Faith and Belief

wil said:
I enjoy your thoughts put into words...I don't understand buy enjoy the confusion. I've said before how there were obvious things I rejected and asked without answer as a kid in religion. With you I don't understand anything enough to even compose a question.
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Everything around you every atom is time it can be collected and reformed back into itself in the after to figure things out with. I can collect time the more I find the better the experience I get from it. A little time would be a 8 bit resolution experience a lot of time would be a 1080 experience. The more you know about something the more time you spend thinking about it this can lead to many experiences and even knowledge you gained from minds giving you time and ideas. It is like when we are on the precipice of life we all of sudden find the answer we were looking for, this is because so many minds and people are finding time trying to figure something out together.

powessy
 
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powessy said:
You wrote this line " I have always found much Buddhist thought truly life affirming, in as much as it implies that if we see and know THIS world truly we will be free of "suffering". In effect it is not like much religion, which as I see it, betrays this world for some imagined "other".
I perhaps read this wrong I was assuming you meant that a Buddhist would not suffer in the after life because of their deeds in their walking life. What I was trying to say is that not just Buddhist but everyone will have a hard time becoming anything after their lifetime because their mind never becomes them. We all have a mind, but our mind is not us we are only part of it. A mind is ob-round in shape and has five minds inside of it that collect time it has it's own mind I call ME. Once the ME becomes ME then we merge together to form a yourself the circle or ball with me inside of it. The mind has now accepted you and you are now paired for the rest of existence, you are now you inside of yourself.

I am sorry for the confusion, I in no way meant to single out anyone group or person.

Powessy
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Simply put, seek "the end of suffering" in THIS life. Speculation about any other life, before or after, is for me a blind alley. For me, "speculation" causes confusion.
 
Psalm 131
Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+131&version=KJV
 
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I think you can only try to act from the best and highest part of yourself, and let God do the rest. Even if you are wrong, it will turn out right (both for yourself an others) if you try act 'in God'?
Arif Ghamiq said:
Jewish Qabbah-ist deified Ayn Soph (Nothingness)
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No_One said:
In the before..there was no beginning,
Be..(not)..For(BeFore)=The Beginning.
Nothing existed..and that nothing was/is Absolute. A thing cannot be absolute ...
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powessy said:
It is like when we are on the precipice of life we all of sudden find the answer we were looking for
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CobblersApprentice said:
Simply put, seek "the end of suffering" in THIS life. Speculation about any other life, before or after, is for me a blind alley.
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Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3:+5-7&version=KJV

'God' will always recede, even from the highest of angels; there will always be more to know?
 
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CobblersApprentice said:
Simply put, seek "the end of suffering" in THIS life. Speculation about any other life, before or after, is for me a blind alley. For me, "speculation" causes confusion.
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Adding to this, and in respect to Faith/Trust, the words of the poet John Keats, on "negative capability"......."that is when we are capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

Keats also said in one of his letters......"I have never yet been able to conceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning."

And Isaac Newton:- "Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things"

From "simplicity" and trust/faith, from such rest, diversification can be seen and known in a way that does not confuse, simply because our choices and views are not clung to or used to "justify" ourselves.
 
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I knew a spiritual teacher who always referred to 'the boys upstairs' instead of using the word God
 
RJM Corbet said:
I knew a spiritual teacher who always referred to 'the boys upstairs' instead of using the word God
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The search for simplicity can be very confusing at times, also very complex. Yet.....

"For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it, until you have looked everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert"

(W H Auden)

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"

(T S Eliot)

Just feeling a little poetical this morning! :)


Just one more before I go...

"I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased: I went out from myself
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies"

(St John of the Cross)

A nice little exchange, thank you.
 
CobblersApprentice said:
The search for simplicity can be very confusing at times, also very complex. Yet.....

"For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it, until you have looked everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert"

(W H Auden)

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"

(T S Eliot)

Just feeling a little poetical this morning! :)


Just one more before I go...

"I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased: I went out from myself
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies"

(St John of the Cross)

A nice little exchange, thank you.
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Very nice!...the mind be more complex than you think you are..it is not meant to be ‘Restricted’. God says to understand through your faith but not through your knowledge...these expressions are through an understanding...
There is a difference...from,
To know, and to understand..but the question is do you know what the difference are?
 
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No_One said:
Very nice!...the mind is more complex than you think that you are..it is not meant to be ‘Restricted’. God said to understand through your faith but not through your knowledge...these expressions are through an understanding...
There is a difference...from,
To know, and to understand..but the question is do you know what the difference are?
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Sorry my last reply was meant for...RJM Corbet.
 
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Thomas said:
"Dearly beloved,
we are now the sons of God;
and it hath not yet appeared
what we shall be.

"We know, that,
when he shall appear,
we shall be like to him:
because we shall see him as he is."
1 John 3:2

"Be what you see; receive what you are"
(Augustine, sermon 272, on the Eucharist to the infantes)
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There is a sense of "finality" here. I'm reminded of the dialogue between Thomas Merton and D T Suzuki, "Wisdom in Emptiness" where a slight difference emerges, between the eschatalogical dimension of Christianity (the life to come), with the realised eschatology (in the present moment) spoken of by Suzuki.

Dogen, meanwhile, asserts that "things as they are" is never of fixed reality/truth, that the power of self-renewal is inherent in the vision itself, making "things as they are" transformable. For Dogen, seeing was "changing and making". (He also asserts that "we are that which we understand.")

Just musing. Not calculating!
 
CobblersApprentice said:
There is a sense of "finality" here. I'm reminded of the dialogue between Thomas Merton and D T Suzuki, "Wisdom in Emptiness" where a slight difference emerges, between the eschatalogical dimension of Christianity (the life to come), with the realised eschatology (in the present moment) spoken of by Suzuki.

Dogen, meanwhile, asserts that "things as they are" is never of fixed reality/truth, that the power of self-renewal is inherent in the vision itself, making "things as they are" transformable. For Dogen, seeing was "changing and making". (He also asserts that "we are that which we understand.")
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Mmm .. does our spiritual journey end with death?
I don't see why it should. G-d is of infinite nature, and our souls belong to Him
Glory be to Him, who has no partners in His sovereignty. [ He is nether male or female .. nor a single soul .. nor a person ]
 
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muhammad_isa said:
Mmm .. does our spiritual journey end with death?
I don't see why it should. G-d is of infinite nature, and our souls belong to Him
Glory be to Him, who has no partners in His sovereignty. [ He is nether male or female .. nor a single soul .. nor a person ]
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Personally, I find nothing in anything said or quoted that suggests that any journey necessarily ends in "death". Is it just me? Sorry. I might misunderstand.

(The sense of "finality" I spoke of is not of death)
 
CobblersApprentice said:
Personally, I find nothing in anything said or quoted that suggests that any journey necessarily ends in "death". Is it just me? Sorry. I might misunderstand.

(The sense of "finality" I spoke of is not of death)
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Just to add, now at the point where Dogen considers the dimension of "time", first in its conventional aspect of duration, our sense of passing time, then from the "eternal" (so to speak) where each moment "contains" past and future, the aspect given voice within the Flower Ornament Scripture.

This to be compared with T S Eliot's "Four Quartets"? O death where is thy sting! :)
 
وَيَسأَلونَكَ عَنِ الرّوحِ ۖ قُلِ الرّوحُ مِن أَمرِ رَبّي وَما أوتيتُم مِنَ العِلمِ إِلّا قَليلًا

"They question you concerning the Ruh (Spirit) - Say, ‘The Ruh (Spirit) is of the Amr (Command) of my Lord, and you have not been given knowledge of it except a little"

(Quran 17:85)
 
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No_One said:
know, and to understand..but the question is do you know what the difference are?
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It is very interesting to follow science as humanity gains an understanding of the incredible mechanism of nature. There will always be more to know, of course. I do believe there are natural laws and there are spiritual laws, and they may differ quite a lot.

It is wonderful to do science and learn so much about nature. It gives us a partial understanding of 'the mind of God.' Of a tiny part of it, as it applies to the tiny part of natural law that we unravel. It is good that learning and education throws light and dispels superstition and ignorance. There are some who don't want to know, of course. And some who think they will one day know everything.

But spiritual law is often different from natural law? That spirit communicates in quietness and humility seems to be a fact. Questions are answered out of silence. Why? Perhaps I can understand a bit, but it will never be a whole lot?

Something like that?
 
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I agree with you RJM, that there are differences between Spiritual and Natural Laws; however I do believe there are correspondences, so that an understanding of one, can give insight into the other.

One of our Pillars of Faith is Zakaah, which is the annual alms giving of 2.5 % of one's excess earnings - often translated "Charity" - which is sorta okay I guess. The root meaning of Zakaah is "to purify", "to cause to grow - increase".​

This meaning of the word, along with explations of the The Prophet (pbuh) tells us that the inward-Spiritual aspect of Zakaah is Purification of Self, and growth as well as an increasing of Iman (Faith/Belief).

I believe firmly that Religiosity can give way, lead to, assist with Spirituality, which is one of the reasons I don't have a blanket rejection of Organized Religion.

And Allah Al 'Aleem (The All-knowing) knows best !!!
 
Arif Ghamiq said:
I agree with you RJM, that there are differences between Spiritual and Natural Laws; however I do believe there are correspondences, so that an understanding of one, can give insight into the other.

One of our Pillars of Faith is Zakaah, which is the annual alms giving of 2.5 % of one's excess earnings - often translated "Charity" - which is sorta okay I guess. The root meaning of Zakaah is "to purify", "to cause to grow - increase".​

This meaning of the word, along with explations of the The Prophet (pbuh) tells us that the inward-Spiritual aspect of Zakaah is Purification of Self, and growth as well as an increasing of Iman (Faith/Belief).

I believe firmly that Religiosity can give way, lead to, assist with Spirituality, which is one of the reasons I don't have a blanket rejection of Organized Religion.

And Allah Al 'Aleem (The All-knowing) knows best !!!
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Yes. Total agreement
 
As far as "who knows best", my experience of the world of religion is that many adherents unfortunately associate what "he" knows best with their own particular take on things. In the often - admittedly - murky mire of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, there is the idea of apaya, or "skilful means"; in essence, the idea that the Dharma is revealed according to the capacities of each unique individual human being. An example of such teaching can be found in the Lotus Sutra, in the Parable of the Dharma Rain.....

I bring fullness and satisfaction to the world,

like rain that spreads its moisture everywhere.

Eminent and lowly, superior and inferior,

observers of precepts, violators of precepts,

those fully endowed with proper demeanor,

those not fully endowed,

those of correct views, of erroneous views,

of keen capacity, of dull capacity -

I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally,

never lax or neglectful.

When all the various living beings

hear my Law,

they receive it according to their power,

dwelling in their different environments.....

..The Law of the Buddhas

is constantly of a single flavour,

causing the many worlds

to attain full satisfaction everywhere;

by practicing gradually and stage by stage,

all beings can gain the fruits of the way.

Such is "apaya" - or "skilful means" - the way in which Reality-as-is "works" untiringly for the salvation of all, in infinite ways. And all this brings to mind the words of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, words which take on deeper and deeper significance - at least for me, as I've pondered them and reflected upon them over the years......"They do Him wrong who take God in just one particular way; they have the way rather than God."

As a non-theist, I trust Reality-as-is to guide me. I trust what has been called the liberative qualities of spatiality and temporality, that Dharma practice is grounded in the very structure of reality. As I see it, and indeed as I have experienced it, mentors and lessons can be found in the most unlikely of places, and persons.

"See that bamboo, how long it is, see that bamboo, how short it is. That is their nature" as the zen master said. In the Pure Land, Gold can symbolise the undifferentiated nature of enlightenment, while the lotus flower represents the uniqueness of each human being. In the Pure Land itself, there are infinite golden lotus flowers.
 
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