Does your *god* speak?

[biomystic]

Friend biomystic,

Kindly understand.
Science only validates what laws exists already in existence by *thinking* and Religion is all about *stilling* that very mind.
The process is centered on the MIND. One looking outside and yet not finding solutions to bring about any equilibrium to life.
Religion looking inwards has found the equilibrium to be at peace with the *self* and existence.
The fight is not between the two aspects of the mind as mentioned before the MIND is to be used both WAYS as and when needed and due to THIS understanding now we find Westerners taking to eastern WAYS and the East taking to western WAYS and the merging of both the aspects will bring about a *WHOLENESS* and which will then turn the wheel of evolution forward to its next level.

Love & rgds

"Science only validates what laws exists already in existence by *thinking* and Religion is all about *stilling* that very mind."

You keep making this false assumption. For you and Easterners religion may be all about stilling the mind but it isn't for billions of followers of Abrahamic religions. Until you realize you are stuck in that Eastern mindset you won't understand the point I'm making: you spend your time either on self enlightenment through various methods for "stilling the mind", or you spend it on existential problem solving, dealing with the problems of human life. You can't do both at once and by choosing to spend time on self enlightenment instead of using that time in service to others, by making Self more important than Others, you not only negate egolessness, you reinforce it. True egolessness is found in service to others. We are here to evolve humanity into God by perfecting the goodness of humanity and that takes paying attention to humanity. Again, you can't serve two masters at the same time and do justice to both. Either you serve humanity or you serve your self. The Western way of ego reduction is found in service to humanity.

 

[Mr Cheese]

I talk to God
But the sky is empty

--Sylvia Plath

 

[Mr Cheese]

"Science only validates what laws exists already in existence by *thinking* and Religion is all about *stilling* that very mind."

You keep making this false assumption. For you and Easterners religion may be all about stilling the mind but it isn't for billions of followers of Abrahamic religions.


Billions of bigmacs are sold every decade....
this does not mean that big macs are all that nutritous...
this is the difference between the exoteric (for the many)
and the esoteric (for the few)

Many people like music
Few appreciate mozart in comparison

Thus, saying billions do this, and not that is misleading.

Actually Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their own versions of "stilling the mind" as you so put it,.... Obviously you have never examined this


Until you realize you are stuck in that Eastern mindset you won't understand the point I'm making: you spend your time either on self enlightenment through various methods for "stilling the mind", or you spend it on existential problem solving, dealing with the problems of human life. You can't do both at once and by choosing to spend time on self enlightenment instead of using that time in service to others,

Wrong, if one examines the path of buddhism for example, we have the 8 fold path..lets examine this quickly:

4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.

by making Self more important than Others, you not only negate egolessness, you reinforce it.

Sigh.....
the Self, the TRUE self is EVERYONE....that is the point, understanding that all are ONE,,,,,,negate egolessness? lol

True egolessness is found in service to others.


If you were to ask me ‘What is the essence of Buddhism?’
I would answer that it is to awaken. And the function of
that awakening is learning how to serve.

–Bernard Glassman.


We are here to evolve humanity into God by perfecting the goodness of humanity and that takes paying attention to humanity. Again, you can't serve two masters at the same time and do justice to both. Either you serve humanity or you serve your self. The Western way of ego reduction is found in service to humanity.

the western way of ego reduction?
Hmmm what western way is this???
This really doesnt fit in with alchemy, hermeticism or other western paths...
I think you are mistaken
The western way is one of participation, arguably.... it is active
whereas the eastern is more passive.....

I think you are rather lost

 

[Mr Cheese]

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

A word is a sound that has been given a form. Without formed sound you won't hear God but the background noise of living systems. There is no such thing as silence for the living.

I think its a bit more complicated than this

Logos: Often translated as “Word,” it’s true meaning is much more multifunctional (a better translation would be “reason&#8221. Logos was an ancient Greek term referring to “reasoned speech,” later adapted by the ”Gospel of John” to signify Christ. Logos, Word, and Tao, are synonymous. (See; Pleroma, Cosmology, and Cosmogony.)

 

[Mr Cheese]

Friend Evee,

Anything in existence is nothing but energy, that which is not individual is universal and religion is the way or path to merge the two into One.

Energy only changes forms and so whatever we see or do not see are forms of energy.

Love & rgds

Friend Zen,

energy is a concept
by its very nature then
your ideas are false
all concepts are false friend Zen

WHen one limits God
One is lost

...........

One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants.
he saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up on wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him.
Mara’s attendant asked what that was and Mara replied,
“A piece of truth.” “Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?”
his attendant asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it.”
From 108 Treasures for the Heart: A Guide for Daily Living by Benny Liow


The Master keeps her mind
always at one with the Tao;
that is what gives her her radiance.

The Tao is ungraspable.
How can her mind be at one with it?
Because she doesn't cling to ideas.

The Tao is dark and unfathomable.
How can it make her radiant?
Because she lets it.

Since before time and space were,
the Tao is.
It is beyond is and is not.
How do I know this is true?
I look inside myself and see.

 

[Mr Cheese]

Proof is in the pudding. Show us how those countries where stilling the mind is the dominant religious or philosophical paradigm have achieved anywhere near the brilliance in most every aspect of cultural and scientific progress of Western societies "suffering" from non-enlightenment. I am saying that you spend hours and hours in no thought meditation and you pay the price of dulling your mind to solving problems of life. It's simple reasoning. It takes time to solve problems that promote human learning and understanding of the world and the way human societies fit into the way the world works. If you're brain's paying attention to transcendental meditation type of cognition, it's correspondingly not paying attention to solving existential problems. The telling sign of this is lagging social advancement in those societies where no thought is deemed the highest thought.

We're put here to make ourselves better by making the world we live in better and that takes paying attention to problems outside of one's self. This is why I follow the Christian path for reduction of ego which is putting one's self in service to others and not worrying about self enlightenment, something the real thing only comes from God.

You need to understand that which you speak against...before you speak against it

There were once three stonemasons all hard at work when an observer came on site. Moments later the work bell went off signaling the end of the day. The observer addressed the first stonemason saying, “Excuse me, sir, would you mind commenting on what you do for a living?” He turned around, bent and grumbling, sweat pouring off his brow and retorted, “Can’t you see I am a stonemason! I have been laying stone all day. But they don’t own me anymore! The bell has gone off and I am out of here!” And he shuffled off.


The observer then approached the second stonemason, asking the same question. With a smile on his face and a song in his step, the stonemason responded, “I am a stonemason. As you can see I am laying stone. But if you take a step back you will see that we are building a wall here. We’ve come pretty far today, too, about three and a half feet. Not bad for a day’s work.” And the stonemason proudly walked on.


When the observer reached the third stonemason, she was still working and he approached her saying, “Excuse me, but the work bell has gone off and you are free to go.” She turned saying, “Oh no, I am not done for the day and you cannot force me to leave!” “Fine,” said the observer, “but would you mind commenting on what you do for a living? The final stonemason beamed saying, “I am a stonemason. As you can see I am laying stone. But if you take a closer look, you will see that we are building a wall here. We’ve come pretty far today, too, about three and a half feet. But if you look even closer, you will see that we are building a cathedral in this place!”


[as told by Denise Bissonnette in The Wholehearted Journey: Bringing Qualities of Soul to Everyday Life and Work, p. 71-72]


“All through the Verba Seniorum [The Sayings of the Desert Fathers] we find a repeated insistence on the primacy of love over everything else in the spiritual life: over knowledge, gnosis, asceticism, contemplation, solitude, prayer. Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of content and become mere illusions. The more lofty they are, the more dangerous the illusion.


Love, of course, means something much more then mere sentiment, much more than token favors and perfunctory almsdeeds. Love mean an interior and spiritual identification with one’s neighbor, so that she is not regarded as an “object” to “which” one “does good.” The fact is that good done to another as an object is of little or no spiritual value. Love takes one’s neighbor as one’s other self, and loves him with all the immense humility and discretion and reserve and reverence without which no one can presume to enter into the sanctuary of another’s subjectivity. From such love all authoritarian brutality, all exploitation, domineering and condescension must necessarily be absent. The saints of the desert were enemies of every subtle or gross expedient by which “the spiritual man” contrives to bully those he thinks inferior to himself, thus gratifying his own ego. They had renounced everything that savored of punishment and revenge, however hidden it might be.”


–Thomas Merton.

 

[sojourner]

"Science only validates what laws exists already in existence by *thinking* and Religion is all about *stilling* that very mind."

You keep making this false assumption. For you and Easterners religion may be all about stilling the mind but it isn't for billions of followers of Abrahamic religions. Until you realize you are stuck in that Eastern mindset you won't understand the point I'm making: you spend your time either on self enlightenment through various methods for "stilling the mind", or you spend it on existential problem solving, dealing with the problems of human life. You can't do both at once and by choosing to spend time on self enlightenment instead of using that time in service to others, by making Self more important than Others, you not only negate egolessness, you reinforce it. True egolessness is found in service to others. We are here to evolve humanity into God by perfecting the goodness of humanity and that takes paying attention to humanity. Again, you can't serve two masters at the same time and do justice to both. Either you serve humanity or you serve your self. The Western way of ego reduction is found in service to humanity.

There has, at least since Origen, been a tradition in Xy to understand God through a via negativa, or a contemplative lifestyle. Basil and John Crysostem certainly embraced this approach, as did the earlier anchorites and the desert fathers.
Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton would both disagree with you here, as well.

 

[Mr Cheese]

There has, at least since Origen,.

hmm thats what 1700+ years worth of christianity then....:sarcastic

 

[Gentoo]

That's not fair! Now I'm going to sit and wonder what cool beliefs you have that are too special/unique to share. I for one would love to hear them, without criticizing. Especially considering what a kind and open minded person. Maybe one day?

Stranger things have happened

 

[FreeSpirit]

My friend,

I don't know if this will answer your question, but I hope that it will give you my personal insight into this particular topic.

I believe that the Goddess Danu talks all the time. Danu - who is basically Mother Nature but with a different name - is the essence of nature itself, and in making the flowers bloom and the wind blow, is she not talking to us all?

Whenever I walk through a wood, I can hear the breeze through the trees and it comforts me. I can tell when the wood is tired, or angry, or hurting.

We as human beings do not take the time to listen to Danu, for if we sat in a nice dry spot in the woods and quietened our thoughts, we would all realise the bounty of nature. This, I believe, is Danu speaking.

Many blessings,

Matt :flower:

 

[biomystic]

There has, at least since Origen, been a tradition in Xy to understand God through a via negativa, or a contemplative lifestyle. Basil and John Crysostem certainly embraced this approach, as did the earlier anchorites and the desert fathers.
Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton would both disagree with you here, as well.

If all you care about are words then, sure, post any of the words of good intention from those who want to still the mind, and I do recognize Western traditional mysticism as being in that ideological camp, but I choose to focus on what people actually DO with their philosophies. And when I do this, it is DEEDS that always speak louder than any amount of words. For example, compare the Christian mystics to St. Francis. St. Francis did things, he wasn't wasting the community's time and energy as he fought hard against the privileges of his Church. But the contemplative, the tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Buddhist monks living off the largess of their poor societies, each trying his best to duplicate Buddha's "secret", which turns out to be nothing more than a meditative technique to completely numb of a major part of the human brain in order to achieve "nirvana", and this is called "enlightenment". Enlightenment? Enlightenment of what? Who benefits from having no thought in societies that place such high value on this when those left thinking in those societies are busy grabbing power and wealth for themselves? Tibet remains a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Those who see mind calming as something wondrous do not look at the price Tibetans have paid for putting all their eggs in the basket of a religion promoting no thought. Their leader goes around the world getting all kinds of praise and glory, says everything you want to hear from a religious leader while losing his country to a more clever man, Mao Zadong and Tibet becomes overrun by Chinese.

Looking at the deeds people do and not their words is the only way to truly judge a person's philosophy or theology. Words are a dime a dozen.

 

[Mr Cheese]

If all you care about are words then, sure, post any of the words of good intention from those who want to still the mind, and I do recognize Western traditional mysticism as being in that ideological camp, but I choose to focus on what people actually DO with their philosophies. And when I do this, it is DEEDS that always speak louder than any amount of words. For example, compare the Christian mystics to St. Francis. St. Francis did things, he wasn't wasting the community's time and energy as he fought hard against the privileges of his Church. But the contemplative, the tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Buddhist monks living off the largess of their poor societies, each trying his best to duplicate Buddha's "secret", which turns out to be nothing more than a meditative technique to completely numb of a major part of the human brain in order to achieve "nirvana", and this is called "enlightenment". Enlightenment? Enlightenment of what? Who benefits from having no thought in societies that place such high value on this when those left thinking in those societies are busy grabbing power and wealth for themselves? Tibet remains a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Those who see mind calming as something wondrous do not look at the price Tibetans have paid for putting all their eggs in the basket of a religion promoting no thought. Their leader goes around the world getting all kinds of praise and glory, says everything you want to hear from a religious leader while losing his country to a more clever man, Mao Zadong and Tibet becomes overrun by Chinese.

Looking at the deeds people do and not their words is the only way to truly judge a person's philosophy or theology. Words are a dime a dozen.

If you really think Buddhist monks just sit on their patooties and live as parasitical leeches

you are grossly uninformed...

...

May I remind you st francis was a monk also...

yet you dont accuse him of being a leech...

again....

please see my prior post, outlining part of the 8 fold path....

no where does it say one must act like a leech to obtain nirvana...
in fact, just the contrary

may I remind you opf the christian saying:

"Faith without works
Is as worthless as works without faith"

If you are going to bismirch Buddhism, and in fact the ehtirety of the Eastern path
One should start by beginning to actually understand it, from your posts it is clear you don't.

Do you condemn all the western contemplatives?
You know, St Francis was a great contemplative!!!!!
.......

. [SIZE=+1]Right Effort[/SIZE] is fourfold, namely:

(a) the endeavor to discard evil that has already arisen.
(b)the endeavor to prevent the arising of unrisen evil.
(c)the endeavour to develop that good which has already arisen.
(d)the endeavour to promote that good which has not already arisen. Effort is needed to cultivate Good Conduct or develop one’s mind, because one is often distracted or tempted to take the easy way out of things. The Buddha teaches that attaining happiness and Enlightenment depends upon one’s own efforts. Effort is the root of all achievement. If one wants to get to the top of a mountain, just sitting at the foot thinking about it will not bring one there. It is by making the effort of climbing up the mountain, step by step, that one eventually reaches the summit. Thus, no matter how great the Buddha’s achievement may be, or how excellent His Teaching is, one must put the Teaching into practice before one can expect to obtain the desired result.


Buddhism Fundamentals

Bhikkhus live a strict, simple life of meditation, study and work, with very short hours of sleep and only one meal a day. They do not own money or any possessions to speak of. They help with the important task of teaching and assisting lay people, and conducting ceremonies.

:: The Buddhist Community ::

:sarcastic:sarcastic:sarcastic:sarcastic

Monks are monks....

 

[biomystic]

If you really think Buddhist monks just sit on their patooties and live as parasitical leeches

you are grossly uninformed...

...

May I remind you st francis was a monk also...

yet you dont accuse him of being a leech...

again....

please see my prior post, outlining part of the 8 fold path....

no where does it say one must act like a leech to obtain nirvana...
in fact, just the contrary

may I remind you opf the christian saying:

"Faith without works
Is as worthless as works without faith"

If you are going to bismirch Buddhism, and in fact the ehtirety of the Eastern path
One should start by beginning to actually understand it, from your posts it is clear you don't.

Do you condemn all the western contemplatives?
You know, St Francis was a great contemplative!!!!!
.......

. [SIZE=+1]Right Effort[/SIZE] is fourfold, namely:

(a) the endeavor to discard evil that has already arisen.
(b)the endeavor to prevent the arising of unrisen evil.
(c)the endeavour to develop that good which has already arisen.
(d)the endeavour to promote that good which has not already arisen. Effort is needed to cultivate Good Conduct or develop one’s mind, because one is often distracted or tempted to take the easy way out of things. The Buddha teaches that attaining happiness and Enlightenment depends upon one’s own efforts. Effort is the root of all achievement. If one wants to get to the top of a mountain, just sitting at the foot thinking about it will not bring one there. It is by making the effort of climbing up the mountain, step by step, that one eventually reaches the summit. Thus, no matter how great the Buddha’s achievement may be, or how excellent His Teaching is, one must put the Teaching into practice before one can expect to obtain the desired result.


Buddhism Fundamentals

Bhikkhus live a strict, simple life of meditation, study and work, with very short hours of sleep and only one meal a day. They do not own money or any possessions to speak of. They help with the important task of teaching and assisting lay people, and conducting ceremonies.

:: The Buddhist Community ::

:sarcastic:sarcastic:sarcastic:sarcastic

Monks are monks....

Words, words, words. The proof is still in the pudding and I don't care how much you defend Buddhist philosophy, it still only amounts to brain manipulation to impose a single brain state wherein the brain's sense of self center is deactivated. Seeking a single brain state as a highest goal is not very wise in my opinion. It takes a whole brain with many states of consciousness to deal effectively with the problems of life. If Buddhist nations were leading the world in social progress and human rights and ecology and everything else needed to better humanity's ability to live harmoniously on earth then I wouldn't have any complaints but that is patently not the case. There used to be a Western wisdom about the futility of "contemplating your navel" instead of DOING something, and that wisdom still applies. Our greatest scientific and cultural achievements have been done by people who have not tried to extinguish their egos through meditation. It takes an ego to create novelty whereas the egoless mindset doesn't care and is content with the natural order of things.

 

[zenzero]

Friend Mr. Cheese,

energy is a concept
by its very nature then
your ideas are false
all concepts are false friend Zen

WHen one limits God
One is lost

Personally have no concepts or ideas for *Nothingness*. Besides the *I* is not here and is still searching his *self*.
However, like in Sanatan dharma there are forms Brahma being one. likewise *energy* is adopted for today's man who like friend biomystic understands scientific forms.

Love & rgds

 

[zenzero]

Friend sojourner,

There has, at least since Origen, been a tradition in Xy to understand God through a via negativa, or a contemplative lifestyle. Basil and John Crysostem certainly embraced this approach, as did the earlier anchorites and the desert fathers.

For your information this method existed in Sanatan dharma long back and find that it is in other religions too like: ein-sof in Judaism and bila faifa in Islam.

Love & rgds

 

[zenzero]

Friend biomystic,

If all you care about are words then, sure, post any of the words of good intention from those who want to still the mind, and I do recognize Western traditional mysticism as being in that ideological camp, but I choose to focus on what people actually DO with their philosophies. And when I do this, it is DEEDS that always speak louder than any amount of words. For example, compare the Christian mystics to St. Francis. St. Francis did things, he wasn't wasting the community's time and energy as he fought hard against the privileges of his Church. But the contemplative, the tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Buddhist monks living off the largess of their poor societies, each trying his best to duplicate Buddha's "secret", which turns out to be nothing more than a meditative technique to completely numb of a major part of the human brain in order to achieve "nirvana", and this is called "enlightenment". Enlightenment? Enlightenment of what? Who benefits from having no thought in societies that place such high value on this when those left thinking in those societies are busy grabbing power and wealth for themselves? Tibet remains a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Those who see mind calming as something wondrous do not look at the price Tibetans have paid for putting all their eggs in the basket of a religion promoting no thought. Their leader goes around the world getting all kinds of praise and glory, says everything you want to hear from a religious leader while losing his country to a more clever man, Mao Zadong and Tibet becomes overrun by Chinese.

Looking at the deeds people do and not their words is the only way to truly judge a person's philosophy or theology. Words are a dime a dozen.

To simply problems here you should understand that You do not appreciate words yrt you refuse to understand the language through *silence* why? Simply because the *thoughts* in your mind has made it full and so whatever anyone says are words which just flows out of the Mind CUP.
St. Francis of Assisi, a revered mystic even in the parts of this one world which you call east because he was a few Christian who went deep in *silence* and was enlightened like Jesus.
However The whole effort of Gautama as Buddha was to allow each individual to taste that *silence* himself and be enlightened to understand and find his own answers. Likewise none can help you or convince you as you have to do it or help your own self.

Rgds Buddhists monks being a burden on poor society; please do not take it on yourself or the west to do anything about it as the society which supports its people know what they are doing, they have a rich history and background to go by which your *west* does not. Besides religion too has evolved buddhism traveled to China and merged with tao to form zen and Zen monks do not beg. They work to earn their own living and practice meditation which should not be a problem to you. Today Zen is a form which efforts are to point towards is that Zen is now individualistic such that each individual doing whatever professionally are applying zen in their daily life.
The word zen means *dhayana* meaning meditation. Meditation is a state of the mind when the seer and the seen becomes ONE. So whatever one is involved in becomes his meditation and is so deeply engrossed in that work that a point of merger happens when the worker and the work becomes ONE. This is happening with everyone everyday EXCEPT most do not realize this as they are UNAWARE and few approach it CONSCIOUSLY.
Those who are unconscious asks questions which divides human beings by creating east / west divide.without understanding that the earth is one planet where human lives and when one observes the planet from space he cannot say which is east and which is west.
Zen is only about being wakeful.

Love & rgds

 

[Twilight Hue]

Words, words, words. The proof is still in the pudding and I don't care how much you defend Buddhist philosophy, it still only amounts to brain manipulation to impose a single brain state wherein the brain's sense of self center is deactivated. Seeking a single brain state as a highest goal is not very wise in my opinion. It takes a whole brain with many states of consciousness to deal effectively with the problems of life. If Buddhist nations were leading the world in social progress and human rights and ecology and everything else needed to better humanity's ability to live harmoniously on earth then I wouldn't have any complaints but that is patently not the case. There used to be a Western wisdom about the futility of "contemplating your navel" instead of DOING something, and that wisdom still applies. Our greatest scientific and cultural achievements have been done by people who have not tried to extinguish their egos through meditation. It takes an ego to create novelty whereas the egoless mindset doesn't care and is content with the natural order of things.

You seem to be unfairly lumping in a demographic here. Buddhism has nothing at all to do with scientific and cultural achievements. It's a goalless and aimless practice with nothing at all to show or claim. Your beef is actually with yourself and your ego.

 

[Twilight Hue]

...and Zen monks do not beg. -ZZ-

Sorry good friend Zenzero. That's not completely true in it's historical sense although its largely a symbolic practice now. Most do have jobs now days and can support themselves just fine in which case I agree here. Most contributions, if any, come in the usual way most other religions do as I'm sure you already know. .

 

[biomystic]

Friend biomystic,



To simply problems here you should understand that You do not appreciate words yrt you refuse to understand the language through *silence* why? Simply because the *thoughts* in your mind has made it full and so whatever anyone says are words which just flows out of the Mind CUP.
St. Francis of Assisi, a revered mystic even in the parts of this one world which you call east because he was a few Christian who went deep in *silence* and was enlightened like Jesus.
However The whole effort of Gautama as Buddha was to allow each individual to taste that *silence* himself and be enlightened to understand and find his own answers. Likewise none can help you or convince you as you have to do it or help your own self.

Rgds Buddhists monks being a burden on poor society; please do not take it on yourself or the west to do anything about it as the society which supports its people know what they are doing, they have a rich history and background to go by which your *west* does not. Besides religion too has evolved buddhism traveled to China and merged with tao to form zen and Zen monks do not beg. They work to earn their own living and practice meditation which should not be a problem to you. Today Zen is a form which efforts are to point towards is that Zen is now individualistic such that each individual doing whatever professionally are applying zen in their daily life.
The word zen means *dhayana* meaning meditation. Meditation is a state of the mind when the seer and the seen becomes ONE. So whatever one is involved in becomes his meditation and is so deeply engrossed in that work that a point of merger happens when the worker and the work becomes ONE. This is happening with everyone everyday EXCEPT most do not realize this as they are UNAWARE and few approach it CONSCIOUSLY.
Those who are unconscious asks questions which divides human beings by creating east / west divide.without understanding that the earth is one planet where human lives and when one observes the planet from space he cannot say which is east and which is west.
Zen is only about being wakeful.

Love & rgds

You're joking, right? I mean, you haven't paid the slightest bit of attention to the information I've given you about Buddhism's goal of stripping the brain's sense of self center from operating giving the ILLUSION of oceanic oneness and often bliss consciousness (electrical energy shunted forward to the frontal lobes and pleasure centers from the parietal area where the sense of self center has been disable). A single brain state, that state described above, is the goal of Buddhism, it produces the feeling of satori, otherwise it wouldn't show up so clearly in the brains studied of meditating Buddhist monks. If sleepy-eyed Buddhas sitting and looking downwards as if contemplating their navels with perfect calm is your idea of "enlightenment", then have at it, but it's not the Christian way to ego-reduction.

Look realistically at St. Francis. The man was obviously driven, flagellated himself, went to extremes of behavior according to the "norm" but give to his community and the world? St. Francis did do that, and do it magnificently, leaving a lasting legacy and model for others to follow. He tried to change his society by changing the way his religious order followed the teachings of Jesus. He was a consummate activist. If all contemplative mystics were like St. Francis, again I wouldn't have any complaint but that's not the case. I call myself a "biomystic" and it's true; I spend an average of three hours a day in mystical and existential meditation, sitting and contemplating the spiritual information God gives me in visions and revelation and how to apply this information outwardly so that others can benefit. But do I sit and try not to think? To calm my mind? No. My mind is alive with thoughts as God keeps piling my plate full. Working for God, working for Humanity, gives my life meaning, sharing what God has given me in mystical communion. I am a true "Muslim" in the sense I have surrendered my "self" to doing the will of God. St. Francis surrendered his "self" to doing the will of God. Jesus surrendered his self to doing the will of God. This is how ego reduction is accomplished in Western religious practice. No, it doesn't produce your calm and ever-so-wise Guru in his flower-decked throne in his ashram or in his mountain cave, it produces heroes not afraid to Engage the world, not disengage. It produces activists doing their best to change the world for the better. A man is starving-you don't give him a mantra to chant-you give him food to eat. Christian mystics have tried the Eastern path but even they would have told you that without surrendering one's self to doing the will of God there's no point in seeking a mystical relationship with God. God's a driver and not a car. We are the cars and trucks carrying God's load of beneficial information. If the car sits in the driveway with the engine running but the driver lost in self contemplation, the information doesn't get delivered.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Not an audible voice. Deeper thoughts. Maybe something I never would have thought of, consciously, on my own. But it's just a *knowing* that something is the right thing to do or say, and sometimes even doing or saying exactly what was right, before I even realized it. I say that's God.