Master of Buddhism Course

This is a blog for the course comments from the Master of Buddhism course through the Universal Life Church Seminary.
The course can be found at Buddhism Course.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Buddhism

Lesson 8

#1.  Socially-driven, pre-conditioned ideas that a person has to give up in order to have faith in nirvana are probably as numerous as humans who have been conditioned by their respective cultures.  In our western culture, we may have to give up the idea of "proof."  Does nirvana exist, and if so, where is it and how do you get there.  How do we recognize it when we see it?  If we drop the need for proof, and a description of how do we recognize it when we see it, we may then move to "faith" that there is such a thing as nirvana.  Faith and the concepts of probability and uncertainty go hand-in-hand  We can't really prove there love exists by western reductionism, either, but we have faith it exists because of what we've heard from others and what we, ourselves have experienced.  Faith, then, is being sure without really knowing all the facts.
#2.  Another image that could be compared metaphorically to enlightenment is a sunrise.
#3.  Poem:
Enlightenment:  A Sunrise
A sunrise begins in the dark of night,
    as does enlightenment.
The sky turns a golden pink,
    beyond a horizon of hills and trees.
A gray cloud melts into the morning light,
    as earlier did the stars.
A globe of gold spills its light
    into the valley and villages.
A day has dawned,
    and the  world is illumined.
    
Nancy Anderson
aka "Lotus"

*******************************

The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, Wicca, Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more.

Ordination with the Universal Life Church, is free,  and lasts for life, so use the Free Online Ordination, button.

The  ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials.  I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.


Try our new free toolbar at: ULC Toolbar

No comments:

Post a Comment