tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post5935561617401415309..comments2023-08-21T05:04:54.793-07:00Comments on Turning the Wheel of Wonder: Delusions About God Don't Make God a DelusionAlan Gregory Wonderwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00186755261777539572noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post-58519517963298767242013-08-01T22:43:07.136-07:002013-08-01T22:43:07.136-07:00This is cool!This is cool!Vernahttp://bestmetaldetectorreviews.us/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post-29918135936909490102013-07-01T06:15:04.873-07:002013-07-01T06:15:04.873-07:00Dear Anonymous, it is easy to hide behind anonymit...Dear Anonymous, it is easy to hide behind anonymity. Yes, it is simplification which is what "most likely" is saying. The "over" in oversimplification and any "delusion" are in your own mind. Read the Suttas and Sutras and you will see that this is not any different from the simplification that the Buddha used in order to convey the meaning without getting confused by the complexity. When teaching elementary levels we have to use elementary language. For example, read the Cula-suññata Sutta: The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness. MN 121 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.121.than.htmlAlan Gregory Wonderwheelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00186755261777539572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post-22008972458803678542013-07-01T03:16:38.643-07:002013-07-01T03:16:38.643-07:00"If we walk past a beggar and blame the begga..."If we walk past a beggar and blame the beggar for deserving his or her condition, then the karma that is most likely to flow from that action of ours is that sooner or later we will switch places to walk in the other’s shoes and see from first hand experience how that feels."<br /><br />Oversimplification, bringing more delusion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post-23213975645108413182013-06-30T07:28:28.982-07:002013-06-30T07:28:28.982-07:00Good writing, Greg! Thank you!Good writing, Greg! Thank you!Bobhttp://theconsciousprocess.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9314453.post-73008653679987445782013-06-30T02:47:20.782-07:002013-06-30T02:47:20.782-07:00In terms of the first noble truth, I think if we s...In terms of the first noble truth, I think if we see the Buddha was talking about experience, then it is fair to say that all experience is disappointing - even pleasure fails to satisfy. A close look at the ideas suggests that loka (our experiential world) is equated with dukkha, and both are equated with the khandhas (or apparatus of experience). As the Dhammapada says <i>sabbe sankhārā dukkhā</i>. All the constructs that make up experience (all the occurrences of sense object meeting sense faculty and bringing about sense cognition) are disappointing. In crude terms life is suffering because even pleasure always disappoints (by ending). <br /><br />With respect to karma the Buddha mainly describes it as a mechanism which decides our afterlife destination (sugati or duggati - paralleling sukha and dukkha). Though there is always the potential for karma to ripen in this life as well, or it would have limited moral force. In the present, karma determined our human birth and nothing much else. karma is partly complex because the doctrine itself changes. Overall we deny the metaphysical agent and judgement upon them. But when it is pedagogically pertinent the texts all talk about us in future and past lives as if it is just us - I think some sense of connection with future lives is necessary for karma to have moral force. Of course karma is not the only force on our present experience. But if we are to consider our actions and their consequences we must believe that we personally will live those consequences otherwise it is too abstract to have moral force. I would argue that for most Westerners karma has no moral force - we are not good because we fear a bad rebirth. We are good because it seems logical to us to be so. Which is not traditional Buddhism.<br /><br />I particularly love the way Buddhists talk about god. As soon as the subject comes up we retreat into theory. We don't believe in god in theory. But in practice all around the Buddhist world people are praying to Buddha for the welfare of a loved one, a better rebirth in the future, relief from various oppressions etc. For all intents and purposes outside the West, Buddha is a god (notice that traditional Buddhists tend to drop the definite article that we insist on). But we in the West have to carefully distinguish ourselves from theism because it is what we are all reacting against - virtually all Western Buddhists were raised as Theists or atheists of the Western kind. <br /><br />Where I do agree is on the value of myth.<br /><br />So I would see the "three basic mistakes" are three ways in which Western Buddhists are seeking to distance themselves from traditional Buddhism as practised in Buddhist countries. Buddhism of that kind is unsettling to post-Christian converts. Whether we are able to engage in the mythos of Buddhism under these conditions remains to be seen. Jayaravahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13783922534271559030noreply@blogger.com