The God Box

A question I usually confront myself with when assessing my religious views is, “What is my God box?” What is a God box? A God box is an individual’s current image of God and everything that God is.  For instance, a simple example would be a God in a toga, who looks like Zeus and lounges on top of a cloud throwing lightning bolts. This God answers your prayers and controls every facet of the universe. Many of us have shared this God box before.  Another God box would be “God is Love”.  In this image, God is more than just a concrete being. He transcends reality and becomes a concept as well. Depending on how you say “God is Love”, this could be seen as a more mature God box. These two examples are what I meant by  ”God box”.

My God box is constantly under evaluation, constantly evolving. Currently I see God as many things: He is the omnipotent father of all things, He is the historical/spiritual Jesus, and It is a spiritual entity that is nebulous in nature and can only be described by what It is not. This could be referred to as the Trinity. My God box is meshed with the concepts and realities of Allah and Buddha, not because I extract what I like from each religion to make my own “cafeteria-style” religion, but because I see how they are the same.  I say He is Love, but I don’t say it like others usually do. My image of God is One who does not do what you ask of Him. He helps you, but not in the way you often want. His will is beyond our will, implemented on behalf of not only our own sakes but everything else’s.

The best way to describe it is the will of a doctor and the will of a patient. We ask the doctor to cure us of our ailments. He cuts us up, he tears things out, he gives us pills. We go through all this invasive treatment with promise of feeling better… and at the end of the day we still feel nauseous and dizzy. Our sutures burn with pain, our insides are roiling inside of us, and the adverse effects of the medication makes us feel even worse. “How does this make me feel better?” the patient asks. The patient and the doctor shared the same goal in curing an ailment, but there was a difference in wills. The patient’s will was to be comfortable. To FEEL better. The doctor’s was to actually fix the problem. The patient was looking for instant gratification while the doctor was addressing the immediate medical priority AND the long term health of the patient. The doctor’s will may not be immediately inherent, but when you stand back and look at what all is going on and also realize that he is not just diagnosing you but hundreds of others don’t you think that what the doctor provided the patient was ultimately more beneficial than what was asked for? Trying to keep myself from writing a novel of a blog, this is the best I can describe what I see God as right now. There’s so much more to God than what I can describe at any point in time.

That’s what determines the scope of my God box: my ability to intuit God. My God box only exists to break God into digestible, bite-size pieces. It’s like a television, which is only capable of showing you what is able to fit onto film. What you see on the screen implies so much more, but you are not able to experience it in its entirety. As time passes, my God box seems to grow bigger and bigger to accomodate for my rapidly expanding image of God, and with each passing evaluation He becomes harder to contain into a box. My God box becomes more strained as I stretch it out. So what is going to happen when it reaches it’s limit? Is it going to halt in it’s tracks? Or is it going to split at the seams and bottom out? Is it going to be too much for me and I’ll just give up on it all? The problem becomes more than just being able to find out what God is. It also becomes an issue of preparing myself to experience more of what He is. It becomes an issue of my integrity as a vessel for God.

And after all that is said and done, after we have established a God box…what does it matter? What was it’s purpose? All we did was construct an image of Him, we never found Him. Wasn’t the God box constructed to help us see God in His entirety? How does it do that by cutting it into pieces? How does it help us see the big picture when all it is capable of doing is showing us a small window into what God is? How can we know who God is by making up our own idea of Him? One thing we must be aware of when constructing this God box is that what we see in it IS NOT GOD. It is our projections that we place onto what we believe God is. What we see in the God box we are more than willing to name God Himself. As DeMello said in Awareness, “people fall into idolatry because they think that where God is concerned, the word is the thing.” We construct a description of who we think God is then we fall into the rut of worshipping that, forgetting that it was only a guess at who He is. DeMello wrote about how he was confronted by a world-renowned scripture scholar. “It never struck me that I had been an idol worshipper all my life! My idol was not made of wood or metal; it was a mental idol.” DeMello reminded his readers that those that had constructed their own mental idol were the more dangerous idol worshippers because “they used a very subtle substance, the mind to produce their God.”

Maybe I was never meant to contain God in a box. Maybe I wasn’t meant to contain Him within me, this body serving as a Temple. How could all of what God is be within me? Maybe I’ve been using the wrong word this whole time. I’m not a vessel, I’m a conduit. I am a channel through which He flows through. Right now, the God box seems irrelevant. My experience and my ideas of God right now have surpassed any words that I am capable of expressing right now.  Right now it doesn’t feel like I could fit what I’m feeling inside a box and I’m all the better for it.

On Religious Differences

Why do people who believe they are religiously right hate people of other religions? Shouldn’t that feeling be pity, or sadness instead of hate?

Mmm, I’m not to fond of saying that they should feel pity or sadness, either. To feel those would imply that something is wrong. Is there something wrong for them having different beliefs? Wouldn’t that be the tiniest bit presumptuous of us to think it was pitiable that they didn’t think what we thought? That would suggest we’re right if we pitied them, wouldn’t it? We’d pity them for having misled beliefs.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s laudable, but I think it would be more appropriate to say it is worthy of my appreciation. It’s a new perspective that can teach us about their values or more about our own.

I’m reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh right now called Living Buddha, Living Christ and in the third chapter he talks about how he was confronted during a meal at a religious conference. A minister asked him “Are you a grateful person?” He said yes. “If you are really grateful, how can you not believe in God? God has created everything we enjoy, including the food we eat. Since you do not believe in God, you are not grateful for anything.”

But was Thich Naht Hahn ungrateful? A common Buddhist practice is to be mindful. It is to be in the present moment and appreciate the “suchness” of things. To appreciate the air we breathe, to be mindful of the food we eat, bringing us nourishment with each chew we take. It’s an awareness of what we have rather than what we have lost or what we do not have. I would like to call that gratefulness.

On Nonduality

I was rereading Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hahn with my philosophy group when a friend of mine posted to our email listserv about her confusion over the concept of self-compassion in nonduality in response to Hahn’s quote, “If you cannot be compassionate to yourself, you will not be able to be compassionate to others.”  Here was what she had to say:

To me, compassion requires a separate entity that acts as the object receiving the compassion.  I looked up the definition, and compassion is ’sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.’    Compassion comes from compati, meaning ‘to suffer with.’  But if there are not two, there can be no ‘with,’ there is only one ‘nondual’ thing, and that is everything; therefore compassion and sympathy are impossible.

And here was my response:

I think you saw compassion as distancing because the definition used the word “sympathy” as opposed to “empathy”. Whereas empathy is where you feel what the other person is feeling, investing themselves in you, sympathy implies at least some degree of objectiveness or disinterestedness. It is my impression that the accuracy of words is something that is important to you right now. I.e. there is a difference between the words “beautiful” and ”pretty”. If my supposition is true, then that could be a big factor as to why you can’t fully make the concept of nonduality your own. Here we have a concept called nonduality claiming that we only perceive that there are dichotomies, and we are working on dichotomizing the building blocks of communication: words.

Even though I don’t fully grok nonduality, myself, I’ll try to explain what I can understand about it. I think what the concept of nonduality is trying to say is that we are not different from each other, we are not separate. However, we do not exist as one being. We are all connected. We are part of a cycle. Each individual is not separate; he is part of something bigger. He is part of a circuit that could not exist without him. He can not exist as his own separate entity, because if the circuit cannot exist without him, likewise he cannot exist without the circuit. So we do not exactly exist as one; we exist in relation to each other and all compose a sum greater than its parts.

In terms of an analogy, a picture I get of the compassion/nonduality complex is like the body. The heart pumps oxygenated blood to the extremities of the body. From the cor of the body to the fingertips and toes. Like compassion, the heart is affecting something beyond itself. It is supplying oxygen rich blood to the limbs. However, it must also supply oxygen to itself (coronary arteries). If it cannot supply oxygen to itself, how can it supply oxygen to something distal to itself? You must start at the center before you can radiate out. This applies to both the heart and compassion. Furthermore, on the theme of “oneness”, the heart and limb vascularity are both apart of the same system, connected in a continuous loop….I’m not too happy with my own analogy but I think it does its job well enough.

On another, complementary level the dichotomy of self/nonself does not exist in the concept of nonduality. Having said that, reevaluate what TNH said: “”If you cannot be compassionate to yourself, you will not be able to be compassionate to others.” Also, with the concept of nonduality, does the dichotomy of duality/nonduality exist?

Personally, I just can’t make this concept mine at this time, and I’m fine with that. I think I resent the concept for reasons I’d have to sit down and think about, and I’m not about to make something I resent a fundament of my life. I’m not going to try to make it mine because Thich Nhat Hahn said I should. I might never make it mine, but if I do one day, I will make it mine because I chose to, not because a monk, regardless of his wisdom, told me to do so.

Lutheran Bible Study

So I went to my first Bible Study I’ve been to in a while.. I went to the Lutheran Church down the road with a friend . I’m glad I went. We were holding a focused discussion onBaptism with references to the Bible that I feel safe to consider as relevant and in context.

Coming to the study was helpful in many ways: learned some new vocabulary, learned more about Lutheran dogma, it provided me with a good community to talk about Christianity with, it helped me to clarify my own stances, and more importantly, I’m progressing in knowing God.I feel that I have to know him a sufficient amount before I can allowmyself to truly love Him.

I’m ecstatic with my growing familiarity of the Bible. Six months ago, I couldn’t tell you where any of the books were located in relation to each other, with the exception of Genesis. I couldn’t even tell you what each of the books were about except for Genesis, again, and Exodus. Last night proved to me that I’m getting better. I still had trouble locating a handful of the books, but if I didn’t know a good portion of the Bible, then I wouldn’t have been able to keep up.

I did have a few problems with the meeting, though. A few of the beliefs concerning, but no exclusive to, Baptism, Holy Supper, and the Second Coming were incongruent with mine. Since we were talking about baptism that night, I’ll start with that. Lutherans believe in infant baptism. Being raised with a Lutheran father and a Catholic mother, and even being baptized in infancy myself, I’d pretty much have every reason to believe the same thing…but I don’t.

The thing with infant baptism is that they are not conscious of what the baptism is, nor are they doing it of their own free will. I think, although I have no real evidence of it, that the concept of infant baptism evolved from technicalities in their doctrine. Let’s see if I can stipulate a theoretical chain of logic for it: It starts with the concept of Original Sin. All people are born with a huge sin on their shoulders already, due to accountability for the fall of Adam and Eve, our ancestors. We are not born saved. Therefore, we must find salvation. One of the requirements for salvation is baptism. We are ALL born unsaved, therefore we must ALL be baptized, but baptism isn’t what saves you, it’s the faith behind the baptism.

Does that all make sense so far? Now it gets a little trickier. The following responses in quotations are something I documented the vicar saying, so hopefully I’m as accurate as possible. I didn’t document
him to make him sound ridiculous. I did it so I wouldn’t put words in his mouth.The question is raised: what about babies? Do they need to be baptized, too? Everybody needs to be saved so babies must also be baptized. If baptism is worthless without faith, then how are babies saved?   The vicar said “faith can come before baptism, even at infancy.” So how could an infant reasonably acquire faith? “The Word of God gives them faith. Just hearing the Word of God [can enable them to have faith and be truly baptized].” So what happens if the baby is not baptized before it dies? Doctrine indicates that the baby will not go to heaven. To me, that sounds far-fetched. It sounds like an answer somebody makes up when they are put on the spot. Their doctrine has talked them into a corner and now they can’t reason their way out. The have to say unbaptized babies go to hell because the will not consider that maybe their doctrine might require re-evaluation. Remember, this is only a theory.

Two other things I don’t agree with are the literal interpretation of the Second Coming of Christ and the literal interpretation of Christ’s flesh and blood being the bread and wine. Those I disagree with for
obvious reasons.

Pointing out my disagreements, I would now like to say that just because i disagree with something doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Also, just because I believe something doesn’t mean that it IS true. My opinion is not what confirms validity.

There were a lot of things I wanted to talk about at the study, but I decided not to. Although the vicar did welcome other opinions
different from Lutheran beliefs, I was under the impression that he meant “as long as they are still Christian”. A lot of times, I was wanting to point out correlations with other religions to strengthen
the Christian perspective. When they were asking whether being Baptized was a singular event or whether it is a lifelong event, I wanted to say that Baptism was similar to stream entry enlightenment
found in Buddhism. The actual event of Baptism represents a starting point….or at least it did to me. It is a landmark, but it brings with it an initial experience of grace, and it is almost impossible to
regress from. It changes your mind. Characterized by visions and charismatic energy, it usually follows “the dark night”. Don’t confuse stream entry with Enlightenment. This kind will not bring Nirvana.
Anywho, I didn’t feel it was my place yet, since it was my first time at the meeting. Actually, I don’t think it would ever be appropriate to bring it up there because I felt they might be offended regardless
of my best intentions. I was also wanting to bring up correlations with other denominations with in Christianity, but a more illogical side of me thought I should hold off because even though the vicar said it was fine to mention non-Lutheran interpretations, it was just a formality.

I’m choosing to go back to the bible study not only because it was enriching, but because I disagree with some of the doctrine. Although I disagree with some aspects, it comes from a denomination that I
respect. It will help me to see things from other perspectives other than my own, and it keeps challenging my beliefs in a healthy way.

Boy, I’m drained now.

“Is Buddhism a Religion?” in Retrospect

Please bear with me. This is more of a constant stream of thought in response to my previous post, with fragments of different ideas all over the place, than an formal retrospection. I’ve tried to organize it as much as possible for your convenience, but that’s not saying much, lol.

I had a few qualms with using Christianity as a comparative tool at first, but I thought about it and I’m really not able to explain what I was trying to say without referring to it in some way. First, I think it would be a safe assumption to say that, for most of us, it’s all we really know. If I was to pick something like the practice of Islam, not only would I not really know what I was talking about, but neither would the people I was trying to talk to. It’s frustrating sometimes because, even though I am happy to be Christian, it’s put alot of blinders on me. The only way I know how to break it is to explore other beliefs and see how they relate to mine, or what I’ve been told are mine.

I would say that Christianity, as we know it today, has skewed my ideas on “religion”, giving me only a Westernized understanding of what it is. I looked up the word and it said “religion” was a term made by the Anglo-Saxons in the 13th century CE. Heh, the infiltration of Western thought has penetrated a little deeper than I thought. What I also find interesting is that what we consider as the origins of modern religion started in c.1500 BCE with Zoroastrianism. There’s about three millenia there that what we know as “religion” being practiced, but it’s not being called that. That word isn’t in existence yet.

Regarding the people that lived in this window of time, this “religion” was most likely homogenized into the rest of their everyday lives so that it would remain more or less indistinguishable. Simply put, religion and life were the same thing. This is just an assumption, though.

What I’m starting to realizing now, as I continue to write this post, is that if I try to take away all outside influences on both “religion” and “way of life”, I’ll find that there isn’t really much of a difference.  My choice of the words (more like labels on concepts) are proving to be insufficient. Words are subject to influence by culture and change in the times. There are two ideas that I’m trying to describe, but to put them in context of words distorts their meaning.

Maybe comparing Buddhism and Christianity wasn’t my main goal. Maybe what I was trying to do was better define the two words, or maybe extract the concepts from the current words and find new words to call them by. Maybe what was really important to me were these concepts.

I’ll stop there, but don’t think that means I’ve stopped thinking about all this.

Is Buddhism a Religion?

I know it’s generally considered a religion, but why? I’ve never really thought of it as a religion, myself, but more like a way of life / a school that has transcended the brick and mortar structures and has blurred the lines on traditional ideas of a traditional curriculum. 

In order to relate Buddhism to a religion most of us know, I’ll use Christianity in comparison. Christians have God and Buddhists have THE Buddha/The Awakened One/Siddhartha Gautama. Furthermore, in some traditions Buddha isn’t even a person but a concept. That taken into account, we can now say that Christians practice worship to God (the Holy Trinity: father, son, and spirit) while Buddhists practice devotion to the Buddha (as a person, as a group of people, or as a concept). The difference in those two words, worship and devotion, is where I believe the distinction between religion and way of life begins.

Worship implies honor, respect, and submission to a higher being, particularly of deity status. God his higher than us and is permanently positioned as superior to us. We are forever his subordinates. We may reach up higher on the chain of command, we may become closer in likeness to Him, but we will never be his equal. His word, the Gospel, is not a set of directions or a guide to improvement or a suggestion. It IS. It is the Truth that you must submit to that WILL lead to salvation and thus eternal life in Heaven, which is the ultimate goal for most of Christianity.

Devotion is a selfless affection and also entails respect, but rather than a “submission to” it’s more like “humility towards”. It is not only applied to the Buddha as a person, but also to texts like the Lotus Sutra. (Christian’s don’t Worship the Bible, or at least they’re not supposed to…are they?) The word “devotion” doesn’t quite carry the gravity that the word “worship” does, don’t you think? Unlike with God, you CAN reach the level of Buddha yourself. He is more like a Teacher than a god. He is a peer that has reached a higher level of being and is helping others to come to his level. He does this through his teachings. From my experience with Buddhism, his teaching is NOT like the Gospel. They are suggestions to guide you in the right direction towards enlightenment. They CAN’T be a divine command like the Gospel because everything is entirely up to you. The Buddha can’t make you enlightened. He can only help you help yourself. The Buddha doesn’t have divine powers like that. He doesn’t choose who is enlightened, unlike God’s power to choose who is saved. Akin to Salvation, Buddhists’ ultimate goal is Enlightenment and thus Nirvana.

Now, to somewhat weaken my argument, I do admit that there are certain phenomena (I guess you could say that they’re similar to Christianity’s “mysteries”) that could legitimize Buddhism as a religion. There’s Nirvana (snuffing out of the self), samsara (cycle of rebirth), Suddhavasa worlds/anagamis/arupa dhatu (Pure Abodes/non-returners/formless realms). You could even say that Enlightenment, in some aspects, is a religious phenomenon. However, I believe these to be spiritual symbols to describe spiritual experiences that otherwise would be VERY hard to explain with words. To summarize what I’m trying to say, I interpret them as symbolic, not literal, in nature. Kind of like how some Christian’s interpret the Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection as symbolic rather than literal (resurrected in spirit vs. in body).

That said, I still stick with my argument. I personally believe that Buddhism is a way of life, not a religion, on the basis that practitioners respect the Buddha as a fellow peer and teacher that tried to guide us to enlightenment through his teachings, not a diety who had the divine power to save us (free will or not). 

If I made a false assumption somewhere or based a part of my argument from faulty info, please tell me. I’m trying my best to understand Buddhism, but I don’t thoroughly know everything about it, particularly the different schools.