1
00:00:00,031 --> 00:00:01,097
I have a question.

2
00:00:01,157 --> 00:00:04,214
Does Buddhism have an implicit notion of God?

3
00:00:04,234 --> 00:00:07,813
Implicit notion of God?

4
00:00:09,515 --> 00:00:11,417
It's an interesting way to phrase the question.

5
00:00:12,057 --> 00:00:15,620
I guess we should ask first, does it have an explicit notion of God?

6
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:22,306
Then we can, because I don't really understand why you would ask implicit.

7
00:00:22,826 --> 00:00:26,690
I mean, I'm not saying it's a wrong question, but it's beyond me at this moment.

8
00:00:28,411 --> 00:00:28,731
Anyone?

9
00:00:29,252 --> 00:00:31,714
Implicit?

10
00:00:31,734 --> 00:00:32,935
Why add that adjective?

11
00:00:36,398 --> 00:00:39,100
Well, go ahead.

12
00:00:39,552 --> 00:00:42,117
No, it was something you'd start in lateness.

13
00:00:45,183 --> 00:00:47,608
The Buddha did not talk about gods.

14
00:00:48,129 --> 00:00:52,859
And I think there was a wise reason for that.

15
00:00:52,879 --> 00:00:57,949
It was because it would distract from his message.

16
00:00:58,486 --> 00:01:02,734
You know, he was coming from Hinduism, which had Brahma.

17
00:01:03,676 --> 00:01:09,727
And so, you know, his message was suffering and how to end it, not whether or not there's a God.

18
00:01:10,348 --> 00:01:13,234
And so I think that was a very wise subject to avoid.

19
00:01:20,447 --> 00:01:20,848
Yes.

20
00:01:23,630 --> 00:01:25,313
But he didn't quite avoid it.

21
00:01:27,115 --> 00:01:28,017
He avoided a lot.

22
00:01:28,037 --> 00:01:29,459
I mean, he didn't exactly avoid it.

23
00:01:29,499 --> 00:01:31,402
He didn't certainly focus on it.

24
00:01:32,103 --> 00:01:38,753
But he did sometimes talk about the issues.

25
00:01:42,639 --> 00:01:47,967
I mean, he didn't talk about...

26
00:01:48,352 --> 00:01:49,634
I think he did, really.

27
00:01:49,654 --> 00:01:53,999
I mean, he talked about Brahma.

28
00:01:54,359 --> 00:02:03,531
Because at the time, there were many people coming to ask him about Brahma and about the path to Brahma.

29
00:02:04,592 --> 00:02:05,713
And he said, I know Brahma.

30
00:02:06,975 --> 00:02:08,136
And I know the path to Brahma.

31
00:02:12,882 --> 00:02:15,085
I guess I was thinking about...

32
00:02:15,554 --> 00:02:16,837
Creator God.

33
00:02:17,940 --> 00:02:31,133
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.

34
00:02:31,113 --> 00:02:36,622
So I think it's fair to say that he didn't focus on it.

35
00:02:38,285 --> 00:02:57,036
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.

36
00:02:59,108 --> 00:03:12,492
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.

37
00:03:15,918 --> 00:03:19,024
But, you know, there's a sutta where he

38
00:03:20,033 --> 00:03:28,808
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.

39
00:03:28,848 --> 00:03:30,591
What I know is like the leaves in the trees.

40
00:03:31,452 --> 00:03:37,502
Because it's helpful or not helpful, but I'm not completely...

41
00:03:37,482 --> 00:03:54,276
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.

42
00:03:56,213 --> 00:03:57,875
their inability to let go.

43
00:03:57,915 --> 00:04:03,362
You know, you have to be shaken to the core in order to really let go.

44
00:04:03,382 --> 00:04:12,634
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.

45
00:04:13,616 --> 00:04:20,905
So whether or not it's useful to...

46
00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:23,385
to confront them on it.

47
00:04:24,248 --> 00:04:31,857
It's certainly useful to find a way to help them to release their grasp of God.

48
00:04:33,170 --> 00:04:36,654
So you wouldn't find the Buddha often confronting people on this.

49
00:04:36,674 --> 00:04:44,404
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?

50
00:04:44,444 --> 00:04:47,107
Or someone who is a superman like the Buddha.

51
00:04:48,408 --> 00:04:53,895
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

52
00:04:53,875 --> 00:05:22,650
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

53
00:05:22,630 --> 00:05:43,423
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

54
00:05:43,403 --> 00:05:45,486
Part of samsara.

55
00:05:46,807 --> 00:05:50,112
God is just a part of the mix.

56
00:05:51,313 --> 00:05:52,535
Yeah, so what if you go to heaven?

57
00:05:54,938 --> 00:05:59,664
Trying to help people to bring their beliefs back down to earth.

58
00:06:00,165 --> 00:06:01,687
That yes, there might be a heaven.

59
00:06:01,847 --> 00:06:09,597
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.

60
00:06:09,577 --> 00:06:14,044
But it ends there.

61
00:06:14,104 --> 00:06:17,629
It doesn't go to the next step of being permanent.

62
00:06:18,771 --> 00:06:21,335
And okay, so God created the universe.

63
00:06:21,836 --> 00:06:23,178
Well, who created God?

64
00:06:23,218 --> 00:06:25,682
Or what was there before the universe?

65
00:06:25,762 --> 00:06:26,302
Or so on.

66
00:06:26,963 --> 00:06:29,307
So we can believe that

67
00:06:29,287 --> 00:06:32,413
Okay, maybe God did create the universe, but so what?

68
00:06:33,515 --> 00:06:35,179
There must have been something before God.

69
00:06:35,239 --> 00:06:37,824
And the Mormons have an interesting approach.

70
00:06:38,265 --> 00:06:39,186
I think it's the Mormons.

71
00:06:39,467 --> 00:06:46,080
These Mormon kids came to visit me, and of course I invited them in and asked them all sorts of questions about Mormonism.

72
00:06:46,060 --> 00:06:54,936
grilled them really and they were so nice and really profoundly open-minded in a way that I think only Mormons can be.

73
00:06:54,956 --> 00:07:01,588
And they said that, I said, so how did God become God?

74
00:07:01,568 --> 00:07:04,333
And he said, you want to know my opinion?

75
00:07:04,373 --> 00:07:05,575
I said, yes.

76
00:07:06,236 --> 00:07:13,308
He said, well, I believe that God was just like us and he had to work to become God.

77
00:07:14,149 --> 00:07:17,074
And I said, that's such a profound thing to say.

78
00:07:17,114 --> 00:07:19,097
I'm in agreement with you.

79
00:07:19,779 --> 00:07:21,822
These guys are really cool.

80
00:07:21,802 --> 00:07:25,766
So I gave them all my alms, all my leftover alms food and invited them back.

81
00:07:26,006 --> 00:07:33,234
And they didn't come back because I think they realized that I wasn't going to be converted or I don't know.

82
00:07:33,254 --> 00:07:35,076
Or maybe they have to go to everybody or something.

83
00:07:35,096 --> 00:07:36,257
They're only allowed to come once.

84
00:07:37,518 --> 00:07:42,823
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.

85
00:07:43,404 --> 00:07:46,307
So they came back the next day and I gave them the food that I had the next day.

86
00:07:47,148 --> 00:07:47,809
Something like that.

87
00:07:48,669 --> 00:07:49,210
Nice guys.

88
00:07:52,818 --> 00:08:02,754
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.

89
00:08:04,036 --> 00:08:05,018
Let go of God.

90
00:08:05,078 --> 00:08:07,622
It's not the most important thing in your life.

91
00:08:10,106 --> 00:08:13,071
It is for most people, for most theists, right?

92
00:08:13,051 --> 00:08:18,600
But best advice as an atheist Buddhist that we can give you is let go.

93
00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:20,062
It's not really helping.

94
00:08:20,322 --> 00:08:25,510
It's not really going to solve your problems, answer your problems.

95
00:08:25,991 --> 00:08:29,096
It's just nice to cling to things.

96
00:08:29,556 --> 00:08:33,663
And it's nice to cling to things that are permanent.

97
00:08:34,764 --> 00:08:36,507
If only such a thing existed.

98
00:08:37,889 --> 00:08:38,350
But

99
00:08:40,017 --> 00:08:47,243
Or just put it on the back burner, you know, if that's something that's...

100
00:08:48,860 --> 00:08:55,111
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.

101
00:08:55,332 --> 00:08:56,494
That's really an important thing.

102
00:08:56,814 --> 00:09:11,340
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...

103
00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:36,906
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

104
00:09:37,510 --> 00:09:47,123
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.

105
00:09:48,905 --> 00:09:52,029
That's where all the suffering comes from.

106
00:09:52,090 --> 00:09:58,438
As I said, from my point of view, these people have a lot of suffering from their clinging.

107
00:09:58,418 --> 00:10:14,707
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.

108
00:10:15,328 --> 00:10:21,439
Everything that's not in line with reality should be discarded, should be given up.

109
00:10:21,740 --> 00:10:37,352
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