I'm a new Buddhist

Originally Posted by Samana

Yes Buddhists are very tolerant of others - but I have been attending offline Buddhist centres ( from 2 different Buddhist traditions) for many years and have never heard Christianity mentioned in any of the teachings. The Buddha's teachings are complete enough in themselves without having to be mixed in with other religions.

But does that mean that some one CANT? OF course you can. If you celebrate christmas, your celebrating a modern christian holiday. Same with easter.

And the fact is, people DO mix buddhism with other things. IF there was any religion that would fit a universal world veiw, it would be buddhism stircly because of its ability ot accept other traditions, which is a major pitfall of other belief structures.

Originally Posted by Greg

It really winds me up when people say you can't be a Buddhist and a Christian. You can be whatever you like. Pre dawn is either a dogmatic Christian or a dogmatic Buddhist. There have been many Christian Buddhists throughout the years, and not just lay people, I've known of Christian priests who are also Zen masters. So many of us want so badly to divide everything up. If you do this you CAN'T do that, if you believe in this you CAN'T believe in that. Do whatever YOU WANT and what makes you a happier and more compassionate person.

Reading some Zen stories and liking them does not make one a Buddhist. Neither does growing herbs and learning a few spells make one a Wiccan.
Why is it so important for some Christians to claim that they are Christian Buddhists? So far I have never come across a Buddhist who says that s/he is a Buddhist-Christian, Buddhist-Muslim, etc.
It seems that Christians want to have it all, a reflection of their deepest beliefs.

[Samana]

Originally Posted by Time

But does that mean that some one CANT? OF course you can. If you celebrate christmas, your celebrating a modern christian holiday. Same with easter.

And the fact is, people DO mix buddhism with other things. IF there was any religion that would fit a universal world veiw, it would be buddhism stircly because of its ability ot accept other traditions, which is a major pitfall of other belief structures.

Some people mix and match and believe whatever they want to believe. Good luck to them! Isn't that what 'New Age' is all about?

[Gem]

One day I hope humanity will grow out of semantics like this, because it seems to distract from very basic and most important things like love harmony kindness and good will... and the religion, the belief in God, or whatever it is, is like nothing compared to those things.

Originally Posted by Gem

One day I hope humanity will grow out of semantics like this, because it seems to distract from very basic and most important things like love harmony kindness and good will... and the religion, the belief in God, or whatever it is, is like nothing compared to those things.

Well, most of the semantics in buddhism do just that, which is why christians want to accociate with it, because christianity does anything but support other traditions.

But your point is well taken. Its not the religion its the message

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Time

Well, most of the semantics in buddhism do just that, which is why christians want to accociate with it, because christianity does anything but support other traditions.

But your point is well taken. Its not the religion its the message

believing the message is the religion.

Maybe just be selective... but then that only makes religion secular.

I think giving importance to the message only gives importance to semantics.

Just reading through the thread, and saw that Thomas Merton was mentioned. I would say that some of his writings would be a good place to start if one were Christian yet attracted to certain Buddhist teachings. Merton was convinced that doctrinal disagreements do not necessarily mean differences in religious experience, and it was at the level of experience that he spoke. And not just spoke. It is clear from his Journals that he spent many hours each day in silent contemplation, and practiced both Christian and zen meditation.

Merton recognised that Buddhism more often than not centered upon experience, which it sees as essential, and not on explanation, which is accidental and in fact can be completely trivial and misleading (Merton's words)

Rather than say more, perhaps a quote from one of Merton's letters written to D.T.Suzuki, the "zen" man and scholar...

I want to speak for this Western world.................which has in past centuries broken in upon you and brought you our own confusion, our own alienation, our own decrepitude, our lack of culture, our lack of faith...........If I wept until the end of the world, I could not signify enough of what this tragedy means. If only we had thought of coming to you to learn something..............If only we had thought of coming to you and loving you for what you are in yourselves, instead of trying to make you over into our own image and likeness. For me it is clearly evident that you and I have in common and share most intimately precisely that which, in the eyes of conventional Westerners, would seem to separate us. The fact that you are a Zen Buddhist and I am a Christian monk, far from separating us, makes us most like one another. How many centuries is it going to take for people to discover this fact?......

Which demonstrates the heart of Merton, given that his Journals and letters reveal a human being whose dependence upon the mercy of the Divine and fidelity to Christ is unquestionable, yet sought to say "yes" where he could....

The more I am able to affirm others, to say 'yes' to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says yes to everyone.

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further.

So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindu's, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot 'affirm' and 'accept,' but first one must say 'yes' where one really can.

(From "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander")

Thanks tariki for the wonderful excerpts.

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further.

I see this as the core message. Do not try to be a mixture of two but see how one can be a better one of the one one already is.

Mixing 2 is a cheap way of trying to short-circuit the process, a substitute for the proper process, and as a substitute it can never be as good and as fulfilling as the real.

Originally Posted by pre-dawn

Mixing 2 is a cheap way of trying to short-circuit the process, a substitute for the proper process, and as a substitute it can never be as good and as fulfilling as the real.

Well, I'd say "mix and match" can have its problems, more so if we see our "selves" as something to mold and create in the likeness of our pet definitions of the "divine". Again, problems, if we understand "truth" as being some sort of finalised and definitive set of propositions that our "self" has learnt and holds in store for future reference, the springboard for our thoughts and actions.

In which case we would create a "self" of no particular significance, irrespective of its activities in the world, and the good it may or may not do. There would always be a sense in which our words and actions are "works", however subtle at times, "works" that are a clung to us justifications, self aggrandisement, and setting us over and above others whose "works" are inferior in our own eyes.

"Truth" - at least, the one that sets us free, and as I see it - is more pure freedom and spontaneity, borne more of an emptiness of self than a fullness. In which case the way to it has no "technique", nor prescribed path, but is in the hands of what Christians would term the Living God, living, and not contained/restrained within any orthodoxy, Catholic or Protestant, Christian or "heathen" (!)

[Samana]

This article might be helpful :

" Buddhism and the God-idea"

"Quite contradictory views have been expressed in Western literature on the attitude of Buddhism toward the concept of God and gods. From a study of the discourses of the Buddha preserved in the Pali canon, it will be seen that the idea of a personal deity, a creator god conceived to be eternal and omnipotent, is incompatible with the Buddha's teachings."

Continued :

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/godidea.html

with kind wishes,

Samana