Philosophical Speculations

Btw, the Buddha was pretty certain that he was not reincarnating any more. Are you saying he had a nasty surprise coming?

Well...
https://atlasmoworld.com/buddha-reincarnated-in-nepal/

Poor guy. Makes me think of the scene in Constantine when Keanu Reeves starts dying and ascending to Heaven at last, but is then "saved" by Lucifer.

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:40 pm Well...
https://atlasmoworld.com/buddha-reincarnated-in-nepal/

According to Nepalese officials, the boy returned from the jungle where he had initially retired for more than a year. Ram Bomjan, just 18 years old, appeared on Monday, November 10, this year, near the town of Nijgadh, about 160 kilometers from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

That is impressive to have appeared on Monday November 10 of this year!

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:52 pm

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 7:40 pm Well...
https://atlasmoworld.com/buddha-reincarnated-in-nepal/

According to Nepalese officials, the boy returned from the jungle where he had initially retired for more than a year. Ram Bomjan, just 18 years old, appeared on Monday, November 10, this year, near the town of Nijgadh, about 160 kilometers from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

That is impressive to have appeared on Monday November 10 of this year!

Hahaha Well don't be surprised the Buddha can perform some spatio-temporal trickery

Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:31 pm It's the same in the traditional Christianity: the man is fallen and needs the divine intervention to be saved from the original sin/fall. "We know that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one" (John 5:19), "I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived"(Psalm 51).

I guess there has been an intuition of perfection in humans from very early times and a sense that there is something wrong with the world and the men, they are somehow broken and do not match the standard of perfection. Life in ancient societies was full of suffering, brutality, wars, there was almost nothing most people could do to improve their lives, most of them were stuck in their social roles for the whole life with no improvements in personal lives and no seeming progress in the society. This psalm tells how people felt about life back in the ancient times:

"For all our days decline in Your fury; we finish our years with a sigh. The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty if we are strong — yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Psalm 90)

Eugene, the brutish times described by your bolded statement were surely characteristic of early city-state societies that were an early adaptation to a dynamic ecological base that was moving from abundance to scarcity brought about by increased sedentary population size, deforestation and climate change. Dominant and dominating civilization with its varied artifacts, walls, armies and religions were born of this new societal form of suffering. Thusly, "who is to blame?" (for example, woman and the snake) and "how to escape?" (get liberated from future incarnations) became foundational questions for which religions offered storylines, etc, etc, etc. I don't buy the notion of an all-compassionate Source. Rather, I accept a Divine Diversity in which Compassion is an ever-present option in a fundamental ground where all manifestation carries with it an Evil Twin and a continuing struggle to find a righteous and virtuous balance. Paradise is an ongoing process and perfect is a verb.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:31 pm It's the same in the traditional Christianity: the man is fallen and needs the divine intervention to be saved from the original sin/fall. "We know that the whole world lies under the control of the evil one" (John 5:19), "I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived"(Psalm 51).
...
"For all our days decline in Your fury; we finish our years with a sigh. The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty if we are strong — yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Psalm 90)

That could be crudely translated as, "the holistic Cosmos is extremely fragmented by our perception-cognition" and "we perceive-cognize the Cosmos in fragments from when we incarnate". That is closer to the inner meanings of those verses, but the meaningful Reality underlying our faculties of perception-cognition is, of course, much more qualitatively rich with living essence. Christianity, from beginning to end, Alpha to Omega, emphasizes our own complicity in the fragmented nature of the Cosmos, precisely because it is our own perception-cognition which we refuse to sacrificially submit to reintegration of the fallen fragments into a Whole. The entire spiritual outlook is summed up in the Passion of Christ and the Image of the Cross, followed by Resurrection and Ascension. All of those Christ events, of course, are held to have occurred right here on Earth, from within the sense-world (but also with their spiritual complements, in keeping with the Holistic portrait of Reality). That sacrificial and integral framework cannot be found in its complete expression in any other spiritual tradition until the time of Christ incarnate. If you can find it somewhere else, in its complete expression, then I would love to see where.

This psalm tells how people felt about life back in the ancient times:

"For all our days decline in Your fury; we finish our years with a sigh. The length of our days is seventy years— or eighty if we are strong — yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Psalm 90)

Surely, this is how some felt long ago and many still do. Personally, having arrived at the final stage of a terminal illness called "life", I offer praise and devotion in gratitude for the moments when something arrives that breaks through all other serious concerns, as in the image of sunset last night here at the shore of Big Island, Hawaii.



As the great Rumi poem, "A Great Wagon" says:

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.