Don't worry, Splendour won't leave. I'm glad you're sticking around too KB. I think you're a pretty good addition to RGT. Hope you stay!

LOL

Very kind of you to say sir. : ) I am trying to be more productive and study more so I am going to try to so I am going to attempt to use moderation, but I will def be watching here for a while.

Tbh I never seen Splendour in a state of mind where she changes her mind, she keeps firing incorrect one sided statements and never admits she's wrong. But in the nature of the thread I hope she stays and picks up something.

Im reading The monk and the philosopher by Matthieu Ricard and his father J.F. Revel. Matthieu had an opportunity to have a great career in biology but decided instead to become a tibetan monk. His father is a philosopher and is really succesfull at building bridges between western and eastern philosophy. I think this is very good introduction book if you already have some knowledge of western philosophy, I like it alot.

I also started meditation with the instruction of Jon Kabat zinn, thanks for the tip, its really good.

O really...I qualified my statement above...that isn't good enough for you?

It is rather naiive of you to think someone with a totally different worldview would cave in for an argument. Don't you agree?

I find so many arguments are fallacious because when I research them I find the presuppositions and assumptions are false or fantastical or not nearly as far reaching as the typical atheist presents on here.

That is why I always advocate you go check up both sides of the topic for yourself.

Most people seem to be aggravated on here because I come up with the incontrovertible alot and they say they like their assumptions challenged but they never act like they do....So why argue if you don't care about getting to the deeper level of truth...Arguments oftentimes don't get you to the deeper level of truth. The greatest thing about arguing is it pinpoints the key questions so you can research it or meditate on it and then find a deeper truth.

Sorry for upsetting your world...But arguments alot of the time are mere "hot air"...brilliant and eloquent though they may seem.

Best to get the cd's and burn them to your ipod as well! Glad you have found it helpful sir!! Boy, I miss Amsterdam btw...I used to visit there often.

This is not remotely what happened. You kept making assertions that were just categorically false. The six shortcomings post just made me shake my head, the points just have absolutely no relationship with reality. I do love to have things that I say thoughtfully challenged!! It is a wonderful thing to have ones assumptions vetted thoroughly so as to be careful of making mistakes. But when you say buddhism endorses militarism and violence...that is just absurd. It is a philosophy predicated on compassion for all, even those that have wronged you. Like the Dalai Lama's insistence that his fellow buddhist should love and have compassion for the Chinese who killed millions of his countrymen. That is why they gave him the Nobel Prize for Peace.
When you say that buddhism countenances violence in economic policy this is just false. Not to mention the irony that your religion was part and parcel of the imperialist movement that did just that on a global scale for centuries.

When you say that their clergy become full of themselves and removed from society when the Dalai Lama is connected with legions of people that could do nothing for him and yet he consistently speaks to everyone as though they are just as important as world leaders. My in-laws are HUGE contributors to the Catholic Church and Pro-Life related causes and at my wife's grandfathers funeral at dinner I was sat next to as high an official as can be found in the United States. I reckon everyone has a fascinating story and was eager to talk to him to learn his and we talked for over an hour...and to put it kindly he was the living embodiment of the kind of narcissism you credit with others having. I have also known personally several Fundamentalist and Evangelical Protestant Clergy (to include some of my relatives) and have sadly had similar experiences despite making a considered effort to greet everyone without filtering them through the lens of previous experience. Bottom line...there are no monks of any ranks in any sort of buddhist that live in a place as fancy as the Vatican or the kind of digs that Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard (did), Pat Robertson, etc do.
To say they curry favor for financial rewards...see the previous point. The buddhist ones are not doing anything ostentatious apart from some measures that are done for the Dalai Lama for example for security reasons. But that can't really be helped. If having the State Department provide security when he is here to keep him from getting killed, I reckon I will give you that one.

Karma does not mean you accept defeat. It means you have to try to be righteous as possible because you can't just say you are sorry and all is forgiven. You do something wrong it is on you for good.

Some flavors of buddhist sure do have rituals, but they are not a bunch that are big on luxury. Mattieu Ricard lives in a place that is about 700 sq ft so it was described to me, and he only eats a couple of meager meals per day generally. I am not sure what is inappropriately baller about that.

Just for the record...I'm not a Buddhist hater. I'm just more pro-Christian.

Like I said above. I think the Buddha would be the first to convert. He was just doing the best he had in a crazy world without a Redeemer.

Is this why you muck up every Buddhist thread.

What you cited was not an expert or even competent opinion actually. It was categorically incorrect, as I detailed. Just because someone claims to be an expert does not mean they have any idea whatsoever what they are talking about. I have already explained several times that not all buddhist are in groups at all. Another poster already gave a very accurate and comprehensive breakdown of the different forms. I have studied eastern philosophy for many many years because I was curious why so many physicist made so many references to it. (I was quite a physics nerd then and still am a bit) So, I am not merely making assumptions about it at all.

I hope you understand that I am both an atheist AND a buddhist. I absolutely subscribe to the Nicomachean Ethics but I don't worship Aristotle. I am a utilitarian but I certainly do not worship Peter Singer. I disagree with aspects of all of those things as well. I realize we are all have feet of clay. By the way that is a buddhist concept actually to ward off suffering that comes from being frustrated by others. Focusing on the feet of clay that we all have will help take the venom out of situations that irritate us. I don't think anyone is infallible at all. I certainly do not put anyone on a pedestal. But, obviously some people are far less flawed than others. And, there is plenty of empirical data that comes from fMRI testing that clearly establishes the effectiveness of the sort of meditative training that buddist do. Having scientifically valid findings that have not only been repeated many times but that are longitudinal in nature dating back even before modern neuroscience as far back as 1981 helps people that do not have a dog in the fight whatsoever make up their mind there is probably something to this philosophy that is useful.

I do not have to do any research to or seek out an "expert opinion" to make the claim that it is silly to assert that buddhist thought countenances violence in economic policy. It is a false statement. This is as reasonable as saying that a big weakness of christianity is that they all wear clown noses... and sing "Happy Birthday" to sequin covered goldfish made from socks under the full moonlight. : ) Buddhism is a philosophy predicated on the premise that we are all one. What is done to exploit one harms all of us. How in the world can an expert get this wrong?? It is the product of an absolute lack of understanding or being purposefully disingenuous. (Though if you were specifically questioning my familiarity with Politics one of my Majors was in Political Science and while I did not finish my degree I had finished the bulk of the coursework)

I am more than a little curious why you repeatedly go to "experts" even on christianity. Why not let the words of Jesus speak for themselves instead of having someone else interpret them for you?

I am delighted to focus on buddhist thought, but you made it a comparative discussion. Saying that your comments were ironic was in my opinion entirely in fair territory in my opinion. However, I am genuinely sorry if I hurt your feelings in any way, that was not remotely my intention.

I am putting nobody on a pedestal. You made a claim. I gave an example of how I know for a fact that it was not an accurate criticism. That is just making a correction. The guy is nice to everyone...that does not make you anything other than a nice guy in and of itself. Full stop.

Not sure what you are meaning by "carnal thinking". Our capacity to control our thoughts are not fungible from one to another and there is a HUGE range of alacrity though. With training we can learn to get better and better and better. I already gave the meditative antidote to lustful thinking in a previous post so I won't belabor that point. The antidote to wrath is the realization and meditative contemplation on the uselessness of anger. When we consider over and over the uselessness of letting our thinking become tainted by an emotional state that will make our thinking less clear, that we may act rashly by yielding to base instinct, and that it will make us less happy for no reason are a few examples of how we can train our mind to be in line with our beliefs.
There is a flip-side to this truth however, that base things repeated similarly can be ingrained in the exactly the same fashion. This is exactly how some people are conditioned to be convinced that since the US is accepting of homosexuals then it is a wonderful thing that American Soldiers are killed. Only by repeated conditioning and insulating oneself from more lucid opinions can one believe such a thing and protest funerals.
By changing our minds me can literally change our brains both anatomically and physiologically. Even when we are older. People that get their London cabbie license have a drastic growth in their hippocampus and have drastically different blood and electrical flow going to it. This is because they are required to memorize the city, and even when this is undertaken as an older adult this kind of neuroplasticity is possible.

Yes, the "grace" just means you have to say you are sorry, mean it, and you are good to go. And, since you are primed with the additional claim that you can't even go one day without sinning...do you think this would lead to more or less moral behavior? You do see how the claim of your "expert" seems better to modify your perspective in that it could lead to accepting defeat, no?

They had mythology with gods before the Buddha. He was not just making do. He was looking for balance and reason. There is absolutely no reason one could not be both buddhist and christian, many are, like Phil Jackson the basketball coach for example. There is no reason to think the Buddha would be inclined to have any particular faith or none though in my opinion.

I know your perspective pretty well because I used to be just like you. I know you have a very loving and kind desire to have everyone to have the peace that you feel. The dogmatism is based in the belief that their is only one way that is the path to salvation. That kind of filter though loving and kind can lead you to filter out a more honest perception of fact. Every good thing ma'am.

...

Scholars have dated the book of Daniel to the 2nd century BCE, although it takes place in the 6th.

Oh my goodness ma'am. Did you read that Wikipedia article on that dude? He is a least two and a half bubbles off plumb! You reckon there might be a reason his book not only is not in print but that nobody is even trying to sell a used one?

Yes ma'am his assertions were as nutty as his ideas like these in the link:

* His opposition to Hungarian resistance against the Soviet invasion in 1956.
* His praise in 1972 for Fidel Castro’s Cuba for “break[ing] free of imperialism’s iron grip”
* His statement in 1973 that “our time’s grotesque reality” is the West’s “structural fascism.”
* His description in 1973 of the United States and Western Europe as “rich, Western, Christian countries” that make war to secure materials and markets: “Such an economic system is called capitalism, and when it’s spread in this way to other countries it’s called imperialism.”
* His description in 1974 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov as “persecuted elite personages”;
* His description of the United States as a “killer country” that is guilty of “neo-fascist state terrorism” and his prediction that it will soon follow Britain “into the graveyard of empires.”
* His comparison of the U. S. to Nazi Germany for bombing Kosovo during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
* His statement that while China was “repressive in a certain liberal sense,” Mao Zedong was “endlessly liberating when seen from many other perspectives that liberal theory has never understood” because China showed that “the whole theory about what an ‘open society’ is must be rewritten, probably also the theory of ‘democracy’—and it will take a long time before the West will be willing to view China as a master teacher in such subjects.”
* Two articles have alleged that he has suggested that the annihilation of Washington, D.C., would be a fair punishment for America’s arrogant view of itself as “a model for everyone else.” [17][18] However, neither article provided any sources, e.g. to the claim that the peace mediator Galtung thinks the annihilation of Washington, D. C. would be a "fair punishment". In fact, Galtung has called the September 11 attacks "criminal political violence".[19]

You were talking about christianity and using others besides Jesus as the expert. It is back there somewhere.

Delighted I didn't offend. Shouldn't RGT be a place where there would be more than less decorum? The religious should be nice because they are supposed to be and the athiest should be because it is reasonable!! : ) lol

Oh I forgot to mention that. I only meant the term as a general concept not the specific phrase. Sorry if that was unclear.

LOL...he sounds leftist like Chomsky.

His politics could suck. I'm not familiar with his political views I just found his internal observations of weaknesses in Buddhism interesting. If you go back to my earliest article link it mentions he's not a total critic. I think it lists he made 20 positive and 6 negative statements.

I'm just saying Buddhism and warfare is researchable.

Again I don't think most forum posters have extensive personal experience inside a Buddhist society for this avowed preference you keep running into.

I know none of them ever know about the Nichiren connection.

Maybe he is an expert. Maybe he's read more than me and Kentucky combined. I don't know. Either way, it says a lot about Buddhism that an "expert" who is clearly looking for holes in Buddhism can come up with no more solid critiques than those.

It's not that profound a metaphor, Splendour. Is it inconceivable that it was thought of in two different places at two different times without the Buddhists borrowing it from the Christians? Because, if not, I'd like to talk to you about your Golden Rule and pretty much every other thing Jesus ever taught.

Oh, the irony. Why would you require atheists to really examine Buddhism in depth from many angles before forming an opinion about it when you so obviously have not done so yourself?

...

The point I was making earlier is the analogy of the judeo-christian mythology really does not require you to read anything other than the bible to qualify you on the subject. Studying Josephus, or the apocrypha may inform the reader. It may edify the information in the text or it may confuse it. What it can't do is substitute. If someone calls themselves an expert and says factually incorrect things, it just means they are not an expert. No amount of research or scholarship can make the point of christianity other than what is clearly outlined to be in the gospels.

Perhaps now we are getting somewhere. What country did you live in?

Experience does not necessarily lead to knowledge. Would living a few years in Tel Aviv make someone have a relevant experience on judaism, or in Baghdad make one an expert on islam, or Mexico City on catholicism? All of these assuming you have no knowledge whatsoever about the torah, qu-aran, or bible. Is the judgment of a faith how the people act within the culture that claims to espouse it?

Back to buddhism please. From what I've read Buddhism isn't just a religion, its more of a philosophy with a huge practical foundation that is slowly being validated and accepted by science. This is the main reason why it is so attractive to atheists, you don't have to accept any irrational dogma's to make it usefull.

Have any of you done a retreat ever? What were your experiences, do's and don'ts? If not, why? Im started to get interested in something like that since I think it might be a good idea to get in touch with a culture that is in many ways opposite of ours and at the same time get the learnings first hand. Because I think I might be too rational and because of that might miss out on truly basis human experiences. A great opportunity to learn.

I also watched seven years in tibet and khundun and was truly inspiritational.

Btw, if you ever find yourself back to Amsterdam I would be truly happy to meet up : )

Never been on a retreat, but Ajahn Brahm has recorded all of his lectures for at least one retreat that I listened to a few years ago. You should be able to find it through google, he has tons of stuff that he's put up on the net, including a podcast.

This is an interesting film that I caught on cable a while back. You may find the trailer interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA8XF...eature=related

The idea of an immersion retreat made me think of it.

This explains the flavor of buddhism they are learning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNmxxbqJMxI&feature=fvw

I just remember ive seen it already a couple years back. Very interesting stuff. Any more interesting stuff about retreats or buddhism overall?

I was stuck waiting in the doctor's office yesterday and was reading a bunch of stuff from here on the Droid:

http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/index.php


Lots and lots of good stuff on there. Particularly a lot of basic explanations that Splendor would find useful.

Almost forgot....


def see this site also:

http://www.mindandlife.org/


lot's and lot's of good things here

I think this is important. The Buddha lived before Christ.

Paul says about the Gospel of Grace:

Ephesians 3 verse 5:

5Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
6That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

and this:

Romans 16:25 (King James Version)

25Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

and this:

26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

Timing is important.

Not sure what your point is. Isn't it just as sound to suggest that Jesus would have been Muslim if only he had been around a similar time frame later to behold the truth of islam...or that Muhammad would if he only had heard Joseph Smith he would have been a mormon...

I don't see the utility of making such speculations.


Thought you might be interested in the subject of this years mind and life talk after you forwarded point number 2 from Galtung.

2010 : Mind and Life XX

Altruism and Compassion in Economic Systems: Dialogue between Economics, Neuroscience and Contemplative Sciences April 9–11, 2010 — Zurich, Switzerland.

* Participants: Tenzin Gyatso, Thupten Jinpa, Ernst Fehr, William Harbaugh, Richard Layard, Tania Singer, Richard Davidson, Sanjit Bunker Roy, William George, Antoinette Hunziker-Ebneter, Arthur Vayloyan, Matthieu Ricard, Roshi Joan Halifax, John Dunne, Gert Scobel, Daniel Batson, Joan Silk, Diego Hangartner.