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Old 05-19-2019, 08:04 PM
 
Location: SF Bay Area
128 posts, read 99,471 times
Reputation: 145

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Is it difficult to be a Buddhist in a Christian home?

For me the answer would be yes. Let me explain why.

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt Lake is a beautiful city with wide streets, brick houses, and shade trees. It is also the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints(Mormon). My ancestors came across the plains with Brigham Young in the middle of the nineteenth century. My family is BIC, Born in the Covenant Mormons. This means they are hardcore Mormons.

I broke away from the church, but my mother, who lives with us is Mormon, and all of my relatives in Utah. When they come to my home in California and see Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic art, the attitude in non-comprehension. Our guest room has my India and Buddhist library with some 300 books. But they have never said anything. However, it is uncomfortable.

My wife, who is Filipina is Catholic. She is from Cebu, Philippines, and the Catholicism of the Philippines is more primal and intense. At Easter in Pampanga Province there are people who are crucified on a cross with nails pounded through hands and legs. What a shock.

In California, my wife will not accept my Buddhist interests. When I say I am a Buddhist, she replies that I am Mormon. When I do meditation retreats she is uncomfortable. At home, she will walk into a room when I am doing meditation practice and ask me something. She is in total denial that I am not a Christian. I will frequently drive to a local park and do my meditation in my car. She has told me that if I wear meditation clothing and shave my head on a retreat that she will not be home.

This is obviously a point of contention in my Mormon and Catholic family.

Is there anyone out there with a similar story of transitioning religions?
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Old 05-19-2019, 08:14 PM
 
Location: Central IL
20,726 posts, read 16,267,096 times
Reputation: 50369
Why would you expect a non-Buddhist to immediately comprehend Buddhism? They have their own religion and are satisfied with it and see no need to learn about a different one.

I have no issues with Buddhism or Hinduism though I'm an atheist. But I certainly don't expect others who aren't "looking" for a change in spirituality to be accepting of something different.

As for your wife - is this a change since you've married? If so, it's a major change in your behavior, outlook, and potentially even your appearance and that will cause her discomfort with you and in explaining to friends and her family. You don't get this? That seems quite naive of you.

Nothing against Buddhism - but don't take others' discomfort as a sign of your moral superiority - rather it is your lack of empathy and understanding as you change and they don't. You're the one taking this journey and they didn't ask to go on it.
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Old 05-19-2019, 08:16 PM
 
Location: southern california
61,289 posts, read 87,226,632 times
Reputation: 55556
Apparently not I have been living with one for 7 years
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Old 05-20-2019, 09:06 AM
 
Location: Sun City West, Arizona
50,423 posts, read 23,999,031 times
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I think it's time for a few ultimatums.
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Old 05-20-2019, 03:19 PM
 
Location: City-Data Forum
7,943 posts, read 6,043,214 times
Reputation: 1359
Quote:
Originally Posted by reneeh63 View Post

As for your wife - is this a change since you've married? If so, it's a major change in your behavior, outlook, and potentially even your appearance and that will cause her discomfort with you and in explaining to friends and her family. You don't get this? That seems quite naive of you.

Nothing against Buddhism - but don't take others' discomfort as a sign of your moral superiority - rather it is your lack of empathy and understanding as you change and they don't. You're the one taking this journey and they didn't ask to go on it.
I'd have to say this would apply to your wife as well, brianberkeley, nothing against her Catholicism.

If she married you for your Mormon Christianity (for Jesus), then it was a false marriage. That is something I would only expect from the worst of Christians. However, that is often how their marriages are designed, although usually, it is denominationally restrictive (Mormons are not in covenant with Roman Catholics, that I am aware of).

Regardless, "staying the same" is nothing virtuous. You have done nothing wrong, don't beat yourself up for it. Uptaking a minority religion will already be difficult enough.

Your wife is probably more concerned with how your personal conversion will affect your previous family life (and thus ultimately, how it will affect her and her children). You should talk to her more, instead of separating to meditate on yourself. Perhaps you are only using meditation as a form of over-avoidance and over-aversion. Not a healthy way to use meditation at all. I've met plenty of Catholics that believe in meditation (often in gardens with statuettes of the virgin mary around). Perhaps you guys should plan to do it together?

A marriage is supposed to be about both of you. She should understand that, so should you.

Last edited by LuminousTruth; 05-20-2019 at 03:29 PM..
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Old 07-21-2019, 09:19 AM
 
8 posts, read 2,580 times
Reputation: 18
Quote:
Originally Posted by brianberkeley View Post
Is it difficult to be a Buddhist in a Christian home?

For me the answer would be yes. Let me explain why.

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt Lake is a beautiful city with wide streets, brick houses, and shade trees. It is also the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints(Mormon). My ancestors came across the plains with Brigham Young in the middle of the nineteenth century. My family is BIC, Born in the Covenant Mormons. This means they are hardcore Mormons.

I broke away from the church, but my mother, who lives with us is Mormon, and all of my relatives in Utah. When they come to my home in California and see Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic art, the attitude in non-comprehension. Our guest room has my India and Buddhist library with some 300 books. But they have never said anything. However, it is uncomfortable.

My wife, who is Filipina is Catholic. She is from Cebu, Philippines, and the Catholicism of the Philippines is more primal and intense. At Easter in Pampanga Province there are people who are crucified on a cross with nails pounded through hands and legs. What a shock.

In California, my wife will not accept my Buddhist interests. When I say I am a Buddhist, she replies that I am Mormon. When I do meditation retreats she is uncomfortable. At home, she will walk into a room when I am doing meditation practice and ask me something. She is in total denial that I am not a Christian. I will frequently drive to a local park and do my meditation in my car. She has told me that if I wear meditation clothing and shave my head on a retreat that she will not be home.

This is obviously a point of contention in my Mormon and Catholic family.

Is there anyone out there with a similar story of transitioning religions?
Buddha kept silent about God. This means that God is beyond words, mind and logic as said in the Veda. Buddha means the Buddhi or Jnana yoga that speaks about the absolute God. Thus He is the greatest incarnation of God. If one thinks Him as atheist, there can be no better fool. Mohammed showed the formless medium in which God exists, which is energy and this is presented by Shankara, because basically energy and awareness are one and the same. The prophet itself means human incarnation.

Prophet is carrying on the message of God. The divine knowledge is in Him. Is He not greater than other human beings? Message of divine knowledge is the characteristic of God (Satyam Jnanam – the Veda) and so we say God is in Him. Why do you deny it, when God is omnipresent? Then every human being should give the same message of God, since God is omnipresent. But why Mohammed alone gave it? Because the power of God or knowledge of God is in him only. Then the power of God, in the form of knowledge is not omnipresent.

In any case, you have to accept that either God or His Power is only in Prophet Mohammed. That is what human incarnation is. You are fighting with us, without analysing the concept of human incarnation. Thus Buddha, Mohammed and Shankara have made the single phase, which was essential to the level of the followers at that time. The concept of human incarnation was well established by Krishna and Jesus. You can find all three branches of Hinduism (Advaita, Visishta Advaita, Dvaita) in Christianity because Jesus told that He and God are one and the same (Advaita), that He is the son of God (Visishta Advaita) and that He is the messenger of God (Dvaita). The stage of philosophy was expressed according to the required stage of the people of that time.

Buddhism is misunderstood to be atheism. This is the most meaningless misunderstanding related to spiritual knowledge. Buddha only kept silent about God. He never declared that God is non- existent. Since God is beyond space and time, He is totally unimaginable for the human brain. This is the meaning of His silence. The Veda also says clearly that God is beyond any imagination and is best represented by silence (yato vāco…). What the Veda told is also told by Buddha. Buddha said that the Vedas were written by souls, who were the sages. Actually, God told the Vedas to sages and the sages told the same Vedas to the rest of humanity.

When God told the Vedas to the sages, you can say that God is the speaker of the Vedas. When the sages told the Vedas to humanity, you can say that the sages are speakers of the Vedas. The Gita is told by God or Bhagavan. Hence, it is called as the Bhagavad Gita, which means that God spoke the Gita to Krishna. Krishna spoke the same Gita to Arjuna. Both the invisible God and the visible Krishna are one and the same since God pervaded all over Krishna. The case of God and the sages is also similar. Hence, there is no contradiction between Buddhism and Hinduism since Buddha is one of the ten incarnations of God Viṣṇu.

1) God Buddha preached about Himself (as God), justice (as the path to be followed) and the society (to be served). Buddha means intelligence or knowledge. This means that one must take right decisions from knowledge as first step. The second step is devotion, which means that one should love justice only, which is always loved by God. The third step is service and sacrifice, which shall be done for the welfare of the world in the name of God without selfishness, always following justice and opposing injustice.
2)
Social service without the name of God leads You to temporary heaven and same social service in the name of God will lead You to My abode (Brahma Loka). This is the path followed by divine preachers in this world.


Through the subtle energy, momentary-nothing nature is explained.

[Similarly, if you say that Buddhism is atheistic philosophy, we say that such Buddha is not the ninth incarnation of God. We take Buddhism as theistic philosophy only and confine to the way that treats Buddha as incarnation of God to whom the souls should surrender as told in Buddhism. It supports justice (dharma) for the welfare of the society (sangha). The silence of Buddha can be taken as the expression for unimaginable God, who is beyond words.

Buddha told that this world is nothing (shunya) and also momentary (kshanika). Momentary means existence of something for a moment and hence, cannot be taken as absolute nothing (atyantaabhaava) like the horn of rabbit. It means that shunya does not mean absolute nothing and hence, shall mean something, which is subtle energy or space. The Veda says that space or subtle energy is generated by God (aatmanaaakaashah.., tat tejosrujata…). Nothing, here, means minimum-most existence assumed as nothing.

If you take the space as subtle energy and all the items of the world as modifications of subtle energy, it means that this whole world is energy, which is in the form of waves. The crest of the wave indicates significant existence for a moment (kshanika) and the trough of the wave indicates nothing, which is minimum-most existence (shunya). This combined concept of shunya and kshanika is with reference to the view of soul, which is also a form of energy having the same nature.

Thus, momentary nature of the soul in Buddhism (Yogaachaara School) is also justified. The Maadhyamika School of Buddhism has taken shunya as mahaashunya (absolute nothing) of world and this is also justified with reference to absolute God. The Sautraantika School has clearly refused the meaning of shunya as absolute nothing.

Absolute nothing exists only with reference to unimaginable God in absolute plane since anything other than God is non-existent. For the soul in relative plane, even space is existent as subtle energy. Due to its subtle nature, space can be assumed as nothing, but really it is something. The Vaibhashika School says that implied meaning should be taken while explaining the four messages of Buddha.]

An atheist and Advaita philosopher coincide only at one basic point, which is that there is no God at all (for atheist) or no God other than the soul (for Advaita philosopher). These two concepts of atheist and Advaitin coincide at one partial-basic point like the point at the bottom in a letter ‘V’. After that point, these two philosophies are totally different in opposite directions, which are upwardly extending slant lines of the letter ‘V’.

This basic common partial point that there is no God for both philosophies was inevitable for Shankara because you have to become friendly by nodding your head to the opponent so that the opponent will at least hear your argument in return patiently. This is the psychology to agree the point of opponent to some extent at least (at least partially). In fact, the point that there is no God is partial only since there is no God at all for atheists and there is no God other than the soul for Advaitin. Just half of a point (there is no God) is common to both.

Therefore, Advaita philosophy of Shankara understood with careful analysis shows that Shankara is hundred percent theist and not atheist at all. Lack of patience in doing careful analysis of the highest intellectual theory of Shankara alone misleads the Advaitins to become atheists. Due to this misunderstanding only, Shankara was called as Buddhist or atheist in disguise (prachchanna bauddha) by foolish people.

Even Buddha was misunderstood as an atheist. Buddha was the incarnation of Lord Vishnu among the ten famous incarnations and is it not shameful to call Buddha as an atheist? Buddha never negated the existence of God. He only kept silent about God because the absolute God is beyond words and even imagination. Silence is the correct indication of the absolute God and this misunderstood silence ends in atheism to think that silence means absence of existence of God.

Due to surrender to Buddha, etc., silence being expression of unimaginable God and Veda being written by sages, Buddhism is theistic.

[Buddha kept silent about God indicating that God is unimaginable and beyond words. This is mistaken by the followers that God does not exist as per Buddha. Buddha, Himself, is 9th incarnation of God and Buddhism mentions surrender to Buddha or God as the very first statement.

The second and third statements say that one shall surrender to justice and society, which means that sin should not be done in the worldly life. It says that desire causes sin, which results in misery. Buddhism says that the Vedas are written by sages and not by God. The correlation here is that the scripture is written by sages (paurusheya) as dictated by God (apaurusheya). It only means that the writer of script is not God. From the point of authorship, God is the writer. Thus, correlation can be done.]


The four statements of Buddha explain the philosophy of divine preachers only.

[The four statements of Buddha that everything is 1) momentary (kshanika), 2) misery (duhkha) and 3) nothing (shunya) and 4) anything is only a property (vastu svalakshanam), reveal the philosophy preached by Shankara, etc., in detail. ‘Momentary’ means that this world is always changing and ‘nothing’ means that this world is unreal for God in the absolute plane. Any item is only a property of God and the property exists as long as the possessor of property exists and this is the relative plane.

Nothing also means subtle energy or space (aakaashah gaganam shunyam). It means, for the soul, this entire world is a modification of subtle energy or space, which is the first starting element. The four schools of Buddhism (madhyamika, yogaachaara, sautrantika and vaibhashika) gradually proceed from nothing to subtle energy or awareness called as prajna, the receiver of the existence of nothing or subtle energy so that the result is that everything is not nothing. All the worldly bonds are not eternal and hence, result in misery in the end. The momentary nature of the soul speaks that soul is also created by God as a tiny part of the world and hence, is non-eternal like the rest world.
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