Is it possible to have a dialogue about "the Truth"

Paladin said:
I know a delightful woman here in Colorado who has been a Buddhist nun for many years. Once when giving a Dharma talk she said: "You know, my family always hated it when I was being a Buddhist, but they love me when I am being a Buddha."
Imagine the growth potential in having to leave behind Scriptures, books, Sutras and stories and discuss truth from the place of where we actually live, to come from a place of being. Wouldn't that encourage us to stay in touch with our own ground of being in a more mindful sense? We just might have to re establish our relationship to what we concieve truth to be. Of course this puts us on the cutting edge of our own agreement with reality, scary for some, even blasphemous to the conservative mindset, but I believe that to ever grow, to ever get beyond our childlike approach to the Absolute Reality, it is necessary.
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I think you are addressing the question of how we can know (recognize) Truth. "Discuss truth from where we actually live" ... to me that seems such a restricted way to look at Truth. Don't you want to know what made the big bang go bang!

Nevertheless, I'm not discounting your approach, because on a daily basis I need to re-evaluate what I believe about certain situations that occur. How I behave must be directed by what I hold to be the Truth. To paraphrase your Buddhist nun - I don't want to be a Christian, I want to be Christ.
 
kenod said:
I think you are addressing the question of how we can know (recognize) Truth. "Discuss truth from where we actually live" ... to me that seems such a restricted way to look at Truth. Don't you want to know what made the big bang go bang!

Nevertheless, I'm not discounting your approach, because on a daily basis I need to re-evaluate what I believe about certain situations that occur. How I behave must be directed by what I hold to be the Truth. To paraphrase your Buddhist nun - I don't want to be a Christian, I want to be Christ.
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Yes, that is what I meant by "Where you live" For a Christian who has their movement and being in Christ that is where you live, it is your ground of being beyond the books, beyond what the preacher says, beyond even relationships if you can so imagine where you can honestly say that "Christ lives me" is where you live. To come to the table from such a place, from such ultimate power is ironically a place of ultimate humility. When you speak from that state of being then ( I personally tend to believe) those that can hear you are inspired to lift their eyes to truth also. Yes, the words might be different, and they might phrase their ideas differently, but I have noticed that mystics from every religious background tend to speak the same language if you listen carefully.
 
Paladin said:
I have noticed that mystics from every religious background tend to speak the same language if you listen carefully.
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I think this is true as long as we are speaking about morality.

But is there a Truth that extends beyond our life in the here and now? Is there a God who intervenes in our lives on a personal level, and communicates with us? Are the Christian concepts of an afterlife, and heaven and hell, part of the Truth? These are questions that pertain to the supernatural realm.

From what source do we seek answers to these questions? And by what authority does anyone attempt to provide us with the answers?
 
From what source do we seek answers to these questions? And by what authority does anyone attempt to provide us with the answers?
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Direct perception and inference. Some say scripture as well, but I think it really boils down to direct perception in the end.

So to really know the hell realm and be sure about it, you need to experience it directly. To really know God, you would have to experience him directly. Experiencing anything through your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, thoughts...these are all indirect.
 
samabudhi said:
Direct perception and inference. Some say scripture as well, but I think it really boils down to direct perception in the end.

So to really know the hell realm and be sure about it, you need to experience it directly. To really know God, you would have to experience him directly. Experiencing anything through your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, thoughts...these are all indirect.
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What about instinct?
What about love?
What about faith?

Are these "real" experiences?
 
kenod said:
I do not recognize any creeds. I am not sure what the writers of the creed intended by "from" the Virgin Mary. Ask me a question from the Bible ... I'm better at those ;)
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Cool. I think I've stumbled across the Australian Bill Clinton. :D

Please provide the common name of your preferred Enlish translation of the Bible so you can continue helping me know the truth.
 
kenod said:
From what source do we seek answers to these questions? And by what authority does anyone attempt to provide us with the answers?
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Let's get back to our project. Perhaps we'll find out the answers to these excellent questions. :)
 
Abogado del Diablo said:
Cool. I think I've stumbled across the Australian Bill Clinton. :D
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I hope not ... BC is best remembered here for the line: "Washington couldn't tell a lie; Nixon couldn't tell the truth; and Clinton couldn't tell the difference."

Besides, could you imagine me being a Democrat !!!


Please provide the common name of your preferred Enlish translation of the Bible so you can continue helping me know the truth.
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It might be more helpful if you tried explaining your point ... little pithy posts just confuse me
:confused:



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kenod said:
It might be more helpful if you tried explaining your point ... little pithy posts just confuse me
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I don't have a point.

I do have a question. What is your preferred English translation of the Bible?

Let's continue the process of discovering the truth together, instead of preaching at each other, which - let's face it - is likely to be a waste of both my time and yours.

:D:cool:;);):D
 
Abogado del Diablo said:


I am asking serious questions about the nature of faith, how we define and determine "the truth," and, in the real world in which we live, what should we do about the inescapable reality that just about every single person has arrived at a different conviction about "the truth" and of what it consists.
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Yes indeed, back to the project;)

This may require a different thread altogether, but I imagine that any discussion on truth must follow the perceptions of the personality describing it much like the elephant proverb. If the MBTI of the person leads them to a more fundamentalist outlook and say another person comes from a more INFP place wouldn't an unresovleable "software conflict" arise?
 
Paladin said:
Yes indeed, back to the project;)

This may require a different thread altogether, but I imagine that any discussion on truth must follow the perceptions of the personality describing it much like the elephant proverb. If the MBTI of the person leads them to a more fundamentalist outlook and say another person comes from a more INFP place wouldn't an unresovleable "software conflict" arise?
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Paladin:

There may very well be something like that going on. That's something I think is worth exploring. Can we investigate that possibility by looking at how we distinguish the truth from not the truth? I'm certainly open to the idea that my proposal isn't the most effective way to explore that possibility.

If you have another idea, perhaps another thread about the relationship between personality and perceptions of the truth is warranted.

Here's a question we might explore: Can we change aspects of our personality? By opening ourselves to different concepts of reality, can we alter the fundamental way we reconcile our internal selves with the external world and change our personality?

Can science help us here? There's been some very interesting recent scientific research into the apparent relationship between "religious" practices such as prayer and meditation and the distribution and intensity of electrical activity across the brain.
 
I think this thread of inquiry has been adequately answered, and the next question you pose would begin another. Maslow's hierarchy was completed when at the top he finally placed a space for Self-trancendance. Being the next step past self-actualization, it is I think necessary to really discuss or approach any ideas of an absolute reality. Without trying to trancend our own dogmas, and ultimately our limited ideas and identifications with self how shall we ever know what truth truly is?
 
Paladin said:
I think this thread of inquiry has been adequately answered
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I think you are right. We haven't even been able to start a conversation about whether we can start a conversation. QED indeed.:)
 
Abogado del Diablo said:
Here are a few articles on this new research:

Love Promotes Health

Meditation and the Brain

Love and Stress

There are many, many more.

I have more than a passing interest in the science of cognition and the consciousness of self because of my son's autism.
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Very interesting stuff, I first came into contact with some of this research through my wife who is in charge of the counseling department in a local middle school. Though her degree is in education her hobby as it were is brain research and functions.
Daniel Golemans book "Destructive Emotions;How can we overcome them" introduced me to the group in Boulder that concerns itself with bridging the gap between religion and Science. Quite a worthwhile endeavor!
 
Thank you for the articles, AdD. I'm looking forward to reading them. At the risk of derailing this thread, even if it is in its death throws, it's occurred to me before that emotions can become habits...and we have some control over which habits we encourage and which we try to drop. Indulging in anger seems to beget more anger...and

love begets love.

luna
 
kenod said:
samabudhi said:
Direct perception and inference. Some say scripture as well, but I think it really boils down to direct perception in the end.

So to really know the hell realm and be sure about it, you need to experience it directly. To really know God, you would have to experience him directly. Experiencing anything through your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, thoughts...these are all indirect.
Click to expand...

What about instinct?
What about love?
What about faith?

Are these "real" experiences?
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Hmmmm... The term "real" is slightly different to what I mean. In Buddhism, as with Einstein, everything is relative. In other words, all phenomena depend on each other for their reality - so they are just appearances. No thing is "real", as in "inherently existing".

Those experiences, they rely on an observer to experience them. They depend on causes and conditions. So to answer your question, no.
 
I believe there are many common "truths" across traditions and no tradition-the states of non-ordinary consciouness as found via meditation, other spiritual/mystical practices, and near death experiences suggest certain "truths" that escape ordinary waking consciousness. But to think finite, relative beings might attain to "infinite" absolute Truth is not likely though its pursuit likely enables us to find all these wonderful less-than-absolute truths.:) take care, earl
 
How can all religions claim to be the truth, yet they are so different from each other and deny the next religion? And then say like the JW's I used to "hang" with lol.. They would say... "Well that is simple." They would then open their bible and show me verses. "See god says they are wrong."

But that doesn't answer my question... I am sure somewhere in the islam jewish muslim whatever religion it shows they are obviously right and that the christians are wrong... With all this "at each others throats" thing going on... How can anyone really be comfortable with their version of the "truth"
 
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