Two Realities - Jesus and Buddha as Brothers

[Encephalon]

I just read this in Thich Nhat Hanhs Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers. I wish to God I wouldve picked up this book when it came out in 1999. It would have clarified so many issues I was trying to tease out and organize with respect to my geography and ecology studies but also the themes of Buddhist environmental ethics and Christian stewardship, deep ecology, and eco-psychology. What you do folks think? Agree or disagree? What are the implications?

 

 

TWO REALITIES

 

"There are two levels of relationships. The first level is the relationship between us and other beings. In Christianity, we hear the expression horizontal theology. This kind of theology helps us see and touch what is there around us. Horizontal theology helps us establish links with what is around us, including human beings, animals, vegetables, and minerals. Our daily practice should help us get in touch with these beings, animate or inanimate, because by getting in touch with them, we will be able to get in touch with God.

 

Getting in touch with God is symbolized by a vertical line and is called vertical theology. These are the two dimensions. If you do not succeed in getting in touch with the horizontal dimension, you will not be able to get in touch with the vertical dimension. There is a relationship between the horizontal and the vertical. There is interbeing between the two. If you cannot love man, animals, and plants, I doubt that you can love God. The capacity for loving God depends on your capacity for loving humankind and other species."

Edited December 6, 2011 by Encephalon

[Aetherous]

Actually I think it's the reverse. When you're good with the vertical, the horizontal is easier to love...because then you have love, and other good feelings. If you experience the negative emotions that plague the horizontal, you can transmute them through the vertical.

[Cameron]

I once had lunch with a Korean Zen Master.

 

He said "In Buddhism their is no discrimination".

[Seth Ananda]

Very cool

 

I think of the horizontal as pertaining to the Imminent aspect of Divinity or, the Divine in things, {obviously including people} so to say...

Which leaves the Vertical for the Transcendent, or the Divine outside of, or beyond things...

[Protector]

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/saint_oniisan/

[Encephalon]

Very cool

 

I think of the horizontal as pertaining to the Imminent aspect of Divinity or, the Divine in things, {obviously including people} so to say...

Which leaves the Vertical for the Transcendent, or the Divine outside of, or beyond things...

 

Yes, my take also, although I see opportunities up ahead to dissolve the distinctions. I think there are some pretty significant implications, the main one being the problem of declaring love for the transcendent while marginalizing the horizontal. As a species, we still haven't fully internalized our ecological connection. And or course there are those on the religious right who care not one iota for the ecosphere; drill baby, drill!

[Seth Ananda]

Yes, my take also, although I see opportunities up ahead to dissolve the distinctions. I think there are some pretty significant implications, the main one being the problem of declaring love for the transcendent while marginalizing the horizontal. As a species, we still haven't fully internalized our ecological connection. And or course there are those on the religious right who care not one iota for the ecosphere; drill baby, drill!

Yes. When I was younger and entered the Bhakti path, I Hated myself and Humanity. When the great Love started to bloom in my heart it was specifically 'for' the Transcendent. Actually it was also for Nature at the time, which I saw as being the Body of God. Seeing the destruction we do to Nature was almost unbearable in my early years, and felt like the greatest Blasphemy, which often only fed my hatred for Humanity.

 

Humans had let me down so repeatedly on all fronts leading up to my leaving home, that the Idea of seeing them as seeds of the divine was almost Impossible to get some experience of, of God in others..

But Nature had always been my carer. I could wander for days with a rifle, or bow and arrows and eat rabbits or kangaroo's, and never see anyone... It is one of the freest feelings in the world.

 

Anyway it took many years to start being able to see the divine in others, and of the Triangle of Transcendent Divinity, Divine in Nature and Divine in Humans, it would still be my week point.

 

Also I think there are health dangers to Bhakti that doesn't Include the world. Not just externally with the environmental ramifications of a purely Transcendent View, but also internally.

I damaged my subtle body at one period so badly that to even say my mantra Internally would cause my heart to go seriously arrhythmic. The result of that was that I could not focus directly on my heart chakra for a few years. But in that period I got to work on my horizontal relationships and when I began to get a sense of love and compassion for my fellow humans, its particular kind of love was exactly the healing my heart centre needed to heal.

 

I have met some great mystics in my time, anonymous ones, in the Bhakti traditions, but there is something distinctly odd about the ones who don't include people and the world in their great Love...

 

I think Loves optimal expression, is starting in the centre of the cross made by the horizontal and vertical lines, and expanding out like a golden sphere, equally encompassing the world and the transcendent as it goes...

And considering that this thread is on Jesus and Buddha, that is a pretty common Christian Image {the cross in a sphere}

 

Blessings to all

[C T]

Words from a little-known philosopher, Paul Roubiczek (1898 - 1972). Title: Thinking In Opposites - The Particular Nature of Internal Reality.

 

http://thinkinginopposites.tripod.com/chapter3.html

 

 

 

"Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding." (Prov. 3:13)

 

"What is this world condition?

Body is the world condition.

And with body and form arises feeling, perception, consciousness, and all the activities throughout the world.

The arising of form and the ceasing of form ~ everything that has been heard, sensed, and known, sought after and reached by the mind... all this is the embodied world, to be penetrated and realized." (Samyutta Nikaya)

Edited December 8, 2011 by C T

[Vmarco]

Edited December 12, 2011 by Vmarco

[doc benway]

Let's pray he has a glimpse of reality before he dies, and apologizes for the atrocities he spawned through his written word.

 

V

 

:Takes off moderator hat:

 

I think the same can be said about you, sir.

 

:Puts moderator hat back on:

[Vmarco]

Edited December 12, 2011 by Vmarco

[doc benway]

 

But, I can understand your dilemma,...pretty difficult hearing that what one believed was meaningful is actually meaningless. But that's true Buddhism.

 

No dilemma whatsoever...

 

I don't believe in belief nor am I much of a fan of Thich Nhat Hahn, though I did like his book "The Miracle of Mindfulness" - I thought it was a succinct and accessible introduction to the topic.

 

It's simply ironic to see you calling his writings atrocities after reading some of your previous posts.

[hagar]

No dilemma whatsoever...

 

I don't believe in belief nor am I much of a fan of Thich Nhat Hahn, though I did like his book "The Miracle of Mindfulness" - I thought it was a succinct and accessible introduction to the topic.

 

It's simply ironic to see you calling his writings atrocities after reading some of your previous posts.

 

I second Steve here.

It might be adequate to point out the fact that Thich Nhat Hahn builds his point of Buddha and Jesus being brothers on one very simple fact: that they both tried to convey the same understanding of reality: that we are this oneness, and that everything is it. No matter what "laws" or agendas we have regarding it; what is it that gives space for such distinctions or sameness to arise?; this never changing reality in us and around us.

 

I once sat in a huge basketball arena in Idaho together with 3000 mormon high school students singing "because I have been given much I too must give, because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live".

Never felt so connected and loving. Never so alone. But the message conveyed in the lyrics, never so true.

 

h

[Vmarco]

No dilemma whatsoever...

 

I don't believe in belief nor am I much of a fan of Thich Nhat Hahn, though I did like his book "The Miracle of Mindfulness" - I thought it was a succinct and accessible introduction to the topic.

 

It's simply ironic to see you calling his writings atrocities after reading some of your previous posts.

 

Yes,..that would be ironic. Would have been wiser (relative wisdom) to present more evidence to back the claim. Oh,...but I've done that before on the subject.

 

Yes,...Christians and Christian enablers love the idea of their Jesus and Buddha being brothers,..as hagar noted, "both tried to convey the same understanding of reality." That idea is ridiculous for anyone with basic understanding of the two paths.

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17465265/A-Buddhist-Critique-of-Fundamentalist-Christianity

Edited December 13, 2011 by Vmarco

[JustARandomPanda]

What I do not understand is why disparage someone who is trying to reach out to people who might otherwise have no interest in learning about Buddhism or any other spiritual tradition? We all have to start somewhere.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh's books at least get people (who otherwise would have zero reason to) to discover or learn about Buddhism and seeing that it is worth investigating. When has it ever been wrong to try to build a bridge to others?

[Bubbles]

Hi Encephalon

 

Hope you are still interested in the becoming of this thread notwithstanding the fear/anger-based mental gesticulating of a particular folk here.

 

For a more in-depth look into this, you can read a book written by a christian monastic, Brian J. Pierce, OP : We walk the path together My link He went to Thich Nhat Hanh retreat center and practiced sometimes there. He later investigated the similarities and differences between Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart from metaphysical and practical standpoints. If you are interested, I recommend this book.

 

bubbles

Edited December 13, 2011 by bubbles

[Vmarco]

[rex]

This is pure speculation but Christian and Buddhist political propaganda notwithstanding faith in Christ and Buddha isn't necessarily an incompatibility. The kabbalistic concepts of the three Negative Veils of Existence , Ain, Ain Sof and Ain Sof Aur, bear some similarity to the Dzogchen concepts of Essence, Nature and Energy.

 

 

edited - for what's it worth - for clarity

Edited December 13, 2011 by rex

[Jetsun]

I've not read the book but it's not a very hard concept to reconcile, Jesus radiated Bodhicitta just like the Buddha so in that regard they are brothers

[Vmarco]

Edited December 13, 2011 by Vmarco

[Encephalon]

[Vmarco]

Obviously you are unaware of the historical record of Jesus, as well as the definition of a Bodhisattva.

 

Jesus was a Jew,...specifically of the Nazorite sect,...interestingly missing from the Dead Sea scrolls,...V

 

The primary mover for the release of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the grip of the cabal controlling them for so long was Robert Eisenman, Professor of Middle Eastern Religions and Director of the Institute for the Study of Judeo-Christian Origins at California State University, Long Beach, was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and is a visiting senior Fellow at Oxford University. His Ph.D. was from Columbia University and he was a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Studies.

 

In meticulous detail Robert Eisenman shows that The Righteous Teacher was James, The Wicked Priest was the High Priest Ananas and the Spouter of Lies was none other than Paul. This of course seen from the perspective of the writer of the sectarian scrolls at Qumran.

 

If The Righteous Teacher was James, and St. Paul was the liar, then who was Jesus in the sectarian documents. He must be there as a player at least as important as the others. However, the evidence shows that there is absolutely no mention of Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls because Jesus as a living historical figure, portrayed by the Gospels, did not exist.

[Jetsun]

"Jesus worked for the enslavement of sentient beings by indoctriating them to submit to the God of his religion."

 

What you call enslavement may well be liberation for some people depending on how you understand the teaching and the concept of God.

 

You seem very sure about many concepts historians and theologians have been debating for hundreds of years. But I am perfectly happy with my understanding of what a Bodhisattva is thank you and nothing you have said has changed my opinion that Jesus was a Bodhisattva. This is nothing to do with the Christian church rather I look at things more from the Fourth Way perspective, there are many teachings and paths which don't talk about emptiness and dependent orgination in the same direct way Buddhism does but that does not mean that it is not ever talked about in some way or another and it doesn't mean those paths lack compassion.

[Aetherous]

What you call enslavement may well be liberation for some people depending on how you understand the teaching and the concept of God.

 

There it is.

[Vmarco]