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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > Buddhism

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  #11  
Old 10-06-2017, 05:05 AM
Jeremy Bong Jeremy Bong is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
I have noticed that some Buddhist teachers use the word reincarnation when addressing Westerners but usually it's rebirth.
I don't see the word soul being the same as mindstream, soul is unchanging according to Christianity but mindstream is moment to moment continuum.
I like the two candles metaphor ( as it's simple )
One candle is burning towards the end of its life, the other is new and unused, the flame from the old is used to light the new, they continue to be separate candles but the flame of the new came into being from the flame of the old.

My understanding to what you said, the candle is in shape. But other can't wrongly jump to an interpretation of gas or small elements. That's ordinary mind perception or imagination.
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  #12  
Old 10-06-2017, 05:08 AM
sky sky is offline
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Originally Posted by Ground
I like the metaphor of material minerals. When the body desintegrates into its mineral components then sooner or later, after years or hundreds of years, those minerals will be re-integrated as the components of new organisms. A new living organism will be reborn on the basis of a former one.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that one.
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  #13  
Old 10-06-2017, 06:24 AM
Bohdiyana Bohdiyana is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
soul is unchanging according to Christianity

And mind stream is unchanging according to Buddhism:

Citta-saṃtāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind",[3] is the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity of the personality in the absence of a permanently abiding "self" (ātman), which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to another, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to another

The candles change, the flame does not.

Like I said, both religions are referring to the same general concept. To understand the "changing" Buddhism refers to you have to understand the perceiver and the perceived. Imagine you are a camera that's experience is whatever your lens is pointed at. So you as experience is always changing. Now it is an apple, now it is someones face. But see the fact you are a camera never changes. The "soul" or "mind stream" or whatever name you want to give the perceiver is unchanging. What is perceived is what changes. But for all intents and purposes, perception IS what it perceives. Experience is the perception of something other than the perceiver. A perceiver cannot perceive itself. Anything you percieve can't be you by definition if you are that which experiences the other. So if you did ever manage to perceieve yourself, whatever that was would not be you. It's just something you are identified with.

I would also point out souls are not unchanging in Christianity. If they were unchanging, how could they go to hell or heaven or become evil or good? How could fallen angels exist if the souls did not change? Also, like I said, you cannot separate the perceiver from the perceived. Therefore, what Buddhism and Christianity is really pointing at is perceiving the divine, the holy, the truth vs perceiving delusion, evil, ignorance, negative thoughts, etc.

Don't forget when you read that Buddhism says "the stream of mind" something has to be consciousness in that. There has to be a perceiver in that. Otherwise, we could have no awareness. Something has to be aware. Awareness does not change, what we are aware of is what changes.
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  #14  
Old 10-06-2017, 06:42 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bohdiyana
And mind stream is unchanging according to Buddhism:

Citta-saṃtāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind",[3] is the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity of the personality in the absence of a permanently abiding "self" (ātman), which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to another, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to another

The candles change, the flame does not.

Like I said, both religions are referring to the same general concept. To understand the "changing" Buddhism refers to you have to understand the perceiver and the perceived. Imagine you are a camera that's experience is whatever your lens is pointed at. So you as experience is always changing. Now it is an apple, now it is someones face. But see the fact you are a camera never changes. The "soul" or "mind stream" or whatever name you want to give the perceiver is unchanging. What is perceived is what changes. But for all intents and purposes, perception IS what it perceives. Experience is the perception of something other than the perceiver. A perceiver cannot perceive itself. Anything you percieve can't be you by definition if you are that which experiences the other. So if you did ever manage to perceieve yourself, whatever that was would not be you. It's just something you are identified with.

I would also point out souls are not unchanging in Christianity. If they were unchanging, how could they go to hell or heaven or become evil or good? How could fallen angels exist if the souls did not change?


If mindstream is moment to moment then it changes from one moment to the next, like the flame of a candle.
Fallen angels..... don't know much about them as they don't interest me. I was taught the soul is immortal, never changing, never dying or decaying etc: .
I surpose it's like everything, different interpretations from different schools
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  #15  
Old 10-06-2017, 06:44 AM
Bohdiyana Bohdiyana is offline
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The goals of Christianity and Buddhism are exactly the same. The result of following each path correctly is the same. They both point one to be selflessness and to perceive union or contact with the divine.
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  #16  
Old 10-06-2017, 07:14 AM
Bohdiyana Bohdiyana is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
If mindstream is moment to moment then it changes from one moment to the next, like the flame of a candle.
Fallen angels..... don't know much about them as they don't interest me. I was taught the soul is immortal, never changing, never dying or decaying etc: .
I surpose it's like everything, different interpretations from different schools

Flame does not change, the candles do. That's what that metaphor was about anyway. The flame in that metaphor was consciousness or the perceiver. The candles represented different bodies. You can take the flame from one candle and move it to another. Actually that metaphor is also about God or the source as that is the source of all flame. Flame has the attributes of it's source, all flame is the "same" where as the "candles" or physical bodies with their minds have their own unique physical attributes. So flames that are free of human conditioning and the human mind are all the same in their attributes, though I would say unconditioned conscious energy has both an independent reality as well as awareness of the source simultaneously. So the uniqueness does not go away even with awareness of the source.

One can abstract the soul or mind stream to be something other than you, but it is you, consciousness. I guess you are not understanding what I am trying to explain but consciousness has to be conscious of something. What a consciousness is conscious of determines what that consciousness is as experience and experience is not conceptual so it is always present Consciousness is an experience of something. If there was no experience, there would be no consciousness. Consciousness is awareness and here again, if there was no awareness, there would be no consciousness. It's like a movie screen. What that screen is, as far as experience, is determined by what is on it. What movie is playing? Maybe it is a horror movie, maybe a comedy, maybe a wonderful nature movie. Look at it this way. Let's say you are a perceiver and there is nothing to perceive. Now by nothing I mean nothing. That means there can't be emptiness, darkness, etc because these are all somethings. I am saying to imagine nothing is there to be perceived. If you can get what I am saying, you see if there really is absolutely nothing to be perceived, the perceiver ceases to be as well. It no longer exists.

All these religious paths are about the same thing, changing what is on the movie screen or changing what awareness is aware of. Changing what is before your consciousness as the perceived. Changing what is perceived changes the perceiver as the perceiver is experience. A perceiver cannot exist without something to perceive and perceiving something is always an experience which has awareness as a component of it.
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  #17  
Old 10-06-2017, 07:22 AM
sky sky is offline
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Rebirth is one flame giving rise to another, reincarnation ( Christian belief ) is the same exact flame/soul somehow being moved from one candle to another, a difference.

If you look at a candle flame it doesn't remain the same, it flickers and changes shape and colour, it also hurts your eyes if you stare at it for a while.

Last edited by sky : 10-06-2017 at 08:53 AM.
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  #18  
Old 10-06-2017, 03:56 PM
Bohdiyana Bohdiyana is offline
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A person can create differences in perception in anything they want. I can say that Catholic Priest is wearing a white robe and that Buddhist Bhikkhu is wearing an orange robe and conclude they are very different. I can also say they both are wearing robes and both have devoted themselves to their religions and so I can conclude or perceive they are exactly the same. This is the whole point. We are the creators of our perceptions because we chose how we will "color" whatever is present. We choose what we pay attention to. Do we pay attention to the thoughts they are the same or pay attention to the thoughts they are different?

Both the above are thoughts. Saying something is the same or different are just thoughts. The reality is both assertions are true. It depends how we are seeing things. It is also true that one does not have to pay attention to either thought as "truth" or "reality." One can look at whatever is without thoughts intruding at all.

Taking away thought what would one "see?" Well first of all, without thought, one is not concerned with things that are not present. So unless you are actually looking at a Priest or a Bhikkhu, unless they are right there physically before you, you would have no perception of them. Without conceptual thought which can imagine anything, one is only aware of what is present. But lets say you are at a religious conference and you are looking at both the priest and the bhikkhu. without thought can you perceive sameness or differences? No you cannot. Both those perceptions are things we overlay with thought onto whatever our senses are perceiving.

The perception itself has no conflict, no conclusions, no concepts. One is simply aware of what is as it exists apart from my conditioned and conceptual mind. Thoughts and concepts may be present as well, but one can put them to the side. Not give them any energy or attention.

Forget about all religion for a moment. Drop all of the ideas one has about Buddhism or Christianity or any religious idea or thought and all religious knowledge. Drop all of that for a moment. There is you and your experience. During all the years you have been alive you have been experiencing. This "you" has never changed. It is always "you" looking through the eyes. As a new born, you experienced your mother externally for the first time when you were born. Right now, you are experiencing peoples thoughts about various spiritual topics on this message board. The "you" is always the same. What is different is what you are perceiving or experiencing.

As we go though life, we become more and more conditioned. We also become much more habitual in our presence. Our "natural" state becomes to experience the now though our thinking and conditioning. So according to what our "thinking" is, our experience becomes colored by that. We think, is this good or bad? right or wrong? true or false? So we have pleasant or unpleasant experiences because our thoughts are paid attention to and allowed to be a part of what we experience and perceive.

The main point of all these religions is there is a better experience of now available. One without suffering and profound and different in nature. This better experience is always available though rarely experienced. The reason it is rarely experienced is not because it is not here or is not present. It is always here. The reason it is not experienced is because our attention is on other things that are producing our experience like thoughts and conditioning. Buddha and Jesus and all the other guru's and teachers who have found this thing offer the same path. Be here now without you. By "you" they mean your "coloring" of what is. All the stuff we have accumulated through thousands of incarnations. all of our thinking and personal bias, all of our conditioning. Put that all away then you perceive the other that was always there. Wipe the dust off of your mirror. Then, it will reflect the light. Then you perceive and experience the light. If the mirror is covered with dust, your ideas, your opinions, your thoughts, your beliefs, that is all you will perceive. If you want to perceive what is under all of that, the dust has to go. Become selfless, then discover what you have always been. A being full of goodness, without conflict, at peace within and without. Yes easier said than done!
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