Further thoughts on the blood of Jesus.
I think that God is emphatic that we understand He had to take into Himself the mess that we created. The death and blood shedding of the Son of God could be a way for us to get the point. This was God going all the way to die in our place.
As great as He is He laid it all down for His great love for us. Perhaps that is why so much mention of the blood. In the blood is the life. God laid aside all that He is to save us. Perhaps that is the point.
God establishes a relationship with His creature man. Man can destroy that relationship but he cannot repair it. For it to be repaired, God has to do it.
Man destroys that relationship because of his wrong choice of free will. Man thinks this is not a big problem.
"Oh, if there is a problem now between me and my Creator, that is a minor thing. I'll fix that up and everything will be as it was before. No problem. No big deal."
God says in essence "No. You don't understand. Because of Who I am and because of the nature of what I am, I have to fix it now. You can mess it up. But you cannot fix it. [b]I have to come in to fix it." [/b]
Perhaps the blood of Jesus matter is a way to emphatically stress that it is God who has to come in and put right again the relationship between God and man.
It cost Him to do so. It is impossible for man to repair what he has destroyed. And it is with great difficulty and great cost for God to repair what man has destroyed.
Perhaps this is why the frequent mention of the blood of the God/Man Jesus Christ. God lays down everything to repair what man messed up and cannot fix.
Originally posted by WulebgrHe died and went to be with the Lord.
I thought he died decades ago. The books I read near thirty years ago were not new.
His co-worker Witness Lee carried his revelation to the rest of the world as Nee died in a Communist prison.
Lee died a few years ago. Both were and still are teachers of many of us.
www.witnesslee.org
Pritybetta’s first statement about the Buddha and Buddhism was good; her subsequent statement about pride was incorrect.
Now, as per another thread, I do not want to be taken as speaking for all of Buddhism (or all Buddhists); Buddhism is no more univocal in the details of the tradition than is Christianity. Some people treat illusion differently from others. It was actually No.1 Marauder who once blew the doors off my own tendency to create a false dualism between “illusion” and “the real”. (I do not pretend to speak for him here, however.)
Illusion, as he notes here, has its ground in the mind. It is not, strictly, to see something that isn’t there (or vice versa)—it is to see things other than as they actually are. In gestaltic terms, for example, it is to affirm only the figure and deny the ground from which the figure stands out, or to insist that what one sees as figure does not change as one shifts one’s attention, etc. In more Buddhist terms, it is to falsely separate the manifest forms from the ground from which, in which, and of which they arise. That is: dualism.
When Buddhists talk about the world being illusion, they are generally speaking about such a dualistic separation; the world they are speaking of is the world of manifest forms. The forms can no more be ontologically separated from the Whole, than my smile can be separated from my face; or the gulfstream can be separated from the ocean.
There also tend to be misconceptions about “suffering”. Dukkha refers generally to mental suffering—it is sometimes translated as anguish. In this world of physical forms, there is physical pain; that is not what the Buddha meant by “suffering”. Suffering, in the Buddhist context, is something that we add to the pain. [Note: I know of no spiritual or philosophical paradigm that says there is/will be no physical pain in physical existence.]
Summarized, the First Noble truth is that there is suffering in the world; the Second Noble Truth is that suffering stems from [illusory] clinging (attachment, possessiveness, greed, etc.); the Third Noble Truth is that there is a way out of suffering/illusion; the Fourth Noble Truth describes that way out in terms of the Eightfold Path. Now, that is too many folds for me to keep track of—that is why I prefer the more condensed way of Zen. But Zen does not contradict the Eightfold Path, nor do I assert that Zen is better for everyone.
In clear-mind, one is aware of any physical pain; one does not suffer from it. One may, however, iterate between clear-mind and suffering-mind—even when meditating (though some would say, no doubt correctly, that “meditation” just is being in clear-mind; I am here speaking just of practicing meditation). The more deeply grooved, and the more natural, that one’s ability to sustain clear-mind becomes, the less such involuntary iteration there will be.
And in clear-mind, there is no illusion because in clear-mind, one is simply aware of one’s shifting attention and of the non-separability and mutuality of all manifest forms (including oneself) within the whole ground. Clear-mind is also the natural mind-ground in which thoughts also arise, when one chooses to think about that of which one is aware prior to thinking. But thinking (and the Eightfold Path has “right thinking” as one of its folds) does not have to entail suffering either. Nor does one have to forego living a rich and passionate life. It is anguish—to use my preferred translation of dukkha—that is optional. A discussion of the full range of emotions—and how Zennists and various psychologists treat them—would be beyond the pale here. I will just repeat: anguish is optional—and unnecessary for a full, rich and passionate life. For example: I grieve, but I do not add anguish to my grief, neither to exacerbate nor to prolong it (in which case, it becomes something other than primary grief/sadness).
I strive to live a rich, passionate, flourishing life. As ToO once said (throwing my own words back at me) I may be as much a Zorba-ist as a Zennist. I laugh, I sing, I cry, I experience physical pain, I experience deep joy and sadness: I simply no longer suffer much. I hope that I might have clarified terms well enough here that you understand what I am saying
Originally posted by WulebgrTake it from Wulebgr folks.
This statement is based on credible evidence!
http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=3&id=31&Itemid=8
If a man has a ministry from God then EVERYONE will ALWAYS speak well of you, of course !
And lesson #2 from Wulebgre - Everyone with a Website always has credible information, of course!
Responses - http://www.contendingforthefaith.com/