tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post4617573871519653116..comments2023-04-02T05:53:11.429-05:00Comments on Buddhist [from] Nebraska: God is Not EnoughMonicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17336284049302046478noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-47783625496080459472009-05-06T10:27:00.000-05:002009-05-06T10:27:00.000-05:00Things neither exist nor not exist, for existence ...Things neither exist nor not exist, for existence does not exist: existence is only a human thought construct. So are words, logics, math, physics or God. It's enough to realize that the product of human mind is maya, a product of evolution, and hence things in our Mind-only reality are devoid of self nature and empty.TK Sunghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02250566130092237637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-40803843957057200602009-04-30T23:12:00.000-05:002009-04-30T23:12:00.000-05:00I once read that the only reason there is a univer...I once read that the only reason there is a universe is because "nothing" is unstable. I can't argue with that. Great post. It made me think.johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12892458916703287040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-20972774873263976182009-04-30T21:49:00.000-05:002009-04-30T21:49:00.000-05:00Goodness how I adore your blog. It's well written...Goodness how I adore your blog. It's well written, refreshing, and so real. It's a blessing in a 'verse full of folk who want to qualify, quantify and label every little thing. I'm still fond of one particular line from Hamlet:<br /><br />"There is more under the heaven's and earth than you have dreamed of ..."<br /><br />It's elegant in it's simplicity because it allows for anything. Both a divine intent, and mathematics. It allows for cause to precede effect, and at the same time effect to precede cause. Because sometimes the effect of one cause it the cause required for another effect.<br /><br />In Zen is is said there are no answers, only more questions. For truely the answer to one question, is in and of itself a question left wanting an answer.<br /><br />Why did the chicken cross the road? How about why was there a road for the chicken to cross?<br /><br />Humanity needs to divest itself of the linearness of time. Time is not actually linear. Time simply is. Only here in the physical manifestation of the "IS" does time have a start, middle and end. Birth in this frame of time/space is merely a change in state from another, and death of the body, is not the end, but another change in state. Who we are, what we are, neither starts suddenly, nor ends instantly when life processes in the body cease to function. I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm currently temporally focused, it's one of many times past, present and future. I have memories of people, places, things from longer ago than this incarnation, and long after this one. Why? Because I choose to.<br /><br />I was for a goodly number of years a student of theology. Paper on the walls to prove it and everything. I had the temerity to debate not the existence of "God" so to speak, but to quite successfully argue that "God" as stipulated needs us, more than we need him/her. It changed my view of the 'verse dramatically.<br /><br />"Put no distance between you and where you are." is an old Koan I am fond of. It's simple, it is clear, and says so much while saying nothing.<br /><br />I exist now, this moment, this place. I am all at once the same person who started this note, and yet not her at all.<br /><br />There are different forms of life, different 'verse's where the "rules" as we know them don't exist. It's all fluid, open, everything, everywhere, everywhen. What was, is and ever shall be. Why? Why NOT?<br /><br />Why does "God" allow suffering? Because he/she doesn't know what suffering is. Different states of being, different frames of reference, different levels of existence. One man's trash is another's buffet. Nothing and everything exists, all at the same time, and we simply move from state to state, trying things on, raising our vibration, making sense and then moving on.<br /><br />Entroy some say is a the universal law of chaos unmaking as order makes. Matter, antimatter. Positive, negative. Heads, tails.<br /><br />Entroy is the universe seeking balance. For something to exist, nothing must also exist and the obverse is also true equally.<br /><br />Thanks Monica! I love your blog.Samantha Shantihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10586759980410037672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-61996875357231359772009-04-30T17:05:00.000-05:002009-04-30T17:05:00.000-05:00If universal conditions were different in the slig...If universal conditions were different in the slightest way life would not exist. Or life as we know it.<br /><br />Okay? So a different kind of life would have come into existence. One that follows those set of rules and constants. Something that would be utterly incomprehensible by our mind as they are in this universe.<br /><br />I fall under a 99% certainty that there is no creative super power, at least as we understand the universe. But what if the creator of our universe lives in a universe of it's own where something does come from nothing?<br /><br />Just having fun thinking. Thanks Monica.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14711741204622107148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-38731832900447461132009-04-30T16:24:00.000-05:002009-04-30T16:24:00.000-05:00Amen.Amen.Monicahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17336284049302046478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30116234.post-85574394276812381502009-04-30T16:16:00.000-05:002009-04-30T16:16:00.000-05:00This is why theistic religion is unacceptable for ...This is why theistic religion is unacceptable for me on both intellectual and moral grounds.<br /><br />The anthropomorphic "God" seems to be simply an imaginary friend or parent, something for the ego to aim its prayers at. (It seems to me that religious debates are arguments over who has the best imaginary friend.) But, temporarily setting rationalism aside, if we assume that there is such a thing as "God", how does it logically follow that he/she/it merits our worship and obedience?<br /><br />Ask a certain type of theist, why seemingly harmless behavior is forbidden, and the answer will be "because God forbids it." But, if "God" is an existential being, just bigger and more powerful than us, then unquestioning obedience to his/her/its whims is nothing other than supernatural fascism, a cowardly pandering to the bully. This is why theistic religion is essentially amoral - devotees are taught not to act upon their assessment of what is right or wrong, but rather to follow the orders of God/Allah/the voices in one's head. The imperative is not to do what is right because it is right, but rather to do what the deity says in order to obtain reward and avoid punishment. It is a way of being that is entirely self-serving. When a person functions in this state of childlike absence of responsibility, it is not so difficult to burn people at the stake or fly planes into buildings. Right and wrong, good and bad - you don't have to worry about these things when you're just following orders from on high.<br /><br />(An exception that must be noted is Hinduism; in Hindu scripture, as I understand it, Arjuna proves to the deity that he is a good man by refusing to obey the deity's commands when he believes these commands to be morally wrong.) <br /><br />In Zen Buddhism, there is a saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." This does not imply violence against a physical being, but rather the destruction of the ego's projections. The Buddha that you can meet on the road, that you can identify, in yourself or others, is just one more illusion, one more imaginary friend. In the end, whether there is a "God" is irrelevant; we are bigger and more powerful than mice, and there may be a being that is bigger and more powerful than us, but every being can only be a fragment of the absolute. Sustained contemplation reveals that there is not, as some theists contend, "only one God." Rather, there can only be one anything, only one nothing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com