Tolerance for other religions

A forum for discussion of Buddhist ethics.
Urgyen Dorje
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Urgyen Dorje »

Yep. It's all relative. 'twas my only point.
Malcolm wrote:
Urgyen Dorje wrote:You and I might be. A bunch of people in Ferguson aren't... or parts of Camden... Detroit... LA... Chicago... or on some of the Indian Reservations... just saying.
Malcolm wrote: I don't think Americans live in constant fear.... We are pretty comfortable.
Compared to people in India or even in most of Mexico, people in Camden, Fergusson, Detroit, Chicago and so on are miles higher in their standard of living and opportunities, just saying...even with racist cops...
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Karma Dondrup Tashi
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

MiphamFan wrote:It is not disparaging to say that other religions are all mundane from a Buddhist PoV. It is completely supported by all levels of texts from the Sravaka canon down to Vajrayana.
Buddhism is also mundane from a Buddhist PoV.

:spy:
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by dzogchungpa »

Karma Dondrup Tashi wrote:
MiphamFan wrote:It is not disparaging to say that other religions are all mundane from a Buddhist PoV. It is completely supported by all levels of texts from the Sravaka canon down to Vajrayana.
Buddhism is also mundane from a Buddhist PoV.

:spy:
Mind is blown.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
MiphamFan
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by MiphamFan »

dzogchungpa wrote:
Karma Dondrup Tashi wrote:
MiphamFan wrote:It is not disparaging to say that other religions are all mundane from a Buddhist PoV. It is completely supported by all levels of texts from the Sravaka canon down to Vajrayana.
Buddhism is also mundane from a Buddhist PoV.

:spy:
Mind is blown.
Everything from sravakayana on up is supramundane. That is according to Shakyamuni Buddha, Shantarakshita, Padmasambhava etc :buddha2:
MiphamFan
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by MiphamFan »

Malcolm wrote:
lostitude wrote: You can also admit that you have not attained any significant level of insight granting you sufficient direct knowledge of what a Buddha would perceive if he was talking to a sufi 'qutb' (one of the highest spiritual levels in sufism). And that you're disparaging other religions based on your readings and deluded perceptions of what you think they are.
I know what a Buddha would perceive. He would perceive someone with a mistaken view.
The Buddha encountered Hindu gurus who reached the peak of their systems and found them wanting, so did Buddhist saints and teachers through the centuries.

@lostitude
MiphamFan
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by MiphamFan »

I think in the end it's pretty simple, you either accept the Buddha (and Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava etc) as reliable authorities or accept Muhammad. You can't accept both because they contradict each other.

If you want to engage in Buddhist meditative practices while being a Muslim it is completely fine from the Buddhist PoV of course. Although shamatha and the four brahmaviharas are not solely "Buddhist" practices anyway.
lostitude
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by lostitude »

MiphamFan wrote:I think in the end it's pretty simple, you either accept the Buddha (and Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava etc) as reliable authorities or accept Muhammad. You can't accept both because they contradict each other.
How so? I haven't seen anything so contradictory that it would put me in front of a this or that choice. Although admittedly I still need to read a lot more. All I have seen so far is a bunch of divergent details that look quite unimportant in terms of spiritual progression.
The basic difference I can see is that Islam aims at complete spirituzl realization within one lifetime, whereas buddhism allows many, although even in buddhism only one lifetime could be enough in theory. So what's the biggest problem?
Devin666
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Devin666 »

Hi Malcom,

thank you for what you wrote on the dkor bdag. I saw this term many times in texts and apart from the literal meaning and maybe thin 1-liners of Lamas i never knew what exactly they are. May I ask from where (what text, lama or other source) you got this information? From certain termas I also know the Mantras for dkor bdag. Now I guess they deal with these provocations?
MiphamFan
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by MiphamFan »

lostitude wrote:
MiphamFan wrote:I think in the end it's pretty simple, you either accept the Buddha (and Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava etc) as reliable authorities or accept Muhammad. You can't accept both because they contradict each other.
How so? I haven't seen anything so contradictory that it would put me in front of a this or that choice. Although admittedly I still need to read a lot more. All I have seen so far is a bunch of divergent details that look quite unimportant in terms of spiritual progression.
The basic difference I can see is that Islam aims at complete spirituzl realization within one lifetime, whereas buddhism allows many, although even in buddhism only one lifetime could be enough in theory. So what's the biggest problem?
Buddha: 4 Noble Truths, Impermanence, no creator god, reincarnation, killing is negative

Muhammad: One creator god who is eternal, no karma, no reincarnation, killing of animals is positive

The goal of Islam's "realization in one life" is not that of Buddhism, you know. Maybe you will bring up again how one can judge it without being realized.

Well, one can judge it by the words of those who reached the fruit of both paths. It is not Sufism but many Buddhist masters from the Buddha on studied different Hindu schools which taught some form of "Union" with an eternal entity. They all said it is far from the ultimate taught in Buddhadharma.
Last edited by MiphamFan on Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kaccāni
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Kaccāni »

These 18 pages of concepts are how religious wars start.

Best wishes
Kc
Shush! I'm doing nose-picking practice!
MiphamFan
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by MiphamFan »

Kaccāni wrote:These 18 pages of concepts are how religious wars start.

Best wishes
Kc
People had mutual religious discussions and debates all the time in India, Tibet, Mongolia, China without resorting to war.

It is a poor mind which thinks that tolerance implies blind acceptance.
lostitude
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by lostitude »

MiphamFan wrote:
lostitude wrote:
MiphamFan wrote:I think in the end it's pretty simple, you either accept the Buddha (and Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava etc) as reliable authorities or accept Muhammad. You can't accept both because they contradict each other.
How so? I haven't seen anything so contradictory that it would put me in front of a this or that choice. Although admittedly I still need to read a lot more. All I have seen so far is a bunch of divergent details that look quite unimportant in terms of spiritual progression.
The basic difference I can see is that Islam aims at complete spirituzl realization within one lifetime, whereas buddhism allows many, although even in buddhism only one lifetime could be enough in theory. So what's the biggest problem?
Buddha: 4 Noble Truths, Impermanence, no creator god, reincarnation, killing is negative

Muhammad: One creator god who is eternal, no karma, no reincarnation, killing of animals is positive
Could you be more specific please? I still can't see te problem.
4 noble truths: as a Muslim, what prevents me from accepting them? I have read them, tried to understand them, and I didn't feel that they went against my deeper convictions.
Regarding God, again, how is that relevant? Even when we talk about God in islam, and even more so in sufism, we don't really know what we are really referring to until we can see 'it' through direct experience. So how does an ungraspable concept prevent me from applying buddhist teachings?
Besides, the act of çreation is not understood literally by most sufis, for whom creation is constant and instantaneous and has been going on forever.
Reincarnation: it exists in islam, since there is life after death. The fact that islam makes only mention of the very next life doesn't seem to be a problem to me. At the end of the day, the concrete implication is the same: we are working now for results that may be achieved only after this current life.
As for the killing of animals, it is not 'positive' in islam, that's just a misconception. What is positive is sacrifice and sharing with the poor, period. While in practice, many Muslims may be more attached to Arab traditions than to the essence of sacrifice, I don't feel this problem concerns me. I am almost a vegetarian already anyway and only eat meat when I'm offered it.

So at the end of the day, the differences you mention seem to be of a purely theoretical nature,at least I can't see what their concrete implications would be, if I were to seriously embark on the buddhist path?
tingdzin
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by tingdzin »

Bravo, Kaccani

Informed doctrinal debate is one thing, but my Roshi was fond of saying that once Buddhists start saying "We are the best", they'll be no different from everybody else. And he was a thorough Buddhist.

Lostitude, when I studied Sufism (academically) it was customary to divide it into two branches: 1) a Near Eastern/ North African, and 2) a Persian / Central Asian / Northern Indian, with the tariqqas falling into one or the other of these loosely defined groups. It was generally accepted that the latter showed pronounced Buddhist influences, starting with the story of Al-Bistami. This is not to say that the early Sufis were just Buddhists in disguise (though some of them may have been), but it rather reflects the fact that in Central Asia, up to AND FOR A CENTURY OR SO AFTER, the first Muslim invasions, there was a very loose and accommodating attitude to religion, with Buddhists, Nestorian Christians, Zoroastrians, and Manicheans (together with followers of the steppe religions) living without too much conflict, and there was a lot of borrowing going on. There's a lot of good literature coming out on the subject now, though I don't know how academic your bent is. On the other hand, I don't know how open-minded the surviving Sufi schools are -- the Naqshbandis, for example were (are?) big on (external) jihad.
Anyway, doing Buddhist practices is O.K. even if your creed is not Buddhism. There are already scads of Christians and Jews who can't bring themselves to give up the beliefs of their cradle, so to speak, but certainly it can't be argued that there is no benefit for them in practicing mind training, etc.
lostitude
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by lostitude »

Thank tou tingzin, my academic bent is close to non-existent, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to find borrowings between sufism and buddhist or gnostic traditions from elsewhere. I actually think this had been going on even during the Prophet's lifetime and probably before, judging from the evolution in theological views around Mecca before the Prophet was even born. However I'm pretty sure that whatever the Various sufi turuq took from outside sources, they would never credit those since everything has to be brought back to the Qur'an and the sunnah, at least since Ghazali if I'm not mistaken.
But then again, if sufis have managed to be 'almost' buddhists in disguise while upholding the Qur'an, why not me?
At the end of the day, my problem is not the difficulty to give up my current creed, but rather to be satisfied that the buddhist creed really holds water better than the islamic one. Something i haven't worked out yet.
Malcolm
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Malcolm »

lostitude wrote: So at the end of the day, the differences you mention seem to be of a purely theoretical nature,at least I can't see what their concrete implications would be, if I were to seriously embark on the buddhist path?
It really depends on which school you are interested in. Zen, Son and Theravadin schools [for different reasons] do not seem to have much problem accommodating theists. Most expressions of Tibetan Buddhism however would require you to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and that means you would have to relinquish your former religious affiliations and beliefs. They would maintain one cannot find refuge in non-Buddhist deities if one has found refuge in the Buddha. So there is a difference in refuge.

There is a difference of view — Buddhadharma utterly rejects the notion of an efficient creator god, or even a formal one. It instead proposes there is no absolute beginning, and relies in the notion of dependent origination and emptiness to explain everything. The Buddha maintained that views other than the view of dependent origination were false.

There is a difference in path — since Buddhadharma rejects God in toto because of the view of dependent origination, liberation depends solely on one's own efforts and there is no external moral agency that one has to satisfy or worship. Liberation depends solely on recognizing one's own nature. There is nothing with which to unify, no transcendent principle binding all beings together, etc.

There is a difference in conduct -- we will leave this aside for now.

There is a difference in result — the result of practicing Buddhadharma is Buddhahood. Buddhahood cannot be attained in non-Buddhist paths.
pael
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by pael »

Malcolm wrote:
lostitude wrote:
Malcolm wrote:Islam = heaven and hell are eternal

Stupas have no magic power of their own.
''Once, a dog was chasing a pig, and as the pig was running away, it circumambulated the stupa. The pig did not have any kind of virtuous motivation. It had no idea that the stupa was a holy object and that it could be purified and liberated by circumambulating it. The pig had never registered for a meditation course! Because of the kindness of the dog that chased it, the pig did one circumambulation of the stupa, and after the pig died, it was born in the higher realm of Tushita.''http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapte ... -march-2-b
Why pig benefitted? Where stupa magic come from? I'm curious.
May all beings be free from suffering and causes of suffering
Malcolm
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Malcolm »

pael wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
lostitude wrote:
Stupas have no magic power of their own.
''Once, a dog was chasing a pig, and as the pig was running away, it circumambulated the stupa. The pig did not have any kind of virtuous motivation. It had no idea that the stupa was a holy object and that it could be purified and liberated by circumambulating it. The pig had never registered for a meditation course! Because of the kindness of the dog that chased it, the pig did one circumambulation of the stupa, and after the pig died, it was born in the higher realm of Tushita.''http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapte ... -march-2-b
Why pig benefitted? Where stupa magic come from? I'm curious.
This story cannot be taken literally.
Devin666
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Devin666 »

Malcom, did you see my question?
Malcolm
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Malcolm »

Devin666 wrote:Malcom, did you see my question?
The idea is applied to institutions in general. It is not written down somewhere in a book.
Devin666
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Re: Tolerance for other religions

Post by Devin666 »

So basically every institution (or in many cases) has some spirit that feels that the whole thing is its property and supports it or whatever? I am also wondering why the dkor bdag would keep one poor as long as one has debt, what is the connection there? Should it not try to help or is dkor bdag more like a group energy or so? Is it an individual thinking spirit?
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