Aurelia Hancock, Governor General of Demeter, on the mysterious Others who constructed the T machines and allow other space travellers to use them:
"'You had to take Jesus or Buddha on faith, and the faith spread slowly. But here, overnight, was direct proof that beings exist superior to us. Not merely in science and technology -'" (p. 25)
Not the same kind of faith. Through contact with members of the Sangha and through personal experience, I trust that meditation is the right path but I do not have to affirm the existence of anything supernatural. There are similarities between CS Lewis' accounts of faith and my experience of trust. However, Lewis insists on the supernatural, giving it a central position that I do not accept. But all of us are trying to make sense of life.
Dan Broderson doubts that the Others would allow interstellar conquerors to use the T machines although, of course, he does not know for sure. The existence of the Others must be accepted just as the existence of the Danellians has to be in the Time Patrol series although the Others are more remote. The Danellians allow time travel but police it. The Others allow interstellar travel but do not otherwise intervene as yet.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I never thought of Buddha as anything but, at most, a philosopher. Unlike Christ he did not do or say things that could make sense, as Lewis insisted, only if the Messiah was either God incarnate or a madman.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Buddha was a spiritual philosopher who addressed not just intellectual understanding but the question of the way to salvation/liberation/enlightenment.
I do not accept what I regard as the simplistic argument that Jesus was either God or mad and wasn't mad. The Gospels are not verbatim reports of his utterances. They express beliefs that were emerging in the very early Christian community.
Paul.
Sean,
If you think you've got a simple knockdown argument that Buddhism is not a religion and Christianity is the one true religion, then you have not got that. Experience alone teaches that there are very different understandings of these issues, that discussions continue indefinitely and that matters can never be resolved in just two or three sentences - except to some people's satisfaction.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'll get the easy part out of the way. I agree there is much a Christian can respect in orthodox Buddhism, such as some of its ethical principles. But thee is even more in Buddhism Christians cannot agree with: its fatalism, passivity, disdain for the material world, etc. Nor can Christians agree with Buddhism that the only way of escaping an endless cycle of rebirths, the only goal to be hoped for via upright living, was the dreamless sleep of Nirvana.
Yes, I continue to think of Buddhism as simply a philosophy, not a religion. And I had all religions in mind, not just Christianity.
And I disagree with what you said about the historicity of the gospels, sending you one of many articles I found defending that historicity of Christ.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A simple comparison and contrast between trust in meditation and faith as practiced by Christians should not lead to a Buddhism versus Christianity argument.
As with Hinduism, I do not defend every aspect of Buddhism. I could take issue with some of your characterizations of Buddhism but I have no need to. I do not believe in rebirth. I practice "just sitting" meditation which happens to have been transmitted by the Zen tradition but might equally have been transmitted through Yoga, Vedanta or Taoism or something else. In Catholic spirituality, this practice is called the practice of the presence of God. (Of course God is believed to be present if the practitioner believes in God in the first place.)
Buddhism is a religion because it is a response to transcendence although the transcendent is not personified.
Of course we disagree about the historicity of the Gospels. That is an entirely different matter. I have replied by email, including a link to my blog post assessing evidence for the Resurrection. As I say there, there are many articles and books on both sides of that argument.
Paul.
Sean: the -original- Buddhism was not a 'religion' in our sense. However, it quickly -became- a religion. Which indicates some of the basic emotional needs of human beings.
English language name: "Buddhism." Buddhist name: "the Buddha Dharma." Dharma: Teaching or Law.
Gautama began by seeking the way to the end of suffering, assuming that it had a psychological cause. Thus, so far, his teaching was a practical psychology. As a philosopher, he analyzed the concept of "soul" and concluded that inside each of us is not a single, substantial, permanently enduring entity but only a series of transient mental states. This "anatta" ("no soul") teaching implies no reincarnation since it is the soul that is meant to incarnate and reincarnate in a succession of bodies. However, reincarnation was so deeply embedded in Indian religious and philosophical consciousness that Gautama did not break from it completely but instead reinterpreted it to mean that karmic consequences (mental effects of actions) are "reborn" in later organisms. I do not accept this but it means that the Dharma remained a religion if that is taken to include ideas about a hereafter.
Also, the Dharma accepted the existence of gods in the way that we currently accept the existence of atoms. "Gods" are a second religious concept.
Thirdly, Nirvana is not a transcendent being but it is a transcendent state. Since my definition of religion is "response to transcendence," I count the Dharma as a religion. (Theism is personification of transcendence, therefore one kind of religion.)
That is my best attempt to clarify the issue.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Then I have to apologize, because I misunderstood you to be talking about Buddhism, rather than how you only agreed with some parts of Buddhism.
Nor did I think of "Nirvana" as a transcendent being, seeming to be a kind of dreamless unconsciousness. If that was all Buddha could offer as a ultimate goal, then Christians will have to disagree.
Mr. Stirling: It must be the influence of Socrates, with his insistence on the need for an exact, precise, and accurate defining of terms which made me balk at calling Buddhism a religion. Meaning "religion" didn't seem applicable to the most orthodox forms of Buddhism. It was Mahayana Buddhism, as it spread north out of India, which took in a confusing mishmash of gods, devils, bodisatvas, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Nirvana is a transcendent state, not a being, and entered before death.
Paul.
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