romansh Posted November 17, 2021 Share Posted November 17, 2021 On 11/15/2021 at 3:35 PM, Nolose said: Is it possible for all of us here to agree on the definition of these three terms? and other terms, such as Holy Spirit? Interesting question. I had a crack at these definitions a while back ... here Is it possible for you to agree with them? You can find definitions for Holy and Spirit at the start of the thread. I think there are attempts at Holy Spirit in the thread itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 17, 2021 Share Posted November 17, 2021 7 hours ago, PaulS said: Well Amida-driven or not, I agree that the above is a very useful way to frame one's life. Ah ha! Define "Amida"! That is where the trouble can start. 😎 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 17, 2021 Share Posted November 17, 2021 (edited) All this is beginning to touch upon things being approached on another Forum. I spoke of it somewhere before, a forum devoted to Mental Health issues. Some tragic stories there and "mumbo jumbo" is of no help so I am strained to the limit. But being there is therapeutic for myself. But it does have a "Debating Chamber" where we can raise anything we like, and one guy (or gal, I'm not sure which) started a thread on how "Nihilism can save the planet". It has developed quite well, although I'm a little bit stymied by one guy who is strong on binary logic. Logic is not my strong point! But I was interested in the whole idea of "meaninglessness" as it is in nihilism and of how it relates to "eastern" ideas, particularly in zen and the thought of Dogen. I've long noticed that most things turn back upon themselves. Go far enough in one direction and you come back to where you started. I did read somewhere that given the bending of space, if we had a powerful enough telescope what we would see would be the back of our heads! Leaving that thought with you, I'd just say that according to Buddhism consciousness is the one thing that does not turn back upon itself. Which is suggestive. "All things are led by mind, created by mind" as the Dhammapada opens with. Well, enough waffle. Here is an excerpt from the book "Eihei Dogen:Mystical Realist" by Hee-Jin Kim:- To cast off the body-mind did not nullify historical and social existence so much as to put it into action so that it could be the self-creative and self-expressive embodiment of Buddha-nature. In being “cast off,” however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom—purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness. Edited November 17, 2021 by tariki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted November 20, 2021 Author Share Posted November 20, 2021 On 11/17/2021 at 6:09 PM, tariki said: But I was interested in the whole idea of "meaninglessness" I think I'm starting to understand meaningless as not something that should be portrayed as negative and forlorn, as in because there isn't somebody/something behind the scenes either observing or participating in our lives that subsequently there is no point, but rather precisely because our lives are meaningless, we actually have all the power in the universe to give our lives meaning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 20, 2021 Share Posted November 20, 2021 8 hours ago, PaulS said: I think I'm starting to understand meaningless as not something that should be portrayed as negative and forlorn, as in because there isn't somebody/something behind the scenes either observing or participating in our lives that subsequently there is no point, but rather precisely because our lives are meaningless, we actually have all the power in the universe to give our lives meaning. Hi Paul, Dogen had a "breakthrough" himself when he was in training with others under a master in China. The guy beside him slumped and the master cried out:- "How dare you sleep when you are seeking to drop body and mind!" In the "eastern" ways and paths it all involves "emptiness", "beginner's mind" and suchlike, often dismissed as pure nihilism in some quarters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hunt Posted November 21, 2021 Share Posted November 21, 2021 Interesting thread here. With 30,000 or 40 or 50,000 or whatever it is denominations (comparable numbers in Islam and Judaism I understand are more like in the hundreds) The Holy Spirit hasn't been very effective in helping Christians clarify what they should believe. Personally, I think of myself as a Christian in so far as I attempt to follow the two great commandments, Matthew 22 etc - 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Jesus never tries to define "God" in any theological kind of sense. Nazareth, Jesus’ home town, was a morning’s walk from Tiberias. This was a large, bustling city on the shore of Lake Galilee which Herod Antipas had built and which he made his capital. Jesus must have been aware of the multiplicity of beliefs that jostled for space in every corner of the Roman Empire in the first century AD. He doesn’t mention one of them. He never says to the worshippers of Zeus, Osiris, Mithras, Ra, Mercury, Diana, Isis, Adonis, Attis, the apostates, agnostics, Epicureans, “You’re going the wrong way. You believe in the wrong God. I’ve come to put you right.” He never describes God, except in relation to ourselves, individually. He never tries to convert anyone to the God he believes in. As an evangelist, he doesn’t impress. The fact that the Roman centurion and the Syro-Phoenician woman and the others whose daughters/friends/servants he heals believe differently from him is not an issue. It’s how you act that counts, where your heart is. Love and faith are the bottom line, not faith in one god or another. He certainly wouldn't have known what was meant by the Trinity. So I take "the Lord your God" as pretty open-ended. Similarly with the Holy Spirit (a concept Judaism absorbed from Zoroastrianism during the Exile). It's the second of the commandments where the rubber hits the road. If you don't follow that, you're not following the first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted November 22, 2021 Author Share Posted November 22, 2021 On 11/21/2021 at 12:39 AM, tariki said: In the "eastern" ways and paths it all involves "emptiness", "beginner's mind" and suchlike, often dismissed as pure nihilism in some quarters. Well there you go - maybe I'm becoming a Buddhist without knowing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted November 22, 2021 Author Share Posted November 22, 2021 17 hours ago, John Hunt said: Personally, I think of myself as a Christian in so far as I attempt to follow the two great commandments, Matthew 22 etc - Personally, I think Jesus probably was thinking of the God of Israel and his message was primarily directed at Jews telling them to get right with their (and THE) God. I mean, after all, it was the culture and religious experience he grew up in, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was 'disapproving' so to speak of worshipping other Gods. But I think you're right in that he didn't really care about that bit as much as he did about loving your neighbour as yourself which was demonstration of commitment to 'God' in that you were celebrating and respecting God's creation - your fellow man. I don't think Jesus was God, or God's son, anymore than any one of us could take that title. I do think though that Jesus had a unique way of looking at relationship with God and he had some groundbreaking ideas for Israel at that time about how relationship with God and others should really look. I'm not quite as convinced he shared those feelings for non-Jews, but I don't need to know that to see for myself that loving our neighbours as ourselves is a pretty good rule to live by. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hunt Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 5 hours ago, PaulS said: Personally, I think Jesus probably was thinking of the God of Israel and his message was primarily directed at Jews telling them to get right with their (and THE) God. I mean, after all, it was the culture and religious experience he grew up in, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was 'disapproving' so to speak of worshipping other Gods. Agree with all of that post. Maybe he was disapproving of worshiping other gods, it's not mentioned, but I think what's remarkable is how low down the priority scale that would have been for him, compared to so many passages in the Old Testament that are damning of other gods, and the history of Christianity (and many Christians today) in that respect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 6 hours ago, PaulS said: Well there you go - maybe I'm becoming a Buddhist without knowing! Hi Paul, I've found that it is the "not knowing" that is the truest guide. As is said in the Pure Land, the way of no-calculation where things are "made to become so of themselves". Or as it says in St Marks gospel:- "The earth brings forth fruit of herself". For me is a way of Trust, and strangely a trust that has no guarantees. Eckhart said:- "Nothing that knowledge can grasp or desire can want is God; where knowledge and desire end, there is darkness, and there God shines." So maybe you are becoming a Christian without knowing it. Life is full of surprises! Anyway, in keeping with the current threads and such, just a word on why in spite of not really liking labels at all, I prefer not to have the Christian label. It has been said often that in every particular can be found the universal. In fact James Joyce said it. A few scientists say it, when each single DNA cell can be used as a blueprint for the whole body. So as I see it, each of us, a "particular", is a "universal". Unique. Unrepeatable. Beyond price. The problem I see with many versions of Christianity is the claim that Jesus was a particular particular, that he was uniquely unique. Therefore "one way" and all the rest of it, the Inquisitions and bigotries that have haunted the faith. If we see this, then I would say we can begin to understand why the actual "message" of Jesus is secondary, why in fact no one can agree on exactly what it is or was. It is what is called The Eternal Word that is the heart, a "word" that speaks to each of us uniquely, as undividuals. Fortunately many people of faith are recognising now that "truth" - or whatever we wish to call it - circles Ultimate Reality ( "truth is 'one' sages call it by many names" ), it does not circle Christianity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romansh Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 Nihilism is meaningless ... has a certain tautology about it I find. Perhaps we can add it to the great paradoxes of life? Personally, I find we or perhaps I need to be "careful" when discussing meaning etc. Looking at this from the no free will point of view, do chemical reactions have meaning? Or perhaps do quantum phenomena have meaning. Most of the time I go about my business ... unthinking. When I stop to think only then do things like purpose, meaning and reason appear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romansh Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 On 11/22/2021 at 3:01 AM, PaulS said: I don't think Jesus was God, or God's son, anymore than any one of us could take that title. I don't have a clue what Jesus was thinking. "I and the (my) Father are one", likely gives us a clue as to what some ancient scribe may have thought Jesus had on his mind. I gather the betting is against Jesus having actually said John 10:30. I suspect I am agreeing with you here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theMadJW Posted November 29, 2021 Share Posted November 29, 2021 Both Christ and his Apostles warned of the coming false teachers, and it happened ROYALLY when the pagan Roman Emperor decided to make his OWN church... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 9 hours ago, theMadJW said: Both Christ and his Apostles warned of the coming false teachers, and it happened ROYALLY when the pagan Roman Emperor decided to make his OWN church... Hi there Mad one, I'd say it happens ROYALLY all the time. It's called the presumption of having and speaking the Truth oneself. 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theMadJW Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 Wow! Some who realizes the scope on this TRUTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 😇 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theMadJW Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 nembutsu (Honen)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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