05.17.11

Re-repost, and commentary: common ground

Posted in General at 10:47 am by nemo

I think it is useful to ‘apologize’ and partially retract by invidious comparison of Buddhism and Xtianity. In a way, retractions are impossible, since you reveal who you are, so to speak, but I think that this issue is so complex that one should constantly dig deeper on such questions. I made my point: Xtiantiy is almost impoverished compared with the immense world of Buddhism and its meditative techniques, themselves in the legacy of Indic religion. But there are larger issues here. It is always dangerous to underestimate Xtianity. The question of Xtianity is baffling in the end, but in terms of ‘common ground’ we can see that Xtianity sprang mysteriously in the same movement as Mahayana in India: the common chords are too striking to be due to chance. In fact, the world of Buddhism had reached a climax in the depth of its achievement, and began to overflow into a global set of effects: self-enlightenment turned into a religion for the masses. Many power beings as graduates of the Buddhist stream were able to manifest effects beyond the Indian locale (including travel by camel, but not excluding astral projection!), and we suspect something riddling here, especially given the giveaway clues of the ’3 magi’ suddenly appearing in Israel. The sudden appearance of a ‘savior’ religion in the midst of Israelite proto-Judaism (small wonder the Jews were baffled by it) is a deft brand of Buddhism in action, but one designed around gnostic elements, something like ‘bakti yoga’, unknown archaic Egyptian elements, and gosh knows what else. The overall package succeeded brilliantly as a kind of revolutionary ideology challenging the Roman Empire, achieving victory in the end. We should be wary of shallow critiques of Xtiantiy: it is/was a mighty instrument to take on the grotesque state of civilization visible in the condition of the Roman Empire and its degraded populations. Preaching buddhist meditation to the denizens of the Roman games wasn’t in the cards. A religion of ‘redemption’ was the way to go. In fact, we might suspect that behind Mahayana lies an unknown influence that is non-Buddhist, in the parallel to the Xtian (then Islamic) cases.
Xtianity was one aspect of the greater motion of civilizations to redeem themselves from the dead end of slavery, and there the Xtian contribution was immense. We find this religion to be strange to us now, and we are moving past it, but its mysterious action is stupendous and still an enigma to secular thought. I think that the study of Buddhism, however, can help modern Xtians to see the historical context of their religion, and its fragility all of a sudden in the modern period. The forces driving it are exhausted, their task achieved. The moment of the abolitionists one of its last triumphs.

From yesterday, and before:
Repost from yesterday below
This post might seem too much for many, so I should invite Xtians to critique Buddhism. But that would be beyond them.

The issue of common ground is important and it exists most assuredly behind Buddhism and Xtianity: look at the way the Mahayana and Xtianity came into existence in synchronous fashion. The idea of the savior in Buddhism (cf. the Louts Sutra) suddenly appears in the Israelite context and spawns a new religion. So we should be wary of destructive comparisons. Nonetheless, by any perspective the depth of Buddhism was lost to Occidental religion.

———————–Common ground
I was asked to repost this here at Darwiniana, after initial appearance at The Gurdjieff Con.

http://www.gurdjieff-con.net/2011/05/14/common-ground

The last three months (here at The Gurdjieff Con) have shown little activity here by me, but the statistics have barely declined, about twenty percent down. So the archives are still thriving.

But a new set of projects might be due.
Plenty of junk at
Huffpost religion page
Those who seek common ground between Buddhism and Xtian beliefs in god are the menace of the future that will destroy Buddhism (for the fifth time) and turn it into semi-sufistic puke-equivalents.

And the Dalai Lama has started to peddle this theme.

The stance of the great tradition from which Buddhism springs was not monotheist, remained agnostic about god, but was aware, and wary, of the dangerous reality of polytheistic deep realities that could easily enslave man. The ‘path’, which in Hinduism is visibly braided with polytheistic issues, anciently was not invovled in god worship.
Now you might argue that the common ground here lies in the sense of early monotheists that appeal to a higher power beyond the realm of polytheism, gods, was a mainline connection with that Indic line. But the sad reality is that ‘divinity’ as the One is unknowable and too remote to protect man from the dangers being turned into cattle by the ‘gods’. Well, who knows. I think that we have discovered the real flaw in the Xtian muddle: it is field invaded by the demonology of ‘divinities’ of all types, a spirit madhouse that ‘god’, whatever that is, has nothing to do with.
So I would suggest that Buddhists stand in reserve as to ‘god’, and ‘gods’, and find the path in their classic vein, keeping their distance from the Xtian demons licking them chops near the takeover of Buddhism and its neutralization in the monotheistic devil’s paradise.

Better start meditating. The encounter with demons will be a rite of passage, to leave behind screaming Xtians praying to Jesus to save them. I fear, Jesus Christ is not your personal savior. Better luck with Buddhism, while it lasts.

Lewis Richmond
Lewis Richmond: Do Buddhists Believe in God?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lewis-richmond/do-buddhists-believe-in-g_b_859658.html

Buddhist writer and teacher

My Zen colleagues may object that it is a stretch to call Zen meditation “prayer,” or to describe it as a method “to reach our divine nature.” But we must never stop trying to find common ground.

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