"Buddha Nature is a doctrine important for many schools of Mahayana Buddhism. The Buddha Nature is taught to be a truly real, but internally hidden, eternal potency or immortal element within the purest depths of the mind, present in all sentient beings, for awakening and becoming a Buddha."

and....

"Man is divine not by nature but by grace, that is to say that his union with God is not an ontological union in one nature but a personal union in love and in the Holy Spirit, that is to say by God's gift of Himself to man, in Christ.......Man is divine then not insofar as he has Being, but insofar as he is personally redeemed by and united with God in Christ"

By "nature" or "by grace"?

Any thoughts?

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When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird.

In my opinion, most definitely by "nature", we are all a part of the same thing, and as such are temporarily separated from one-ness with it by the illusions of this world.

The goal for us is to re-establish that unity by dissolving the attraction we feel to objects and pleasures of the material existence.


Peace, Love, & Light

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"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

I find the position of many Christains, that humans are base, corrupt and irredeemable by any action on their own, hard to believe. Obviously, many people DO believe it and find it no impediment, but I can't see it that way.

If human beings were truly that contemptible, then why would their god want to love them, or care if they were redeemed? Obviously, humans are worthless under this definition, and worthless by the god's own decision and decree. To make what you despise and condemn, only so you can pretend to redeem and restore it is, at the least, odd behavior.

So, rather than being an act of great love and benevolence, redemption appears to be some strange divine act of self-congratulation. ("I am so great! Look how i redeemed these worthless humans!"

It also seems terribly arbitrary, since not all will be saved, and the criteria for redemption seem obscure, at best.

I think Buddha was much closer to what I believe. There is something divine in all of us, and that divine nature always tends toward the divine -- although, not without difficulty on many occassions and lives.

I differ from both, however, in not seeing this World as something we need to be "saved" from.

"Be seeing you..."

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Grassaf, Eolas

By nature and grace. Can't make up my mind : ) It is our nature to love and be loved.

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May your awareness be perfection

Both!! By the grace of God it is our nature!! and through the grace of God we continue to be renewed in that nature...

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RevKathyV

http://www.myspace.com/divinelightinterfaith



www.divinelightinterfaithministry.com

One of the problems with Christianity is that it equates Christ with Jesus. Jesus became known as the "Christ", but as he explains (in ACIM), Christ is the perfectly unified creation of God. There IS only one Son, but it's not a person - it's the perfect extension of the Creator, totally at one with It, sharing the same Mind. Everyone has access to that part of them (at the level of the unified mind, we are all joined). Obviously, Jesus was able to accomplish what we have yet to do.

Now..... into the Mind of the Son, says ACIM, crept "a tiny mad idea, at which the Son of God forgot to laugh." So, the thought of separation from the ALL became a possibility, even though it's not really possible that we could seperate ourselves from our Source. It's more like an illusion or a nightmare, but within the world it seems very, very real. So it's true that we must "awaken." We haven't sinned - we're just mistaken. God isn't angry - that's a projection of the ego's feeling of guilt. So the concept of forgiveness is simply the realization that the ego, or separated self, is not who we really are.

In essence then, we are Christ. "Salvation" is just a process whereby we heal the split mind and return to our original state.

I would say by nature. When we learn to bestow grace upon ourselves and learn to stop making our path so difficult we see the Buddha nature.

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InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

"...internally hidden, eternal potency or immortal element within the purest depths of the mind, present in all sentient beings..."

I can accept that because in the Baha'i Writings it says from my view that man is a mystery and a mine of gems within are to be polished and cultivated..

The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom."

so man's nature is noble but God has also created man noble

O SON OF SPIRIT!
Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.5

Finally, are these words of Bahá'u'lláh which clearly state just how important we humans are to God::

But for man, who, on My earth, would remember Me, and how could My attributes and My names be revealed?

and this is where His grace is involved...

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

Eolas,

I would just like to say that I find the idea that human beings are "irredeemable by any action of their own" to be the core paradox of many spiritual paths. It has no necessary connection with any form of value judgement concerning any human beings "worth". It makes no one "contemptible", but points to the existential reality that it can never be the "false self", the empirical, phenomenal "self" that eventually "knows" salvation or "realizes" enlightenment..........and yet, it is only such a "self" that we experience and can work with in our endeavours towards such a transformation. It leaves us seeking and endeavouring to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps............suggesting why the various Faiths speak of "grace", or "Other Power", or "dropping body and mind".

I certainly recognise the form of Christianity you imply, and find it often as repugnant as you seem to do, yet would not wish to throw out the baby with the bathwater!

"Original Sin" has some correspondence with the "all is suffering" of Buddhism. Yes, all. As I understand it, Buddhism does not deny the existential reality that some things are experienced as pleasurable.....that all things cannot be divided into that which brings joy and that which brings sorrow. This is the dualistic world we inhabit, which is real as far as it goes. But it does say that this entire context of a "self" that spends its entire existence seeking more of the pleasureable and less of the unpleasurable (in all the forms this can take) IS suffering (dukkha)..........And therefore speaks of anatta (no-self), which properly understood does not point towards mere denial, yet does seek to show forth the "selfs" true nature....(as "no-nature", empty, and therefore open to all things)

This all becomes very complex, and as a totally unenlightened individual, is in many ways totally beyond my own experience. Eventually, so they say,

after all our explorations we return to the place from which we started and know it for the first time (T S.Eliot)

and.......... we find ourselves again to be the ordinary Toms, Dicks and Harrys we have been all along (Suzuki)

Until then............as they say in the Buddhist Faith......Walk on!

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When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird.

I tend to go with the "nature" perspective, but I'm very leary of the more mystical attachments that are sometimes found within some schools of Buddhism. However, when I say "leary", I'm not stating that it is not possible since what I know has rather severe limitations.

Shalom,
Vern