A Buddhist smorgasbord

@Carazaa I don't see anything at all as a "goal" and from my own Pure Land Buddhism I relate to all things as having been [i]given[/i] (Grace, as other Faiths would say) rather than as "[i]my[/i] experience"

That said, all experience is important/significant/has meaning. At least,I think so.

@Tariki

1. OK so how does Buddism help you if you have cancer and dying? In Christianity God answers my prayers, I had cancer and Jesus answered my prayer, Jesus says [b][c=BF0000]"Ask me anything in my name and I will do it for you"[/c][/b]

2. How does Buddism help you if you are in a fire? Jesus says no heat will hurt us ever, if we belong to him.

3. How does Buddism help a 2 year old child when the Father wants to go and meditate? How does that help the child's Mother? In Christianity we treat people the way we want to be treated.

4. Jesus says, Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you. And God will repay evil for evil. what does Buddah say if someone murders your family? Go and meditate? Where is the justice?

5. Jesus, God's Son, God in the flesh, came to visit us because he loves us, and was tortured and took our sins on his shoulders because he loves us, he rose from the dead to prove he is God and all who believe in him will go to heaven. He says he will come back to judge the living and the dead. He says "How can you escape if you neglect such a great salvation"
Where is the justice for all the evil in Buddism?
Why is there evil and murder in the world? God says in the Bible, it is because of our sins, and because there is a war between God and his angels, and Satan who was thrown out of heaven and his angels for mans souls.

@Carazaa Hi again, thanks. Rather than seek to answer point by point I'II try to get to fundamentals.

At base you testify to a transcendent Being who may, or may not, answer prayer and supplication. You infer/imply that He is more prone to answer those who believe in Him. Further, you see much being "sorted" beyond the grave.

As I see it you miss the incarnational dimension of your faith, where we are asked to [i]share the cross of Christ[/i], suffering with others, in empathy and compassion, and in doing so reach out to all. This not to deny your beliefs, but more to deepen them. No doubt you will insist that such a dimension is assumed as part of your faith. Whatever, the Dharma, in its own non-theistic way, speaks of that dimension.

Your apparent dismissal of Buddhism as "meditation", implying an evasion and neglect of this world, simply demonstrates a misunderstanding of the entire "eastern" context. The context of "wu-wei" , effortlessness, action by "non-action". Such a context takes the Dharma far beyond idleness, of doing nothing or of being helpless in the face of our world's suffering. Rather, it encourages engagement with this world, which is therefore never betrayed for some imagined "other" beyond the horizon.

Anyway, to share, "Shovelling Snow With Buddha" by the poet Billy Collins:

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

@Tariki
So I guess Buddha does not have an answer for the most important questions in life. It does not give hope for the hopeless, there is no God of justice, and it is about smiling and snow and experience. There is no God who helps. That is sad.

I know GOD, and he is HOLY. Jesus saved me, he protects me, hears my prayers, gives me comfort in suffering, heals my body, helps me forgive my enemies, multiplies my money when I tithe, and gives me hope for the next life.

I do not live for this life but the next. He promises heaven for those who love him.

[b][quote]"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Cor 2:9"[/quote][/b]

@Carazaa God has given His answer. The Incarnation. The Dharma is part of that answer. It addresses [i]this[/i] life.

Though it may not multiply my money!

😀

@Carazaa Just to add, in the primary texts of the Dharma the Buddha is recorded as saying:- "I teach this and this alone, suffering (Pali [i]dukkha[/i]) and the ending of suffering."

The suffering of our world can break any heart.

The Buddha gives an answer to those who are prepared to listen and walk the path. Yet does not exclude those who choose another.

Thank you

@Tariki

❤️ The Bible does address incarnation after this life. This life is very short and feeling at peace and loving people is important but we have to answer for every deed and thought because God is a God of justice!

I care about people and that is why I am here to let people know God's peace that surpassed all understanding, and also tell them that Jesus took our sins on his own shoulders because he loves us.

[b][quote]Salvation is found in no one else, for there is NO other name under heaven given to men by which we [i]must [/i]be saved Acts 4:12[/quote][/b]

[b][quote]"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16[/quote][/b]

I hope and pray that you will be saved too! 🤗

@Carazaa Thank you for your testimony. It is the Protestant Evangelical Fundamentalist testimony. Christianity is in fact deeper and broader. Biblical hermeneutics of the various Christian expressions, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, broaden understanding of "the name" beyond your own apparent horizons.

Here are a couple of photos of the Catholic trappist monk Thomas Merton meeting with monastics of the Buddhist tradition...The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh.



And here is Merton in a letter to the "zen man" D.T.Suzuki, whom he met at one time...

[i]I want to speak for this Western world.................which has in past centuries broken in upon you and brought you our own confusion, our own alienation, our own decrepitude, our lack of culture, our lack of faith...........If I wept until the end of the world, I could not signify enough of what this tragedy means. If only we had thought of coming to you to learn something..............If only we had thought of coming to you and loving you for what you are in yourselves, instead of trying to make you over into our own image and likeness. For me it is clearly evident that you and I have in common and share most intimately precisely that which, in the eyes of conventional Westerners, would seem to separate us. The fact that you are a Zen Buddhist and I am a Christian monk, far from separating us, makes us most like one another. How many centuries is it going to take for people to discover this fact?......
[/i]

Your wish that I be "saved" is frankly patronising.

@Tariki
❤️ I am sorry you are offended, but God knows that my motivation is [b]love[/b]. Be careful, [b]very [/b]careful what you follow! Jesus says there is one way, and only one way to heaven!

"[b]I AM the life, the way, and the truth, there is NO other way under heaven where by we MUST be saved"[/b]

I believe Catholicism is a cult, because they add to the Bible praying to Saints, and take away hell.

Jesus warns in the [b]last[/b] verse of the Bible

[b][quote]"If you add to this book I will add the plagues of this books to you, and if you take away anything from this book I will take away from you the rewards of this book REV 22:19"
[/quote][/b]

@Carazaa I am not offended at all. I said you were patronising. Your presumption of speaking on God's behalf is not "love". As said, you represent a small strand of the Christian faith, virtually a modernism. Its far wider historical breadth and depth seem lost on you.

Thank you

@Tariki ❤️ I am born again and I know God, I know my motivation is to share God's word here. God tells us to go into all the world and share the gospel. I am doing this because I love God and I love people! Have a good day!

@Carazaa I understand your motivation and your belief. As said, you speak and testify as a Protestant Evangelical Fundamentalist. Christianity is in fact far deeper, wider, and fortunately more embracing than your own professed creed.

Yes, I'll enjoy the rest of my day. Thank you.

@Tariki

Ok I will just say this that many call themselves Christian, but are not born again. Jesus said

[b][c=BF0000]"You must be born again" John 3:3[/c][/b]


"[b][c=BF0000] These are those who love me those who keep my commands"[/c] [/b]

Hitler called himself a Christian too, many fundamentalists, the Pope, and many who add to the Bible. I don't go to a church I just read my Bible, God's word!

Jesus said in the last days there will be a falling away and many cults, and many who come in his name.
[quote]

[b][c=BF0000]"Many will say in that day Lord Lord, did we not preach in your name but I will say to you I never knew you" Matthew 7:23[/c][/b]

@Carazaa Yes, many indeed call themselves Christian.

Here is Thomas Merton speaking of the "reification of faith". Merton was reading from one of the early Church Fathers, Irenaeus, where that man said:- If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time........Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you........lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers......

Merton comments......

[i]The reification of faith. Real meaning of the phrase we are saved by faith = we are saved by Christ, whom we encounter in faith. But constant disputation about faith has made Christians become obsessed with faith almost as an object, at least as an experience, a "thing" and in concentrating upon it they lose sight of Christ. Whereas faith without the encounter with Christ and without His presence is less than nothing. It is the deadest of dead works, an act elicited in a moral and existential void. To seek to believe that one believes, and arbitrarily to decree that one believes, and then to conclude that this gymnastic has been blessed by Christ - this is pathological Christianity. And a Christianity of works. One has this mental gymnastic in which to trust. One is safe, one possesses the psychic key to salvation......
[/i]

Very many Christians are now recognising that the "encounter with Christ" is not restricted to any particular group to dictate. Least of all can anyone simply declare themselves the "true" Christian. The "encounter" can even happen beyond the borders of anyone's current horizons and understanding.

Thanks for your input.

@Carazaa

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day."

John 6:37-39

@Thinkerbell ❤️ Jesus will hopefully raise us up the last day, Thank you 🙏