1/27/2007

Formerly Solitary Buddhist

I have not posted here for a long time. I'm now back and should be posting regularly. The title of this blog was formerly 'Solitary Buddhist' but I have changed the name to reflect where I am at in my current spiritual life. I have been on a journey over the last year that has involved dramatic change in my life personally and spiritually. I have come to a new and greater understanding in my life as well as a renewal of my traditional upbringing in the Christian faith. I used to be very anti Christianity, you could almost say hostile. For years I never looked at the bible or read it. This was after having been very religious in my youth. I turned my back on Christianity when I was about 17 years old after feeling that it didn't answer some of the questions I had back then. I also just didn't connect with the majority of people that I met calling themselves Christian. I found Buddhism and it seemed to answer the questions that Christianity didn't. Namely, Buddhism gave a very clear description of why we suffer and the way out of that suffering. It offers a very clear and valid way of understanding the world around us. Recently I returned to reading the bible with the goal of just discovering for myself what it contained. I entered with the intention of ignoring all the things you hear from preachers, TV Evangelists, born agains, and others with their own selective and often selfish opinions on the teachings of Jesus. What I found is that the problem isn't with the bible and what is written therein but with the people who read it from a purely surface perspective. The things Jesus talked about were mainly meant to be understood and contemplated in a spiritual vein. I think that many who preach, teach, or call themselves Christians do not have a very deep understanding of what the message of Jesus truly is. Especially those who use Christianity as a way of judging others and justifying their own prejudiced beliefs. I also do not think many Christians understand real meditation. I have heard Christians talk about meditation but it seems that their idea is really just more thinking. Meditation is meant to go beyond mere thinking. It is meant to help us transcend the chatterbox that is rambling incessantly all day and return to our selves in quietude. The posts that will follow will be about what I think it means to be a Christian-Buddhist from my perspective. Also, I will include insights into scripture as well as correlations between Buddhism and Christianity. There will also be a chat group connected with the blog that will meet every Saturday so that others who agree or disagree with me can gather and have discussions.

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