[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

Then why do people keep hearing different things? You'd think that after so many millennia, and so many listeners, we'd have reached a consensus. But that's not the case.

How do you hear it?

How can you tell that it isn't you saying that? How can you tell that it isn't some other being saying that?

Religions often have an outer, an exoteric face, and a hidden, more secret, esoteric tradition. On the exoteric level, they seem to differ a whole lot, but on the inner, esoteric level, what is being taught by a Jesus of Nazareth does not differ from what Buddha expressed in different lingual symbols of his different cultural tradition, and Zen/Chan and Christian mystic do not give me the impression of really being two different things. Both have transcended the meaning of the self and of enlightenment/God/Buddha nature.

It's just that when you say "christianity" today, you either mean the church and its dogma, or an understanding of "God" that even when rejecting the church still clings to a personalised conception that makes "God" a subject of its own. Same in Buddhism, many schools got distracted in rites and rituals and ways of practicing that support and foster the hierachic structures of some superimposed organisations claiming to act on behalf of the followers, but in fact acting on behalf of the members of said hierarchy.

This is not what Buddha has taught, and this is not what Jesus has taught.

If somebody thinks he has found the love of "God" or has found Buddhist "enlightenment", he already is dualsiing again, and if he is capable to feel like that only during a church session or a sesshin in a Zendo, but not in the noise and quarrels of the everday life in the everday world, then in fact he has not gained or acchieved anything, and does not own things and ideas, but gets owned them. And a lot of dmaage gets done this way, keeping people stuck in dead ends without them being able to realise it. The best advise I have given students time and again is: do not seek any practicing, do not try to be "spiritual" or "good", just live your life, be determined where needed and be kind were possible, and always put your heart and mind into what you are doing. That is more precious and valuable than any rites and prayers.

Compare this (Huang-Po, Buddhist)

Reject all that you have acquired, as if it were only a bed that had been set up for you during illness. Only when you have given up all perception and awareness, only when you have freed yourself from the complete range of dualistic concepts, you will finally gain the name of a supersensory Buddha. Therefore it is written: Your bows are in vain. Dont put your trust into such ceremonies. Give up such false beliefs

to that (Jesus)

Another disciple said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. (Matthew 8,21-22);

and these two (Christian mystic)

Man shall see God in all things, and shall accustom his soul to always see God in his soul, in his striving, and in his love. Take care of how you are turned towards God when you are in the church, or in your cabin: keep up the same mood and carry it amongst the crowd, the hustle and the dissimilarity. [...] In all your works you shall have a steady soul, and a steady confidence, and a steady love for God. If you were that serene, no one could hinder you to be aware of God s presence at all times. - Meister Eckhart]

Before everything else, he shall let go himself, for then he has let go everything. Forsooth, if a man would let go a kingdom or all world, but would keep himself, in reality he would not had let go anything. But if he lets go himself, whatever it is that he keeps then, may it be honour or wealth or whatever, he has letting go everything. [---8230;] We shall own as if we had nothing, but still having all things. The one does not have any possessions, who does not desire and does not want anything, neither for himself nor for all what is besides him. - Meister Eckhart

Who was Huang Po?

Who was Meister Eckhart?

19th century philosopher Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian, and Islamic mystics and ascetics:

If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing; only that the former dared to express his ideas plainly and positively, whereas Eckhart is obliged to clothe them in the garment of the Christian myth, and to adapt his expressions thereto.

---8211; Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVIII

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