Dear God,
It’s interesting that I pray to you here because I don’t really believe in you. I’m a Buddhist. Still, cultural customs die hard, and culturally I’m as Christian as any American ever was. Besides, I find it hard to pray to the Buddha for whatever reason.
I pray because in this lifetime I want to become a monk. I know it’s a path with meaning. I could become a lawyer, an author, a professor, or anything else I want to be, but I want to give it all up and put on the robes. Why? I just know deep down it’s for the best.
But to give up everything for the sake of an enlightenment I’m not even *really* sure exists? I’m not even talking my video games and my books and my music here; not even my friends. I have to give up *desire*. I investigate this in my meditation and I know that the message is true - life is suffering, attachment causes suffering. But when you find out your mind hangs together strictly because of desire? That’s the glue that binds our personality together, desire and lust and fear and disgust. It’ll take me all my life to even make a dent in it, and the whole time I could be off making love, having kids, listening to beautiful music, surrounding myself with beautiful things.
I want to do this. May my last desire be to prostrate before the Buddha eternally. May no obstacles impede me as I step into fear and release myself from the prison of self.
Amen.
Chuck, Wisconsin/USAShare:
May 10th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Dear Chuck,
how old are you? I was 22 when I traveled to Japan, planning to train for many years as a monk in a Zen monastery. I came back to Europe after less than two months, having realized that it was too soon — much like you, I wanted to enjoy life, first, and I thought I would be able to take the suffering in stride. Consequently, for about 15 years, I completely neglected my practice, until a few years ago. Now I train as a layman, together with a number of good “friends on the Way”, one of whom has finished traditional monastery training after 25 years. I have a family, I work, and I practice. It’s possible and it’s very good, at least for me. Sure, some people should be monks, and maybe you’re one of them; I merely wanted to offer you my story, as a different perspective. I wish you good luck, whatever you decide to do.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Hey Chuck,
One book you must read: “ONENESS”.
Take it from someone who already did the monastery thing. Its cool for a while, it really helps you to become a bettter person… but enlightment as you already suspect.. I dunno buddy. Might be some sort of fabrication to keep us striving, it kind of reminds me of Heaven for the Catholics - same purpose: manipulation
Anyway, my gut feeling is that the issue is not Desire, the issue is the quality of the desire. Think about it, Mother Theresa was probably filled with desires… but desires to help, to bring compassion.. desire to really be of help. I think denial of desire is just unnatural, similar to denying the blood that circulates in your body. It wont do you any good.
Focus on the quality of your desire, there might be heaven there….
Love,
G
May 10th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I agree with G, your only desire should be to achieve enlightment if you really want to be a monk. Otherwise you shouldn’t go that path and just try to develop your buddhist beliefs (or not)…
take care,t.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am
dear friend,
we all look for the same things, you go your way as i go mine, anyway as long as its peacefull it should be oke, there is already so much suffering, take care,
hare krishna, ruud
May 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
A am Thai by ethnicity and was raised in the Theravada Buddhist faith. My Buddhism is considered far more severe than the other; Mahayana. Theravada Buddhists believe that the only way to truly attain enlightenment is to withdraw from society completely; essentially, to become a hermit. Even in doing that, our concept of nirvana may not even be worth it. To Theravada Buddhists, enlightenment is a misnomer; no great wisdom is learned. Nirvana is simply the cessation of the cycle of rebirth and suffering. If you attained it, you would just disappear when you die.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:49 am
I think it’s great that you are praying to God but the truth is that only those who accept His incredible gift of Grace will have necessarily have their prayers answered by God. He said that if you accept His son Jesus Christ as your personal savior and first seek God and His righteousness, God will give you the desires of your heart. Christianity is the only faith that I know of that promises that you will receive eternal life and go to heaven after this brief earthly life and the only way to guarantee this is by accepting Christ as your personal savior. You can’t earn your way, you can’t lose your salvation and you can rest assured that your debt has already been paid by Christ before we were even born. If you are at all interested in learning more, I suggest that you just try reading the gospels of the New Testament… I did not believe that they had much merit until I read them myself and my life had changed as a result. I do not pretent to know much about Buddhism and I do pray that you find what you are looking for, but I do encourage you to consider accepting God as Creator and Savior–He alone can give you a peace that transcends all understanding and He alone can take away your desire to be concerned with the things of this world.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
You were born to love.
Your life is valuable… You were made with a purpose.
i think there are many Gospel..Yes.. But there is only one is the fect.
I am a Thai (That’s why my English is pretty terrible sorry for that) living in the north of Thailand never been abroad… i and my family was Buddhism.
I had a lots of experiences. But now, I see more things…i could find truth at the first day i recieved jesus to be my savior.”I’ll never be perfect enough to not go down to Hell”…no one can because our sin is always red it is showing that we have guilty… But our sin will be erased by the blood of Jesus if we only say “I accept”.
Now I can say “God is great”, God is my everything, God understand me, God changes my life, He changed the who i am.
God is doing great with Nations as you can see many countries in Asia is rising, also He is doing in my country… People will see soon.
When i touched his his heart He also touched me back.
Then I give him my future, my sadness, my happiness, my problem, my trust ,my everything to be in His control..so i can learn to get true peace. It is wonderful… I am full with love, with hope, with oh.. everything…^_^
My friend. I’d like to encourage you to not give up ettemption to know who God is and what does He want from you…
Then you will get the answer…He wants to talk to you. Start to talk to him…He is always welcome.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
its better for you to get married than to burn with passion (paraphrased from the bible, not sure where exactly in the new testament), dude, let us be realistic here, if you are burning with passion already, you want to make love, have children….. don’t you think you will be punishing yourself by being a mink, I mean you obviously won’t be satisfied and you will live a life wishing you could do this and that, (get married, make, and have children). I think you need to calm down a bit and find out what exactly will you benefit from doing something that will not satisfy you or isn’t necessarily what you really, really want but just because your culture seem to be ruling you, or something like that.
I personally think it would be wise for you to take Aom’s advice of accepting Christ as your Lord and Saviour and just give everything to God even if you are just trying out and see what God has to offer, for it said,” seek first the kingdom of God and everything other thing will be added unto you”, ” He will give you the desires of your heart”, “every good thing comes from the Lord’, there’s actually quite a lot that the bible says, just allow God to take hold of your heart and tell him him everything about yourself and your heart desires. God is not like men, he does not like or even change his mind about a single thing he said, “My words will not come back to me empty”.
Finally, the blood of Christ washes away all of our sins and Christ is sitting at the right side of God the father interceding for us, therefore, you do not have to use your effort as means to be holy or perfect!!
lots of love
k (South Africa)
May 15th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Oh yeah, a word for all those who keep recommending Jesus as your Savior…
THE SITE IS CALLED DEAR-GOD.NET….. not DearJesus.net!! !! Get with the program already buddies.
May 17th, 2008 at 1:30 am
U r absolutely right Gr! Bless u!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Thank you OM!
I gratefully accept your blessings and send you a whole bunch of them wrapped in gardenias…