God and Zen

[Risho]

Re: God and Zen

Only God can/would know if God exists or not. The rest of us.....we can only theorize!

Good point. I forgot where I heard this, but our concept of God(s) change with our economy and agriculture. In other words, the way we view God (even if we believe or don't believe) is usually driven by cultural undertones that we may or may not even be aware of. But to know whether or not someone exists; that's just not provable. But I wonder if it even matters. To me beliefs matter more in how they affect how one lives one's life. But then again, that's a belief to. I mean what is not belief?

Now that I'm more confused than ever, I concur with Taigu sensei

Gassho,

Risho

[Amelia]

Re: God and Zen

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving.
But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that it is the boat that moves. -- Dogen

I thought it was the mind that is moving! :wink:

GOD is DOG spelled backwards

Does God have a Buddha nature? :P

come back to the cushion!

_/_

[alan.r]

Re: God and Zen

Thinking keeps one awash in concepts.

hHmmm, saying that a thread about God is awash in concepts is like walking into a forest and saying it is full of trees. What's wrong with the trees again?

The concepts aren't problematic. Our clinging to them, believing them, is.

To Taigu and his poem, thank you, thank you.

My little, silly, humble addition:

wanting Truth
creates
God-thought

dropping Buddha
is never possible
from the start

much better,
the lie of Enlightenment

Here
Now

never off
the cushion


Deep bow

alan

[will]

Re: God and Zen

I believe god or no god, people still smile, leaves still fall, and the world still turns (in the metaphorical sense). Knowing that there is a god doesn't help with back aches or enjoying things as they are. If we say "this is god, then we are still looking at the finger pointing at the moon. All god, no god. God does not clean my room, and if he does, then he's doing a pretty crappy job of it lately. God does not prevent my bones from aging, nor my breathe from moving in and out. Zen is more about enjoying things as they are, whether there is a god involved or not. I would think it's more relevant to enjoy the movement of a snowflake "now", as apposed to the origins of the universe "then".

Gassho

W

[ghop]

Re: God and Zen

No one can answer these questions for you.

I don’t sit for God or Buddha or myself or you.

When I pray, (bear with me, I'm Christian...I really am, just don't check my report card :twisted: ) I can tell the difference between when I'm treating God like some big Santa Claus in the sky and when I'm really inspired by the Holy Spirit to pray for others, etc. When I sit zazen, I can tell the difference between those times I use effort in my sitting by trying to "get enlightenment" and when zazen is actually sitting me. To sit zazen is to enter a stream that has been flowing forever. We don't actually sit zazen. We just enter that stream and merge with it. Same with prayer. So, whether you believe in God or don't believe in God, you are here. You are real. You are living the reality of who you are moment by moment, whether you worship God or Buddha or a carved stone. By it's very nature, a tree worships God by being a tree. By being what God meant it to be it is obeying him. It consents to his creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God. It imitates God by being a tree. So do yo and I. We should just be the best human being we can be. Don't worry so much about all those thoughts about this stuff. That's not important. Just sit. Just stand. Just walk. Just love. If you feel led to believe or disbelieve in anything, just do it with all your heart. Become that. Don't separate yourself from it with too much thinking. Be who you are. That way, even if you don't believe in God, in a way you are affirming him. You are imitating God by being the best human being you can be. I don't think Buddha would argue with such a definition. Actually, he'd probably just hold up a flower and smile.

gassho
Greg

[Jundo]

Re: God and Zen

Oh, Bro. Taigu says (and non-says) it better than I ever could! Amen!

Buddha-thought
God-thought
are not true


Buddha without Buddha
God without God
a good start

neither God nor Buddha
much better

This
Suchness

nothing more
needed



gassho



T.

Also, so many other Wise words in this thread. Thank you.

I will just drop this in, what I usually say on the topic ...

If there is a Jesus, Allah, Jehovah or Amida Buddha in his Pure Land, Thor or something else completely beyond our ken ... fetch water and chop wood, try to live avoiding doing harm.

And if there is no Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, no Amida Buddha or Pure Land, Thor or no anything else ... fetch water and chop wood, try to live avoiding doing harm.

In Shikantaza, we sit with-and-as what is, whatever is. If there is a Jesus, Pure Land etc., we sit with/as that. If there is no Jesus, Pure Land etc., we sit with/as that.

Gassho, J

PS - One comment on the Neil de Grasse Tyson video, though. Maybe I should not, but it is a topic of personal interest. The inside of my oven or of the sun are also so hot that they would kill a human being in a moment ... yet the one cooks my dinner, and the other is necessary to all our lives. My car is also imperfect, sometimes breaks down, burns gas inefficiently, gets into crashes from time to time, eventually rusts and needs to be replaced ... but what a wonderful design of genius that (for all its faults) usually gets us where we're going! 8)

So, I do not think the case quite so closed, or the universe as hostile to life as Neil says. In fact, every indication to the contrary. Neil de Grasse Tyson is, after all, the fellow who also had this to say in another talk ...

[youtube]

[/youtube]

[Omoi Otoshi]

God and Zen

To me, it doesn't matter if you call it your face before your mother was born, buddha nature, true nature or God. Even Suchness can be turned into a concept, a refuge, an idol to worship. If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet God, kill that conceptual idea you have created about God. There is no refuge, no truth. Sometimes we feel the need to share our experiences and we try to communicate them with words. But the words are not the same as the experience. If two people say they experienced God, they may have had very similar experiences, but they could also mean completely different things. We can say things like true nature is emptiness, the impermanent nature of all dharmas, and sort of understand that intellectually and/or intuitively. But before emptiness is directly experienced, it's just words. When emptiness is directly experienced, it may not feel so empty at all.

We are all familiar with the three poisons. Greed is when we desire something we don't have. When we grasp for meaning, for truth, for refuge, for something eternal and stable in an everchanging world, we may grasp for God. But there is also the poison of hatred, which can be understood as aversion. Refusing to accept what we do have, what is there. Denying God can easily become an expression of hatred/aversion. Last, there is ignorance. Not seeing reality, true nature. When the poisons drop away, what remains? Nothing? Is Nirvana nothing? Is Suchness nothing? I wouldn't mind if someone called it God.

Gassho,
Pontus

[Shokai]

Re: God and Zen

Listen, friend!
My beloved Master lives inside.
-Kabir
The following is an excerpt from the work of Peter Russell ( http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/Ch9A.php ):

We live in an era dominated by science and reason. For new ideas to be accepted, they need to satisfy our rational mind and be testable. It is not enough that they should resonate with our intuition; they must also make sense within the contemporary worldview.

For several hundred years our dominant worldview has been based on the assumption that the real world is the world of space, time and matter. This materialistic model has successfully accounted for most worldly phenomena and explained many mysteries–so well that it often appears to have ruled out the existence of God. The Universe seems to work perfectly well without divine assistance.

Thirty years ago I had sympathy for such arguments. Today, I realize that the notion of God that science–and I–rejected was naive and old-fashioned. If we want to find God we have to look within, into deep mind–a realm that Western science has yet to explore. I believe that when we delve as fully into the nature of mind as we have into the nature of space, time, and matter, we will find consciousness to be the long-awaited bridge between science and spirit. In expanding our worldview to include consciousness as fundamental to the cosmos, this new model of reality not only accounts for the anomaly of consciousness; it also re validates the spiritual wisdom of the ages in contemporary terms.

If this new worldview becomes a personal experience–a shift in the way we perceive reality rather than just a new understanding of reality–our world would change in ways that we can hardly imagine. Five hundred years ago, Copernicus could not have foreseen the full impact of his new model of the universe. Today, we can have little appreciation of how the world might be when generations have been brought up knowing that consciousness is primary, and that each and every one of us is holy. When we realize the errors in our thinking, let go of our attachments, transcend our limited sense of self, and discover the true nature of our being, then darkness gives way to light. We find the salvation we’ve been seeking, and our hearts are at peace.

[Run_CMD]

Re: God and Zen

Listen, friend!
My beloved Master lives inside.
-Kabir

....If we want to find God we have to look within....

If you search for God, you will find yourself.
If you search for yourself, you will find God

[JohnsonCM]

Re: God and Zen

But there is also the poison of hatred, which can be understood as aversion. Refusing to accept what we do have, what is there. Denying God can easily become an expression of hatred/aversion. Last, there is ignorance. Not seeing reality, true nature. When the poisons drop away, what remains? Nothing? Is Nirvana nothing? Is Suchness nothing? I wouldn't mind if someone called it God.

If there is a Jesus, Allah, Jehovah or Amida Buddha in his Pure Land, Thor or something else completely beyond our ken ... fetch water and chop wood, try to live avoiding doing harm.

And if there is no Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, no Amida Buddha or Pure Land, Thor or no anything else ... fetch water and chop wood, try to live avoiding doing harm.

True wisdom. Gassho, gassho, gassho.

Whether God exists as a concept, a corporeal being sitting on a lotus throne in space, a vision of a serene mountain lake, or a flying spaghetti monster (Thanks Hans, I forgot about that.... :mrgreen: ). Don't deny. Don't assume, don't believe because it's what you were taught, or what your priest says, don't disbelieve because what the priest said didn't jive with your concept of "correct" or "incorrect", "right" or "wrong".

What I wanted to say by all of this is that, I have seen and heard in our Way the denial of God's existance in many different ways, and what Pontus said is deeply true. The denial of the existance of a God is just as much a "concept", or discrimination as the blind acceptance of the existance of God. Our grasping at one concept or the other is equally dangerous. Bodhidharma once told an emperor "don't know" when asked who was standing before him. And that, I feel is the best of answers. He didn't say, "Bodhidharma, you bloody dolt!" nor did he say, "well, certainly NOT Bodhidharma". He answered in a way that said, "Just a guy, who is well known by himself, and certainly by you, while at the same time, totally unknowable because there is no concrete "me" and there is no static "you". Given that, how can either of us know?"

Is there a God.....don't know. As Jundo said, fetch water, chop wood, avoid doing harm.

[disastermouse]

Re: God and Zen

Thinking keeps one awash in concepts.

Not thinking keeps one awash in avoidable problems.

[Myozan Kodo]

Re: God and Zen

Eyes look.
Tongues taste.
Ears listen.
Anuses deficate.
Noses smell.
Brains think.

[Rich]

Re: God and Zen

To get closer to God, just sit.
To drop all ideas and concepts of God, just sit.

[Daijo]

Re: God and Zen

The Big Bang, and manifestation of the earth, life, etc. has little to do with "chance", IMO. All things are subject to the same laws of conditions. Exactly what those conditions are, who, what, where, when, how, are limitless and beyond comprehension. To over analyze any event with such questions is a distraction from the truth.

We are here. That's enough, because if we're not careful, we will miss it. Let's not waste any of today on yesterday.

[Jinyo]

Re: God and Zen

Shokai wrote

Listen, friend!
My beloved Master lives inside.
-Kabir
The following is an excerpt from the work of Peter Russell ( http://www.peterrussell.com/SG/Ch9A.php ):

Yes - it involves conceptual thought - but Peter Russell's work on the new paradigm ('Consciousness is more fundamental than space,time and matter') is compelling.

Thanks Shokai - I watched Peter Russel's lecture on video.google a few days ago and have been chewing it over ever since - it just seemed to click with something within me.

Gassho

Willow