Kjsinghhyd ji,
Quote:Kj: For Budhhists it doesn't matter if they believe in God or not. They do believe in Nirvana and ending cycle of Life and Death.
Old C: Are you suggesting that in the end it does not matter what one believes in as long as one follows the suggestions of any particular religion? What the Truth is does not matter? I wonder how anyone can hold onto such a position and still be motivated enough to move in the one direction until the goal is reached?
KjS: Nirvana is like Realization, finding your Purpose. There are so many ways to define it yet it cannot be defined.
Cf: Yes Nirvana can’t be defined for the simple reason that it is the “unconditioned reality’ and all we ever experience and come from are the “conditioned realities”. But allow me to use the Pali word now instead of the Sanskrit, since I want to avoid any Mahayana misconceptions.
The experience of Nibbana is not akin to ‘finding the purpose’. It is the unconditioned reality which becomes the object of enlightenment, when the perception of the unconditioned helps to see through the nature of conditioned phenomena and eradicates particular unwholesome tendencies depending on the stage of enlightenment. This can only ever happen with the development of wisdom when conditioned realities are insighted and understood over a long period of time, such that in the end one is ready to experience the unconditioned.
The experience itself is very momentary and one goes on living one’s life as usual, only without particular unwholesome experiences beginning with wrong view, doubt and tendency to rite and ritual ever arising again. At this stage it becomes impossible to break the five precepts, namely, killing, stealing, lying etc. Later at higher levels of enlightenment are eradicated, sensual desire and aversion. Finally at the last stage, attachment to being, ignorance and conceit are no more.
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KjS: There have been great Masters in every religion, as long as you are following one Master Truly, you will find Light and Truth in your life. It doesn't matter if you do Kung Fu, Karate or Tae Kwan Do. But the purpose is be able to defend.
Cf: With Truth as the aim, my question is whether the ‘cause’ professed matches this. But of course, it’s just an idea each person projects a personal meaning into.
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KjS: Similarly purpose of Spirituality is to Awaken and Merge your Soul with One Soul. Buddhists might call it Soul of Knowledge or something, we call the One Soul Waheguru.
Cf: I take it that what you mean by ‘merge’ is in fact a reference to ‘Awakening’.
The Truth to be understood (gradually) according to Buddhism, are all that goes on from moment to moment through the five senses and the mind. In any one of these momentary experiences, there is no self or soul, but only mental and physical elements conditioning each other, rising and falling away together instantly. Therefore if one starts off with the perception of a self or soul and aim at what one thinks to be the Truth, this is an instance of a ‘cause’ not being in line with the result aimed at. But of course, it will lead somewhere which will then be mistaken for Truth, and I call this ‘illusion of result’. The fact is that ‘self-view’ or ‘wrong view’ stands in direct opposition to right view, which the development of wisdom is all about.
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KjS: Well Sikhism doesn't consider Waheguru as a deity or person either.
Cf: I know this.
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KjS: The systems are not different, but are perceived to be different. We think of our Souls as drops of water trying to be back in Universal Sea of Waheguru. You think your Souls at a plane, with good actions they rise up on the plane and the highest plane is of Buddha! See I am not a Buddhist, I am trying to be Sikh. I don't know fully about Buddhist traditions.
Cf: Yes, you don’t know where I am coming from. It is not the Buddhism that has so far been your source of information.
There is of course no self or soul to rise from one plane to the next. One must also distinguish plane of existence from plane of consciousness, and realize that all this is in fact all about the development of wisdom, such that no matter which plane of existence one finds oneself in, when the conditions are appropriate, this wisdom can arise.
Unless one has reached at least the first stage of enlightenment, there is no guarantee that rebirth in a good plane will happen. Being reborn in higher realms is the result of good deeds, and this can happen without having to follow the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha’s teachings are however aimed at the development of right understanding and not to being reborn in ever higher planes.
In other words, yes, good deeds lead to good results (rebirth being one), however this would still be the stuff of continued existence in the cycle of birth and death. The development of wisdom on the other hand, is the one cause which can lead to going out of this cycle.
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KjS: I can't talk much about these 5 Orders as I haven't read or researched about them. But there is an important question. What is Morality? How do we define something as Moral and Immoral? What is guiding us in this Judgement?
Cf: The only thing that can ever guide us is the understanding of the difference between good states and evil states. Greed, aversion, ignorance and all those realities which depend on these such as conceit, wrong view, jealousy, doubt, shamelessness and so on are the evil states. On the other side, the good states include non-greed, non-hatred, wisdom and all the realities in dependence, such as generosity, kindness, faith, compassion and morality. All these states rise and fall away by conditions and it is imperative that we know them by their characteristics, as and when they appear.
This is the only real basis for morality. In short, good is good because it is, and bad is bad because it is. In the absence of such understanding, we usually end up relying on reference points that are arbitrary. This can only lead to doubt and much mischief in the long run. The truth is that there is never any justification to have aversion, to kill, to steal to lie, to be jealous, to miserliness and so on, yet we often find ourselves wondering whether we should act this way or that way in certain situations. On the other hand, there is never a moment where kindness is not called for, but not really knowing what this is; we sometimes feel justified for being angry or else go on to express attachment, mistaking it for kindness.
But then there is so much more accumulations for ignorance and other evil that it should be expected that only rarely can we act morally. This is why according to the Buddha’s teachings the five moral precepts are said to be “training rules” rather than commandments. Since in the end, we are meant to “understand” them and not just follow.
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Quote:Kj: For us, God is the Universe, God is the Truth. And such impersonal definition of God finds acceptance with Buddhists too. They reject god born on the 7th sky and creating Adam and Eve in 6 days concept.
Old C: I hope that you can now see why yours must be a wrong representation of the Buddha’s teachings? Both physical and mental phenomena rise and fall away in an instant by complex set of conditions. Nothing ever remains for even one millisecond to affect other objects, let alone be the basis for the kind of belief which suggests ‘unity’ of some kind.
KjS: My friend, if there is anything which binds all the people, countries, planets, galaxies and universes, multiverses, it is Truth.
Cf: You mean as in Gaddhafi to his people or the Al Queda to the U.S. government? ;-)
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KjS: Truth has no date of birth, Truth will never die. Truth has prevailed all creation and destruction. Truth makes people happy when they speak the Truth, Truth makes them doubt their actions when they go against it. If a Buddhist believes in Truth then how is a Buddhist different from a Sikh? Truth is the common goal in all human religions.
Cf: At one time I thought that it was good that some people set out on the “quest for truth”. However now I am not impressed by the idea anymore. Now I consider only understanding itself, no matter what level, to be aimed at the Truth. In other words, only if one has had an inkling of what the Truth is, can one make any correct statement with regard to it. All other instances of referring to the concept must in fact be rooted in ignorance and craving, and this can never lead to the good.
Shame and fear of evil is what keeps the human world from becoming like animals. Morality exists because to be human is to have some capacity to judge right from wrong. But only wisdom can recognize wisdom, and only this can understand the Truth.
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KjS: Truth is a natural phenomenon. If a meteor strikes Earth, then the crater stays there. As a mark of Truth, that yes a meteor did strike at that place. If some planet gets destroyed, then there are asteriods sprewn over in space. Another mark of Truth. A son has DNA of both Father and Mother, that is his mark of Truth for being a loving son.
Cf: While observing a meteor, there are the experience through the five senses and the mind, without which the idea of ‘meteor’ wouldn’t even be conceived of. In the absence of any understanding about these, one is left to work only with shadows / concepts. If craving arises and one is not aware of this, all perceptions and subsequent proliferations follow the dictates of ignorance and this same craving. If the knowledge derived from such ignorance is mistaken for Truth, this is a case of being deluded.
When matter contacts another matter, this is in accordance with the ‘caloric order’ and is a Truth. But do we know this? Do we not instead conceive of the ideas, meteor, earth and the activity of striking, and build a story around this all the while driven by ignorance and attachment ? Would the qualifying as Truth such a case not then be meaningless?
