Buddhism and God

[jonesboy]

With regard to a Soul or Atman or a God here is what the Buddha said:

Chapter VI

The Divine Atman as taught by them is also claimed to be eternal, inscrutable, unchanging, and imperishable. Is there, or is there not a difference?

The Blessed One replied: No, Mahamati, my Womb of Tathágata-hood is not the same as the Divine Atman as taught by the philosophers. What I teach is Tathágata-hood in the sense of Dharmakaya, Ultimate Oneness, Nirvana, emptiness, unborn-ness, unqualified ness, devoid of will-effort. The reason why I teach the doctrine of Tathágata-hood is to cause the ignorant and simple-minded to lay aside their fears as they listen to the teaching of ego-less-ness and come to understand the state of non-discrimination and imageless-ness. The religious teaching of the Tathágatas are just like a potter making various vessels by his own skill of hand with the aid of rod, water and thread, out of the one mass of clay, so the Tathágatas by their command of skillful means issuing from Noble Wisdom, by various terms, expressions, and symbols, preach the twofold ego-less-ness in order to remove the last trace of discrimination that is preventing disciples from attaining a self-realization of Noble Wisdom. The doctrine of the Tathágata-womb is disclosed in order to awaken philosophers from their clinging to the notion of a Divine Atman as transcendental personality, so that their minds that have become attached to the imaginary notion of "soul" as being something self-existent may be quickly awakened to a state of perfect enlightenment. All such notions as causation, succession, atoms, primary elements, that make up personality, personal soul, Supreme Spirit, Sovereign God, Creator, are all figments of the imagination and manifestations of mind. No, Mahamati, the Tathágata’s doctrine of the Womb of Tathágata-hood is not the same as the philosopher’s Atman.

The Lankavatara Sutra
http://buddhasutra.com/files/lankavatara_sutra.htm

[jonesboy]

With regard to the Buddha fasting:

The Buddha’s spiritual awakening is related to fasting. The young prince Siddhartha left his palace in search of enlightenment and practised for six years under severe austerities and intense mental concentration that his beautiful body withered away to skin and bones. Towards the end of this period, he was surviving only on a single grain of rice a day. Buddha wanted to cut the attachment to the senses starting with excess indulgence in food and so on. This stage of Buddha’s practice is known as Fasting Buddha and the depictions in images or statues are usually called Emaciated or Fasting Buddha.

As Siddharta realised that desire was the root of samsara, he thought that one of the methods he could end desire was by fasting. At one point, he no longer had the strength to meditate and he realised he would die before he gains liberation due to the ‘abuse’ he put on his body.

It was then that a local Brahmin’s daughter, Sujata, approached and offered him a golden bowl filled with rice prepared in the essence of the milk of one thousand cows. He regained his strength, renewed his meditation, and realised Buddhahood. Siddharta reached enlightenment only after accepting nourishment from Sujata, hence preaching a “middle way”, a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, the central tenet of Buddhist practice.

http://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tul...ng-buddha.html

[WabiSabi]

Everyone believes in God, many people just don't know it. Buddhists believe in a unity of all things, and as such teach of the reality that exists behind the label.

[sky]

Originally Posted by WabiSabi

Everyone believes in God, many people just don't know it. Buddhists believe in a unity of all things, and as such teach of the reality that exists behind the label.

How can you believe in something WS and not know it

[WabiSabi]

Originally Posted by sky123

How can you believe in something WS and not know it

Because the word is just a word, but the notion behind the word is absolute. The only way to truly refute God is to refute existence itself. But that is basically impossible to do seeing as there is anything at all. Even theories that refute our material reality as real, they all point to some other reality that IS real. So long as there is something, there is everything that is, and everything that is MUST be absolute.

Why is there not nothing?
Because there is something.
What is that something?
That something is God.

I can easily change the word and it still works.

That something is the Universe.
That something is the Multiverse.
That something is Brahman or Tao or Allah or Atum or Ein Sof.

Give up your esoteric notions. All of these names simply point to the absolute.

[jonesboy]

What is the absolute then because you are saying it is a being Brahman and then emptiness in the Tao. One is a thing and one is not. One is a creator of things and one is not.

A lucid dream is a dream where you are aware in your dream. You can do anything, create and and be anything. It is self arising, coming from yourself. It is all just energy that you are creating but even thought it seems real you know that you can change it or have it become nothing at all.

So to with this world, it is all self arising.

The link to the sutra I posted above helps with all this.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

What is the absolute then because you are saying it is a being Brahman and then emptiness in the Tao. One is a thing and one is not. One is a creator of things and one is not.

A lucid dream is a dream where you are aware in your dream. You can do anything, create and and be anything. It is self arising, coming from yourself. It is all just energy that you are creating but even thought it seems real you know that you can change it or have it become nothing at all.

So to with this world, it is all self arising.

The link to the sutra I posted above helps with all this.

This is how I see it also.
It is really just what arises in each moment unless you are attaching to the *absolute* as needing to be something. We are the creators of *all this*/*all that* as one source together

For me the emptiness is the place where I allow all things to be as they are in me without making them be attached as a fixed idea but more knowing life is a transient flow in me ongoing and I only can be myself and accept others as this too, which then becomes everything. The self is the point that recognises itself as both imo, but only when it can see and feel it as both.

[naturesflow]

With regard to a Soul or Atman or a God here is what the Buddha said:

Chapter VI

The Divine Atman as taught by them is also claimed to be eternal, inscrutable, unchanging, and imperishable. Is there, or is there not a difference?

The Blessed One replied: No, Mahamati, my Womb of Tathágata-hood is not the same as the Divine Atman as taught by the philosophers. What I teach is Tathágata-hood in the sense of Dharmakaya, Ultimate Oneness, Nirvana, emptiness, unborn-ness, unqualified ness, devoid of will-effort. The reason why I teach the doctrine of Tathágata-hood is to cause the ignorant and simple-minded to lay aside their fears as they listen to the teaching of ego-less-ness and come to understand the state of non-discrimination and imageless-ness. The religious teaching of the Tathágatas are just like a potter making various vessels by his own skill of hand with the aid of rod, water and thread, out of the one mass of clay, so the Tathágatas by their command of skillful means issuing from Noble Wisdom, by various terms, expressions, and symbols, preach the twofold ego-less-ness in order to remove the last trace of discrimination that is preventing disciples from attaining a self-realization of Noble Wisdom. The doctrine of the Tathágata-womb is disclosed in order to awaken philosophers from their clinging to the notion of a Divine Atman as transcendental personality, so that their minds that have become attached to the imaginary notion of "soul" as being something self-existent may be quickly awakened to a state of perfect enlightenment. All such notions as causation, succession, atoms, primary elements, that make up personality, personal soul, Supreme Spirit, Sovereign God, Creator, are all figments of the imagination and manifestations of mind. No, Mahamati, the Tathágata’s doctrine of the Womb of Tathágata-hood is not the same as the philosopher’s Atman.

Thankyou.

What I take from this is that when everything ceases here and now in us, then what is just what is already. While we cling to the mind's ideas of seeking or needing to experience something beyond (transcendence) here (and now) we are still creating with the mind to want and need something that already is being itself as the one/oneness, so we are in fact still trapped by the mind making us still believe in something that moves us when it is the emptiness of self, (itself) that moves us. :)

[WabiSabi]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

What is the absolute then because you are saying it is a being Brahman and then emptiness in the Tao. One is a thing and one is not. One is a creator of things and one is not.

A lucid dream is a dream where you are aware in your dream. You can do anything, create and and be anything. It is self arising, coming from yourself. It is all just energy that you are creating but even thought it seems real you know that you can change it or have it become nothing at all.

So to with this world, it is all self arising.

The link to the sutra I posted above helps with all this.

Exactly. The absolute is the absolute, it is all things and it is nothing. Words cannot describe the infinite, as you'd need an infinite number of words to describe it in its entirety. So one person may come to an understanding of the absolute, and they tell people it is something. Someone else may come to an understanding of the absolute, and say it is nothing at all. And another may say it is intelligent and has a will. And another may say it is simply physical laws, completely indifferent and basically mechanical/mathematical in nature. All of these are correct in their own way, and they are all incorrect in their own way. You see, the absolute cannot truly be described in words, as every single word describes it. It cannot be shown, as every single view shows it. It cannot be sung, as every single note sings it. But so long as you read these different descriptions of the absolute and see completely different realities, then you have failed to understand the absolute. It is true that reality is self-arising, and is unique for each individual, and yet the absolute is one, and every unique perspective is one in the absolute, for the absolute is a container of all things. No, it IS everything.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by WabiSabi

Exactly. The absolute is the absolute, it is all things and it is nothing. Words cannot describe the infinite, as you'd need an infinite number of words to describe it in its entirety. So one person may come to an understanding of the absolute, and they tell people it is something. Someone else may come to an understanding of the absolute, and say it is nothing at all. And another may say it is intelligent and has a will. And another may say it is simply physical laws, completely indifferent and basically mechanical/mathematical in nature. All of these are correct in their own way, and they are all incorrect in their own way. You see, the absolute cannot truly be described in words, as every single word describes it. It cannot be shown, as every single view shows it. It cannot be sung, as every single note sings it. But so long as you read these different descriptions of the absolute and see completely different realities, then you have failed to understand the absolute. It is true that reality is self-arising, and is unique for each individual, and yet the absolute is one, and every unique perspective is one in the absolute, for the absolute is a container of all things. No, it IS everything.

It is always shown.

As you show it is here.

It is shown where you choose to look.

But looking can know its looking everywhere all the same.

You are the one noticing all this aware of all this.

Time space is irrelevant to the nature of awareness.




What comes, will go. What is found, will be lost again. But what you are is beyond coming and going and beyond description.

You are It.
~ Rumi