Is Christianity really 'just'?

[tariki]

1 hour ago, romansh said:

 

And yet (I would argue) justness is illusory. How do we apply justice to illusory good and evil?

Dogen had much to say on "illusion".

Hee-Jin Kim:- What concerned Dōgen most was not to eliminate illusion in favor of reality so much as it was to see illusion as the total realization—not as one illusion among others, but as the illusion, with nothing but the illusion throughout the universe until we could at last find no illusion. Only if and when we realized the nonduality of illusion and reality in emptiness could we deal with them wisely and compassionately.

Dōgen wrote:-

You must surely know that emptiness is a single grass. This emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.… Seeing a dazzling variety of the flowers of emptiness, we surmise an incalculability of the fruits of emptiness (kūka). We should observe the bloom and fall of the flowers of emptiness and learn the spring and autumn of the flowers of emptiness.

My own words seem incapable of explanation.

 

[tariki]

1 hour ago, romansh said:

For me it is understanding, and this may lead to acceptance. 

 

As I see it you have things back to front. Acceptance leads to understanding.

Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.

(Dogen, from "Genjokoan")

[romansh]

Acceptance and understanding are one, anybody?

8 hours ago, tariki said:

was not to eliminate illusion in favor of reality so much as it was to see illusion as the total realization—not as one illusion among others, but as the illusion, with nothing but the illusion throughout the universe ...

Not that different from what I am trying to say.

[tariki]

5 hours ago, romansh said:

 

Not that different from what I am trying to say.

Do you mean the short excerpt you quote?

Which obviously, as such, is totally different from the viewpoint of Dogen. 

[romansh]

In that case tariki - I have no idea what Dogen was trying to say or Hee Jin Kim's interpretation.

[tariki]

6 hours ago, romansh said:

In that case tariki - I have no idea what Dogen was trying to say or Hee Jin Kim's interpretation.

Well, obviously what they are trying to say/suggest/explain is the bit following where your own quote cut off.........until we could at last find no illusion.

 

[tariki]

Bolstered by a stiff coffee, I'll soldier on. 

 

I think most have concepts of "justice", maybe some better than others. (Let's forget about defining "better" for the moment otherwise we shall be here until kingdom come......)

Then there are those who maybe speak of "man's justice" (they are not often very PC!) and then move on to what is considered "God's justice", which - variously - is "inscrutable" or just maybe is as explained in a particular book considered "holy" as interpreted by a particular group.

However, the commonality as I have found is the "promise" that the "law" (of justice and of all things) will/can be written upon the human heart and not upon tablets of stone. Obviously, such language draws upon the Christian tradition, yet I say "commonality" purposely. That truth is to be written on human hearts is found across the world of Faiths. I have faith that it can be so, yet there is no one path for all.

But, whatever, Justice (and all things) would then simply be the "appropriate statement", the expression of the mind/heart of radical freedom. 

We may view reality as a collection of independent things or we may view it as one vast seamless whole. In philosophy this relates to the preference for internal rather than external relations, which has been mentioned elsewhere (see my post March 1st 2017, Dogen thread in Other Wisdom Traditions)

(Obviously, Reality as a "seamless whole" includes ourselves. Which involves the justification of "faith" - but I won't push it!)

Therefore seeking any answer/understanding for how an assumed independent thing - however defined -  (i.e "Justice") relates to other independent things, how it can be applied to them, is to be immediately on the wrong foot, wandering from how Reality actually IS. The pursuit of any such "answer" will necessarily descend into the eternal conflict within reason that the Buddhist Madhyamika philosophy highlights and seeks to supercede (by the Middle Way) 

(Is this why there are such unending and inconclusive disputes such as determinism v free will, absolute v relative?)

Dogen's thinking, which sees epistemology, ontology and soteriology as a unity is obviously the way to go, as far as my own path is concerned. 

I really am sorry if all this is gobbledygook to others. I do not seek to be obscure; in fact more often I write simply to clarify my own mind. 

.😃 <--- I can't seem to get rid of this!

Edited November 24, 2022 by tariki

[romansh]

11 hours ago, tariki said:

Well, obviously what they are trying to say/suggest/explain is the bit following where your own quote cut off.........until we could at last find no illusion.

I understand that differently from you. 

[tariki]

13 hours ago, romansh said:

I understand that differently from you. 

Fair enough. We are what we understand. 

 "Understanding" constantly evolves. Each to their own.

Thank you

[romansh]

I wondered what Dogen thinks about the "self" as this is one of the central "illusions" Buddhism is often on about.

Found this quote:

The entire universe is the true human body.
The entire universe is the gate of liberation.
[…] The entire universe is the dharma body of the self.

The interpretation goes on to suggest:

Quote

Dogen argues that to know the self is to lose the self and thus to find the self. The found self both is, and is not, the self that is lost.

Now personally I don't feel that I am the whole universe, I also feel I don't have to. To me it seems a logical position and that for me is OK

"I'm not trying to head anywhere. " Then wherever is fine. 

A wise person once said:

When I look deep inside of myself
I see the universe quietly staring back at me.

 

[tariki]

2 hours ago, romansh said:

I wondered what Dogen thinks about the "self" as this is one of the central "illusions" Buddhism is often on about.

Found this quote:

The entire universe is the true human body.
The entire universe is the gate of liberation.
[…] The entire universe is the dharma body of the self.

The interpretation goes on to suggest:

Now personally I don't feel that I am the whole universe, I also feel I don't have to. To me it seems a logical position and that for me is OK

"I'm not trying to head anywhere. " Then wherever is fine. 

A wise person once said:

When I look deep inside of myself
I see the universe quietly staring back at me.

 

Dogen's actual thought is very difficult to grasp/understand/comprehend. Yet I do not think it involves "feeling" yourself to be the whole universe. Dōgen in fact has said:- “When one side is illumined, the other is darkened” which to me suggests that he emphasised total concentration on whatever one was doing in the present moment. Mindfulness. Or as Thich Nhat Hahn would say:- "When walking just walk".

All this "one with the all" kind of stuff is more what I would see as "New Age" nonsense.

As far as not trying to head anywhere, I have sought to say that this relates to not drawing final conclusions, not believing in final destinations, seeking not to let the past totally dictate the future. To think that "wherever is fine" (i.e. any present moment) is not a consequence. Maybe I have been unclear.

Your little quote at the end, is that Nietzsche......? "When you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. " I'm not sure what he meant by that.

[romansh]

No, that quote is not Nietzsche.
 

The "one with the all" is a form of Buddhism and Easter traditions as far as I can tell.

The entire universe is the true human body. 

This is Dogen ...  new age rubbish? 

Come on tariki ...  not drawing conclusions ... by all means fool me, but not yourself. Take your line:

1 hour ago, tariki said:

All this "one with the all" kind of stuff is more what I would see as "New Age" nonsense.

We all draw conclusions.  Might not couch them as such, but that is OK.

[tariki]

11 hours ago, romansh said:

No, that quote is not Nietzsche.
 

The "one with the all" is a form of Buddhism and Easter traditions as far as I can tell.

The entire universe is the true human body. 

This is Dogen ...  new age rubbish? 

Come on tariki ...  not drawing conclusions ... by all means fool me, but not yourself. Take your line:

We all draw conclusions.  Might not couch them as such, but that is OK.

Good morning Rom. Now bolstered with coffee in McDonalds. 

As said, we are what we understand. In a way, each to their own. I sought to explain -see above - that the "feeling" of being "one with the all (universe)" was not that which Dogen either experienced or taught. 

 Much like Edwin Arnold's fine poem on the life of the Buddha, "The Light of Asia". Fine, and yet he ends with "the dewdrop slips into the shining sea". No, more the shining sea slips into the dewdrop. As Dogen would say, the realisation  of non-duality within duality. Differences are not obliterated, rather become more authentic within the total mind/heart. 

Ànd such authentication is more a journey than any final resting place. Or as Dogen would say, "an ever greater intimacy", a movement toward Buddha. 

I did speak of final conclusions. I even think we  agree on that. In the manner of the Buddha's parable of the raft, for crossing over, not for grasping. Letting go is as important as our assertions. 

Regarding your little quote:-

When I look deep inside of myself
I see the universe quietly staring back at me.

Whoever said it, what I see according to my own understanding is simply "what you see is what you get." Which is a form of justice. As I see it.

 Thank you.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by tariki

[romansh]

9 hours ago, tariki said:

As said, we are what we understand

Are you certain about this?

9 hours ago, tariki said:

I did speak of final conclusions.

OK? Is it your final conclusion that we can have no final conclusion?
As an agnostic, I am sympathetic to this line of reasoning, but it does not mean I am oblivious to its flaws.

 

9 hours ago, tariki said:

what I see according to my own understanding is simply "what you see is what you get."

Dogen would be rolling over in his grave, I think.

[tariki]

Thanks for the conversation Rom.