Is perfection possible, either in 'Heaven' or on Earth?
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts
Is perfection possible, either in 'Heaven' or on Earth?
Imagine a 'perfect' day at the beach, which includes a meal of tasty freshly caught sardines.
It was not a perfect day for the sardines.
By Valery Titievsky
Professor Michael Slote, in The Impossibility of Perfection (2011) says certain virtues cannot be had in perfect measure.
The Impossibility of Perfection
By Mayank Austen Soofi
A tree would not be a tree if it was perfectly regular.
Imperfection can be perfect, in the sense that irregularity can be useful.
Is a perfect world simply one where there is an avoidance of extremes?
By © Jamie Mitchell
Some Christians argue: "God creates a perfect world, humans choose to sin, and so the world is no longer perfect."
Can perfection and free will coexist in Heaven? - Scholarofgod.com
We could re-write this as "God creates a world, humans choose to sin, and so the world was not perfect in the first place. It is impossible for God to create a perfect world. The most God can hope for is that humans will avoid extremes."
Imagine you get to Heaven.
In Heaven you stop worrying about all the poor suffering people back on earth; so you are not perfect in terms of sympathy and compassion.
In Heaven, you continue to worry about the poor suffering people back on earth; so, life in Heaven is not perfect.
Some Taoists would argue that every 'thing' and every 'action' is a mixture of so called 'good' and so called 'evil'.
"Taoists believe that nature is a continual balance between yin and yang, and that any attempt to go toward one extreme or the other will be ineffective, self-defeating, and short-lived."
What Taoists Believe
In Taoism, the idea is that if an object has a 'front' it must also have a 'back'.
In a created world there are opposites, yin and yang, which are actually part of a whole.
Waves cannot exist without troughs.
In order for 'compassion' to exist, there must be 'suffering'.
In Taoism, yin and yang (+1 -1) arise together from an initial peacefulness or emptiness (0), and continue in existence until peacefulness is reached again.
Imagine a stone thrown onto peaceful water, creating temporary waves and troughs.
Buddhists believe that you cannot have 'nirvana' without its opposite 'samsara'.
'Samasara' is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
'Nirvana' is a blissful state where one has ceased to exist as an individual, and where one is free from delusion and suffering.
Budhists do not believe in the 'old man in the sky' type of God.
Buddhists believe that we are responsible for what happens, be it 'good' or 'evil'.
Buddhists concentrate on learning ways to end suffering, escape from samsara and enter nirvana.
For some Hindus, human souls have always existed and were thus not created by God at some time in history.
Human souls are responsible for their 'level of enlightenment'.
But nobody has yet come up with a complete answer that can be proven to be correct.
We can, however, look at a formula for achieving happiness and bliss.
And we can put it to the test to see if it works.
Teachers such as Buddha tell us not to hold on to of pain, sorrow and fear.
"Why? He uses a detachment visualization technique.
"It is not HIS arm attached to HIS body, but instead it is AN arm away from his body and therefore no feeling is possible.
"Amputees sometimes suffer from the phantom limb 'itch' where they feel an itch on a limb that does not exist."
Superconscious: Pain Control Via Detachment
Our minds can affect our bodies.
We are made up of tiny particles.
Scientists have discovered evidence that particles are continuously changing 'wavefunctions'.
A wavefunction has many 'possibilities' or 'probabilities'.
A Wavefunction only gives the appearance of being a particle at the moment it is observed or thought about by someone's mind.
Everything composed of particles is impermanent and continually changing.
According to the Buddhists, becoming is more basic than being, and existence is really just impermanence in slow-motion.
Rational Buddhism: Buddhism, Quantum Physics and Mind
According to the Buddhist Ven. Pende Hawter:
Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective - BuddhaNet.
1. The mind is the creator of sickness and health.
2. According to the idea of Karma, all of our actions lay down imprints.
3. To heal present sickness, we have to engage in positive actions now.
To prevent sickness occurring again in the future, we have to purify, or clear, the negative karmic imprints that remain on our mindstream.
4. The basic root of our problems and sickness is selfishness.
5. Visualisation can be very powerful healing.
One method is to visualise a ball of white light above your head, with the light spreading in all directions. Imagine the light spreading through your body, completely dissolving away all sickness and problems. Concentrate on the image of your body as completely healed and in the nature of light.
Christian patients can visualise the light as Jesus, with the light emanating from him.
How Jimmy was able to Fix it.
6. A seven year old girl had epilepsy as the result of spirit harm.
Whenever she had an epileptic attack, the girl would see a frightening apparition coming towards her.
After the initial prayers had been performed, however, her attacks lessened and she would see a brick wall between her and the frightening figure. Eventually the attacks and visions disappeared altogether.
7. Another powerful method of healing is to meditate on thought transformation.
These methods allow a person to see the problem or sickness as something positive rather than negative.
If someone gets angry at us, we can choose to be angry in return or to be thankful to them for giving us the chance to practice patience and purify this particular karma.
We can use our sickness and problems in a very powerful way for spiritual growth, resulting in the development of compassion and wisdom.
Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective - BuddhaNet.
According to the Buddhists, becoming is more basic than being, and existence is really just impermanence in slow-motion.
Rational Buddhism: Buddhism, Quantum Physics and Mind
According to the Buddhist Ven. Pende Hawter:
Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective - BuddhaNet.
1. The mind is the creator of sickness and health.
2. According to the idea of Karma, all of our actions lay down imprints.
3. To heal present sickness, we have to engage in positive actions now.
To prevent sickness occurring again in the future, we have to purify, or clear, the negative karmic imprints that remain on our mindstream.
4. The basic root of our problems and sickness is selfishness.
5. Visualisation can be very powerful healing.
One method is to visualise a ball of white light above your head, with the light spreading in all directions. Imagine the light spreading through your body, completely dissolving away all sickness and problems. Concentrate on the image of your body as completely healed and in the nature of light.
Christian patients can visualise the light as Jesus, with the light emanating from him.
How Jimmy was able to Fix it.
6. A seven year old girl had epilepsy as the result of spirit harm.
Whenever she had an epileptic attack, the girl would see a frightening apparition coming towards her.
After the initial prayers had been performed, however, her attacks lessened and she would see a brick wall between her and the frightening figure. Eventually the attacks and visions disappeared altogether.
7. Another powerful method of healing is to meditate on thought transformation.
These methods allow a person to see the problem or sickness as something positive rather than negative.
If someone gets angry at us, we can choose to be angry in return or to be thankful to them for giving us the chance to practice patience and purify this particular karma.
We can use our sickness and problems in a very powerful way for spiritual growth, resulting in the development of compassion and wisdom.
Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective - BuddhaNet.
In Buddhism, an arhat is a person who has achieved enlightenment or Nirvana.
B. Alan Wallace wrote:
(ombuddha)
"The difference between us and an arhat, a person who has freed the mind from mental affliction, is that an arhat doesn't identify with pain.
"Arhats experience physical pain vividly but don’t grasp onto it.
"They can take action to avoid or alleviate pain, but whether they do so or not, the physical pain doesn't come inside.
"What an arhat does not experience is mental suffering."
Some scientists believe in a non-dual world.
They believe that the idea that we are a separate self is an illusion.
"Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana."
Science and Nonduality
The Taoist Seng T'san wrote:
"For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears."
DUALITY
Science and Nonduality
"For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears."
DUALITY
"A buddha, one who is perfectly spiritually awakened, has gone a further step.
"A buddha has no mental suffering of his or her own, but is vividly and non-dually aware of the suffering of others...
"A buddha, one who is fully awakened, presents the paradox of being free from suffering and also non-dually present with other people's joys and sorrows, hopes and fears.
"A buddha taps into immutable bliss, the ultimate ground state of awareness beyond the dichotomy of stimulus-driven pain and pleasure.
"The mind of a buddha has been purified of all obscuration and from its own nature there naturally arises immutable bliss, like a spring welling up from the earth.
.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*)
"With the unveiling of the buddha-nature of unconditioned bliss, there is also a complete erosion of an absolute demarcation between self and other.
"The barrier is gone.
"This is why buddhas are vividly and non-dually aware of the suffering of others, their hopes and fears, the whole situation, and at the same time are not disengaged from the purity and bliss of their own awareness.
"The mind of a buddha doesn’t block out anything and nothing is inhibited, and this is why the awareness of an awakened being is frequently described as 'unimaginable.'"
"All the delightful things of the world - sweet sounds, lovely forms, all the pleasant tastes and touches and thoughts - these are all agreed to bring happiness if they are not grasped and possessed.
But if you regard them merely as pleasures for your own use and satisfaction and do not see them as passing wonders, they will bring suffering.
-Sutta Nipata
Blog: Pleasure and Joy
"All the delightful things of the world - sweet sounds, lovely forms, all the pleasant tastes and touches and thoughts - these are all agreed to bring happiness if they are not grasped and possessed.
But if you regard them merely as pleasures for your own use and satisfaction and do not see them as passing wonders, they will bring suffering.
-Sutta Nipata
Blog: Pleasure and Joy
One
READ MORE
 | The Science of One Nothing & Something are One Hon rai mu ishi matsu. From the first, no-thing is. Hui-neng 6th Patriarch of Zen Buddhism |
 Image credit: Leonard Eisenberg |
It cannot be called void or not void, Or both or neither; But in order to point it out, it is called "the Void" Nagarjuna Men are afraid to forget their own minds, fearing to fall through the void with nothing on to which they can cling. They do not know that the void is not really the void but the real realm of the Dharma... Huang-Po |
To use the imagery of a Tibetan poem, every action, every event comes of itself from the Void 'as from the surface of a clear lake there leaps suddenly a fish' Allan Watts |
 |
Enjoy
© 2012 wonder404
Bridgit for Pope Movement.
Christians, Buddhists, Taoists and others might agree that we should try to be selfless.
There is a belief that we can achieve 'the peace that passeth all understanding' by being selfless.
Buddhism and Taoism, however, warn against extreme self-sacrifice.
selflessness.
Buddhism has an interesting view of the 'self' and the 'soul'.
"If the word 'soul' refers to a non-bodily component in a person that can continue in some way after death, then Buddhism does not deny the existence of a soul.[4]
"Just as the body changes from moment to moment, so thoughts come and go; there is no permanent conscious substance that experiences these thoughts...
"When the body dies, the mental processes continue and are reborn in a new body.[4]
"Because the mental processes are constantly changing, the new being is neither exactly the same as, nor completely different from, the being that died.[9]
"Buddhism rejects the notion of a permanent self, but does not reject the notion of a self consisting of constantly changing physical and mental phenomena..[10]
"Buddhism rejects the notion of a permanent self, but does not reject the notion of a self consisting of constantly changing physical and mental phenomena..[10]
"Early Buddhist scriptures describe an enlightened individual as someone whose changing self is highly developed."
Buddha did not say that 'the self' exists or does not exist.
Buddha did not say that 'the self' exists or does not exist.
Why?
He did not want us to 'grasp' or 'cling' to the idea of 'self' because that can cause suffering.
He did not want us to 'grasp' a or 'cling' to the idea of not having a 'self' because that can cause suffering.
The Buddha advised paying no attention to such questions as "Do I exist?"
"What distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea that there are two centers of the personality.
"The ego is the center of consciousness, whereas the Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego.
"The Self is both the whole and the center. While the ego is a self-contained little center of the circle contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle".[2]
Abraham Maslow (above) refers to "self-transcendence", which means "to experience, unite with and serve that which is beyond the individual self: the unity of all being."
"Self-transcendence is a personality trait associated with experiencing spiritual ideas[1] such as considering oneself a part of the universe."[2]
Abraham Maslow (above) refers to "self-transcendence", which means "to experience, unite with and serve that which is beyond the individual self: the unity of all being."
"Self-transcendence is a personality trait associated with experiencing spiritual ideas[1] such as considering oneself a part of the universe."[2]
Claude Robert Cloninger
"Cloninger found that psychiatric patients tend to be lower in self-transcendence compared with adults in the general population.[2]
Self-transcendence is one of the "character" dimensions of personality assessed in Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory.[2]
"However, low cooperativeness and self-directedness combined with high self-transcendence may result in openness to odd or unusual ideas and behaviours associated with distorted perceptions of reality."[4]
In the video below, psychologist Jonathan Haidt (above) speaks about 'self-transcendence'.
George Dunn responds after viewing Jonathan Haidt’s TED talk:
Is Self-Transcendence Unique to Humans? | TheBentAngle.
"I'm not convinced that the sort of 'self-transcendence' Haidt discusses is always such a great thing.
In the video below, psychologist Jonathan Haidt (above) speaks about 'self-transcendence'.
George Dunn responds after viewing Jonathan Haidt’s TED talk:
Is Self-Transcendence Unique to Humans? | TheBentAngle.
"I'm not convinced that the sort of 'self-transcendence' Haidt discusses is always such a great thing.
"René Girard's theory helps us to understand that group cohesion is often, maybe even typically, forged at the expense of some enemy or scapegoat.
"Also, I’m not sure that what he describes is so much 'transcending' the ego as it is a vast expansion of it.
"Finally, I’m always wary when people start talking about the 'sacred,' having learned from Girard and others to associate the sacred with violence, oppression, and obfuscation.
"Altruism, as I understand it, doesn't have to depend on some 'sacred' merger of one's personality identity with the group.
"To the contrary, wouldn't genuine altruism be a matter of responding to the alterity (otherness) of the other person and recognizing her unique identity as a separate person, rather than simply responding to some identity that we both share?
"In any case, Haidt's account of self-transcendence doesn't explain why we - and other animals - are sometimes willing to stick our necks out for others who are not members of our own group or even our own species.
"Maybe he would explain that sort of altruism as a 'bug,' rather than an adaptation. In any case, it seems to me that altruism can’t simply be reduced to the sort of vertical self-transcendence he describes."
