While I'm no longer a "full- fledged believer/ literalist believer" in the Bible, I do recognize that the Bible does have a few good words in there , within Psalms ,Proverbs or certain words of Jesus' teachings (minus the hell bits), though Proverbs sounds very close to ancient Chinese Proverbs for some reason, anyway, Does anyone else study, Hindu or Buddhist concepts? I have started really liking certain Buddhist teachers online, and watched a video about Hinduism which fully ,simply, & beautifully explains it all in 20 minutes, called 'Hinduism in a nutshell, by Gauri Maheswari, and my heart was stirred by its beauty. It certainly does present another way of how Life works(or the Divine works) ,rather than TBM way of thinking. And it is very cultural that we only think in KJV terms rather than the larger reality of what they teach. What do you guys think? Thanks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2019 10:21AM by spiritualitysbest.

I remember someone coming into our bar and saying, "I'm a Hindu."

My friend asked him if he believed in the caste system, and he looked confused.

"What about Untouchables?"

All *traditional* Hindu societies have some form of caste and exclusion.

In many forms of Hinduism, your social status and health is entirely down to how bad you were in your past lives. If you're poor, it's your fault. If you're disabled, you're not more valiant in the pre-existence, you're less valiant.

And if you help people who are poor or disabled in Hinduism, you are hindering them from losing their bad karma. So don't help them.

I prefer to see the good in every religion. I have been investigating Islam recently. Islamics are very misunderstood. Thanks to the posters here, I know that Islam helped created modern civilization and science.

I won't becoming a Muslim though because my lifestyle is not inline with them.

Ed O' Brien Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember someone coming into our bar and saying,
> "I'm a Hindu."
>
> My friend asked him if he believed in the caste
> system, and he looked confused.
>
> "What about Untouchables?"

You are ignoring the immense and lasting effects of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), a devotee of Ramakrishna (a Hindu "saint"), who came to the United States in the late nineteenth century to expose the Western world to Hindu thought--and became a popular, coast to coast, sensation at the time.

It is not necessary to "believe in" the caste system (which includes "untouchables") to be (religiously/spiritually/intellectually) a Hindu.

It is not even necessary to "believe in" the caste system to formally convert to Hinduism--which non-Hindus, including ordinary generic Americans, do indeed do. (I just checked with Google, and Hinduism is the fourth largest religious population in the United States--and although many of these American Hindus are immigrants to the U.S., many others are native-born and raised converts to Hinduism.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2019 01:55PM by Tevai.

Okay, but I don’t think American Hindus poop in the street.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Okay, but I don’t think American Hindus poop in
> the street.

Agreed, but American Hindus (virtually without exception, to my knowledge) have access to toilets, to clean running water, and to sanitary supplies such as toilet paper.

Indian Hindus, probably overwhelmingly in actual numbers, do not.

If YOU had no access to a toilet, or to anything which could be used as our concept of "toilet paper," or to clean water, or to what amounts to a hole in the ground....what would YOU do throughout YOUR daily, 24-hour-a-day, life?

Look around you.

I haven't looked into Buddhism and Hinduism much because aside from the chic dancers of bolywood I'm not aware of anything much the Indians have contributed to the West. There is so much poverty that they aren't attractive to my attention. To be honest I think America and Cowboy culture is the pinnacle of western culture and holds the answers. Europe and India looks to us for the way!

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I haven't looked into Buddhism and Hinduism much
> because aside from the chic dancers of bolywood
> I'm not aware of anything much the Indians have
> contributed to the West.

You've made what I think is an unconscious mental switch here: "Hindu" does not equal [sub-continent] "Indian." India and the surrounding Indian-influenced areas contain many different religions, of which Hinduism and Islam are the best known.

You also don't realize the continuing effects of Swami Vivekananda's travels throughout North American in the nineteenth century--which have been AMAZINGLY (and lastingly) influential on American (in particular) thought: in philosophy, in the sciences, in the arts (literature in particular), etc.

Much of what we consider American literature and American science was influenced enormously by Hindu (in particular: Hindu/Vedanta/Advaita) thought. (Aldous Huxley, etc.)

> I haven't looked into Buddhism and Hinduism much
> because aside from the chic dancers of bolywood
> I'm not aware of anything much the Indians have
> contributed to the West.

You are living proof that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Indian contributions to the West. . . We could start with the English language. The original Aryan peoples are most densely represented in northern India--hence the "Indo" in Indo-European--and Iran. English is a later derivative. Latin, Greek, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic: they are all descendants of the original language spoken by the people who established the Hindu civilization. If that Indian culture did not exist, you would not be speaking and writing English.

Or in the religions field, the word "Satan" is Sanskrit and the word "Christ" is a derivative through Greek of the Indo-European "Krishna," meaning God Incarnate. So if you pray in English and end your prayers with an invocation of Christ's name, you are paying homage to India almost as much as to Judaism.

The greater Indian contributions, however, are in logic, math and technology. The concept of "zero," integral as it is to all STEM work, is Indian. So too the concept of the decimal point, which you use whenever you buy your Fruit Loops; and the laws of signs in multiplication. The Indians also identified the Fibonacci series and developed the basics of algebra, much of modern trigonometry, and several forms of higher mathematics.

Perhaps the most significant Indian discovery in our context, however, is the quadratic equation. Yes, that bane of your existence; that formula which, as opposed to Manifest Destiny and white superiority and the grandeur of the West, you have explicitly described as a waste of students' time, is Indian. The problem that poses for you lies in the critical importance of algebra, trigonometry, and higher mathematics in creating Western civilization and power. Without Indian math and science, Europe and the Americas would still be in the dark ages.


--------------------
> To be
> honest I think America and Cowboy culture is the
> pinnacle of western culture and holds the answers.

That pretty much says it all. You think America is "the pinnacle of western culture' but fail to realize that from language to religion, from the plow and the spinning wheel to your very computer and telephone and TV, American power and culture stem from Indian science.

If you are going to denigrate Indian civilization, you should probably refrain from doing it in an Indo-European language on a computer and internet based on Indian mathematics.


------------------
> Europe and India looks to us for the way!

Rah rah! Hurray for our side!

Thanks for beating me to the punch on this - well said.

The Greek mathematicians were quite close to developing calculus. They were clearly nibbling around the edges, in attempts to find the value of pi by subdividing polygons into more and more sides until the polygon closely approximated a circle. The width of the polygon slices approached zero, which is the heart and soul of differential calculus.

Their problem was the concept of zero really bothered them. There was never "nothing" in Platonism - there was always at least a theoretical ideal. Zero was a heretical concept. Zeno's Paradox (to cross a room, you first have to cross half the room, and to do that you have to cross 1/4th of the room, and to do aha...ad infinitum, therefor motion is impossible) was a fundamental failure to know how to "take the limit as x approaches zero" (a phrase all calc students have had seared into their brains). The Greek mathematicians desperately needed the zero concept. They were banging at the door of calculus.

Probably just as well. Calculus had as its almost inevitable consequence the Industrial Revolution 200 years later. Just imagine that the nuclear age had occurred in the middle of what was the Dark Ages. It probably would not have ended well. It may not end well now.

Anyway, probably just as well the Greeks dragged their feet on adopting the zero from India.


A quibble - I think the Babylonians were first to record information about the quadratic equation nearly 4,000 years ago, though they are pretty close geographically to northern India. Or there could have been parallel discoveries. Happens all the time in math. Certain concepts are just "in the air". Newton and Leibniz went to their graves both convinced the other had stolen calculus from them. It now is pretty much certain that they came up with it independently. Once Europe adopted the zero and "arabic numerals" in the 1300s, calculus was going to happen. All the other blocks were in place.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2019 03:20PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Agreed on ideas being "in the air" given the level of science and technology in interconnected countries/groups.

If you are right about the first articulation of the quadratic equation ca 4,000 BCE, which I don't doubt, I would not describe that as an "in the air" phenomenon. The Indians seem to have come up with the idea millennia later.

Which leads to a different phenomenon. Just as similar (even identical) biological adaptations occur due to natural selection in isolated areas, so too do mathematical relationships arise spontaneously in different cultures when they reach a level of scientific understanding at which those relationships become important. To paraphrase Judic West, Viscount of Visby, "necessity is the mother of invention."

In the context of this thread, however, the point is moot. The maths from which Western--and American--power eventuated came not from white Celts and Germans but from swarthy Mesopotamians and/or Indians. If it were not for those peoples, modern Europeans would still be knocking coconut shells together as the king walks by.

And without the zero we may not have stumbled across the idea of Fruit Loops.

>You are living proof that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

He is also living proof of what a lack of education produces.

You have to admit that John Wayne made some great movies.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Indian contributions to the West. . . We could start with the English language. The original Aryan peoples are most densely represented in northern India--hence the "Indo" in Indo-European--and Iran.

Sorry, but the "Indo" merely indicates where the source language spread to, not their origin. Most linguists (I did my post-graduate work in Indoeuropean linguistics) believe that the source of the Indoeuropean languages was people who lived somewhere in eastern Europe or western Asia, quite far from India.


>... the word "Christ" is a derivative through Greek of the Indo-European "Krishna," meaning God Incarnate.

Sorry to disagree again, but "Christ" is from a completely different indoeuropean root from "Krishna." Christ is from the Greek word meaning "to anoint" from the IE root *ghrei- meaning "to rub." Krishna is from Sanskrit 'krsnah' which is from the IE root *kers- meaning "black, dark, dirty". Thus they are completely different. Neither one of them originally meant "God incarnate."

> Sorry, but the "Indo" merely indicates where the
> source language spread to, not their origin. Most
> linguists (I did my post-graduate work in
> Indoeuropean linguistics) believe that the source
> of the Indoeuropean languages was people who lived
> somewhere in eastern Europe or western Asia, quite
> far from India.
>

Richard, I did not say that the Indo-European languages came from India. what I said was that they were "most densely" concentrated in India and Iran. As you know, the words "India," "Iran," and "Aryan" designate the same people and derive from the same Indo-European root.

The standard view of the origins of that people (from Childe all the way through Mallory) is that they were located in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, most probably in the area just north and east of the Black Sea. The most credible alternative to that view is Colin Renfrew's intriguing proposal that the IE peoples originated in eastern Anatolia and then spread east and west with agriculture. But in either case, the fact remains that the earliest documented languages in the family are Iranian and Indian; and even today the largest concentration of IE speakers is in India.


-----------
> Sorry to disagree again, but "Christ" is from a
> completely different indoeuropean root from
> "Krishna." Christ is from the Greek word meaning
> "to anoint" from the IE root *ghrei- meaning "to
> rub." Krishna is from Sanskrit 'krsnah' which is
> from the IE root *kers- meaning "black, dark,
> dirty". Thus they are completely different.
> Neither one of them originally meant "God
> incarnate."

You are correct about both etymologies. But the fact is that by the time of the time of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, which after centuries of oral traditions were attested in the 6th century BCE, Krishna had become a god incarnate. Meanwhile, the word "christos" is attested as "anointed one" not in a generic sense but as the title of an incorporated deity in the Greek world (and, in adopted form as "krst," in Egypt) at roughly the same time. There are a number of prominent scholars (e.g., Gregory Nagy) who believe the titles krishna and christos either always had that shared nuance or that it developed, possibly through contact between the Greek and Sanskrit worlds, at an early date.

So yes, the words appear to have originated in different roots. But those roots were either related in some way subsequently lost to history or they later took on the meaning that I suggested. For by 500 BCE the term was being used in both India and the Greek world, and as a royal title in Egypt, in the same way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2019 12:06AM by Lot's Wife.

To Lot's Wife:

You should go back and read your post. You clearly said that we owe the English language to India:

"...Indian contributions to the West. . . We could start with the English language. "

India did NOT "contribute" the English language to the West.

You also seem to say that it is significant that there are more Indian speakers. Actually, there are probably more English speakers in the world (both as their first or second language) than speakers of Hindi.

You also said that Krishna and Christ are the same word:

"the word "Christ" is a derivative through Greek of the Indo-European "Krishna," meaning God Incarnate."

As I pointed out, that is also incorrect, both as to their derivation and to their original meanings.

Perhaps you should admit that your original post was incorrect in those two issues.

> You should go back and read your post. You clearly
> said that we owe the English language to India:
>
> "...Indian contributions to the West. . . We could
> start with the English language. "
>
> India did NOT "contribute" the English language to
> the West.

Seriously, Richard? You take my topic introduction and then jump to the narrower conclusion without paying attention to the intervening analysis? That's like quoting the Bible to the effect that "In the beginning was. . . the beast." It intentionally misses the point.

I could have been more precise, to be sure. I should have said that the peoples who formed the early Indo-European states in northern India and Iran, who introduced Indo-European languages into the subcontinent, would many centuries later also introduce Indo-European languages to Britain and that English would eventually evolve from the combination of those languages, Germanic, Latinate, and others. The Sanskrit languages are therefore much closer to the original proto-Indo-European than English.

To restate my original post, therefore, the people who created the dominant Indian culture, including its religion and its language, would later and more indirectly contribute to the birth of English. Without that people--and their legacy in India--English would not exist.


--------------
> You also seem to say that it is significant that
> there are more Indian speakers. Actually, there
> are probably more English speakers in the world
> (both as their first or second language) than
> speakers of Hindi.

There are about 320 million speakers of English as a first language in the world today. The speakers of Indo-European languages, as first languages, in the subcontinent number about 600 million. I'm therefore comfortable with my claim.


----------------
> You also said that Krishna and Christ are the same
> word:

> As I pointed out, that is also incorrect, both as
> to their derivation and to their original
> meanings.

Perhaps you should review the post to which you are replying. In it I wrote "you are correct about both etymologies." Why do you find that insufficient?


--------------
> Perhaps you should admit that your original post
> was incorrect in those two issues.

I already did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2019 01:55PM by Lot's Wife.

Thank you for clarifying that Richard. I was a bit confused by LW’s original post re the origins —-

Seriously? You spend a lot of time researching the origins of the Indo-European languages?

Perhaps you could explain for us what Renfrew thinks enabled the proto-Indo-Europeans to displace so many other elite groups from Ireland to Tocharia.

And what do genetics tell us about the dispute between Renfrew and Gimbutas?

Richard can you answer a question for me? As I understand it in gaelic the bh in my name creates the sound v the same way ph creates the f sound in phone. I also see bh in many sanskrit words. Any thoughts on the connection?

At least in the south there is an unfortunate connection with buddhism and unitarians. The vast majority of both I've met in the south got into some argument at a traditional christian and took an "I'll show YOU, God! I'll turn buddhist/unitarian/whatever" so local groups are top heavy with generally unhappy people.

The loser mormon who almost killed me was obsessed with hare krishna but never bothered to study it at all beyond forcing people to pay attention to him as he chanted louder than anyone else or inhaling/stealing 5+ servings of the free food offered.

siobhan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Richard can you answer a question for me? As I understand it in gaelic the bh in my name creates the sound v the same way ph creates the f sound in phone. I also see bh in many sanskrit words. Any thoughts on the connection?

I don't know much Gaelic, but it is of course an Indoeuropean language. The original language (called "Protoindoeuropean" or "PIE") generally had both aspirated and unaspirated consonants, both voiced and voiceless. "Aspirated" means there was a slight burst of air after the consonant, and "unaspirated" means no such burst of breath. In modern transliteration of PIE roots, the aspiration is indicated by a following 'h': 'po-" means no aspiration of the 'p' and 'pho-' means the 'p' was aspirated.

In the daughter languages the aspirated consonants often became fricatives: 'bh' > 'v', 'ph' > 'f'

That's interesting. So the "v" sound in Siobhan may well fit the pattern.

I wonder if the "bh" transforming into "v" is present in other Celtic languages as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2019 04:16PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's interesting. So the "v" sound in Siobhan may well fit the pattern.

Of course. Do a google search for "pronunciation of bh in celtic"

> I wonder if the "bh" transforming into "v" is present in other Celtic languages as well.

I don't know much about Celtic languages, although I once studied some Welsh. But I do know that the Celtic languages have some similarities to Latin in their sound changes. In Latin the 'bh' became 'f' (voiceless 'v')There are quite a few examples: IE *bhrater- became Latin 'frater' (English 'brother'); many others...

[This is getting WAY off topic!]

Do you know if that change occurs in the satem languages as well or just the centum ones?

spiritualitysbest Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone else study, Hindu or Buddhist concepts?

I am a nevermo. I was raised Hindu/Vedanta/Advaita, and (about age ten) chose to become a Jew (which I achieved after a few decades of trying to figure out HOW to do this; it is a whole lot easier now than it used to be). Although, earlier in my life, I went to a few Buddhist services in Little Tokyo (Los Angeles), my knowledge of Buddhism is very low.

> ....and watched a video about Hinduism which
> fully ,simply, & beautifully explains it all in 20
> minutes, called 'Hinduism in a nutshell, by Gauri
> Maheswari, and my heart was stirred by its beauty.

There is a difference between knowing and understanding a particular religion and its philosophy, and--on the other hand--the practical application of that religion/philosophy in real life.

I think I know exactly what you are talking about here, and what you are observing in Hinduism is real. My "quarrel" with Hinduism is not with the belief system (which contains an amazing, constantly unfolding, series of important insights), but the application/effect of that belief system on the interconnected lives of all of us who live on this planet.

For all of the wisdom in its fundamental beliefs, Hinduism is entirely posited on the individual--with a simultaneous complete disregard for anyone's "neighbor," or fellow countryman, or fellow human being, or fellow living creature, or the planet as a whole. The corollary of this is that individual Hindus (or those who believe Hindu philosophy) can literally walk through a street of starving and homeless children and adults, and not even "see" them (except to make sure they do not dirty their shoes)--because, in Hindu belief, those who are suffering are merely living out their karma, and it is not YOUR business to interfere in any way in THEIR lives.

Although this has always bothered me (since I was three or four years old, when I first began going to our then-"local" Hindu temple), I grew increasingly uncomfortable with this as I became an adult, and then as I lived my adult life.

Everything in Hinduism is focused on "me, me, me" and "mine, mine, mine"--to the exclusion of everyone else (includes non-human animals) who is not of some useful value to you.

At the same time, however, there is that "center" of Hindu beliefs which is actually more-or-less also apparent in the "center" of Jewish beliefs. At a high spiritual level, Hinduism and Judaism philosophies/beliefs appear to merge (and there may be solid historical reasons for this, based on a passage in the Jewish Bible/"Old Testament").

Below that high intellectual/spiritual level, however, Jews live their everyday lives constantly trying to improve the world and the lives of everyone in it ("repairing the world" is considered to be the fundamental reason why Jews exist)....while Hindus constantly work to elevate their individual selves into an ultimate goal of understanding and being--all the while, simultaneously, feeling (taking for granted, actually) that everyone else can, in effect, hang.

There is a plenitude of valuable, and constantly unfolding (as a person's abilities to understand expand), wisdom available in Hinduism--but I cannot tolerate the fundamental indifference to others upon which Hindu life and philosophy is built.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2019 02:03PM by Tevai.

It could be a law of nature that every religion has a shadow side. You don’t get to have pure goodness, you have to choose. Mormonism isn’t all bad, it’s just not worth it.

”Everything in Hinduism is focused on "me, me, me" and "mine, mine, mine"--to the exclusion of everyone else (includes non-human animals) who is not of some useful value to you.“

Tell that to the cows

I don't have Tevai's thorough knowledge about Hinduism. I attended some festivities of Durga Puja at a temple in our city, I thought they were beautiful. The Hindu population there went out of their way to be welcoming and answer questions, share the origins and purposes of what was going on. They had a few food trucks come in and so I ate well, too.

There is something about overt worship I find I can't connect with. Things like placing offerings, pouring libations to a statue, or making other visible signs of veneration make me feel like I'm playing dress up. The Morg temple, btw, is so incredibly cheesy compared to even placing a flower in front of a statue of a many armed goddess riding a tiger. Pay lay ale? What a joke when you can watch a demon effigy burn. Even so, I didn't feel drawn to it. All that external stuff felt like acting to me. I didn't go home expecting life to be easier or feel acknowledged or blessed by Durga, or that I'd propitiated a divine requirement in anyway.

I studied Buddhism quite intently for several years with two different teachers in two different schools of Buddhism, Tibetan and Zen. I found it far more to my liking and introverted, self-exploring style. I don't have too many problems with Buddhism as an individual practice, but like everything we humans do, put a whole bunch of Buddhists together and you have the same problems, mainly a bunch of quibbles about best practice, the one right way to do this or that, who's going to be in charge versus who gets to mop the zendo.

There are two things that really bugged me about participating in a Buddhist community. One was that there is considerable guru power invested in the teacher. There is an idea of "dharma transmission" and a lot of emphasis on what long lineage of teachers the new teacher has come from. I used to think dharma transmission meant the concept of safeguarding the teachings and the community from exploitation by manipulative leaders, and that it essentially meant they had to teach without adding their own personal interpretation and flavor so the student gets to hear the best version of the original teachings.

That's not really the case. Dharma transmission means, to a lot of Buddhists, some kind of literally magical transference of Buddha nature, and once a person is so anointed, the teacher is to be revered and obeyed as if they are Buddha, or at least a saint. So there's a hierarchy and all the stupid head games that go with hierarchy, including butt kissing, favoritism and the guru feeling free to canoodle with the newbies. You can forget about preservation of original teachings, too. Every teacher puts their spin on the nature of enlightenment and there's a notion they should mix their own recipe to create a spontaneous awakening in the students. The authority goes to their head and the next thing you know the teacher is whacking your shoulder with a bamboo stick growling, "What occurs? Who watches?"

The answer to that DIY "koan" is glaring at the teacher and saying, "Seriously, Ed? I'm breathing here," and then never going back to that zendo. I guess. That's what worked for me.

There is a lot of misogyny hiding in Buddhism, which I suppose is to be expected in any ancient tradition, I was just very surprised how much of it lurks inside even very westernized Buddhists. I found the Tibetans a bit more egalitarian than the Zen group I was in, but then I mainly studied with a group of nuns, and even they had this whole submissive fangirl thing going about the local Rinpoche.

The other issue with being Buddhist was, in the places I went, I kept being invited to join and take certain precepts, like vegetarianism. I kept getting prodded to participate in whatever political agenda was going on and just essentially mold myself into the groupthink. I couldn't just be "me", literally in any new faith group I tried. My problem isn't with the core of Buddhist thought, which is the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. My problem is all the trappings that came with Buddhism, including Buddhists.

”The answer to that DIY "koan" is glaring at the teacher and saying, "Seriously, Ed? I'm breathing here," and then never going back to that zendo. I guess. That's what worked for me.”

This is best - I’m laughing my ass off and trying out how I can use it - and I will find a way. It’s too damn good!

ptbarnum Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are two things that really bugged me about
> participating in a Buddhist community. One was
> that there is considerable guru power invested in
> the teacher. There is an idea of "dharma
> transmission" and a lot of emphasis on what long
> lineage of teachers the new teacher has come from.

This sounds just the same as a Mormon "Line of Authority".

I think our authority comes directly from the universe, not from our family.

Right? The more I looked at the situation, the more I realized the "lineages" thing was just different groups taking potshots at each other because they viewed this American Buddhist opportunity as a proprietary and competitive commodity. Someone in the thread mentioned "California style" dharma and that is totally what I ran into, They emphasized this whole woo woo notion of having to be mystically zapped by the master just to put a bit more oomph in the authority perception.

A teacher is a good teacher even if they haven't done a full Kwai-chang Kane down someone's rice paper and nobody owns the 4 Truths. For a philosophy that emphasizes ridding oneself of clingy ego, there's a lot of "California" Me-ism floating around, at least where I live.

Someone else said, read the texts, it's more about thought than practice. Both Hinduism and Buddhism are old, old, old. Many minds have contributed and there's great aesthetic and emotional beauty in them. Jainism, too. And the Abrahamic traditions also have their uplifting and beautiful ideas and rituals.

The character Rorschach, in the Watchmen movie, says, "God doesn't make the world a bad place, we do."

In my journey through world religions, I found that to be abundantly observable. "God" doesn't ruin religion, we do. My advice to those who still believe in God and want to follow any system: fly solo.

Those two points--California Buddhism and the merit of the original documents--were both mine. Your experience confirms what I've seen. The American versions of the faith are bizarre. They are amalgamations of some good ideas and practices with "me first" values and New Age absurdities.

Another such cult was Erhard Seminars Training (EST). They did the standard breakdown of individual confidence followed by scientology-style indoctrination. Amusingly the practitioners of EST were often called est-holes.

Anyway, a friend and I often laugh about her sister, who is an adherent of California-style Buddhism. We know few more selfish and narrow people. . .

When I first arrived in SoCal I happened to by chance make friends with a group who all practiced Buddhism. I was fascinated and wanted to know more. I chanted with them and went to their gatherings etc. What I found was what ptbarnum said, " . . . but like everything we humans do, put a whole bunch of Buddhists together and you have the same problems . . ." like any other religion.

There was one meeting that was nothing short of a Mormon style testimony meeting. This is true: One woman stood and said they were broke, chanted to know what to do, and decided to just pay for groceries with a check that would, of course, bounce. When they got home they found the check in the grocery bag and this was to them proof that chanting worked. The room was in awe. I also asked why we had to chant in Japanese and was told that is the language of the universe. Huh?

Well that was it for me.

Years later I looked into Buddhism again and found more of the core of what it really is. What I liked best was the emphasis on cause and effect. We are participating in a world of constant change and every action begets a reaction. Quite the opposite of the concept of sin and forgiveness or punishment. Seems to be much more emphasis on bringing the good out of yourself as part of whole rather than striving to outdo the rest of the world and end up in the CK thumbing your nose.

In the end Buddhism seems to be all over the place in teachings and interpretations. Sound familiar?

Done&Done, did they also want to inspect your house so they could put in an altar? I tried a Nichiren chanting group for a few weeks. I'd barely gotten people's names memorized before they were after me to come over to make sure my house was pure so I could have my own scroll. I stopped showing up...it pressed my Morg button.

Yup. Made it clear if I really wanted in I needed the altar with some evergreen on it. I was only curious and like you, everything they did started to press the Mormon buttons.

They were always nice though and we all stayed friends since we worked together. I wonder if they are still doing it decades later.

I love Buddhism and the related schools of thought, including early Hinduism which was much closer to Buddhism in its early centuries than it is today. But I say that with two major caveats.

First, there is a difference between praxis and theory. True Buddhism (and Taoism) is solitary practice: doctrine is almost irrelevant. On that level it is a great system of thought, devoid of a God and of definite beliefs and rules. You can take the meditation and do with it what you want. The faith is thus the opposite of what I call "the California school of Buddhism," which is largely a social phenomenon with all the group consciousness and small-mindedness that entails.

Second, the purest guides to Buddhist thinking are not gurus or groups but rather the original documents. As is true of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even Christianity, you can learn more from the foundational tracts than from the religion's adherents.

To paraphrase a statement attributed to an old man in a diaper, "I like your religions but I don't like your religious."

I love the not-exactly-mainstream idea that reincarnation can be understood as a daily phenomenon: You wake up and have the opportunity to change, to be a better person, than you were the day before.

Aside: Thanks for discussing maths and the introduction of zero.

Time to feed The Kitty Saṃsāra. ;)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2019 09:45PM by Beth.

Don't forget the ducks, Dharma and Karma!

Never!

The Puppy Joy is keeping an eye on them for now. The Kitty Ventress is swinging her light saber.

The Kitty Saṃsāra is horking, even as I type.

I do not see myself as a buddhist or hindu but do agree with many philosophical positions of svetambara jainism. However as an atheist, I don’t accept any of the supernatural aspects of the religion. Do not accept belief in tirthankaras or the need or goal to become enlightened and achieve moksha.
However I do believe in aspiring to renounce most attachments stopping short of renouncing attachment to other humans as I think that’s inherently necessary for a happy life. I also see nothing wrong with keeping my hair but I understand the jain problem with it.
Mostly the appeal to me is that of respecting all life forms. I do not believe that human life has any greater inherent value than any other life form. If pushed to take a position I’d argue human life is actually of less value (to the health of the planet) than most other life forms. My guess is that jains aren’t as concerned about the planet as they are about guaranteeing all have access to achieving enlightenment.
In practice, I’m a vegan. A far cry from the way jain monks of India live. I do kill cockroaches and mosquitoes. I take no joy in doing so.

I do see, and respect, and interconnectedness of lifeforms--although I do kill cockroaches.

I am not vegan, but my personal "vegetarianism" includes some nutritional supplements which are made from meat by-products, I do take fish oil capsules, and I do eat/drink dairy products.

If I take a longer view backwards, I can see that I am constantly, slowly, evolving--but I am not always conscious of this as it is happening (whether "it" concerns diet, or behavior). Mostly, I shoo unwanted flying insects outside, and along the way I (unconsciously) evidently stopped eating eggs awhile back. (I had been having uncomfortable feelings about eggs for years, because of what happens during the larger manufacturing process--and I used to know someone who worked in a chicken processing plant to pay her way through college, and I learned a lot from her that I never wanted to know.)

It is really relaxed around here, though. Paul is most definitely NOT vegetarian! (There are usually several kinds of pork and/or sausage in the refrigerator, plus Chinese and/or Thai, chicken-containing, food in the freezer.)

We each fix our own food, and we wash all of our dishes together (which means: I definitely do NOT keep kosher when it comes to dishes, pots and pans, utensils, and silverware).

I may eat kind of kosher, but I have one of the most treif ("non-kosher") kitchens around!

Never a fan of eggs. No sacrifice to give those up.

We are all on our own paths.

Theism is false.

That’s true if you believe it.

Hinduism / Buddhism is of no interest to me. But enjoy it if you like it.

The true Buddhist speaks. Very well done.

I found value in learning about the eastern religions and philosophies back in my university days. Part of the value was in learning that people around the world had vastly different solutions to the age-old questions of humanity. There are plenty of people who do just fine without accepting Jesus as their savior or even without a god.

Taoism is particular spoke to me. I like how the Taoists take their cues from nature (of which we are a part,) and embrace nature's imperfections. Growing up in Catholicism, which places a huge emphasis on maintaining a spotless soul, this was like a balm to me.

I have been a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for nearly 15 years.

I practice to understand my mind and emotions and to tame them. I have discovered this is possible by my experiences.

To tame one's mind and not let anger,frustration, fear, etc. influence my life and actions has lead to peace, joy, wisdom and freedom from ego. My success depends upon how much I really want it and how much effort I put into my own well-being.

Everything is from the mind - my feelings, my opinions, how I deal with people and situations. If I choose to follow emotions and fear I'm a hot mess. When I don't I can see things clearly and act from that.

However, it's as I said, the more I invest in taming the mind the more I'm unmoved by emotion, people or events. Compassion emerges and you feel as if you are the 'other' person and love them without condition - because you see them as yourself

There are two aspects of Vedic/Hindu/Buddist/Jainist thinking that I think are really cool. One is the depth of the thought and its relationship to early Avesta religion. The worldview is fascinating.

The other attractive aspect is what you describe. Buddhist practice can largely be separated from formal doctrine and distilled into meditation and self-control. There is plenty of evidence for how helpful that is in terms of mental health, sleep quality, blood pressure, etc.

Empirically valuable practices devoid of mandatory doctrinal and hierarchical commitment: that's a respectable "religion."

+1

Even though the particular group I studied Buddhism with ended up being close to Mormonism in execution, I do still like exploring the basis of the Eastern Religions and find they lead to more inner growth and introspection when one avoids any mandatory structure.

There is food for thought, something worthwhile to contemplate, which contrasts to the emptiness of Mormonism and Christianity which are based on the same cocktail of Obedience/Reward/Punishment with an emphasis on Religious Faith aka Believing the Unbelievable. (Unlike faith in oneself.)

If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.

Be sure to go for the head because if he's up and walking around that's a zombie, is what that is. :-)

Do zombies have souls?

Does a dog have Buddha nature? Woof.
Does a zombie have a soul? Brraaiinnsss.

What is the sound of a zombie barking?