I have been practicing Buddhism for almost a year.
My family comes from a Christian background and is very unsure of my practice.
They judge me and intentionally interrupt my meditation.
Suggestion.
Oh my God.
Intentionally interrupt my meditation.
That's hardcore, isn't it?
Yeah.
Well, my grandmother did that.
My Jewish grandmother, she did that when I was meditating.
She got really freaked out.
Well, do your meditation when they're not looking.
Do your meditation at night.
Barricade yourself in a room.
What are you doing in there?
I've talked to them about it.
It's not... The kingdom of God is within.
I don't know.
Isn't there room for meditation in Buddhism?
Tell them it makes you a better person.
Actually, there are some Christians.
They practice meditation.
So, I mean, Christians like Christian monks even practice meditation.
So,
As far as I heard about one guy like that, he was practicing meditation.
And it can go along with Christianity as well.
The other thing is you can meditate on the interruptions, hearing, hearing, they poke you, feeling, feeling, if you're angry, angry, angry.
Works wonders.
When I first started practicing, I was really hardcore in a very bad way.
And so when they started yelling at me about my being a zombie, I would just close my eyes and start saying, rising, falling, right then and there, in the middle of an argument.
Or just tell them you're a native now.
They're wrong.
You're right.
And that's it.
That sounds constructive, Lucas.
Wow.
That must have taken a lot of time to think of.
Introduce them to Richard Dawkins or... Here's the question.
Okay.
There.
I fixed that for you.
It's muted.
No, I don't need people.
Tell them they are wrong.
Oh, right.
Shush.
Nothing good comes from creating conflict.
When we talked about Christianity, we got this.
When we were talking about Christianity before, how do you deal with Christians?
Well, it's certainly not by this.
It's not by conflicting.
You have to get on their side and bring them across.
Convert them.
That's it.
But convert them the right way.
i've met many christian that's that could teach buddhists many things you know honestly the thing to sit here and be derogatory against christians is really you know you're being derogatory against
those that are maybe a bad example of Christianity, and those that are really sincere Christians, they are Buddhas, just as much as real Buddhas have Christ consciousness.
I think this is a big part of the problem, because what we look at in terms of Christians being off-kilter and not really enlightened, well, if you look at the world of Buddhism,
world actually no better back we might be a little work with our superstitions in our erroneous beliefs and your dogma to them and uh... the fact that people who have that i've never even sat down on a medication question will want to explain to other people what it means to be an enlightened buddha you know we did the same thing or for no better
That's a little harsh, I think.
Yeah.
Nah, it's not harsh.
It's just truth.
You know?
Has brought Buddhists something better than Christianity has brought Christians?
I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question.
Say it again?
You don't think that Buddhism has brought Buddhists something better than Christianity has brought Christians?
No.
Not whatsoever.
Okay.
you know, not really, not anything better, not in the outer sense of it.
Buddhism, when I look at the outer manifestations of Buddhism and Christianity, most, actually, Christianity seems a little bit more modern, a little bit more compassionate,
a little bit more willing to actually help beings in suffering.
And what I see from Buddhism is a complacency of wishy-washyness.
Oh, let's be compassionate and mindful.
But I see a lot of people just being self-absorbed and talking about their own meditation.
And so, no, I don't.
I see a lot of hypocrisy.
But then I've been a Buddhist for 30 years.
I'm no longer enamored and allured with this idea that
Buddhism is better than anything else.
I realize that it's not the case.
Each individual, you know, just because somebody professes that they are a Buddhist doesn't mean that they are anything like Buddha.
And there we will agree, you know.
They tend to think that Buddhism is better than Christianity, for example.
Right.
So I think on the outer manifestations of it, oh...
it none of the religions are perfect because you know it's trying to live up to a message and you know the real virtuous message of these religions I don't think anybody would want to criticize but you know it's like the idea of how do you throw away the bathwater and not throw away the baby
Last time I said something about religions.
I don't think religion is a good thing, because you've got these people calling themselves Christians and Buddhists, and some Christians are better than some Buddhists, and so on and so on.
I never came across any Christian that would say... I don't know many Buddhists either, so...
So I don't know, somebody called himself a Buddhist, and he's not worth calling himself a Buddhist.
He's a hypocrite.
So now you've got hypocrites everywhere.
Anyway, the question wasn't all about
about looking down on any religion or holding religions above each other.
It was about how you deal with people who, whatever religion they may be, happen to be Christians in this case, who interrupt your meditation.
Anyway, I think that was kind of answered.