A Universe from Nothing?

[ChristineM]

Yes, but in the process of rational examination, what becomes true about his teachings does not result in a rational explanation that can be demonstrated via Logic, Reason, or Analysis; it results in a radical transformation of consciousness in which what one thought to be 'reality', is not the true Reality, ie; 'the way things are', and which cannot be rationally explained, because to see 'the way things are' is an experience beyond the thinking mind. He said 'to SEE the way things are'; and not to THINK about how they are.

One of the definitions of 'religion' that I posted above says:

"a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance."

....such as the Buddhist pursuit of the experience of Enlightenment, which is a pursuit of happiness, a general pursuit of all religious endeavors.

I will repeat

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

Perhaps it will sink in this time?

 

[ChristineM]

I have no problem with the scientific definition as it applies to science, but it does not tell me what space actually is. If you want to know what space actually IS, you need to transcend all definitions, while recognizing the mistaking of the definition for the reality.

Science can describe me in terms of certain characteristics and behaviors, such as hair and eye color, height, weight, and my activities, even my psychology, but that is not who I am; that is only my identity. My true nature is beyond all identification, just as space is beyond all description.

That's your problem.

 

[ChristineM]

Pity scientists. Never stop with the guessing games, assumptions and preconceived notions.

Dna exists, it proven repeatedly, example 1 in transitional fossils (those things like my avatar that deniers claim don't exist). Example 2, human behaviour. Example 3, genetics (as previously mentioned) funny how you would happily convict a suspected murderer to execution on genetic evidence yet deny it is valid when it proves homo history. Example 4, back to fossils, not the changes over time but accurate dating techniques show the development of the homo species.


Now feel free to show me comparable proof of god magic, or perhaps any provable evidence that jesus existed, or perhaps any factual evidence that noahs flood occurred on the scale described in the bible, or perhaps genetic evidence that (genetic) Adam and Eve lived close enough together in time to get it together and make monkeys out of us...

Any will do to convince me your god book is more than bronze age fairy stories put together from guesswork, assumption and preconceived old wives tails...

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You said and i quote "There is no belief involved in stilling the mind, it is a religious practice. Belief in nothing that caused everything otoh is classic belief..."

You also said

" Haha..I said it was a religious practice to realize transcendence, and you say no it is not a religious practice, religion must be involved..."

And o have proved you wrong by providing evidence that transcendence is not necessarily a religious practice. Do you always go into fits of incredulity when you are beaten?

You are being disingenuous as usual, how do you live with yourself, you left out the damning part....directly in response to my saying stilling the mind was a religious practice, you said no it isn't, it's was just practice, and went on to explain that there had to be a religious goal for it to be religious practice.

That's when I laughed and pointed out that my still mind meditation practice is to realize transcendence, meaning realizing absolute reality aka God, and as if you thought I was not religious, you say it isn't because religious intent is not involved. That you provide a link to some web site which says there are forms of transcendence realized that are not religious in nature, whether it be true or false, is totally irrelevant, I was speaking about my own religious practice of stilling the mind, I can't speak for anyone else.

Now the only way your reply saying my still mind meditation practice was not religious could be considered be sincere is if you honestly thought that I am not a religious person, and don't do religion. Is this the case?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I will repeat

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

Perhaps it will sink in this time?

You are going off the deep end Christine....get a grip..

Buddhists

The Global Religious Landscape
Buddhists

 

[ChristineM]

You are being disingenuous as usual, how do you live with yourself, you left out the damning part....directly in response to my saying stilling the mind was a religious practice, you said no it isn't, it's was just practice, and went on to explain that there had to be a religious goal for it to be religious practice.

That's when I laughed and pointed out that my still mind meditation practice is to realize transcendence, meaning realizing absolute reality aka God, and as if you thought I was not religious, you say it isn't because religious intent is not involved. That you provide a link to some web site which says there are forms of transcendence realized that are not religious in nature, whether it be true or false, is totally irrelevant, I was speaking about my own religious practice of stilling the mind, I can't speak for anyone else.

Now the only way your reply saying my still mind meditation practice was not religious could be considered be sincere is if you honestly thought that I am not a religious person, and don't do religion. Is this the case?

Yes and my evidence validated my assertion. Perhaps you will condescend to actually read it before making accusations.

 

[ChristineM]

You are going off the deep end Christine....get a grip..

Buddhists

The Global Religious Landscape
Buddhists

I will repeat for the hard of thinking

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I will repeat for the hard of thinking

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

"The way things are" is absolute reality, and is what all religions refer to...Taoism is the Great Way.

Who says it is not a religion, just you?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Yes and my evidence validated my assertion. Perhaps you will condescend to actually read it before making accusations.

Yes I did read it and consider it a thoughtful article, but it is irrelevant to the point of my still mind meditation being a religious practice. There is nothing in it that implies still mind meditation practice can't be considered a religious practice.

 

[godnotgod]

I will repeat

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

Perhaps it will sink in this time?

One of my initial comments regarding Zen and Buddhism is that whether they are religions or not is debatable. Some say yes, and some say no, depending upon the criteria applied. According to a dictionary definition of 'religion', however, we have as one of the choices:

"a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance."

....such as the Buddhist pursuit of the experience of Enlightenment, which is a pursuit of happiness, a general pursuit of all religious endeavors.

religion - Google Search

Perhaps it will sink in this time?

 

[godnotgod]

I will repeat

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not."

Zen Is a Religion

Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett

I am sure you’ve noticed by now that I’ve been talking about Zen as a religion, and yet some of you may have heard that all of Buddhism, and especially Zen, is atheistic. It is not. You’ve heard this due to the fact that the Christian missionaries who brought back the Scriptures from the Far East either did not know of, or deliberately steered clear of, one particular Scripture spoken by the Buddha. In the Udana Scripture He says very clearly, “O monks, there is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated.”1 This is what He found in meditation and which gave Him His enlightenment. In other words, He found That Which Is. What the Christians call “God” and Mohammedans call “Allah”, the Buddhists call variably: That Which Is, the Lord of the House, the Cosmic Buddha, the Eternal, Amida Buddha, the Immaculacy of Emptiness, Vairocana Buddha, the Unborn, etc.2 The terms we use for It don’t really matter: they’re just labels, just concepts.

Rest of article here:

Dharma Articles - Zen is a Religion

In modern cutting edge scientific parlance, 'the way things are', or 'what is', is considered to be The Unified Field, out of which Everything emerges. It is The Absolute that ben d is referring to, while what we see as The Universe is, according to the Hindu view, essentially an appearance, Brahman, or The Unified Field, being the only true Reality, that is to say, 'the way things are'.

What Zen does is to marry The Miraculous with The Ordinary, in a very simple manner, to create a singular view of 'the way things are', or 'what is':

"Before I began my study of Zen, mountains were just mountains, and trees just trees;
during my study of Zen, mountains were no longer mountains, and trees no longer trees;
when I realized my own Enlightenment, mountains were once again mountains, and trees once again trees"

Maybe this time something significant will sink in?

 

[Ponder This]

No! It's not a relative value. It's Absolute!

'nothing' literally means 'no thing'
but linguistically, 'nothing' is a noun
nouns denote things
so grammatically 'nothing' denotes something (which is not a thing).

If I try to explain what nothing is, I have to start with a thing, so that we can see when the thing is absent. It's impossible to understand nothing without first understanding that there is a thing, because we do not see the nothing, if there is nothing to see.

There is plenty of connotation attached to the word 'nothing'. Like all words, 'nothing' is not simply what it is defined to be, but also the things it is associated with. For example, someone might say that a black hole is nothing, because it appears to be nothing, because light does not escape it's event horizon. We understand that there is something there ('mass' or 'energy'), but we can't see it. The absence of things to see is like the absence of things. So black holes appear as if they are nothing; they are black. They aren't a particular color except whatever color we use to denote the lack of a color (which happens to be the color black).

When we talk about the universe coming from nothing, we have our conception things, in particular the things that comprise the universe. But these things that comprise the universe really only make sense to us to the extent that we already know about these things that comprise the universe. Anything in the universe that we don't know about, can't be conceived to not be there, because they are not conceived to have been there in the first place (even if they really are there).

So we are really truly left with a conundrum. We can't actually understand what the nothing before the universe existed was an absence of without understanding what thing the universe is in it's entirety.

God may be absolute, but man is relative.

If you want to say that before the universe was, there was absolutely nothing, understand that this is not quite the same thing as saying that before the universe was, there was nothing. Linguistically, we would attach the modifier of 'absolutely' to more clearly define what we mean by saying 'nothing' because 'nothing' is a word that is insufficient to the task. By using the word 'absolute', we can denote a value or principle that may be viewed without relation to other things.

IMO.

 

[godnotgod]

'nothing' literally means 'no thing'
but linguistically, 'nothing' is a noun
nouns denote things
so grammatically 'nothing' denotes something (which is not a thing).

If I try to explain what nothing is, I have to start with a thing, so that we can see when the thing is absent. It's impossible to understand nothing without first understanding that there is a thing, because we do not see the nothing, if there is nothing to see.

There is plenty of connotation attached to the word 'nothing'. Like all words, 'nothing' is not simply what it is defined to be, but also the things it is associated with. For example, someone might say that a black hole is nothing, because it appears to be nothing, because light does not escape it's event horizon. We understand that there is something there ('mass' or 'energy'), but we can't see it. The absence of things to see is like the absence of things. So black holes appear as if they are nothing; they are black. They aren't a particular color except whatever color we use to denote the lack of a color (which happens to be the color black).

When we talk about the universe coming from nothing, we have our conception things, in particular the things that comprise the universe. But these things that comprise the universe really only make sense to us to the extent that we already know about these things that comprise the universe. Anything in the universe that we don't know about, can't be conceived to not be there, because they are not conceived to have been there in the first place (even if they really are there).

So we are really truly left with a conundrum. We can't actually understand what the nothing before the universe existed was an absence of without understanding what thing the universe is in it's entirety.

God may be absolute, but man is relative.

If you want to say that before the universe was, there was absolutely nothing, understand that this is not quite the same thing as saying that before the universe was, there was nothing. Linguistically, we would attach the modifier of 'absolutely' to more clearly define what we mean by saying 'nothing' because 'nothing' is a word that is insufficient to the task. By using the word 'absolute', we can denote a value or principle that may be viewed without relation to other things.

IMO.

Do you think that the 'something' you refer to is real?

 

[ChristineM]

"The way things are" is absolute reality, and is what all religions refer to...Taoism is the Great Way.

Who says it is not a religion, just you?

Buddha pretty much had the final word on Buddhism. What people choose to do afterwards is irrelevant.

 

[ChristineM]

Yes I did read it and consider it a thoughtful article, but it is irrelevant to the point of my still mind meditation being a religious practice. There is nothing in it that implies still mind meditation practice can't be considered a religious practice.

Why irrelevant? Because it makes a mockery of your claim?

 

[ChristineM]

One of my initial comments regarding Zen and Buddhism is that whether they are religions or not is debatable. Some say yes, and some say no, depending upon the criteria applied. According to a dictionary definition of 'religion', however, we have as one of the choices:

"a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance."

....such as the Buddhist pursuit of the experience of Enlightenment, which is a pursuit of happiness, a general pursuit of all religious endeavors.

religion - Google Search

Perhaps it will sink in this time?

As far as Buddhism is concerned in reckon Buddha got it right. Also listed by google.

 

[ChristineM]

Zen Is a Religion

Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett

I am sure you’ve noticed by now that I’ve been talking about Zen as a religion, and yet some of you may have heard that all of Buddhism, and especially Zen, is atheistic. It is not. You’ve heard this due to the fact that the Christian missionaries who brought back the Scriptures from the Far East either did not know of, or deliberately steered clear of, one particular Scripture spoken by the Buddha. In the Udana Scripture He says very clearly, “O monks, there is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated.”1 This is what He found in meditation and which gave Him His enlightenment. In other words, He found That Which Is. What the Christians call “God” and Mohammedans call “Allah”, the Buddhists call variably: That Which Is, the Lord of the House, the Cosmic Buddha, the Eternal, Amida Buddha, the Immaculacy of Emptiness, Vairocana Buddha, the Unborn, etc.2 The terms we use for It don’t really matter: they’re just labels, just concepts.

Rest of article here:

Dharma Articles - Zen is a Religion

In modern cutting edge scientific parlance, 'the way things are', or 'what is', is considered to be The Unified Field, out of which Everything emerges. It is The Absolute that ben d is referring to, while what we see as The Universe is, according to the Hindu view, essentially an appearance, Brahman, or The Unified Field, being the only true Reality, that is to say, 'the way things are'.

What Zen does is to marry The Miraculous with The Ordinary, in a very simple manner, to create a singular view of 'the way things are', or 'what is':

"Before I began my study of Zen, mountains were just mountains, and trees just trees;
during my study of Zen, mountains were no longer mountains, and trees no longer trees;
when I realized my own Enlightenment, mountains were once again mountains, and trees once again trees"

Maybe this time something significant will sink in?

Once again..

Buddhism doesn't fit neatly into either category of religion or philosophy. When people asked Buddha what he was teaching, he said he teaches "the way things are." He said nobody should believe his teachings out of faith, but instead they should examine for themselves to see if they are true or not.

Tell me would you take the word of a follower if it contradicted the word of jesus?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Buddha pretty much had the final word on Buddhism. What people choose to do afterwards is irrelevant.

Total nonsense....Gautama never wrote a word in his life, same for Jesus and Socrates, everything that Gautama was said to have said was recorded much later by followers and followers of followers. Gautama never called himself a Buddha, just his unenlightened followers called him that. Gautama is not the only epitome of Buddhahood, it merely implies an enlightened one and there are more Buddhas in the making if they take their religion practice religiously and transcend the dualistic mind permanently.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Why irrelevant? Because it makes a mockery of your claim?

My claim is that my religious practice of stilling the mind to transcend duality is to realize divine oneness of being. Quote what is relevant in that article that backs up your claim that my practice is a secular practice and not a religious one?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

As far as Buddhism is concerned in reckon Buddha got it right. Also listed by google.

Haha.....how thorough a researcher you are Christine, in addition to 'buddhism isn't a religion', 'flat earther's and the 'moon landings were a hoax' are also listed by google..