Just for us believers (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, February 04, 2012, 17:05 (4654 days ago) @ Julia

Julia,-You mention my thought processes being complex... indeed they are, through experience. -What you speak of, is done by Christian Mystics, currently I'm reading "The Cloud of Unknowing" and have been reading selections from St. John of the Cross, my Zen Master suggested that since I have in the past had issues with Christianity that I should become acquainted with some of its influential Doctors to find connections with my own practice. -The problem I have with the approach you've discussed--and indeed, I have tried it in the past--is that I seem to lack the ability to generate love for anything that I cannot relate to.-My wife, for example. I can love her fully and wholly, because we've had a deep relationship spanning over 13 years. My animals--dogs and cats all--I care for and love openly because they need love as well. -But God--if he exists--is behind the veil. As a material being, not only can I not fathom--wait, I'll just stop there. I cannot fathom the infinite. With my wife and my animals, I have empathy and sympathy... but I cannot have empathy and sympathy for something so distant, abstract, and so completely different from my own existence. And having read the Bible, God does not need empathy or sympathy from me. The God of the Bible demands love I do not know how to give. I think it's safe to say that this is a large reason why I became Buddhist in the first place. If you know anything about it, it defers unanswerable questions (because what else can we do?) and focuses on developing yourself and your capacity to love. -Your story concerning Haziel, is a good mystic's story. Though, I shudder to think of the concept of surrendering the will, which is the realization Haziel makes towards the end. "Don't think, just do" is my interpretation. My instincts have always been to reject authority and make my own decisions. Buddhist monasticism holds this value as a kind of cardinal virtue. (It's how to test if a teaching is a false teaching.) -This returns me to the original discussion-->Finding God by meditating upon him with Love. When I read the writings of St. John, and whoever wrote "The Cloud of Unknowing," nothing they describe of the mystical experience is different from what I have experienced through Buddhist meditation. If God exists, and is reachable by this method, and I am correct in having reached the state described by these mystics, I am incapable of discerning what is coming from me and what is coming from God. Because I cannot make that distinction, I cannot, therefore, conclude that God exists. (I don't claim he doesn't, remember, I'm agnostic here...) Love must come after existence... it cannot come before...-A modification of an old Zen Koan may help you understand my dilemma:
How much do you love your future children?
(Original: What did you look like before your parents were born?)

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"