

When Buddhism was introduced (during the sixth century C.E.), Shinto clothed itself with the Buddhist teaching. When people needed moral standards, it put on Confucianism. Shinto has been extremely adaptable.

Syncretism, or the fusing of the elements of one religion into another, took place very early in the history of Shinto. Although Confucianism and Taoism, known in Japan as the “Way of yin and yang,” had infiltrated the Shinto religion, Buddhism was the major ingredient that blended with Shinto.

When Buddhism entered by way of China and Korea, the Japanese labeled their traditional religious practices as Shinto, or the “way of the gods.” However, with the advent of a new religion, Japan was divided on whether to accept Buddhism or not. The pro-Buddhist camp insisted, ‘All neighboring countries worship that way. Why should Japan be different?’ The anti-Buddhist faction disputed, ‘If we worship the neighboring gods, we will be provoking the anger of our own gods.’ After decades of discord, the pro-Buddhists won out. By the end of the sixth century C.E., when Prince Shōtoku embraced Buddhism, the new religion had taken root.

As Buddhism spread to rural communities, it encountered the local Shinto deities whose existence was strongly entrenched in the daily lives of the people. The two religions had to compromise to coexist. Buddhist monks practicing self-discipline in the mountains helped to fuse the two religions. As mountains were considered the dwellings of Shinto divinities, the monks’ ascetic practices in the mountains gave rise to the idea of mixing Buddhism and Shinto, which also led to the building of jinguji, or “shrine-temples.”* Gradually a fusion of the two religions took place as Buddhism took the initiative in forming religious theories. (*: In Japan the religious buildings for Shintoists are regarded as shrines and those for Buddhists, temples.)

As confidence in Shinto deities swelled, they were viewed as being the original gods, whereas Buddhas (“enlightened ones”) and bodhisattvas (Buddhas-to-be who help others achieve enlightenment) were seen only as temporary local manifestations of the divinity. As a result of this Shinto-versus-Buddhist conflict, various schools of Shinto developed. Some emphasized Buddhism, others elevated the Shinto pantheon, and still others used a later form of Confucianism to adorn their teachings.

In medieval Japan, temples in Kyoto were transformed into fortresses, and warrior-monks, invoking “the holy name of Buddha,” battled one another until the streets ran red with blood.

Part 8​—c. 563 B.C.E. onward​—An Enlightenment That Promised Liberation (Religion’s Future in View of Its Past; Awake!—1989)

“The test of a religion or philosophy is the number of things it can explain.”​—American 19th-century poet Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Buddhism and Politics

Like Judaism and professed Christianity, Buddhism has not limited itself to religious activities but has helped mold political thought and behavior as well. “The first fusion of Buddhism and political action came during the reign of [King] Asoka,” says author Jerrold Schecter. The political activism of Buddhism continues to our day. In the latter part of 1987, 27 Tibetan Buddhist monks were arrested in Lhasa for taking part in anti-Chinese demonstrations. And the involvement of Buddhism in the Vietnam war of the 1960’s caused Schecter to conclude: “The peaceful path of the Middle Way has been twisted into the new violence of street demonstrations. . . . Buddhism in Asia is a faith in flames.”

Dissatisfied with the deplorable political, economic, social, and moral conditions of the Western world, some people turn to Eastern religions, including Buddhism, for explanations. But can “a faith in flames” provide the answers? If you apply Emerson’s criterion that “the test of a religion . . . is the number of things it can explain,” how do you rate Gautama’s enlightenment? Would some of the other Asiatic religions “In Search of the Right Way” do better? For an answer, read our next installment.

a reply to: Solvedit

Note what the book Holocaust Politics says as quoted at 8:23 in the last video. The same counts for war. The writer of this book, John King Roth, is an American-based author, editor, and the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Claremont, California. Roth taught at CMC from 1966 through 2006, where he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, which is now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. Best known for his contributions to Holocaust and genocide studies, he is the author or editor of more than fifty books. In 1988, he was named the U.S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Or in other words, he knows what he's talking about there (and that's his scholarly opinion, not a matter of bias or marketing/propaganda; as is the marketingslogan "religion of peace" as applied to Buddhism by Buddhist religious leaders and its promoters).

a reply to: StudioNada

An ashram is a place where people go on spiritual or religious retreat.

But again there are plenty of pilgrimages, festivals, and social events for instance directly linked to Buddhism that take place out side of monastic settings.

a reply to: whereislogic

Are you really condemning monks for protesting against China that has killed over 1.2 million Tibetans in the occupation of Tibet. Preaching non-violence does not mean one cannot stand against tyranny in a non-violent manner. However the Buddha made it very clear that any type of violence, whether it has a good or bad outcome, will result in a lower rebirth.

Yodhājīvasutta SN 42.3 Yodhājı̄va the professional warrior asks the Buddha whether the belief that warriors have a good rebirth is correct. The Buddha tries to dissuade him, but ultimately reveals that by following the way of violence they head to a bad rebirth.

You need also understand that violence also works at mental level in a war of ego's. In which you are trying to promote your religion by attempting to destroy the reputation of others.

That will also result in lower rebirth. That is why Jesus warned "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: whereislogic

Are you really condemning monks for protesting against China that has killed over 1.2 million Tibetans in the occupation of Tibet.

Nope, that was an example of "political activism" that the article chose to give, the subject in that paragraph there. The article is from 1989 and the example is from 1987. It was just listing a fact, no condemnation (or judging) there. It is what it is.

If you think listing historical facts is "promoting your religion by attempting to destroy the reputation of others", you are closer to the act of condemning and judging than the article there (and reading or painting something negative into or onto what is done there, in order to condemn the mere mention of those facts as 'mental violence'; rather silly and far-fetched; especially when at the same time one talks past the inciting of hatred and promotion of actual violence by Nationalistic Buddhist monks in Myanmar toward the Rohingya people, as carried out by a predominantly Buddhist army and population, another inconvenient fact for some people who wish to promote/market Buddhism as a religion of peace or forgiveness; pretty words mean very little if people don't listen to them and demonstrate the opposite in their actions and behaviour, the real fruits of what they are taught and conditioned with through their clergy or those political leaders these religious leaders are collaborating with, it's like giving the nobel peace price to the political leader of Myanmar, just marketing/propaganda).

... They sift the facts, exploiting the useful ones and concealing the others. They also distort and twist facts, specializing in lies and half-truths. Your emotions, not your logical thinking abilities, are their target.

The propagandist makes sure that his message appears to be the right and moral one and that it gives you a sense of importance and belonging if you follow it. You are one of the smart ones, you are not alone, you are comfortable and secure—so they say.

Source: Do Not Be a Victim of Propaganda! (Awake!—2000)

“Across Asia and beyond,” says the journal Asiaweek, “power-hungry leaders are cynically manipulating people’s religious sentiments for their own needs.” As a result, the journal warns: “The world threatens to sink into madness.”

Similarly, in a letter to the editor of Bombay’s “Indian Express” newspaper, an Indian man stated: “I do not believe in patriotism. It is an opium innovated by the politicians to serve their ugly ends. It is for their prosperity. It is for their betterment. It is for their aggrandizement. It is never for the country. It is never for the nation. It is never never for common men and women like you and I. . . . This sinister politician-invented wall shall divide man from man​—and brother from brother; till one day it shall bring about man’s doom by man. Patriotism or nationalism, to my mind, is an idiotic exercise in artificial loyalty. . . . I take no hypocritical pride in being petty this or that. I belong to mankind.”

If only the Buddhists in Myanmar would listen to someone like that rather than their nationalistic Buddhist monks and Buddhist political leaders (or their supposedly 'patriotic' Buddhist neighbours for that matter). Then they might be more inclined to follow this pattern of behaviour:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare* [“We do not wage warfare.” Lit., “we are not doing military service.” ...; Lat., non . . . mi·li·ta'mus.] according to what we are in the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God;” (2 Cor 10:3-5)

The Bible says: “If anyone makes the statement: ‘I love God,’ and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus even said: “Continue to love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:44) How many religions can you think of whose members engage in war?

Let's see how many I can think of:

Christendom (counterfeit Christianity)
Buddhism
Jainism
Hinduism
Islam
Shintoism
Confucianism (or Chinese traditional religion)
Sikhism
Judaism
etc. (too many to list really)

Also keep in mind that:

Since 1914, two world wars and over a hundred smaller conflicts have spilled an ocean of blood. A century ago, French writer Guy de Maupassant said that “the egg from which wars are hatched” is patriotism, which he called “a kind of religion.” In fact, The Encyclopedia of Religion says that patriotism’s cousin, nationalism, “has become a dominant form of religion in the modern world, preempting a void left by the deterioration of traditional religious values.” (Italics ours.) By failing to promote true worship, false religion created the spiritual vacuum into which nationalism was able to pour.

Source: Part 21—1900 onward—Skirts Splattered With Blood (Religion’s Future in View of It’s Past; Awake!—1989)

Nationalism, called by the weekly magazine Asiaweek “the Last Ugly Ism,” is one of the unchanging factors that continues to provoke hatred and bloodshed. That magazine stated: “If pride in being a Serb means hating a Croat, if freedom for an Armenian means revenge on a Turk, if independence for a Zulu means subjugating a Xhosa and democracy for a Romanian means expelling a Hungarian, then nationalism has already put on its ugliest face.”

We are reminded of what Albert Einstein once said: “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” Nearly everybody gets it at one time or another, and it continues to spread. Back in 1946, British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Patriotism . . . has very largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the Western World.”

And that is not a phenomenon limited to “the Western World.”

Nationalism is well described by the psalmist’s expression, “the pestilence causing adversities.” (Psalm 91:3) It has been like a plague on humanity, leading to untold suffering. Nationalism with its resultant hatred of other peoples has existed for centuries. Today, nationalism continues to fan the flames of divisiveness, and human rulers have not been able to stop it.

Many authorities recognize that nationalism and self-interest are the root of the world’s problems. For example, former United Nations Secretary-General U Thant observed: “So many of the problems that we face today are due to, or the result of, false attitudes . . . Among these is the concept of narrow nationalism​—‘my country, right or wrong.’”

Why is it that when a country goes to war (including the so-called "War on Terror"), the religious leaders or most influential figures within the predominant religions in that country, always support their governments in the promotion of this war (often including the conditioning of the masses to make the war seem necessary) and encourage military service? Or as asked earlier in the article:

But what kind of religion would put government above God and offer its own members as political sacrifices on the altar of the god of war?

Source: Part 21—1900 onward—Skirts Splattered With Blood

Could it have something to do with "the ruler of this world" (political; John 12:31) and "god of this system of things" (religious, 2 Cor 4:4) "who is misleading the entire inhabited earth" (Rev 12:9). Wanna be saved from being conditioned, indoctrinated, manipulated, misled and consequently enslaved or ensnared by him? Buddhism (and any other religion that is part of "Babylon the Great", Rev 17 and 18) won't save (or free) you from that. Jesus said: “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”​—John 8:31, 32. “Remain in my word.” Here Jesus sets the standard for evaluating whether religious teachings are “the truth” that can set a person free from the enslavement to this system of things and its god and ruler. True enlightenment, true Nirvana as the Buddhist would say.

Current events-The End of False Religion is imminent!

a reply to: Solvedit

In light of your signature: "Some people dont know what Fascism is."

I would like to add, some people also don't know what hypocrisy is. Or they don't want to know or pretend not to know (or see it) when it is inconvenient to acknowledge or admit to (for whatever reason, usually involving bias and not wanting to see it or admit it).

originally posted by: whereislogic
If only the Buddhists in Myanmar...

Irrelevant.

When you use the basic meditations some schools are marking out for ordinary lay westerners, it works to keep your soul in good health.

originally posted by: Solvedit

originally posted by: Sookiechacha
Bushism teaches that "To not be lost", to find oneself, one must lose oneself". Jesus said basically the same thing. To find eternal life, one must let go of one's attachment to life and its things.

Maybe, but the meditations have been made accessible by many skilled teachers and they can lessen unhealthy attachments to things or to resentments and so forth.

As I offered previously, religions are the same, yet not.

Did Jesus Meditate?

Meditation and Jesus

And there is good evidence suggesting that Jesus did indeed meditate. For instance, it's believed by many scholars that Jesus's Sermon on the Mount was delivered from a "meditative state" (rather than a purely waking state). While Jesus is known for spending 40 days and 40 nights "praying" in the desert, the specifics of his "prayer" technique are not clearly defined. Some scholars believe that many of those days and nights in the desert were actually spent in meditation, rather than prayer alone. While prayer is the act of "talking to God", meditation is the act of "listening to God," which more closely mirrors what occurred during those history changing 40 days and 40 nights.

Taking it a step further, was Jesus's prayer technique actually more of a meditation technique? In Matthew 6:5 Jesus taught his disciples to "pray alone and to use few words," which sounds less like prayer (in a pure sense) and more like a basic meditation technique. While we cannot say that 100% of Jesus's time spent in prayer as actually time spent in meditation, anything can be lost in translation over thousands of years. At the very least, in addition to prayer, it's not a stretch to say that Jesus did indeed practice meditation to some degree (and more likely, to a high degree).

In the end, when you add the numerous Biblical mentions of meditation to the mounting evidence that Jesus may have actually been a well-practiced meditator, it becomes clear and obvious that meditation is a truly wonderful thing for all Christians.

eocinstitute.org...

originally posted by: quintessentone

As I offered previously, religions are the same, yet not.

Did Jesus Meditate?

Meditation and Jesus

And there is good evidence suggesting that Jesus did indeed meditate.

In Luke 5:32, the Lord is quoted as saying, "I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners."

One way to take it is some people may be too far gone to help themselves with prayer and meditation and striving to act righteously. Perhaps the Lord's sacrifice was for them.

What if, for example, someone were being intimidated by the mob and didn't put much faith in the Jewish religion or any other forms of prayer or meditation which might help them? What if they'd be killed or dissuaded before they even learned prayer or meditation?