The Religious Life

from JoeUser Forums

With palms together,

Good Evening All,

 

The religious life is not about a religion, although a religion can often offer a pathway to a religious life. A religious life is a life lived in concert or attempted concert, with the Infinite in the real world.  Some call this Infinite God, others call it Adonai or even Jesus, still others the Absolute.   The bible of the Jews has many names for this Absolute.

Many of these names point to the attributes of the Absolute, they show a progression of understanding regarding the Absolute, but no one name is really definitive, excpt perhaps, that mystical rendition of the ineffable name, I AM.

In Zen, we do not look directly at the Absolute. Instead our practice is to experience the Absolute.  This is also true of Judaism.  We don't make pictures or statues of God.  We feel God.  We learn about God through our practice in both cases. Statements of faith are not considered particularly valuable, nor are testimonies.  What is most important is living the faith.

Jews study Torah, they study Talmud, they study Mishnah.  Jews study and question everything, but most of all they find ways to live in accordance with God's will. Zen Buddhists  question everything; they study the self to the point that the self, itself, falls away.  Both are left with the Infinite in their heart. And both vow to engage the world. Both follow the way of the One.

So, it is through this process, study, prayer (including meditation), acts of loving-kindness, that we come to the religious life with real authenticity.

The religious life is not a matter of what one believes, but rather, what one does, our practice. I encourage everyone to take up a disciplined spiritual practice.

 

Be well.

 

 

religion
1,354 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Certainly there is something to be said, even from someone who does not practice any particular religion, for spending moments in thought and contemplation.

Whether this is spiritual or not, I’m not sure, but in such activities as meditation, I can relate to experiencing something that could only be described as so. It is my sub consciousness that I am engaged with directly. This part of you sees and interacts with the world around us in ways that we, or our actual consciousness, cannot comprehend even today.

Religion (certain ones at least) is one of the few aspects of society which we can turn to do make sense of these moments or how we should act upon them. It is only on the issue of faith itself and the need for it that I begin to stray from the course of many religions.

You correctly state that articles of faith are not all that useful, but go on to mention the way in which Jews and Buddhists question everything, so long as it is within the accordance of gods will, that you feel god, and learn about him in our questioning of everything.

I think it would be interesting if you replaced the notion of god with ourselves and see how many people can relate to that statement. Perhaps a rather controversial thing to say or do, but I believe when most people are experiencing god they are actually experiencing themselves, our deep rooted and extraordinarily powerful sub consciousness and the only rational explanation that exists in our society for such an encounter or moment is God and religion.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, I respect your views and differences as I’m sure you do mine, I just wanted to add my opinion on the matter of living of faith and how we make judgments in life of what is right and wrong, what we question and how we question, is all derived from ourselves and mankind.

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Scotteh,  I agree with you.  In fact, in Zen, we practice so that the boundary between self and Self, the Relative (ordinary, person-based) world and the Absolute (God, Big Mind) world falls away. We might say there is no difference, s we experience ourselves as the Infinite.

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