I have a question.
Does Buddhism have an implicit notion of God?
Implicit notion of God?
It's an interesting way to phrase the question.
I guess we should ask first, does it have an explicit notion of God?
Then we can, because I don't really understand why you would ask implicit.
I mean, I'm not saying it's a wrong question, but it's beyond me at this moment.
Anyone?
Implicit?
Why add that adjective?
Well, go ahead.
No, it was something you'd start in lateness.
The Buddha did not talk about gods.
And I think there was a wise reason for that.
It was because it would distract from his message.
You know, he was coming from Hinduism, which had Brahma.
And so, you know, his message was suffering and how to end it, not whether or not there's a God.
And so I think that was a very wise subject to avoid.
Yes.
But he didn't quite avoid it.
He avoided a lot.
I mean, he didn't exactly avoid it.
He didn't certainly focus on it.
But he did sometimes talk about the issues.
I mean, he didn't talk about...
I think he did, really.
I mean, he talked about Brahma.
Because at the time, there were many people coming to ask him about Brahma and about the path to Brahma.
And he said, I know Brahma.
And I know the path to Brahma.
I guess I was thinking about...
Creator God.
So I wanted to say to agree with you that that isn't referring to the Creator God, but he did discuss the notion of a Creator God in the Brahmajala Sutta.
So I think it's fair to say that he didn't focus on it.
And Buddhism certainly, Buddhism as a practice, certainly doesn't have, I would say, anything to do with God, except in the sense of denying the existence of self or entity of any sort, which I think does include giving up the belief in God.
But he did at times, you know, engage, according to the suttas, engage in, you know, the Brahmajala sutta is an incredibly profound discussion of God, especially in the sense of being a creator.
But, you know, there's a sutta where he
Talks about all the leaves on the trees and then the leaves that are in his hand and say, you know, what I'm sharing with you is, you know, comparable to the leaves in my hands.
What I know is like the leaves in the trees.
Because it's helpful or not helpful, but I'm not completely...
And of the view that it's useless to talk about God because many people come to practice meditation and, not many, some people come to practice meditation and aren't able to because of their sense of security.
their inability to let go.
You know, you have to be shaken to the core in order to really let go.
And they're not going to be shaken because they have something that's permanent, something that's solid, something that's absolute, and that's God.
So whether or not it's useful to...
to confront them on it.
It's certainly useful to find a way to help them to release their grasp of God.
So you wouldn't find the Buddha often confronting people on this.
So he talks about Brahma and he talks, you know, the way he does it is kind of, you know, in the way only someone who is omniscient can, right?
Or someone who is a superman like the Buddha.
How he can say it, because we can't say this, we can't talk to the God people and say, yeah, I know God, I talk to him all the time and
he's actually just some guy up in heaven because we we don't but the Buddha did and he went to visit Brahma and so on and he said I used to be Brahma and I remember that and so on so what that means to me is that he was able to help people to let go and see that it's you know so what so there's God so what you know it really doesn't have that mean much meaning and that's how I've
how I've developed my approach to this, an approach to people, to people who believe in God, is to talk about how it's a part of the cycle, or it's a part of the
Part of samsara.
God is just a part of the mix.
Yeah, so what if you go to heaven?
Trying to help people to bring their beliefs back down to earth.
That yes, there might be a heaven.
I mean, we hear people talk about it and it makes sense from the point of view of having a pure mind where you would go if there was an afterlife.
But it ends there.
It doesn't go to the next step of being permanent.
And okay, so God created the universe.
Well, who created God?
Or what was there before the universe?
Or so on.
So we can believe that
Okay, maybe God did create the universe, but so what?
There must have been something before God.
And the Mormons have an interesting approach.
I think it's the Mormons.
These Mormon kids came to visit me, and of course I invited them in and asked them all sorts of questions about Mormonism.
grilled them really and they were so nice and really profoundly open-minded in a way that I think only Mormons can be.
And they said that, I said, so how did God become God?
And he said, you want to know my opinion?
I said, yes.
He said, well, I believe that God was just like us and he had to work to become God.
And I said, that's such a profound thing to say.
I'm in agreement with you.
These guys are really cool.
So I gave them all my alms, all my leftover alms food and invited them back.
And they didn't come back because I think they realized that I wasn't going to be converted or I don't know.
Or maybe they have to go to everybody or something.
They're only allowed to come once.
They did come back to get the food because I gave it to them and then we talked some more and then they forgot it.
So they came back the next day and I gave them the food that I had the next day.
Something like that.
Nice guys.
Anyway, certainly what you're saying is, I don't mean to disagree with you because it's an important thing to say that forget about it.
Let go of God.
It's not the most important thing in your life.
It is for most people, for most theists, right?
But best advice as an atheist Buddhist that we can give you is let go.
It's not really helping.
It's not really going to solve your problems, answer your problems.
It's just nice to cling to things.
And it's nice to cling to things that are permanent.
If only such a thing existed.
But
Or just put it on the back burner, you know, if that's something that's...
If people can do that, then they'll come to, as you said earlier, they'll come to see whether it's true or not for themselves.
That's really an important thing.
If you are not sure whether there's a God, or if you believe that there's a God and we're telling you that there's probably not a permanent and all-omnipotent God out there, then...
not maybe not even just on the back burner but okay put it out there and and hold it out there and then start practicing and then you come back later and and ask yourself whether that hypothesis the God hypothesis withstands the test because that's right if you're if you're if your belief requires that you don't investigate
and it only works when you're afraid to investigate and afraid to learn about the way things really are, then it's pretty pathetic.
That's where all the suffering comes from.
As I said, from my point of view, these people have a lot of suffering from their clinging.
So, if you're really sure, then you don't exactly have to investigate, but start observing reality and see if it's in line with reality.
Everything that's not in line with reality should be discarded, should be given up.
completely so yeah all of our views and beliefs should be treated in this way you don't have to give them up just say okay I believe this that's fine let's see what the truth is that's right