Buddhism and God

[jonesboy]

I am really not familiar with Japanese Buddhism. But in Mahayana yes there is as in there is a progression of depth which is what that is showing.

The Buddha talks about different levels of master, Arhats and Bodhisattvas along the path to becoming a Buddha.

Chapter X

Discipleship: Lineage of the Arhats

Under the second aspect disciples may be grouped according to the spiritual progress they have attained, into four classes, namely, disciples (Sravaka), masters (Pratyekabuddha), Arhats, and Bodhisattvas

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Chapter XI

Bodhisattva-hood and Its Stages

Talks about a Bodhisattva moving from stage 6 to stage 10

The tenth stage is called the Great Truth Cloud (Dharmamegha), inconceivable, inscrutable. Only the Tathágatas can realize perfect Imageless-ness and Oneness and Solitude.

The tenth stage is the first, the first is the eighth, and the eighth is the fifth, the fifth the seventh: what gradation can there be where perfect Image-less-ness and Oneness prevail? And what is the reality of Noble Wisdom? It is the ineffable potency of the Dharmakaya; it has no bounds nor limits; it surpasses all the Buddha-lands, and pervades the Akanistha and the heavenly mansions of the Tu****a (Heavens).

http://buddhasutra.com/files/lankavatara_sutra.htm

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[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by Floatsy

"Subhuti, good disciples, whether man or woman, should thus arrange their thoughts. Every species of life whether hatched in an egg, formed in a womb, evolved from spawn, produced by metamorphosis, with or without form, possessing or devoid of natural instinct or intelligence,--from these changeful conditions of being, I urge you to seek deliverance in the transcendental concept of Nirvana. Thus shall disciples be delivered from the immeasurable, innumerable, and illimitable world of sentient life, but, in reality, there is no world of sentient life from which to seek deliverance. And why? Because, in the minds of enlightened disciples there have ceased to exist such arbitrary concepts of phenomena as an entity, a being, a living being, a personality."

The Lord Buddha resumed: "Moreover, Subhuti, an enlightened disciple in his acts of charity, ought to act spontaneously, uninfluenced by such things as form, sound, taste, odour, touch, discrimination, and favoritism. It is imperative that an enlightened disciple, in the exercise of charity, should act independent of phenomena. And why? Because, acting without regard to illusive forms of phenomena, he will realise in the exercise of charity a merit inestimable and immeasurable."

Diamond Sutra

Hi Floatsy,

That is more saying that all things are really just energy, empty of true nature.. That there are no "things" like a heaven or some place in the sky because all "things" true nature is emptiness... light.

[Serrao]

Originally Posted by Floatsy

"Subhuti, good disciples, whether man or woman, should thus arrange their thoughts. Every species of life whether hatched in an egg, formed in a womb, evolved from spawn, produced by metamorphosis, with or without form, possessing or devoid of natural instinct or intelligence,--from these changeful conditions of being, I urge you to seek deliverance in the transcendental concept of Nirvana. Thus shall disciples be delivered from the immeasurable, innumerable, and illimitable world of sentient life, but, in reality, there is no world of sentient life from which to seek deliverance. And why? Because, in the minds of enlightened disciples there have ceased to exist such arbitrary concepts of phenomena as an entity, a being, a living being, a personality."

The Lord Buddha resumed: "Moreover, Subhuti, an enlightened disciple in his acts of charity, ought to act spontaneously, uninfluenced by such things as form, sound, taste, odour, touch, discrimination, and favoritism. It is imperative that an enlightened disciple, in the exercise of charity, should act independent of phenomena. And why? Because, acting without regard to illusive forms of phenomena, he will realise in the exercise of charity a merit inestimable and immeasurable."

Diamond Sutra

Thanks for your reply Floatsy.

The Diamond Sutra is very profound.

But to the point...are there beings who are more evolved and advanced than Buddhas?

[Floatsy]

Originally Posted by Serrao

Thanks for your reply Floatsy.

The Diamond Sutra is very profound.

But to the point...are there beings who are more evolved and advanced than Buddhas?

You would first have to know what Buddha, the Tathagatas, are, to adequately answer your question.

[row37]

At the risk of someone taking this literally or in the wrong direction, my understanding of Buddhism is that we don't believe in anything. Perhaps the law of impermanence, but even then, belief is a trap.

The God question comes up over and over, and I don't understand why. There's certainly a lot of notions about the Buddha too. The person we call the teaching buddha was a man, and he lived and died, as we all will. He didn't worship a deity nor promote the worship of such a thing. He taught a very basic form of meditation and gave a lot of rules for monks. Over time, different lineages have made his teaching more of a religion than a practice, but none of them to my knowledge entertain a god idea. It's just not part of Buddhism, which makes it unique to the world's religions. Besides, Buddhism is much more than a religion, yes?

We are already buddhas, we just have not realized that. Well, some of us may have, who knows? The word means to awaken from our ego driven delusions. It's not a spiritual thing in that sense, it's beyond spiritual.

[sky]

Originally Posted by row37

At the risk of someone taking this literally or in the wrong direction, my understanding of Buddhism is that we don't believe in anything. Perhaps the law of impermanence, but even then, belief is a trap.

The God question comes up over and over, and I don't understand why. There's certainly a lot of notions about the Buddha too. The person we call the teaching buddha was a man, and he lived and died, as we all will. He didn't worship a deity nor promote the worship of such a thing. He taught a very basic form of meditation and gave a lot of rules for monks. Over time, different lineages have made his teaching more of a religion than a practice, but none of them to myo knowledge entertain a god idea. It's just not part of Buddhism, which makes it unique to the world's religions. Besides, Buddhism is much more than a religion, yes?

We are already buddhas, we just have not realized that. Well, some of us may have, who knows? The word means to awaken from our ego driven delusions. It's not a spiritual thing in that sense, it's beyond spiritual.

Buddhist have many beliefs, what the Buddha said was not to believe something blindly, investigate yourself.

[Trichakra]

Buddhism is not compatible with belief in a personal God that is distinct from His creation, has a sovereign will and plan for mankind.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Do Buddhists believe in a god?

No God in Buddhism. Simply not necessary.

People create so much meaning, from their experiences and the nature of belief in everyway. Even those who source wonderful feelings of the oneness where their over flow in feeling, will also then make God to be the reason for how they feel. The experience when they take in grand expanded views some how still retains itself in belief of their being a god or reason for being alive in everyway we can enjoy our life.

Yea - I guess we all make meaning of our lives in one way or another, but it's all essentially bulldust. It doesn't have a meaning and there's no reason, but still, we have to understand ourselves in our world in one way or another. The issue arises when we think our understading is true. We can act as if it's true as are culturally conditioned or compelled to, without actually seeing it as the truth. My life struggle has been being able to see through it all and still behave as though I couldn't because other people call it the truth.

I personally was very much conditioned to believe there was a god. During my dark night of the soul, I had to let go deeply into the source of there being nothing there at all. When I entered this place in me, it opened me to feel in myself, that without all that I knew/believed, there was nothing. I then moved myself, back into life with this nothing as my point of reference to the nature of reality as I once perceived and was conditioned by belief to believe.

In coming back into reality from this point, I realized that I was emptying out everything in me that I believed through my mind and my feelings as one. When my mind no longer took charge, had nothing in me to make be into something, what began was the awareness of life differently.

Life itself became my awareness, humanity.

God became life in me, creation itself, humanity as life. All life in me.

Whenever I tried to grasp or hold onto any life in any point of entering into a shift or state of being, the balance in me always took me back to the world as it was, life as it is, this made me hold the balance as one source in me. I couldn't look away, my awareness moved me closer to each level of reality I was now open to see. To open and let go to see and feel whatever was holding me from grounded balance between both extremes to build my whole state complete aware of all life in me.

So now I shifted from a god as my source, to reality or life as my source. In everyway I could know and continue to know life as this source as one.

It was my conditioning that gave life to god in me, it was my dark night of the soul that gave god no life in me, it was coming back to life that gave me life. God was a distant memory of movement in me, through a whole host of what was of the past, what was in the now of god in my experience and what was coming.

I remember at the end of my dark night of the soul and spiritual awakening, (the deeper one) whereby I found myself in a garden. It was a beautiful chinese garden. And as I entered this garden, I moved down towards Kwan Yin and stayed there with her for a time, reflecting on her presence one with me. Then I walked further along the garden and I found myself staring for a long time, at a statue, of people in a ring holding each other.

As I stood their and listened I heard the words.... "Life is eternal"

It has been 8 years since that ending occurred.

The presence of spirit that supported me to learn back then, supported me to become all that learning as a whole host of everything reflected.

I see that now.



And so it is as it was and becoming itself.

Do Buddhist believe in God?

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Serrao

Are there higher beings according to Japanese Buddhism?

Not according to wikipediji hahaha.

[RyanWind]

For me, when I practice mindfulness, belief just doesn't come into that practice. The practice for me is non-verbal and if there are no words being paid attention to, there can't be any beliefs present as far as experience during the practice. Belief has to be known through concepts which are made up of memorized words and ideas. But I am not doing "mindfulness" at all times which is kind of what Buddha's do I assume. I assume they have achieved some version of having this change in consciousness be permanent.

So when in normal everyday consciousness, which does change somewhat according to how much you practice or focus on just being at any given time, memory is there and so beliefs are there. My beliefs about a "god" are based on the books by Michael Newton which are supposed to be non-fictional studies of what people remember about the time between lives while in deep states of hypnosis. Also, I have read books by people who have had near death experiences etc and so I have data about "god" or the source from there as well. There was a book by Paul Twitchell I believe, that also is about a persons experiences in a dream like state of the highest realms and the source. I also have had a few experiences with what I would say were aspects of the source.

So I have beliefs about things like all people do but I think they are not really a part of Buddhism because selflessness or mindfulness or whatever you call it is such a focused and highly aware state where as thoughts arise they are seen and released before they become phenomenal so that there are no beliefs as important parts of this experience. They are only there on the periphery of the awareness.

Buddha had a human body and so his brain had memory and therefore "he" "had" beliefs, but his "normal" state of consciousness after enlightenment was one where he no longer identified with his memory or beliefs as reality. Those would be a conceptual reality and he lived in the actual reality. The "now" without any focusing on the conceptual.