St Augustine on the Eucharist

[Lunitik]

Not quite ... rather that you assume your experience is the benchmark by which all else is judged.

You were the one who said you would explain my doctrine to me, and asked me to kick this off. I have. So far your explanations reveal a lack of insight and understanding of both Christian Scripture and Christian doctrine ... perhaps prudence might have been a better term ... the pojt being you are in no position to make sweeping statements about the nature of traditions you don't really understand.

I am always ready to listen and learn from others ... the post from Bob X above, for example, is most informative.

I have nothing against the other Traditions, it's just that this is the one for me, but I do not suppose to explain to others what their tradition means.

For example, the 'recovery' of my belief in catholicism was triggered by the work of a Tibetan Buddhist, Marco Pallis. For the best commentaries on comparative religion, I suggest the school known as the Perennial Tradition, or the Sophia Perennis ... their work is world-recognised and unsurpassed.

God bless,

Thomas

I don't assume it at all, I simply know my experience to be a truth, and see it in every faith I have studied. I didn't state I would explain Christian doctrine, I stated I would present the truth through your scripture, the truth which Christ intended. Your assumption is that I don't understand, this is why this thread is not meaningful to you at this point. I apologize for failing to reach you, but it is only because you have denied rather than contemplated, I merely haven't appealed to you in such a way that there is that desire to contemplate.

 

[Lunitik]

Nonsense.

So the Eucharist actually does something for you? There is a reaction within you? I have taken the Eucharist, it is just what it is, thus anything added is your own.

Depends what order of 'enlightenment' or 'heaven' you're talking about.
That's your assumption about

You will have to expand on this question... there are orders of heaven in the Christian faith?

And love is thus rendered void, for there is nothing to love, and nothing to be loved. It becomes an empty concept, a meaningless value.

I disagree, love becomes the only. This is the nature of the trinity, loved-lover-love, this is only the function of the plural world. When applied to oneness, love is the only real in this instance. In any given scenario this trinity is valid, and it is almost certainly something from Buddhism, since as far as I know it is not a concept of the Torah. In Buddhism, this is called the trikaya - the Dharmakāya or father, Nirmaṇakāya or son, and Sambhogakāya or holy spirit. In Buddhism, nirvana is the mind which has transcended object and subject, thus experiences only the real. It is to live completely in oneness, knowing that plurality is an illusion.

What you fail to perceive is Trinity transcends duality.

Are you sure, or is it actually that I am trying to show you that you can transcend duality as well?

No ... I'm not talking about enlightenment, you are, I constantly say that what I am talking about transcends enlightenment ... you seem not to notice.

In what way is it possible to transcend enlightenment? Many would say that nirvana is a transcending, moksha is a transcending, heaven in Christianity seems to only discuss the pure bliss of enlightenment though...

Enlightenment is not the end of the journey.

Certainly not.

Eckhart, the Cloud of Unknowing, Dionysius, Nicholas of Cusa, Eriugena, Gregory of Nyssa, Bonaventure, Aquinas ... and many, many others point out that engagement in the Christian Mysteries surpasses enlightenment.

So you take it based on the words of another? Of course, if they haven't experienced enlightenment, they would say that their experience surpasses it... they wouldn't remain Christian if something else delivers a more complete transcendence but how can they even know what enlightenment is in the first place if it is not their experience?

It's because you're holding enlightenment as the principle issue that you fail to perceive the reality of the message and the teaching.

I perceive the message completely, you intellectualize it through the words of others, this is our difference.