--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> > > wrote: > > > > > > Can't comment on that. I'm a Buddhist who doesn't > > > even believe that God exists. :-) > > > > Really? If Buddha-->Buddhism-->Buddhist exists, how can God not > > exist? I'd like to hear your definition of Buddha. > > Just a normal, everyday guy, who realized what it > really is to be a normal, everyday guy. Buddha > would have laughed himself silly at the notion > that he was anything else. > > What I don't believe in is God as a being with > sentience of his/her/its own or the universe > having a will or design/direction of its own. > I have no problem with the concept of the Absolute, > merely with it having a will or sentience other > than that made up of the combination of all the > will and sentience of its separate "parts."
Why not? The sentience of the Whole may be so incomprensible as to be undetectable by any of the sentient parts, so it may not matter, but why assume that there is or isn't such a "thing?" > > > > > > In other words, there were things I wanted to achieve for myself > > > > that were unobtainable at the lesser state of consciousness... > > > > > > I would say instead that you *assumed* they were not > > > available to you. Therefore they weren't. > > > > Hang on-- Broadening the discussion beyond human form, would you > > also say that a chimpanzee doesn't speak English because of some > > self-imposed limitation? Where do you draw the line between self- > > imposed limitations and physiologically based limitations? > > I limit myself in these discussions to discussing humans. > They have no limitations as far as I am concerned except > those that they impose upon themselves. :-) > > In other words, I do not believe in the "stress keeps us > from realizing enlightenment" theory. Not for a minute. >
