Questions about Buddhism

It seems that if you replace "God" with "the Universe", there are a great many similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. The balance of good and evil, working towards the end of suffering, detachment from a world that pulls at your desires with endless dissatisfaction, are all common threads.

Christians look at the movement of the universe and see God behind it, Buddhism looks at the movement of the universe and is content that it moves, and leaves the question open as trivial.

At least, that's how I see it.

ByAnyOtherName said:

there are a great many similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. The balance of good and evil, working towards the end of suffering, detachment from a world that pulls at your desires with endless dissatisfaction, are all common threads.

Click to expand...

I wrote a short message about the differences between Christianity and Buddhism in post #14 of the following thread:

Feeling outcasted

here is what I had written in the other thread:

"I respect Buddhism as a pre-Christian religion: a philosophy devised to explain human existence until eternal Truth became embodied in the person of Jesus.

"The Buddha lowered the status of Hindu gods in favor of an unknown ultimate reality that he could not describe. We Christians know that the ultimate reality is the God described in the Bible.

"The Buddha believed that suffering is the ultimate evil. That attachment to the world is the root of evil. And that people did not have a permanent identity. Christianity believes that God creates and loves the world and that we also need to love and care for the world, even if we suffer in this endeavor. Our self / identity is to be nourished and made holy in the manner of God so that it could have eternal life. We do not deny our "ego" but reform it by renouncing selfishness with the power of the Spirit of God."

ByAnyOtherName said:

It seems that if you replace "God" with "the Universe", there are a great many similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. The balance of good and evil, working towards the end of suffering, detachment from a world that pulls at your desires with endless dissatisfaction, are all common threads.

Christians look at the movement of the universe and see God behind it, Buddhism looks at the movement of the universe and is content that it moves, and leaves the question open as trivial.

At least, that's how I see it.

Click to expand...

As I understand it, there is no good or evil in Buddhism, just skillful or unskillful behavior (towards any specific goal, including the ultimate goal - the cessation of suffering aka nibbana).

I largely agree with your assessment that "Buddhism looks at the movement of the universe and is content that it moves", because speculation about any person(s) behind that universe only leads to more suffering (because such speculation is a matter of belief and faith, not knowledge), and so such speculation is unskillful behavior.

ananda said:

IMO there is no good or evil in Buddhism, just skillful or unskillful behavior (towards any specific goal, including the ultimate goal - the cessation of suffering aka nibbana).

Click to expand...

Interesting. Light and dark, then, or suffering and enlightenment perhaps? I'm thinking of the balance of Karma, but I could be misunderstanding. Could you speak a bit more to that theme?
To me, a conscious negative choice that brings about suffering is an evil choice, and an intentionally positive choice which brings enlightenment is good.

Andrewn said:

here is what I had written in the other thread:

"I respect Buddhism as a pre-Christian religion: a philosophy devised to explain human existence until eternal Truth became embodied in the person of Jesus.

"The Buddha lowered the status of Hindu gods in favor of an unknown ultimate reality that he could not describe. We Christians know that the ultimate reality is the God described in the Bible.

"The Buddha believed that suffering is the ultimate evil. That attachment to the world is the root of evil. And that people did not have a permanent identity. Christianity believes that God creates and loves the world and that we also need to love and care for the world, even if we suffer in this endeavor. Our self / identity is to be nourished and made holy in the manner of God so that it could have eternal life. We do not deny our "ego" but reform it by renouncing selfishness with the power of the Spirit of God."

Click to expand...

The "unknown ultimate reality that he could not describe" was known as "nibbana" and described in various ways in the suttas: e.g. peace, resolution of all fabrications, relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving, dispassion, cessation, unbinding, the foremost ease, the unexcelled safety, etc.

The Buddhist Teachings (Dhamma) are described in the suttas as the laws which can "be seen here & now, timeless, inviting verification, pertinent, to be experienced by the observant for themselves." We can perceive suffering, cessation of suffering, the laws of cause & effect, etc. all for ourselves right now, therefore we claim we know these things directly.

Looking back to the time when I was a Christian, I can say that I did not perceive the person of Jesus, the biblical God, etc. I believed in them, but I did not perceive their persons for myself.

ByAnyOtherName said:

Interesting. Light and dark, then, or suffering and enlightenment perhaps? I'm thinking of the balance of Karma, but I could be misunderstanding. Could you speak a bit more to that theme?

Click to expand...

Perhaps you are referring to ignorance vs knowledge, or suffering vs the cessation of suffering, or samsara vs nibbana.

Kamma is simply cause & effect; for every effect, there can be found a multitude of causes (past and present).

To me, a conscious negative choice that brings about suffering is an evil choice, and an intentionally positive choice which brings enlightenment is good.

Click to expand...

The world defines "evil" and "good" in different, relative ways. For example, a farmer can see his well-watered field with healthy crops and declare it "good", but for the insects who were killed or driven away by his pesticides would probably declare it "evil".

I agree that knowledge & wisdom (enlightenment) is always "good", however, since it leads to more cessation of suffering, for one's self & for others.

ananda said:

Kamma is simply cause & effect; for every effect, there can be found a multitude of causes (past and present).

Click to expand...

Is it not true that intention plays a role in Kamma?

"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect." (From the Nibbedhika Sutta)

To my understanding, the farmer who waters his field may look on his crops and call it "good" but to me (someone who knows only a little of Buddhism and is surely prone to error) it is only good kamma if the farmer intends to do something that creates well-being, for instance, using that food to feed the poor and hungry. If he instead eats all the food for himself, more than he needs, while others starve, it is not good, for his intent is to be selfish. Further, if he did not intend to do harm to the insect but by tilling his field, some of them lost their nests, then it is not evil, even if the insect disagrees. There is certainly nuance, for instance, what if he knew he had to kill the insects to save others from starving, but that is above my understanding to state what is good or bad Kamma with certainty.

ByAnyOtherName said:

Is it not true that intention plays a role in Kamma?

"Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect." (From the Nibbedhika Sutta)

Click to expand...

Yes, intention is the "present cause" that works to modify past causes to produce present & future effects. Intention is the key to our ability to train & improve ourselves in a skillful way; this is the Dhamma's teaching about the Middle Way between the two extremes (of eternalism & annihilationism).

Belief in eternalism (e.g. in a Creator god) and a consequent enduring soul means that something cannot inherently change, which leads to non-training. Belief in annihilationism also leads to the idea of non-training, because there is nothing to train or it's futile to train.

To my understanding, the farmer who waters his field may look on his crops and call it "good" but to me (someone who knows only a little of Buddhism and is surely prone to error) it is only good kamma if the farmer intends to do something that creates well-being, for instance, using that food to feed the poor and hungry. If he instead eats all the food for himself, more than he needs, while others starve, it is not good, for his intent is to be selfish. Further, if he did not intend to do harm to the insect but by tilling his field, some of them lost their nests, then it is not evil, even if the insect disagrees. There is certainly nuance, for instance, what if he knew he had to kill the insects to save others from starving, but that is above my understanding to state what is good or bad Kamma with certainty.

Click to expand...

Considering multiple causes, almost every volitional act contains a mix of skillfulness and unskillfulness. It is skillful kamma for a well-intentioned farmer to plant & reap to feed himself & others, but if he does it even knowing (in the back of his mind, that) it harms insects and other creatures, there is still an element of unskillful kamma mixed into it all. Therefore, as Buddhists, we cannot say that specific acts are altogether "good" or purely "evil".

I personally have never found any conflict between the two faiths. I have , sadly, found PEOPLE who want to imagine conflicts, to start conflicts, who desire nothing but chaos.........

That inner peace and enlightenment can be achieved through different paths is obvious, and provable, but sadly, many persons will not and cannot take the path because they are stuck on a road which repeatedly delivers them to a place of fear and loathing.

ByAnyOtherName said:

It seems that if you replace "God" with "the Universe", there are a great many similarities between Christianity and Buddhism.

Click to expand...

I'm wondering how your question looks with the word "Universe" replaced with "Consciousness".

Tom 1 said:

Hello,

I'm curious about what the points of similarity are between Christianity and Buddhism. Anyone here who is a convert from Christianity to Buddhism, or just very familiar with both, who can highlight anything the two religions have in common?

I'm also curious about the sense of self in Buddhism. When I first read about it, a long time ago, I took the attainment of nirvana to mean a kind of dissolution of self. I spoke with a Thai Buddhist about this idea more recently, and the idea is different to what I had thought but she found it difficult to express it exactly, something like an ultimate self-actualisation, but not that exactly either. I wondered if it is similar or very different to the the 'new name' - which I take to be something like a new identity, or a refining of an existing identity, in revelation 2:17 ( I will also give him a white stone, on which is written a new name that nobody knows except the one receiving it) - or if the concept is very different to that.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

First of all, Buddhism had roughly 2.5k years to fracture into different schools, so even core beliefs may vary between different sects at this point, especially regarding highly transcendental aspects such as Nirvana or anatta (no-self).

My particular perspective is that identity is a malleable construct consisting of transient parts, that memories require brains just as you need a nose to smell anything, and that pretty much everything we identify as "I" is very much mortal.
And yet, we are eternal. Our existence is an indelible part of reality in each moment that we are here, and it remains that way even when we cease at some point in the future. Also, I can wrap my mind around the notion that our "I" is like a mask we wear, a temporary form taken by the universe itself to observe with a sense of illusory detachment. A drop of water hovering as mist above the ocean before becoming part of the wave again.

Jane_the_Bane said:

My particular perspective is that identity is a malleable construct consisting of transient parts, that memories require brains just as you need a nose to smell anything, and that pretty much everything we identify as "I" is very much mortal. And yet, we are eternal.

Click to expand...

We is the pleural of I. It doesn't make sense that "I" is mortal and "We" are eternal.

You say that we are eternal but our identity is a temporary mask. So, basically you believe that "we" are _not_ eternal but God / Brahman / Om in us is eternal.

Jane_the_Bane said:

And yet, we are eternal. Our existence is an indelible part of reality in each moment that we are here, and it remains that way even when we cease at some point in the future. Also, I can wrap my mind around the notion that our "I" is like a mask we wear, a temporary form taken by the universe itself to observe with a sense of illusory detachment. A drop of water hovering as mist above the ocean before becoming part of the wave again.

Click to expand...

That sounds more like a Hindu perspective, rather than a Buddhist one?

ananda said:

That sounds more like a Hindu perspective, rather than a Buddhist one?

Click to expand...

If it's consciousness that's experienced as eternal, would that fit the Buddhist perspective better?

Andrewn said:

We is the pleural of I. It doesn't make sense that "I" is mortal and "We" are eternal.

You say that we are eternal but our identity is a temporary mask. So, basically you believe that "we" are _not_ eternal but God / Brahman / Om in us is eternal.

Click to expand...

No. Anything that could be identified as identity is a construct. All the words I used are just metaphors and images.

ananda said:

That sounds more like a Hindu perspective, rather than a Buddhist one?

Click to expand...

Well, I'm not a Hindu and do not believe in deities, so...

Andrewn said:

here is what I had written in the other thread:

"I respect Buddhism as a pre-Christian religion: a philosophy devised to explain human existence until eternal Truth became embodied in the person of Jesus.

"The Buddha lowered the status of Hindu gods in favor of an unknown ultimate reality that he could not describe. We Christians know that the ultimate reality is the God described in the Bible.

"The Buddha believed that suffering is the ultimate evil. That attachment to the world is the root of evil. And that people did not have a permanent identity. Christianity believes that God creates and loves the world and that we also need to love and care for the world, even if we suffer in this endeavor. Our self / identity is to be nourished and made holy in the manner of God so that it could have eternal life. We do not deny our "ego" but reform it by renouncing selfishness with the power of the Spirit of God."

Click to expand...

Sounds like a somewhat skewered interpretation of Buddhism aimed at propping up Christianity as the One True Faith by demeaning other perspectives.

dlamberth said:

If it's consciousness that's experienced as eternal, would that fit the Buddhist perspective better?

Click to expand...

No, consciousness is not considered eternal either, since it obviously changes.

Interesting discussion. I’m neither Buddhist nor Christian. But I suppose I’m a simple minded person because I see the fundamental difference simplistically. Both beliefs postulate an eternal existence of perfect contentment and peace of mind—free of all worldly cares, suffering, and desire. Christianity teaches you can only achieve this through a savior. Buddhism teaches you can achieve this from within yourself.