The Zen Version of God

[Kyousui]

Domyo Burk,in her podcast, It-with-a-Capital-I: The Zen Version of God at http://zenstudiespodcast.com/zen-god/, really resonated with my thinking as I know that there is a Higher Power (each person defines it for themselves) and she explained in much better than I can ( actually care to, as my belief isn't predicated on agreement by anyone else). Any other opinions? Also, there are probably other threads of a similar nature on Treeleaf so references to them might be good as Treeleaf is large enough that searching is somewhat intimidating.

[Jundo]

I might say that is all we reflect on around here, whatever names or images we choose to use or not use or pick up or leave behind.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Amelia]

When I first started practicing I really needed to solidify how God would fit into all of this, mostly because I was really attached to the idea of God from my upbringing and afraid to abandon it. Now, I don't think of it at all. If there is a God, it seems inconsequential to my practice of being a good person. If there is a God, it is just Tao, just there, and doesn't really need my thought, prayer, or praise. I could be wrong.

Gassho, sat today

[Jundo]

Being of Jewish background, I was once asked by my friend, a Rabbi, if there was "God" in Zen.

I said that, in my understanding, "Y-hw-h" or "Jehovah" means that which is too sacred to be spoken in name or words (that is why they leave out the vowels when some Jews feel they must say something), that is maybe "am what I am" ... that we Zen folks also try to avoid names or images of some ultimate because they limit things ...

I said that we feel that we came from such source of all things (and feel gratitude to whatever let us be alive), return to such, and are such source in some way we feel in the bones ... yet avoid names and images as not needed.

I said it is most important in our Way to recognize that this life is sacred and precious ... not distant or apart from the sacred to wise eyes. Only our own ugliness, anger, greed, jealousy and the like hides that from us. (I said that I would let theologians argue over the fine points of whether "God" is or is not, is in the world or far away).

I said that, in Zen, we try to live as gentle and good people ... not killing, not stealing, not getting angry as best we can. I said that, if there is a God, I am imagine that would please her and seems more or less in line with those Tablets.

I said that this world is beautiful, but also seems broken and we have an obligation to fix what we can and help sentient beings, much like the Jewish obligation of "Tikkun Olan".

Tikkun Olam. A jewish concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world. The phrase is found in the Mishnah, a body of classical rabbinic teachings.

My friend the Rabbi said it all sounds very Jewish! (She also said that may be the reason so many Jews have wandered into Zen in the West).

A funny thing is that my Catholic Priest buddy and my evangelical Christian friend said it all sounded very Christian! (Granted, they and the Rabbi were all rather liberal types, and sure, maybe the latter two were not so happy that I did not stick "Jesus" in there).

I once had a similar conversation with my other friend, a physicist and atheist who believes strongly in science and a humanistic view of morality and ethics who (apart from names like "Jehovah") did not have much problem with most of the rest of the above at all, and he also felt as a mathematician something harmonious and sacred about this world that is hard to see and which we are.

So, I guess I have all my bases covered!

Me, I am pretty agnostic and skeptical (as many of you know by now) on the wilder and more fantastical and miraculous aspects of religions, including in Buddhism. I don't think it likely that Moses (if there was a historical "Moses") literally parted the Red Sea, that Jesus (if there was a "Jesus") turned loaves into fishes or walked on water, I don't think it likely that Buddha (if there was a historical "Buddha") was literally born as a walking talking baby, or that Bodhidharma (if there was a historical "Bodhidharma") died then rose from the grave to return to India carrying one shoe (passing Jesus on the way? ) No, I don't take literally the image on the Sistine Chapel of some God with a white beard making Adam. I am happy to see them all as parables, myths, wise stories that try to express something or give some feel of wonder.



But I believe that this world is sacred ... that there is an aspect hard for out divided eyes to see that sweeps in you and me and all separations, friend and foe, win and lose, time, birth and death. I sit and am very still in and as all the noise and turmoil of life. I just try to live gently and fix what I can of this world.

That is enough for me.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Myogan]

IMO, belief is a doorway one person wide that only you have the key and it automatically locks behind you.
Buddhanature versus the Holy Spirit.
Precepts versus Commandments.
George Burns versus Alanis Morissette.

I could sit and write about my perceptions of "that which is greater than myself " and would never stop writing. Yet no good would come of it (unless someone would find my writings 500 years from now and start praying to the prophets Jay and Silent Bob)

Zen is perhaps the ultimate expression of the Navy term KISS, Keep It Simple S*****. But it doesn't stop one from forming mental and spiritual constructs amenable to the practice. just do no harm to yourself or others.

Gassho
Sat

[RichardH]

I believe that the Way devised by the Buddha, was very much in repsonse to the pitfalls of the cataphratic way. He was a sramana among sramanas, people who were working through very subtle problems of mind, encountered in deep silence. The Buddha's key contribution, I believe, was an understanding of mental grasping and delusion, and this is why he cut a path based on seeing and knowing dukkha and the ceasing of dukkha, passing directly through the most sutble forms of dukkha like a plumb-line. He would speak of the Unconditioned, uncompounded, and so forth, but mainly described the "goal" as the ending of dukkha, and maintained a "noble silence" when questioned by Brahmans about Atman-Brahman, and the (beautiful) ideas of the divine found in the Upanishads. This avoided the dangers of attachment to subtle mental forms, and absolutism. Absolutism is the issue. Although human beings can lock-down on any view and take an absolutist position, attachment to ideas of the Absolute are uniquely dangerous. To put it in a nutshell...we attach to views, but attached to views of the absolute absolutely. This appears to be born out by events in the world since, and in this sense the Buddha was prescient.

Personally I love the beautiful forms of Religion, Theosophy and Hermeticism, Kabbalah, the mapping of the cosmos from within, and all the wonderful concepts of God Manifest and God Unmanifest.. However, as a priest in training, I doubt these ideas are of benefit. They are not right or wrong, I just question their benefit.

The following old Sutta speaks to this....

"The Blessed One was once living at Kosambi in a wood of simsapa trees. He picked up a few leaves in his hand, and he asked the bhikkhus, ‘How do you conceive this, bhikkhus, which is more, the few leaves that I have picked up in my hand or those on the trees in the wood?

‘The leaves that the Blessed One has picked up in his hand are few, Lord; those in the wood are far more.’

‘So too, bhikkhus, the things that I have known by direct knowledge are more; the things that I have told you are only a few. Why have I not told them? Because they bring no benefit, no advancement in the Holy Life, and because they do not lead to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. That is why I have not told them. And what have I told you? This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. That is what I have told you. Why have I told it? Because it brings benefit, and advancement in the Holy Life, and because it leads to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. So bhikkhus, let your task be this: This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’

[Samyutta Nikaya, LVI, 31]


As Buddhism evolved, positive pointing came forward, especially in Zen. We are all familiar with Zen people talking about True Nature, and Mind, (though I am not clear on the canonical sources of all these terms). As well there are many conceptions of cosmic Buddhahood that differ little from other ideas of divinity. I used to feel that this was a re-injection of Brahmanisn into Buddhism, and resisted it, not from some kind of purist position, but because of fear based on my own struggles, and the dangers of absolutism. Now there is no fear, and I can embrace all of it, appreciate all of it. Yet I still feel Zen Buddhism can have a uniquely helpful place in the world today, because of the non-theistic skillful means pioneered by the Buddha.

Gassho
Daizan

Sat today

[Rich]

Everything under the heavens and on the Earth is an expression of God, Buddha nature, Tao, universal conscious ness, higher power ......

SAT today

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Joyo]

Life just is as it is, all sacred. As Rich said, everything under the heavens. As Jundo said, all of life is sacred. Y-wh-h, too sacred to be spoken of, or try to figure out, that resonates with me.

As Geika mentioned, I also used to grasp for some sort of answer to this whole god thing. I'd rather have my mind filled with awe and wonder, than pretending that I know all the answers and have it all figured out. (lived that way for many years, never brought a day of peace to my life)

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

[Jundo]

Life just is as it is, all sacred. As Rich said, everything under the heavens. As Jundo said, all of life is sacred. Y-wh-h, too sacred to be spoken of, or try to figure out, that resonates with me.

As Geika mentioned, I also used to grasp for some sort of answer to this whole god thing. I'd rather have my mind filled with awe and wonder, than pretending that I know all the answers and have it all figured out. (lived that way for many years, never brought a day of peace to my life)

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

Here is another Zenny crazy-wise trick, at least I feel so.

Sometimes in our way, the less one "grasps" for an answer, the less one tries to "figure out" and demands to put a name and image ...

... the more the heart may sense that the clear answer has been here all along**

I.e., the less one tries to get "closer to God", the more one might get closer to ...

Some answers are found when we stop looking, and just rest. ++

Gassho, J

SatToday

++ Of course, we are not much smarter than ants trying to understand how to work a toaster, so don't expect the details! I sometimes compare our attitude to that I witnessed with a new born baby in a crib. He may not know that the shadows hovering over him and holding him, how he got here or what is placing food in his mouth. He may not know much of anything. Yet, there is a feeling of trust in those shadows.

[Kyousui]

++ Of course, we are not much smarter than ants trying to understand how to work a toaster, so don't expect the details!.

And the ant would waste time and food trying to work the toaster, they will be quite full just by crawling inside and hauling out the crumbs.

[Jundo]

And the ant would waste time and food trying to work the toaster, they will be quite full just by crawling inside and hauling out the crumbs.

Hah! Lovely. Had not crossed my mind.

But I guess the ant teaches us that sometimes the simple way is smarter than trying to 'figure out.'

Gassho J

SatToday

[Kotei]

Hello,

thank you for the ants.
Just recently, I got reminded on Douglas R. Hofstädter's 'Ant Fugue' (Ants walking a Möbius stripe titel picture) from his award-winning "Gödel, Escher, Bach" book.
"A journey through surprisingly intertwined ideas from mathematics, art, music, computer science and philosophy".

Now again, this ant analogy...
Found a pdf online, containing the 'Ant Fugue'... some more pages I have to admit... Appearing somewhat jazzy to some... maybe...
Personally, I am finding quite some ideas in it, connected to God, Soul, Zen, "is the soul greater than the sum of it's parts" and such.

http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/classes/110/Hofstadter.pdf

Gassho,
Kotei sattoday.

[Tai Shi]

For me if there is a god it is not necessarily a czar of the universe, and perhaps there is some part of the universe we do not understand, and I'm sure there are a great many ideas, things, situations, physical and mental, the brain is only scarcely studied, and apparently not by some at all, and apparently by those who now will receive no credit, and there was a Jesus, not created as of myth, and not dead of myth, but a man who beloved that we might love one another, and there was a Buddha who I follow too, and who showed a way out, the two represent great advances in human kind, and who both we see the simplicity of message, and this brilliance which is so difficult to follow!

Tai Shi
std
Gassho

[Kyonin]

Hi guys,

Once upon a time there was an Aztec emperor called Nezahualcóyotl (hard to pronounce, I know). He was a warrior poet that left hundreds of poems and verses, most of them destroyed by Spain. This thread reminded me of this piece that I have always liked:

Only Him

Only Him
Giver of Life.
Vain wisdom I had,
Was it that no one knew?
Anyone knew?
I was never happy among people.

Precious realities create rain,
from You comes happiness,
O Giver of Life!
Fragrant flowers, precious flowers
I eagerly desired them,
Vain wisdom I had.

Nezahualcóyotl was amazed by life's mysteries and even an emperor like him, wasn't able to explain with all his wisdom and wise counselors.

It was until he acknowledge his own ignorance and surrendered all pretensions that he was at peace with the Giver Of Life.

Gassho,

Kyonin
SatToday

[Jishin]

Here is my version:

IMG_0537.JPG

[emoji123]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_