Grace
I recently posted in a Buddhist forum about Grace. The next day I heard a sermon about Grace and realized I had to recant some my opinions from the post I'd made. I still believe that there is a Grace in Buddhism, but I was unfair in my characterization of Christianity. You can read my post here
My post was a reaction to an argument I've heard about why Christianity is better than all other religions. The argument says that Christianity is better because we have Grace through the shed blood of Jesus, while all other religions have to work to get "saved" (whatever that means)
In the post I characterized the Christian concept of Grace based on my own struggle with perfectionism. In my view of Christianity, you were given salvation/grace but then had to strive, struggle and sweat towards perfection. Since this struggle towards perfection never got me anywhere, and the grace I've found in Buddhism has helped me, I wrote very positively about Buddhism and very negatively about Christianity.
But after the sermon Saturday, I realized there are Christian perspectives about Grace other than the one I somehow aquired. Our pastor talked clearly about how perfectionism and grace are not compatible, how no one is perfect but God, and how faith and trust in God rather than struggling in our own perfectionism, is how we grow.
Perfectionism has been a big undercurrent in Adventist Christianity, and a lot of Adventists struggle with it. Recently the church has become more Grace based, and I neglected to include that in the original post.
However I still feel that Buddhism has an advantage over Christianity in the grace arena. The Christian answer (and the one given by the pastor) seems to be to just "have faith" when you are assailed by perfectionist thoughts. I guess you are supposed to pray or something.
For someone like me who deals with a crippling sense of perfectionism, to the point I am afraid to do nearly everything lest I fail, and yet beat myself up constantly for not having achieved my lofty and impossible goals, the Christian method wasn't working. The Christian perfectionism never worked to help me grow, and the vauge, "have faith and trust in God instead of doing it yourself" never made sense. I couldn't think about doing anything unless it was with a spirit of perfectionism. So my only way to avoid a "works" mentality was to sit around, do nothing and wait for God to change me." And sitting around doing nothing usually meant I had moved beyond perfectionism into depression.
Buddhism on the other had provided me with some very practical solutions to perfectionism. You can read some of the solutions in the post I mentioned earlier
Through meditation you really can allow youself to do nothing, unless you count breathing in and out as works. When thoughts come, no matter what their nature, you simply watch them, rather than agonizing over them, label them as thinking, then let them go. With meditation you mentally and physically give yourself the grace to just be.
Through mindfulness, you accept yourself, others and your environment for what they are. You give yourself and others grace to just be. From this viewpoint its so much easier to take skillful and positive action, because you are not just reacting to the negative environment around you.
I'd like to expound on the Buddhist concept of Grace in another post so stay tuned.
My post was a reaction to an argument I've heard about why Christianity is better than all other religions. The argument says that Christianity is better because we have Grace through the shed blood of Jesus, while all other religions have to work to get "saved" (whatever that means)
In the post I characterized the Christian concept of Grace based on my own struggle with perfectionism. In my view of Christianity, you were given salvation/grace but then had to strive, struggle and sweat towards perfection. Since this struggle towards perfection never got me anywhere, and the grace I've found in Buddhism has helped me, I wrote very positively about Buddhism and very negatively about Christianity.
But after the sermon Saturday, I realized there are Christian perspectives about Grace other than the one I somehow aquired. Our pastor talked clearly about how perfectionism and grace are not compatible, how no one is perfect but God, and how faith and trust in God rather than struggling in our own perfectionism, is how we grow.
Perfectionism has been a big undercurrent in Adventist Christianity, and a lot of Adventists struggle with it. Recently the church has become more Grace based, and I neglected to include that in the original post.
However I still feel that Buddhism has an advantage over Christianity in the grace arena. The Christian answer (and the one given by the pastor) seems to be to just "have faith" when you are assailed by perfectionist thoughts. I guess you are supposed to pray or something.
For someone like me who deals with a crippling sense of perfectionism, to the point I am afraid to do nearly everything lest I fail, and yet beat myself up constantly for not having achieved my lofty and impossible goals, the Christian method wasn't working. The Christian perfectionism never worked to help me grow, and the vauge, "have faith and trust in God instead of doing it yourself" never made sense. I couldn't think about doing anything unless it was with a spirit of perfectionism. So my only way to avoid a "works" mentality was to sit around, do nothing and wait for God to change me." And sitting around doing nothing usually meant I had moved beyond perfectionism into depression.
Buddhism on the other had provided me with some very practical solutions to perfectionism. You can read some of the solutions in the post I mentioned earlier
Through meditation you really can allow youself to do nothing, unless you count breathing in and out as works. When thoughts come, no matter what their nature, you simply watch them, rather than agonizing over them, label them as thinking, then let them go. With meditation you mentally and physically give yourself the grace to just be.
Through mindfulness, you accept yourself, others and your environment for what they are. You give yourself and others grace to just be. From this viewpoint its so much easier to take skillful and positive action, because you are not just reacting to the negative environment around you.
I'd like to expound on the Buddhist concept of Grace in another post so stay tuned.
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