Tell me how to believe Christ. What work of meditation do you perform? Is not Buddhism more democratic than Christianity, because it holds out the possibility of enlightenment to all beings? Is not Buddhism more inclusive, because it provides for the salvation of all beings?
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You have to do more than believe Christ, you must trust Him. I meditate on the Word, but I also pray and fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. My question to you is, how many Buddhists do you know that have attained Buddhahood? I have met many Buddhists in my travels and I have never met a Buddha, although I have met many who claim bodhisattva, lama or rinpoche status (but that is not Buddhahood). Buddha never promised salvation, he offered a path to enlightenment. People who trust Christ at His Word are promised(and granted) eternal salvation.
To “starbakken”: Yes, and how many Fundamentalists do you know who have attained Christhood? I see many asking for money, many who have been arrested for this and that, but I don’t believe I’ve seen many Buddhists in that type of situation. We have all seen how well segregation and compartmentalization has worked to further what are seen as the basic tenets of Jesus: love, compassion, and inclusion of all. Fundamentalists claim there is only one way. My God/Creator/Universe would not be so petty as to create such diversity in thought and culture, yet allow for only one way to divinity.
Christians use the term “Christlike” not “Christhood.” A Christian cannot (or at least should not) claim to be perfect. Christ is Lord.
In regard to religious leaders being arrested, there have been people from many different religions who’ve been crooked. Actually many Eastern mystics (Buddhists included), including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Parmahansa Yogananda, and Prabhupada, have exploited Westerners seeking spiritual fulfillment for financial gain for well over 100 years. Sadly, people in power (whether it be political or religious) have a tendency to exploit others.
I am not a fundamentalist, but my faith is in Jesus Christ (not Buddha, Krishna or Moses). I believe that Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Buddha taught that suffering is maya (illusion) and that it needs to be overcome to attain nirvana (enlightenment/emptiness/nothingness). His teachings were monistic (meaning that the universe is God).
Christ taught that in life there is suffering, but we should continue to bring glory to God throughout the good times and the bad times. His teachings were monotheistic (He taught that God created the universe and that God is separate from the universe). Christ taught that through Him we are filled with the fullness of God (His Holy Spirit)
Buddha’s teaching of ahimsa (harmlessness) are wonderful. But Buddha never taught about redemption and salvation. Only through the blood of Jesus Christ can a person be granted eternal salvation.
Thank you for these thoughtful responses. Another question arises for me when one says (as you do, starbakken:
“Only through the blood of Jesus Christ can a person be granted eternal salvation.”
How is it that this comment is made with absolute certainty. What of people with other beliefs? Can a common truth be recognized with such a seemingly rigid viewpoint? What, in fact, IS ‘eternal salvation’ and why is it on reserve only for those who ‘behave’ or in this case ‘believe’.
Salvation is not granted to those who merely “believe” or “behave” in an appropriate manner. One verse in the Bible says that even the demons believe and they tremble. It is important to believe, but it is more important to continue to trust God. Regarding behavior, there are upright and moral people who do not trust God and thus are not saved.
The book of Romans in the New Testament says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Salvation is a gift and it is granted to those who trust Jesus Christ. Salvation is a process of transformation to wholeness (becoming Christlike). We are born spiritually dead, but when a person trusts Christ then the Spirit of the living God is imparted to the believer. Salvation is like a salve applied to the broken (incomplete) person that allows them to be healed and made whole.
I was saved after reading the gospel (first four books in the New Testament). Once I believed in the Word of God I had an encounter with the Spirit of God and could not deny His truth (or His blessing on my life) any longer.
I am attaching a link to my testimony, if you’d like to see how I became a Christian.
http://morefire.wordpress.com/testimony/
My God did not create me as a “spiritually dead” being. That would indicate a God who needs me to do something to attain Him (not to mention a petty God) and I do not believe that God, by definition, needs anything, when He is everything. Therefore, what do I need to be *saved* from? The devil? The concept of a devil seems to fit in quite nicely as a stand-in for the darker side of humankind, which, as we all have seen throughout history, is a far more destructive element than anything the ‘devil’ does. If you have ever been near the birth of a baby, or seen the wondrousness of his/her creation, how can you say that little being was born ‘dead?’ So I do not need to be ’saved’ from a dearth of spirituality.
A question I’ve always had is this: before Christ walked the earth and was crucified, where did people who had died go? If they were too early to be ’saved,’ did they proceed straight to hell? What sort of God would create what Jesus repeatedly said were His ‘children,’ then commit them immediately to the flames of hell? That does not compare even slightly with the loving, merciful, all-compassionate God Jesus continuously talked about. Could, then, salvation come to the ‘broken’ person who is simply faced away from the divine/good in the world? Could salvation come in believing in Divine Love–in *whatever* form it takes?
I am a good person. I do not lie, cheat, steal, or take candy from babies. I’ve never killed anyone, and readily apologize when I’m wrong. Yet a friend of mine, one I considered to be like a brother to me, told me that I was going to hell because I didn’t believe the same things he did.
Whether it’s ‘Christhood’ or ‘Christlike’ is beside the point. Semantics do not matter. If Jesus’ all-loving Father created the universe (and how can God be separate from anything He creates?) with all it’s mind-boggling diversity, then there *must* be a diversity of ways with which to know Him. Is there only one way to cook a meal? Interpret literature? Write an essay? Of course not. Why, then, does it not apply also to those who search for meaning and divine love? To restrict ’salvation’ is to restrict God, and none of us have the capacity to do that.
STORBAKKEN: The question still hasn’t been answered. Trust has no empirical basis. What intrigues me most is an ‘encounter with the Spirit of God’. I wonder if that might be called enlightenment or experiencing the Tao (the All-Truth), the Way, The “Is-ness” of the natural world. As Hope16 points out, must faith be restricted? One truth is we know what we know. Another is we don’t know what we don’t know. Some would say, we only know what we want to know and to consider anything more is just inconvenient. Seeing ‘What Is’ is the challenge. I look forward to reading what you were saved from. Thank you for the link and the thoughtful comments.
HOPE16: Indeed, what happened to people B.C.?
Well said, Hope16. In my opinion, the challenge for Buddhists and Christians alike is to realize that divinity is FOR them. Is to realize that they have the capacity to do extraordinary, beautiful things, or to manifest pain and cruelty. Joe Campbell said that all the demons are in us, and all the saints as well. Heaven and hell, too. I believe that we have a choice daily, even in small decisions, to manifest ugliness and banality, or to manifest beauty. As Deepak Chopra points out, there is a God dormant in each of us and it only wants one thing: it wants to be born.
One does not have to accept Jesus in order to achieve salvation, nor does one have to know the Buddhas first name. What is MY first name? What am I doing today that is transcendent, beautiful, a unique expression of my own divinity?
I mean no disrespect to devout Christians. I was baptized and confirmed Catholic. Jesus said: The Kingdom of God is within you.
The point I want to express (one that in my experience Christians sometimes miss), is that it is up to you, now, to manifest God and divinity. Too many people destroy the world around them while they wait for Christ to come or to die and go to heaven. What!? You had better show God that you can begin to manifest these things right here and now. In my opinion, we should realize that we are an expression of God. There is power inherent in this realization, but responsibility, too. You start behaving more kindly to other feeling beings. We have all been around people who have an attractive aura, who seem radiant and who cause our own dials to raise to their level when we are around them. That is the beginning of God, and of heaven. And that gives me hope.
The Buddha taught that all paths will eventually lead to same place.
The universal lessons taught by Christ and the Buddha need not be in conflict.
I would like to encourage to seek the truth in the manner most appropriate to them. Judging eaxh others salvation is not a worthy use of our time. We are all saved because we are all one.
“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”
-Buddha
REPOSTED —- had to fix errors —–
The Buddha taught that all paths will eventually lead to the same place.
The universal lessons taught by Christ and the Buddha need not be in conflict.
I would like to encourage each of us to seek the truth in the manner most appropriate to them.
Judging each others salvation is not a worthy use of our time. We are all saved because we are all one.
“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”
-Buddha
Dharmacat, I like your name. When I was younger one of my favorite books was “Dharma Bums” by Jack Kerouac. I even had a dog named Dharma that I got in Malibu while hitchhiking cross country. He was the coolest, smarted canine imaginable. I named him that because the name means something like “Path of righteousness” or “Way of higher truth” and I figured since I was traveling I needed to be on that type of path.
On another note, sadly all humans are born spiritually dead. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have our own spirit, our own mind, or our own instincts. We are born with a soul and a body. Our soul is guided by the body (which consists of the mind, instincts, emotions, etc) until we are born from God (i.e. born again, born spiritually). Once a person is born again (truly born again) the Spirit of God is imparted to the believer. And the believer is no longer guided exclusively by their mind (reason, intellect) or instincts (emotions). The believer still uses the intellect, instincts, etc, but no longer exclusively depends on those faculties to guide the person. They now yield to the Spirit of God for direction.
And yes, there is a hell, demons, devil and sin. Non-believers often try to say that these are all make believe (and the Devil revels in their assumptions). But also, there is a heaven, angelic beings, God and redemption. People often try to make up their own religion and they also try to make God into their image. But we are made in God’s image, not vice versa. People often say “My god wouldn’t do this” or “My god wouldn’t do that.” Where does this come from? The answer is that it comes from instincts, mind and emotions. Not from God.
Only by humbling one’s self before the throne of God, confessing Christ as Lord, being born again (i.e. dying to your old ways and living a new life in Christ), and accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit can one begin to be saved.
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 7:21
And if you want to know what the will of the Father is, then you need to read the New Testament.
I have no doubt that salvation is possible through Christ.
What do we need salvation from, if not from ourselves? Who else but ourselves can save us?
How does Christ’s sacrifice on the cross negate the sins of mankind? How is it that an all powerful god would choose to resort to the pagan ritual of human sacrifice to save his creations from damnation?
How could a truely loving god punish people for eternity based on a 60-70 year period (one lifetime)?
If you cannot awnser the questions in a way that is straight forward and not clouded by opinions perhaps you should refrain from handing out damnation to those among you.
Seekingfor, these are not my opinions. They are from the mouth of Christ and from His holy Word. Also, I do not have any power to damn any one. Even if I did, Christ taught that we are not to judge those people that are outside the body of Christ (non-believers). But we are to witness to the world and let them know that His Kindom comes. Your questions are seeking empirical answers. Christ taught things of the heart. Christ took the heart of stone of the believers and gave them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).
“But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
One fallacy that I see made repeatedly here is that God = creation. How can this be? If God created the universe, how can He be the universe? When a carpenter makes a chair, he is not the chair.
Also, there are many types of Buddhists with varying ideologies. Some negate God altogether, others worship a pantheon of gods and demons, while many equate the universe as an impersonal God. Since these comments deal with a personal creative God, how does one reconcile any comment stating effectively that God is the universe, yet He created the universe, and still He is personal?
I believe the difference between us, starbakken, is that my faith is all-inclusive, while yours restricts and damns. Yet you are entitled to believe whatever you feel moved to believe, as am I. We cannot *prove* anything beyond a reasonable doubt! What is true for me resonates deeply and strongly, but it suggests I cannot say you are ‘wrong.’ I may not agree with you, but neither will I say I’m ‘right.’ I believe faith/truth/the path to Enlightenment is personal for each resident of this planet, and we take what resonates as real for us and leave the rest.
I hope you have found what is real for you, what makes you happy.
Peace
Hope16, most of the questions on this post have dealt with salvation (and damnation). Sadly, you have focussed on damnation rather than on the fact that Christianity liberates and sets people free from the bondage of sin.
While (if you are a Buddhist) you might believe that the root of all suffering is desire and to be freed from suffering you need to extinguish desire, I believe that the myriad experiences a person faces in life enhances that person’s perspective. To eliminate suffering is to eliminate the human experience. When a person chooses to follow Christ they know that they are to carry their cross, which means they might endure suffering for the sake of Christ.
The blessing is that, in good times and in bad times, the believer who has a relationship with the Lord is able to walk with Him always (throughout eternity).
Keep seeking His will and He will reveal Himself to you.
I don’t know why you want to label me, starbakken, but you are completely wrong in your assumptions (as I just read above) about what I believe.
That’s the danger of presupposition.
And no, I don’t even believe in damnation! We create our own hells, thank you very much. We don’t need a higher being to do it for us. And a multitude of belief systems sets billions of people free–not just Christianity.
God reveals Himself to me every day. I don’t need someone telling me how to find Him, or where.
We must agree to disagree.
Hope16, I am not labeling you. I am merely responding to comments to this post. I use Buddhism as the framework because the question in the post is comparing Buddhism and Christianity.
This has been a great thread. Thank you Dharmacat for presenting such a provocative post.
Starbakken,
This has been a great post and the debate has been very provocative.
I am very happy that you have found awnsers in your path. Just as I am glad that I am finding awnsers on my own path.
Buddhism and Christianity need not be in conflict.
I do worry that this issue of hell and damnation serves as a wedge between us. It is too much of a distraction and do not wish to debate it further.
I simply wish that we all could recognize the light within eachother and experiance the peace that is available in the here and now.
Seekingfor, thanks for your kind response. While I find several great truths in Buddhism (non-violence, tolerance) my main concern is that it focuses too much on peace for the self (while simultaneously negating self). I read a great verse this morning. In the book of Matthew, Christ says:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
These are powerful words. And while Christ is using the sword as a metaphor, he is talking explicity about the division that faith in Christ creates. The popular thing in America is to “go find yourself.” Christ said “Whoever finds his life will lose it.” This verse exemplifies that to follow Christ is not a simple, peace-seeking task, but a challenge to live a righteous life holy unto God. I pray that these words challenge you as well.
I don’t believe that the dharma is boiled into simply finding peace for the self. However, it does focus on conquering the self, because that is the only aspect of our lives we control (at least in the relative sense).
I understand the message in your reading and have no quams with it, A life devoted to spirit is full of conflict with things of this world.
I would add:
To NOT seek. To be still and see/feel/know WHAT IS, is to find the light of ……….(fill in the blank).
I agree: “whoever finds his life will lose it”!. What does finding mean?
Everything is process. Being. Presence. Our ideas/notions ABOUT God/Buddha/Ganesh, etc. are exactly that-OUR ideas and notions.
One quote goes, “Just have no mind on things and no things on mind, and you will naturally be empty and spiritual, tranquil and sublime.”
Same concepts. Different approaches. Different attachments. Some believe a book literally even in the face of evidence that the historical information contained there is in question.
My preference is to use awareness, openness, intuition and common sense. Dichotomies such as heaven/hell, good/bad with regard to spirit intuitively feel false.
very profound and well saind
thanks
Many believe their holy books to be literal. Fundamentalist Muslims believe the Koran to be true word-for-word, fundamentalist Hindus believe the Mahabharata and Ramayana to be accurate historical accounts, and fundamentalist Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.
I am not a fundamentalist. Thus, to me, the Bible is filled with poetry, wisdom literature, prophesy and historical accounts. I do believe in the words of Christ (yet He often used parables to convey his message). You cannot take parables literally or you lose the point. The famous Sufi poet Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi wrote great stories (some perceived as jokes), but they have deeper meanings.
Regarding heaven and hell, God and satan, angels and demons, holiness and sin, I know that they are more real than this world we live in. I know because I have seen demons and have walked with God. We are in this world for a season, but where we end up for an eternity is ultimately our choice (but there are only two options)? We are either open-minded to the world, or we open our mind to God.
Dharmacat, I don’t mean to offend you, but you remind me of myself when I was young. The terms and ideas you are sharing are very similar to where I was at when I started my spiritual journey. I started by reading classic Buddhist scripts, then I befriended a Sufi and learned about the mystical path of Islam, from there I read the masterworks of Hindu literature, but ultimately I accepted the Holy Bible and the teachings of Christ to be the deepest expression of God’s love for humanity. And it is the only Way that offers redemption for fallen man. You might not feel that you have ever failed yourself, family, friends or God, but as a repentant sinner I praise Him for his mercy. And for His suffering and death on the cross so that others might be saved through His blood. Mostly, I praise Him that He rose again. Because if He hadn’t there would be no redemption.
This is simply my faith. And since I am the only person representing Christ on your thread, I feel that the Lord of lords must be presented as He is.
I am glad I posted the question. What has been illuminated is that seekers can have precisely the opposite spiritual ‘evolution’. Storbakken, My journey is 40 years on now. What intrigues me most is that your journey went from an open conception of God to a closed one. How can you say, (Christianity) “is the only Way that offers redemption for fallen man”. How is it that you miss the irony and arrogance of such a statement?
My journey has led FROM a conception of Christ as Lord to a conception that God is in all things. This can only be understood if one doesn’t personify God. I am certain we are talking about the same thing when you say Holy Spirit and I say God or just Spirit or even Presence. As has already been pointed out the dichotomy need not exist unless one INSISTS that God is a Man who acts like a Man. We express the same thing in different ways.
By the way, I read your testament and find it fascinating. I choose the name dharamacat only to remind myself to stay on the path-to do good works for others in a benevolent sense of fellowship and giving and love of humankind.
Dharma’s a great dog name! So, to you and yours: MERRY CHRISTMAS!
And thank you.
Merry Christmas to you also.
Namaste and amen, all.
It has now been nearly a month since any message has been posted on this thread. Is it still active?
Assuming it is; I would also like to add some of my own comments:
A friend of mine, Christian, has views which (although he denies it) equate what I perceive to fundamentalist Christian believes. We had daily “religious” debates about faith, Christ, evolution and God. Books like “The God Delusion” by Richard Hawkins came up for discussion. Although I was raised as a Christian (and have been one for close to 40 years) my path diverged from the traditional teachings of Christianity and I became a Buddhist.
Strangely enough, all the unanswered questions about Christianity became answered: compassion and wisdom were not mere phrases used Sundays during sermons, but now contains a practical and substantive content I can use daily; whether the Genesis story about creation is the literal truth or not became irrelevant; being “nice” to people and animals made sense. There is obviously lot more I can mention.
How does this cause me to react to the people and phenomena around me? Well living in a country where 80% of the people are Christians or believers in some form of theism is disturbing. Fortunately most people around me are relatively tolerant (my Christian friends still think you must be off your rocker or smoking something if you are a Buddhist).
Buddhism – to a large extent – teaches tolerance. Personally I like the views exporessed by Thich Naht Hahn in his book “living buddha living christ”. Generally we as humans tend to view things around us as seperate from us. We mostly fail to see the “oneness” of everything. Cause and effect – and most right-thinking people agree – plays a fundamental role in our everyday life. This is a view held by the Buddha and the Christ (what you sow you will reap). Love thy neighbour is a teaching in all religions. Meditation (whatever its form i.e. prayer, zazen, chanting etc) is another univeral practice (what do you think Jesus did for 40 days in the desert?).
Lastly; my persaonal view about Christians – perhaps naievly so as not to angry or resentful towards them – is that they all would one day go to the heaven created by God, where they would keep on practicing and eventually become enlightened – very similar to the Mahayana Pure Land as expounded in the Amitabha Sutra.
Metta and love of Christ to you all from wonderful sunny South Africa