LDS faith and Buddhist practices?

[Zooman009]

Am I crazy, or do some (not all) Buddhist practices align with the faith really well?

Recently I got in meditation and I‘ve been listening to a few Buddhist monks here and there. Mostly cause I like learning about existence from multiple viewpoints.

I’d also like to say that I’ve had a porn issue for a while that I’ve been trying to overcome and meditation has done wonders for it.

What most amazes me is that as I’ve been doing these things, it hasn’t felt like any conflict within my faith. I have found that as I come to learn to accept the present and to release worries and doubts, I have been able to break through my worldly thoughts and desires and then have been able to more personally pray and connect with God. Am I wrong for thinking this? I feel like letting go of my “self” and allowing for room to better understand God’s desires for me is incredibly beneficial.

[askandanswer]

Others will hopefully explain this concept better than myself. I've sometimes heard it taught that all religions contain some true, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints embraces all truth, so there is going to be some degree of resonance between sources which have all, and some, of the truth. 

[CV75]

14 hours ago, Zooman009 said:

Am I crazy, or do some (not all) Buddhist practices align with the faith really well?

Recently I got in meditation and I‘ve been listening to a few Buddhist monks here and there. Mostly cause I like learning about existence from multiple viewpoints.

I’d also like to say that I’ve had a porn issue for a while that I’ve been trying to overcome and meditation has done wonders for it.

What most amazes me is that as I’ve been doing these things, it hasn’t felt like any conflict within my faith. I have found that as I come to learn to accept the present and to release worries and doubts, I have been able to break through my worldly thoughts and desires and then have been able to more personally pray and connect with God. Am I wrong for thinking this? I feel like letting go of my “self” and allowing for room to better understand God’s desires for me is incredibly beneficial.

Some parts can contribute to preparing someone to reveive and keep the ordinances and covenants, and some are in conflict, depending on how you use them and the priority and emphasis you give them. The same with medicine, therapy and prosperity. All kinds of light and well-being lead to a fulness in Christ when we look in the right direction and in the right way.

[scottyg]

Almost all faiths will lend something of benefit to their followers. The biggest difference between Buddhism and Christianity is that Buddhism doesn't teach that there is a God. There are "divine spirits" of sorts who can help guide others along their path of learning over the course of their existence (they also believe in reincarnation in various forms), but no God that has a figure, personality, or character.

[zil2]

Welcome to ThirdHour, @Zooman009!

IMO, as long as you don't let anything lead you away from Christ, or weaken your testimony of the truthfulness of his Church and gospel, then you're OK.

The danger is always that you begin to place more importance on some practice than on Christ.  E.g. you decide meditation or listening to the Buddhist monks is more enriching than attending your Sunday meetings, or you let them take the place of daily time in the scriptures, or you decide to go to a Buddhist retreat rather than General Conference, or Buddhist practice X is "better" than Church teaching Y, etc.

As long as you adapt the Buddhist principle to fit within the gospel rather than the other way around, I expect you'll be fine.

[mikbone]

Meditation is a very important combination with prayer.

The Book of Mormon is full of accounts of meditation.

1 Ne 11:1 1 For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot.

You just won’t see the word meditation.  But it is there.

 

[mrmarklin]

We must always remember that the Gospel is the original religion as taught by Adam to his children.  So even though sects such as Buddhism have deviated from the true path, there is still  a lot of truth that descends from the original teachings.

[Carborendum]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:50 PM, Zooman009 said:

do some ... Buddhist practices align with the faith really well?

Well, of course.  The prophets have said that the truths of the gospel are available to all.  And when other deep thinkers ponder truths enough, they're bound to come across stuff that is true.  And whatsoever is truth, we accept it.

On 7/5/2023 at 5:50 PM, Zooman009 said:

Recently I got in meditation and I‘ve been listening to a few Buddhist monks here and there. Mostly cause I like learning about existence from multiple viewpoints.

As Mikbone pointed out, there's nothing earthshattering about the principle of meditation.  We're supposed to do it all the time.  I wonder why you felt you had to go to another faith to find that principle when it was already in your own backyard.

[prisonchaplain]

The Buddhist monk that used to come into the federal jail I worked at was beyond wonderful. He told Christians who wanted to learn meditation to focus on Jesus as they did so. However, he, of course, focused on Buddha. The one practice he did not like was the secularization of religious practice. For example, yoga is Hindu. He had little patience for the gyms that offered yoga minus any spirituality. He would look at me and say, "It's supposed to be about God, chaplain!" Amen.

That said, imho Buddhist meditation tends to encourage inward focus. Christians of all stripes probably do too much of that. We need to focus on the Savior first, and others second. I love the JOY acronym: Jesus Others You. We should not neglect ourselves, but most of us (especially me) are in little danger of that. 

Edited July 8, 2023 by prisonchaplain

[Traveler]

I have commented at times that if it was not for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – I would most likely call myself a Buddhist.   There are many amazing parallels.   To an endowed LDS, a stroll through a Buddhist cemetery in Asia and observing the statues there would perhaps cause more than surprise.   Some things about Buddhists and early Christianity.

. Buddha precedes Jesus by about 150 years but did not impact much until after the time of Jesus.  According to tradition the Apostle Thomas (same known as doubting Thomas) went to what is now India to preach after the death of Christ – to the very region that Buddhism first flourished – about the same time that the flourish took place.

. The physical signs of a holy birth that describe buddha are the same as the physical signs of the child what would become the messiah kept by the community that provided us with the Dead Sea Scrolls and Scriptures.

. When the library of Alexandria were destroyed in Egypt and several other western civilizations – Buddhists monks in Asia hid New Testament texts along with Buddhist texts that were being destroyed.  These ancient Christian texts predate the equivalent ancient texts maintained by the “Christian Fathers” in the west.

. The spread of Buddhism is the only religion enduring to modern times (of which I am aware) that was spread without violence.  For example, bringing Christianity to the Bahamas resulted in total genocide of the natives and the taking of Christianity to northern Europe resulted in more death (men, women and children) than from the Black Plague.   The introduction of Buddhism to China ended century’s of war and conflict.

 

I have speculated that it is possible that as Christianity was influenced and corrupted by paganism in the west – that the teaching of the Apostle Thomas were corrupted by eastern religious thought.  So that as Catholicism became the preservation of the teachings of Christ in western society – Buddhism became the preservation of teachings of Christ in eastern society.

 

The Traveler

[Carborendum]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:50 PM, Zooman009 said:

What most amazes me is that as I’ve been doing these things, it hasn’t felt like any conflict within my faith. I have found that as I come to learn to accept the present and to release worries and doubts, I have been able to break through my worldly thoughts and desires and then have been able to more personally pray and connect with God. Am I wrong for thinking this? I feel like letting go of my “self” and allowing for room to better understand God’s desires for me is incredibly beneficial.

I want to make a couple of comments here.  

Meditation: When we say that we need to meditate on the word of God, or we need to "ponder" it is largely a mental/spiritual exercise.  Buddhists also incorporate various physiological elements which are to help boost focus and create a link to our chakra.  

I'm not aware of any analogue to the chakra in LDS theology.  We can make vague connections to virtually anything.  But get to the details and any comparisons tend to fall apart.

The breathing and positioning of the body as well as the relaxation techniques are specifically created to imitate spiritual "peace/comfort" because we're feeling physical peace & comfort.  Some of the breathing exercises also induce a mild euphoria because of oxygen levels.  People believe this is a spiritual phenomenon.  But it is actually physical.

So, we really need to be aware of what is simply mundane that we're not aware of vs the spiritual which is divine.

Desires: There is a pretty important point about LDS theology that is at odds with Buddhist ideals regarding our desires.  And this, I'm afraid has been encouraged by certain statements from general authorities being taken the wrong way.

Buddhists idea of "enlightenment" will often include this idea of ridding ourselves of desires/wants.  There are some sects of Buddhism that will disagree, or at least put a spin on it.  But this idea is pretty common.

Christians will find a parallel and say, "Yes, we are to submit our will to Jesus Christ.  We're to get rid or our desires, and give our will to Christ.  It's the same thing."  I'm going to disagree with the nitty-gritty here.

We were sent to this earth to learn, grow, and change.  We were not sent here to simply blend into the background of inanimate objects.  Our gift of agency means that we must have desires.  We must use that agency to grow. 

We are not to relinquish our agency.  That was Satan's way.  We are here to CONTROL our desires.  We are here to CHANGE so that our desires align with those of Christ.  And when we do align with Him.  We will become like him.  This is the oneness of the Godhead (which BTW is also a term used in Eastern religions).  But in our theology, this is not a metaphysical identity.  It is learning and growing so that our wills align.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

We are here to CHANGE so that our desires align with those of Christ.

This is putting off the natural man - that is, the desires of the natural man, which lead to the behaviors of the natural man, though we generally have to put off the behaviors so that the desires fade.  And as we replace the natural-man behaviors with righteous behaviors, the righteous desires (which I think are (often?) already there, from our spirits) will grow.

Using force to break bad habits (or even avoid making them in the first place) and develop good ones became easier (not easy) for me when I saw a show about the brain where the scientist doing the study said that the brain likes things for which neural pathways already exist (i.e. the familiar) and dislikes things for which neural pathways do not exist (i.e. the unfamiliar).  This is why you generally have to stop or start the behavior first and gain/increase/lose the desire second.  And it means making and breaking habits is literally the work of creating new neural pathways and letting the old fade - which is much, much harder.  Looked at in this way, you can tell yourself, "I don't like this, but if I do it enough, the neural pathways will form and then I will like it.  And it will be easier the less I resist that process and the more I welcome it."

That's a simplistic way of putting it, but it has helped me in some ways to exercise self control and very gradually learn to enjoy good things that I would have avoided in the past.

Edited July 10, 2023 by zil2

[Carborendum]

29 minutes ago, zil2 said:

This is putting off the natural man - that is, the desires of the natural man, which lead to the behaviors of the natural man, though we generally have to put off the behaviors so that the desires fade.  And as we replace the natural-man behaviors with righteous behaviors, the righteous desires (which I think are (often?) already there, from our spirits) will grow.

This brings up an interesting point.  The Buddhist ideals seem to say (just my impression, I'd have to ask about something so specific) that our "desires" only come from the body - the natural man.  So, does the Buddhist believe that the spirit/soul has no desires? I'm asking.

In our theology, we have a spirit and a body.  Both combined make up the soul of man.  While Christ's Atonement assures that whatever desires of the physical body will be purified.  But we still need to be purified in spirit.  The spirit has desires as well.  And it is through the process of repentance through the Atonement of Christ that we can purify the desires of the spirit.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

The spirit has desires as well.

I was thinking of righteous desires developed in our premortal existence, but obviously the spirit can have unrighteous desires, too (ref. Satan, et al).

[Traveler]

On 7/10/2023 at 10:21 AM, Carborendum said:

The spirit has desires as well.  

 

On 7/10/2023 at 11:35 AM, zil2 said:

I was thinking of righteous desires developed in our premortal existence, but obviously the spirit can have unrighteous desires, too (ref. Satan, et al).

I think there is another dimension that perhaps can be better understood with slightly better terms.  In the Gospel of John chapter 17 we learn some interesting things about Christ and the atonement.  Jesus did not “desire” to suffer for the sins of mankind and said as much but with his comment about doing the “will” (not desire) of the father he allowed himself to be sacrificed.  There was a willingness to suffer that I think is a little different than desire.  I do not “desire” to get all round up in semantics, but I believe there is a difference.

I think we can get wrapped around terms, because in the Book of Mormon there is the concept in repentance that changes someone to the point that they no longer have “desire” to sin.  Sometimes I think the English language has some limitations in properly expressing ideas and we sometimes get so involved in those limitations that we lose focus on the ideas that will “set us free”.  Which is a phrase that is so very easy to misinterpret.

 

The Traveler

[EH12NG]

I used to be a big proponent of Buddhism back in the day until I found the same disease running through its infrastructure as I had found in Rome. Plus, I don't do well with people telling me to let go of attachment when the Dalai Lama himself wont move on from Tibet.