[zippy2006]

In Orthodoxy Chesterton talks about the difference between Christian ethics and pagan ethics, and this tends to be my main problem with Buddhism.

Buddhist ethics tend to be nothing more than the oft-repeated golden mean of Aristotle--the Middle Way. It is pleasant, it is quiet, it is subdued, it is lifeless . It paints the world as a rather evil place of suffering where most all of our emotions and our interactions are dangerous insomuch as they have the potential for attachment. It plays on the common idea that happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin, and it purposefully negates both of them for a sort of "contentment."

Christianity, as Chesterton notes, does not subdue our emotions or natural feelings but puts them in their proper place. Christianity has the meek contemplative saints similar to the Buddha (no, meeker, for the Buddha would be appalled at their humility ), but it also has the warriors, the intellectuals, and everything inbetween. This is because anger is not inherently bad, nor is jealousy, nor is nearly any other natural emotion that humans possess. They simply must be set in their proper place. Christianity is against drunkenness, but at the same time Jesus turned water into wine, so there must be a proper place for alcohol. Christianity stands firm on monogamy and celibacy, but encourages sexuality within the covenant of marriage. Only in Christianity do we find the lion and the lamb lying down together and retaining their respective qualities:

And sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lam. The real problem is--Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved. -Chesterton

That is what I think of the ethics of the two systems, but clearly both of these ethical systems are the result of something else, some encounter with the divine. I think the ethics derived are telling of the clarity or interpretation of that grounding in divinity, but obviously there is something to be said about those encounters themselves ...another day .

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

In Orthodoxy Chesterton talks about the difference between Christian ethics and pagan ethics, and this tends to be my main problem with Buddhism.

Buddhist ethics tend to be nothing more than the oft-repeated golden mean of Aristotle--the Middle Way. It is pleasant, it is quiet, it is subdued, it is lifeless . It paints the world as a rather evil place of suffering where most all of our emotions and our interactions are dangerous insomuch as they have the potential for attachment. It plays on the common idea that happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin, and it purposefully negates both of them for a sort of "contentment."

Christianity, as Chesterton notes, does not subdue our emotions or natural feelings but puts them in their proper place. Christianity has the meek contemplative saints similar to the Buddha (no, meeker, for the Buddha would be appalled at their humility ), but it also has the warriors, the intellectuals, and everything inbetween. This is because anger is not inherently bad, nor is jealousy, nor is nearly any other natural emotion that humans possess. They simply must be set in their proper place. Christianity is against drunkenness, but at the same time Jesus turned water into wine, so there must be a proper place for alcohol. Christianity stands firm on monogamy and celibacy, but encourages sexuality within the covenant of marriage. Only in Christianity do we find the lion and the lamb lying down together and retaining their respective qualities:






That is what I think of the ethics of the two systems, but clearly both of these ethical systems are the result of something else, some encounter with the divine. I think the ethics derived are telling of the clarity or interpretation of that grounding in divinity, but obviously there is something to be said about those encounters themselves ...another day .

Zippy: It seems that a few subthreads are running simultaneously. But I partly embraced Buddhism because it had an ethic that was superior to Christianity. I did not like the extreme barbaric prejudice against homosexuals that masks as an ethical stance. I did not like the species centered ethics that does not include animals and teaches humans to kill and eat them, rather than have compassion for them and not eat them. I did not like the way Christianity treats women as second class citizens and does not usually allow them into the priesthood. But the above ones are curious based they represent ethical evils that are basically canonized and made to sound like good things, as if stoning someone to death or shooting them or beating them up, just because of a different sexual orientation could be anything but unloving and unethical. To be fair, Buddhism has not been perfect about a lot of this. Fudging on vegetarianism is epidemic in both Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, but at least animals are considered worthy of being treated with compassion.

Due to bad translation, desire and addictive craving were seen as the same thing and Buddha was seen as being against desire. For a similar reason, numb detachment and blissful nonattachment were also somehow confused. As I said earlier, in order to understand Buddhism some experience in meditation is really needed. The teaching of the 12 Nidanas, the twelve key factors in the chain reaction of sorrow, is at the heart of Buddha's psychology and is the key to the first precept of "right view" or "right understanding". Even this is a summary for the more detailed psychology of the Abhidharma. The Buddha was not against regular Earthly desires or their fulfillment. It is part of the Mahayana vow to help people end sorrow and the causes of sorrow and to have happiness and the causes of happiness. Having desires and fulfilling them are two of the causes of happiness.

Addictive craving and healthy human desire are usually easy to distinguish in meditation, because the former feels like someone lit a fire under your meditation bench, while the latter when you get in touch with them allows your body to relax more deeply. The first key of meditation is to look within and accept everything as it is, including even the addictive cravings, all our negativity, and all our delusions. We learn to just watch with simple attention whatever is arising. We stay with the real and the obvious, anchor our attention in our breathing, so it does not get stuck or fixated, and let insight dawn inside consciousness. You do not force even addictive cravings to end. A lot of good people spend a lot of their lives struggling against them and causing themselves a lot of sorrow. You first acknowledge them, accept them, embrace them, just because they are there and they are part of your life. The first "noble" truth of the Buddha is that all sentient life experiences sorrow. It is not called an evil truth or an ugly truth. You accept your life with all its sorrows, embrace it, and live it. The sorrow can and will come to a complete end when we are fully enlightened, but trying to fight it, repress it, and condemn it is called "the sorrow of sorrow". It just adds more sorrow to what is already there.

The Buddha mapped out three places where sorrow can end. One is called "remaining with the sensation", not reacting to pain, not repressing the pain, not even analyzing the pain, but simply being with the pain. When the root delusion that fuels addictive craving is seen and felt, then it releases by itself, and there is peace. The root delusion is that the craving promises peace, but sustains the pain. When the craving ends, then the pain ends too. Then there is a nonattachment in its place, but it is not a numb thing. It is sensitive, alive, and aware, but just does not get hooked into a chain reaction of sorrow.

[Stripe]

Wow .. is it just me or is freeblight's avatar get gayer by the week?

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

In Orthodoxy Chesterton talks about the difference between Christian ethics and pagan ethics, and this tends to be my main problem with Buddhism.

Buddhist ethics tend to be nothing more than the oft-repeated golden mean of Aristotle--the Middle Way. It is pleasant, it is quiet, it is subdued, it is lifeless . It paints the world as a rather evil place of suffering where most all of our emotions and our interactions are dangerous insomuch as they have the potential for attachment. It plays on the common idea that happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin, and it purposefully negates both of them for a sort of "contentment."

Christianity, as Chesterton notes, does not subdue our emotions or natural feelings but puts them in their proper place. Christianity has the meek contemplative saints similar to the Buddha (no, meeker, for the Buddha would be appalled at their humility ), but it also has the warriors, the intellectuals, and everything inbetween. This is because anger is not inherently bad, nor is jealousy, nor is nearly any other natural emotion that humans possess. They simply must be set in their proper place. Christianity is against drunkenness, but at the same time Jesus turned water into wine, so there must be a proper place for alcohol. Christianity stands firm on monogamy and celibacy, but encourages sexuality within the covenant of marriage. Only in Christianity do we find the lion and the lamb lying down together and retaining their respective qualities:






That is what I think of the ethics of the two systems, but clearly both of these ethical systems are the result of something else, some encounter with the divine. I think the ethics derived are telling of the clarity or interpretation of that grounding in divinity, but obviously there is something to be said about those encounters themselves ...another day .

I actually enjoyed reading Chesterton a lot. I like his sense of humor. I do not want to the thread to get frayed too much and spread itself thin, but I had been surprised at what some canonized saints belief and how they get canonized anyway. Like Saint Teresa of Avila saying the animals had "little souls" rather than no souls at all (and therefore are worthy of ethical consideration, but apparently not quite enough to put out a teaching about not eating them) and Saint Catherine of Genoa talking about how some beings run away from the love of God into hell and that God does not throw anyone into hell. I wish I had the references for these items. I think I still have the book that quoted Saint Teresa of Avila. What I gather is that some items fall below the heretic radar of the canonization process. There was an eight year period where I studied Christian history and the Bible very intensively, even preparing to become a priest. I studied some Greek and Hebrew to help this, using commentaries (after two semesters of Greek). I still like to do language checks. Many of the books were read from a library that I do not have access to now. Because Spanish is my native language, I was able to read some of Saint John of the Cross (San Juan De La Cruz) in the original Spanish (more poetic). A lot of Christian mystics were officially branded as heretics, too. There is an excellent historical summary in the book by Evelyn Underhill called MYSTICISM. She is a genius. The only problem with the book is that to literally understand every word in the book you would have to known at least 8 languages. She is very fond of reading and quoting the mystics in their own languages when it comes to poems.

I did have a feeling that our reading common ground is much. I am happy that you sat in Buddhist meditation for two years and got something from it. I do teach Buddhist meditation, more in the context of emotional processing in hypnotherapy, so that people can understand and release their pain. I find that it is good to have more verbal teachings to support the process, because people already have notions about meditation that need to be uprooted. It would be great if they could have a clean slate and just learn from direct experience. I am currently working with a Parkinson's person who is learning, through meditation, to end her pain. She has already beaten the odds, should have already been in the final phase of the disease, choking on her food. The doctors are surprised that she is both alive and fairly well. Not quite a full cure, though, but meditation is the one thing that is both helping and which still promises to really heal her. She had tried a lot of things. She usually stops her shaking during a session.

I did get a chuckle about Christians should pray more. There was a reason that Jesus went up to the mountains to pray. You do not do this if you are just going to throw a few words up to God for 15 minutes. Blaming the protestants for this has some basis, since the dogma of salvation by faith only excludes prayer as essential. My feeling is that it should be faith and forgiveness both, with prayer being the place where remembrance of everyone who needs to be forgiven arises until we are complete. There is a parallel process in Vajrayana Buddhism that involves the light of Amida Buddha shining into our conscience and illuminating all resentment. It is the primary karma burning process. In the Lord's Prayer, forgiveness shows up as a core thing. The Buddhist contribution is that it has to be deep enough to uproot the resentment samskara within the subconscious mind.

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Wow .. is it just me or is freeblight's avatar get gayer by the week?

Might be just you. I checked it and it looks like some classical Hindu art. I suspect it is Shiva with the three faces looking into the past, present, and future, but I am not sure. Some Buddha statues look slightly feminine to American patriarchal eyes too. But it is one of the 32 marks of the Buddha's enlightenment on a physical level. It is related to the male and female hormones being perfectly balanced, the right and left brain perfectly synchronized, being vegetarian, and stress not wearing out the brain into aging and death. I think that Shiva had a similar enlightenment a long time ago (the two extra heads are metaphors). One of the scientific tests that I did undergo as a meditator was to check for right and left brain synchrony and balance. When hooked up to a certain meter where 0 is all left brain and 1000 is all right brain, the needle hoovered between 497 and 505 which the researcher found was the best score he had ever seen (500 is perfect). The only time is shifted was when I talked about money and it swung to the left brain zone. It led to some good processing and a return back into synchrony. It seems that the right brain is more concerned with happiness and money, while the left brain wants the balance sheet to be in the black.

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

Zippy: It seems that a few subthreads are running simultaneously. But I partly embraced Buddhism because it had an ethic that was superior to Christianity. I did not like the extreme barbaric prejudice against homosexuals that masks as an ethical stance. I did not like the species centered ethics that does not include animals and teaches humans to kill and eat them, rather than have compassion for them and not eat them. I did not like the way Christianity treats women as second class citizens and does not usually allow them into the priesthood. But the above ones are curious based they represent ethical evils that are basically canonized and made to sound like good things, as if stoning someone to death or shooting them or beating them up, just because of a different sexual orientation could be anything but unloving and unethical. To be fair, Buddhism has not been perfect about a lot of this.

So is it simply that you don't like them, or that they are evil? It doesn't particularly matter to me what you like, it matters to me what is true. If you want to have a more complex conversation about these teachings then we could do that.

We are the stewards of animals. We love them, we respect them, and we eat them. Vegatarian philosophy is flawed at its root, it supposes a falsity in our place in creation, it doesn't understand the difference between man and animal. You can start a thread on this if you like.

Life is a gift we have been given. Homosexuality, abortion, and suicide all make a mockery of that gift, but these acts are committed by children of God who are urged to change their ways.

The Priesthood is a man's job. It has nothing to do with the competency of women.

Due to bad translation, desire and addictive craving were seen as the same thing and Buddha was seen as being against desire. For a similar reason, numb detachment and blissful nonattachment were also somehow confused. As I said earlier, in order to understand Buddhism some experience in meditation is really needed. The teaching of the 12 Nidanas, the twelve key factors in the chain reaction of sorrow, is at the heart of Buddha's psychology and is the key to the first precept of "right view" or "right understanding". Even this is a summary for the more detailed psychology of the Abhidharma. The Buddha was not against regular Earthly desires or their fulfillment. It is part of the Mahayana vow to help people end sorrow and the causes of sorrow and to have happiness and the causes of happiness. Having desires and fulfilling them are two of the causes of happiness.

Addictive craving and healthy human desire are usually easy to distinguish in meditation, because the former feels like someone lit a fire under your meditation bench, while the latter when you get in touch with them allows your body to relax more deeply. The first key of meditation is to look within and accept everything as it is, including even the addictive cravings, all our negativity, and all our delusions. We learn to just watch with simple attention whatever is arising. We stay with the real and the obvious, anchor our attention in our breathing, so it does not get stuck or fixated, and let insight dawn inside consciousness. You do not force even addictive cravings to end. A lot of good people spend a lot of their lives struggling against them and causing themselves a lot of sorrow. You first acknowledge them, accept them, embrace them, just because they are there and they are part of your life. The first "noble" truth of the Buddha is that all sentient life experiences sorrow. It is not called an evil truth or an ugly truth. You accept your life with all its sorrows, embrace it, and live it. The sorrow can and will come to a complete end when we are fully enlightened, but trying to fight it, repress it, and condemn it is called "the sorrow of sorrow". It just adds more sorrow to what is already there.

The Buddha mapped out three places where sorrow can end. One is called "remaining with the sensation", not reacting to pain, not repressing the pain, not even analyzing the pain, but simply being with the pain. When the root delusion that fuels addictive craving is seen and felt, then it releases by itself, and there is peace. The root delusion is that the craving promises peace, but sustains the pain. When the craving ends, then the pain ends too. Then there is a nonattachment in its place, but it is not a numb thing. It is sensitive, alive, and aware, but just does not get hooked into a chain reaction of sorrow.

You've done little more than proved my point. Buddhism is simply Aristotle's golden mean. When the sensations get too extreme or are "a fire burning under the meditation bench" then we are to come back to our center. Not so in Christianity. The fiercest of angers and the strongest passions have their rightful place in existence. They are an essential part of life and life is diminished by avoiding them altogether.

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

Saint Catherine of Genoa talking about how some beings run away from the love of God into hell and that God does not throw anyone into hell.

That's common doctrine

Regarding St. Teresa I don't think the Church has an official doctrine on the souls of animals, yea or nay.

I wish I had the references for these items. I think I still have the book that quoted Saint Teresa of Avila. What I gather is that some items fall below the heretic radar of the canonization process. There was an eight year period where I studied Christian history and the Bible very intensively, even preparing to become a priest. I studied some Greek and Hebrew to help this, using commentaries (after two semesters of Greek). I still like to do language checks. Many of the books were read from a library that I do not have access to now. Because Spanish is my native language, I was able to read some of Saint John of the Cross (San Juan De La Cruz) in the original Spanish (more poetic). A lot of Christian mystics were officially branded as heretics, too. There is an excellent historical summary in the book by Evelyn Underhill called MYSTICISM. She is a genius. The only problem with the book is that to literally understand every word in the book you would have to known at least 8 languages. She is very fond of reading and quoting the mystics in their own languages when it comes to poems.

I do know that some Saints were accused of many things in their time.

I did have a feeling that our reading common ground is much. I am happy that you sat in Buddhist meditation for two years and got something from it. I do teach Buddhist meditation, more in the context of emotional processing in hypnotherapy, so that people can understand and release their pain. I find that it is good to have more verbal teachings to support the process, because people already have notions about meditation that need to be uprooted. It would be great if they could have a clean slate and just learn from direct experience. I am currently working with a Parkinson's person who is learning, through meditation, to end her pain. She has already beaten the odds, should have already been in the final phase of the disease, choking on her food. The doctors are surprised that she is both alive and fairly well. Not quite a full cure, though, but meditation is the one thing that is both helping and which still promises to really heal her. She had tried a lot of things. She usually stops her shaking during a session.

Very cool . I have heard quite a bit about "medicinal meditation" so to speak; interesting stuff. The experiments done with meditators are usually pretty interesting too. I remember a particular one where subjects wore headphones and an incredibly loud gunshot was reproduced which was said to be impossible to not subconsciously react to, but some lifelong meditators didn't react at all. There was another that showed that Buddhists have a better eye for splitsecond facial emotions than the average person which was presumed to be connected to compassion and sympathy.

I did get a chuckle about Christians should pray more. There was a reason that Jesus went up to the mountains to pray. You do not do this if you are just going to throw a few words up to God for 15 minutes. Blaming the protestants for this has some basis, since the dogma of salvation by faith only excludes prayer as essential. My feeling is that it should be faith and forgiveness both, with prayer being the place where remembrance of everyone who needs to be forgiven arises until we are complete. There is a parallel process in Vajrayana Buddhism that involves the light of Amida Buddha shining into our conscience and illuminating all resentment. It is the primary karma burning process. In the Lord's Prayer, forgiveness shows up as a core thing. The Buddhist contribution is that it has to be deep enough to uproot the resentment samskara within the subconscious mind.

Yeah, I remember reading the Dalai Lama's book on happiness and liking his exercises on compassion and forgiveness. There are many similar things in the Christian tradition, Jesus' passion being a big one.

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

So is it simply that you don't like them, or that they are evil? It doesn't particularly matter to me what you like, it matters to me what is true. If you want to have a more complex conversation about these teachings then we could do that.

We are the stewards of animals. We love them, we respect them, and we eat them. Vegatarian philosophy is flawed at its root, it supposes a falsity in our place in creation, it doesn't understand the difference between man and animal. You can start a thread on this if you like.

Life is a gift we have been given. Homosexuality, abortion, and suicide all make a mockery of that gift, but these acts are committed by children of God who are urged to change their ways.

The Priesthood is a man's job. It has nothing to do with the competency of women.



You've done little more than proved my point. Buddhism is simply Aristotle's golden mean. When the sensations get too extreme or are "a fire burning under the meditation bench" then we are to come back to our center. Not so in Christianity. The fiercest of angers and the strongest passions have their rightful place in existence. They are an essential part of life and life is diminished by avoiding them altogether.

I think what I will do is do some sharing about the 12 Nidanas. But addictive craving is what feels like the meditation bench has been lit on fire. It was not talking about anger. It is also not about avoiding anything. Looking without clinging or resistance is what allows those energies to find their proper place.

We do have a difference, though, when it comes to vegetarianism. For right now, I am content to name this difference. Compassion for all sentient beings, including animals, means not killing and eating them. Compassion for homosexuals means letting them have their life, not stoning them to death, not beating them up for being what they are, and respecting them as persons. I would say that it would take dogma obscure the natural compassion that radiates from within and sees the simple truth of this. And bumping off priestesses from other religions to install a completely male priesthood is not compassionate either. There are Christian groups who have questioned this patriarchal dogma and who have women ministers.

But you are right, it would probably take another thread to go deeper about these things. I am not sure, though, what exactly would get discussed though. I did like how Saint Paul:

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

[freelight]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

Might be just you. I checked it and it looks like some classical Hindu art. I suspect it is Shiva with the three faces looking into the past, present, and future, but I am not sure. Some Buddha statues look slightly feminine to American patriarchal eyes too. But it is one of the 32 marks of the Buddha's enlightenment on a physical level. It is related to the male and female hormones being perfectly balanced, the right and left brain perfectly synchronized, being vegetarian, and stress not wearing out the brain into aging and death. I think that Shiva had a similar enlightenment a long time ago (the two extra heads are metaphors). One of the scientific tests that I did undergo as a meditator was to check for right and left brain synchrony and balance. When hooked up to a certain meter where 0 is all left brain and 1000 is all right brain, the needle hoovered between 497 and 505 which the researcher found was the best score he had ever seen (500 is perfect). The only time is shifted was when I talked about money and it swung to the left brain zone. It led to some good processing and a return back into synchrony. It seems that the right brain is more concerned with happiness and money, while the left brain wants the balance sheet to be in the black.

Its a classical representation of Brahma (the Creator God), in a more feminine appearance, in devotion (bhakti). Traditionally with 4 heads representing the 4 vedas, and omniscience (omni-directional - north, south, east, west), but if with 3 heads, the movement of time(past, present, future) or the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva) in One. 'God' is truly the origin and apex of masculine/feminine energies and archetypes, since 'Brahman' is the Source. - and beautifully....Sanatana Dharma honors both the 'God' and 'Goddess' unlike some other religious traditions. Some however would rather choose ignorance than learn about other great and sacred traditions, this one predating Christianity by millennias.

Blessings in Brahman (the One Supreme Being) and Mahadevi (the Great Mother Goddess),



pj

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by zippy2006

So is it simply that you don't like them, or that they are evil? It doesn't particularly matter to me what you like, it matters to me what is true. If you want to have a more complex conversation about these teachings then we could do that.

We are the stewards of animals. We love them, we respect them, and we eat them. Vegatarian philosophy is flawed at its root, it supposes a falsity in our place in creation, it doesn't understand the difference between man and animal. You can start a thread on this if you like.

Life is a gift we have been given. Homosexuality, abortion, and suicide all make a mockery of that gift, but these acts are committed by children of God who are urged to change their ways.

The Priesthood is a man's job. It has nothing to do with the competency of women.



You've done little more than proved my point. Buddhism is simply Aristotle's golden mean. When the sensations get too extreme or are "a fire burning under the meditation bench" then we are to come back to our center. Not so in Christianity. The fiercest of angers and the strongest passions have their rightful place in existence. They are an essential part of life and life is diminished by avoiding them altogether.

I am a little weary of reductionistic phrases like Buddha's ethics being simply Aristotle's golden mean. I looked up on online so that anyone reading this can follow:

"In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example courage, a virtue, if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness and if deficient as cowardice.

To the Greek mentality, it was an attribute of beauty. Both ancients and moderns realized that "there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth". The poet John Keats, in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, put it this way:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The Greeks believed there to be three 'ingredients' to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, Paideia and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

In Chinese philosophy, a similar concept, Doctrine of the Mean, was propounded by Confucius; Buddhist philosophy also includes the concept of the middle way."

There are definitely some similarities, though, and Aristotle is not bad company to associate with. One of my professors did show something interesting, he had showed a picture of an unearthed a Greek statue with a Greek face with a Buddha smile carved on it. This is unfortunately outside my range of deep scholarship. It might be related to Heraclitus, Plotinus, or Pythagoras all of whom seemed to have some kind of meditation orientation. Plotinus did shape the development of Christian Mysticism and Monasticism. It seems the Saint Benedict may have drawn from the Buddhist Vinaya rules and rewrote them in Christian language. The original rule was vegetarian, too, which is one suggestion of this connection, and the Cistercians still keep this rule.

My sense is that Christianity and even Catholicism is not as monolithic about your understanding of passions. It seems the Jesus did recommend some restraint (Matthew 5:22) as did Saint Paul ("Do not let the sun go down on your anger"). Many of the Saints, some of the monastics that I met and chanted Psalms with, were not about the indulgence in the passions that you might be implying.

This is a big subject, but there is a difference here between Theravadin Buddhist restraint and Tantric Buddhist embrace of the passions within awareness and acceptance (and even the Dzogchen "spontaneous self liberation of afflicted emotions within the primordial state"). Each is a different level of psychology and work with emotions. In the beginning, some restraint is wise and does reduce the amount of unnecessary sorrow that is in human life.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

Might brelated to the male and female hormones being perfectly balanced, the right and left brain perfectly synchronized, being veg did undergo as a medeen 497 and 505 which the researcher found was the best score he had ever seen (500 is pere just you. I checked it and it looks like some classical Hihtenment on a physical level. It is fect). The only time is shin hooked up to a certain meter where 0 is all left brain and 1000 is all right brain, the neva with the three faces looking into the past, present, and future, but I am not sure. Some Budditator was to check for right and left brain synchrony and balance. Whearks of the Budedle hoovain into aging and deandu art. I suspect it is Shidha's enligth. I think that Shiva had a similar enlightenment a long time ago (the two extra heads are metaphors). One of the scientific tests that I left brain wants the balance sheet to be in the blered betwha statues look slightly feminine to American patriarchal eyes too. But it is one of the 32 mfted was when I talked about money and it swung to the left brain zone. It led to some good processing and a return back into synchrony. It seems that the right brain is more concerned with happiness and money, while theetarian, and stress not wearing out the brack.

I'll take that as a "Yes".

[sonicdrifter]

Originally Posted by Stripe

I'll take that as a "Yes".

Something happened to your copy text...

I assume you are having a lighter moment on this sometimes very serious blog.

There is a book called ANOTHER WAY OF LAUGHTER by Farzan.

It is a Sufi joke book with the jokes being enlightening parables.

"An ordinary person laughts at others,
A wise person laughs at himself (herself)."

I think there is one more level where there is humor at the irony of life.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

Something happened to your copy text...I assume you are having a lighter moment on this sometimes very serious blog.There is a book called ANOTHER WAY OF LAUGHTER by Farzan.It is a Sufi joke book with the jokes being enlightening parables."An ordinary person laughts at others,A wise person laughs at himself (herself)."I think there is one more level where there is humor at the irony of life.

Sonik.

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

We do have a difference, though, when it comes to vegetarianism. For right now, I am content to name this difference. Compassion for all sentient beings, including animals, means not killing and eating them. Compassion for homosexuals means letting them have their life, not stoning them to death, not beating them up for being what they are, and respecting them as persons. I would say that it would take dogma obscure the natural compassion that radiates from within and sees the simple truth of this.

But who is stoning, beating, or disrespecting homosexuals? Certainly not me. I already noted that they are children of God. This is pretty standard Catholic theology.

And bumping off priestesses from other religions to install a completely male priesthood is not compassionate either. There are Christian groups who have questioned this patriarchal dogma and who have women ministers.

Like I said you are welcome to make a case for that but these mere assertions will not do.

But you are right, it would probably take another thread to go deeper about these things. I am not sure, though, what exactly would get discussed though. I did like how Saint Paul:

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Indeed, there are many issues arising quickly

[zippy2006]

Originally Posted by sonicdrifter

I am a little weary of reductionistic phrases like Buddha's ethics being simply Aristotle's golden mean. I looked up on online so that anyone reading this can follow:

"In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example courage, a virtue, if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness and if deficient as cowardice.

To the Greek mentality, it was an attribute of beauty. Both ancients and moderns realized that "there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth". The poet John Keats, in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, put it this way:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The Greeks believed there to be three 'ingredients' to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, Paideia and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

In Chinese philosophy, a similar concept, Doctrine of the Mean, was propounded by Confucius; Buddhist philosophy also includes the concept of the middle way."

There are definitely some similarities, though, and Aristotle is not bad company to associate with. One of my professors did show something interesting, he had showed a picture of an unearthed a Greek statue with a Greek face with a Buddha smile carved on it. This is unfortunately outside my range of deep scholarship. It might be related to Heraclitus, Plotinus, or Pythagoras all of whom seemed to have some kind of meditation orientation. Plotinus did shape the development of Christian Mysticism and Monasticism. It seems the Saint Benedict may have drawn from the Buddhist Vinaya rules and rewrote them in Christian language. The original rule was vegetarian, too, which is one suggestion of this connection, and the Cistercians still keep this rule.

My sense is that Christianity and even Catholicism is not as monolithic about your understanding of passions. It seems the Jesus did recommend some restraint (Matthew 5:22) as did Saint Paul ("Do not let the sun go down on your anger"). Many of the Saints, some of the monastics that I met and chanted Psalms with, were not about the indulgence in the passions that you might be implying.

This is a big subject, but there is a difference here between Theravadin Buddhist restraint and Tantric Buddhist embrace of the passions within awareness and acceptance (and even the Dzogchen "spontaneous self liberation of afflicted emotions within the primordial state"). Each is a different level of psychology and work with emotions. In the beginning, some restraint is wise and does reduce the amount of unnecessary sorrow that is in human life.

Okay, I think that sums up what I've been saying. Aristotle isn't bad company, no, but I am just pointing out the flaws of a decent system. Probably as close as we could get without a little help from God.

Certainly Christianity recommends restraint at times. We aren't to run around like angry fools all the time . The point is that Christianity recognizes a time to put away restraint, while general ethics does not. If we look more closely these general ethical system tend to have a push and pull mechanism. For example, hatred and compassion would push and pull with each other until they find the right balance (which is probably complete compassion for Buddhists). In Christianity they exist side by side, the lion and the lamb. Love and hatred are not mutually exclusive because love demands something more than compassion. It demands responsibility: the more we love someone the more we hate the evil things they do, and rightly so.