radorth said:
I don't blame you. Of course junking Jesus because you met some nasty Christians doesn't say much for your investigative efforts. Should we stop being patriots because scoundrels wave flags?
If you could say "Jesus went into hospital wards and preached hell to sick folks" I suppose you might have had an excuse for following a guy so enlightened, he died of a stomach condition.
Rad
Rad,
To be frank, I do not see them, or remember them, as "nasty" Christians. I remember many with genuine fondness.........my life has certainly never been the same since I "accepted Christ as my own personal saviour" (as the saying goes)
Just to clarify, it was the beginning of the end for any form of Fundamentalist belief ...................I have met this mentality in many forms since. It rears its head in Buddhism.
I spent many more years learning of the Christian Faith..........still often read the Bible......especially the gospels.......and certainly many of the great Christian mystics such as St John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart................"Dharma brothers" according to some Zen masters who recognise their "own"!
Your reference to the Buddha - and your implications - raises many issues concerning human suffering and how it can be resolved.............these are the issues that concern me, not in some academic sense, but because I have suffered - and do suffer. As we all suffer. Turn on the news and look..........I'm sure you do.
The important thing to me is to try to truly hear the voice of the "other"............not to live purely from our own "centre", from the dictate of our own self/ego...........Abba Matoes, one of the Desert Fathers said: "Those who live together with others ought not to be square, but round, in order to trun toward all". Trying to be "round" is a lifetimes work.
There is a story in the Buddhist tradition where the Buddha enters hell with a lamp. There are many languishing there in total darkness.........by the light of the lamp they begin to exclaim......."Ah! there are others here beside myself!"
To "see" the other, and hear them, is the beginning of wisdom..............(as well - of course - as "the fear of the Lord"!)
Thanks
Derek