[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Jack,

I read a good book by James Carse lately, The Religious Case  Against

> Belief. A quote from it, "Thinking starts when belief  ends.."  This
> stopping of
> thinking, of course,  isn't the mystical  experience mentioned below.
>

There seems to be a distinction between what one could call active faith
(adherence) and passive faith. The former is more based on some sort of
decision whereas the latter just seems to well up. E.g. someone or something
inspires faith to you. That sort of faith. I see that type of faith more as
linked to vasana or samskara.

I don't see how thinking can be possible with at least some a priori
reasoning, which one could consider as faith. I am not sure belief ever
ends. It can go underground like a perpetual act.

For Ngawang,

"Ever heard of the 8 jhanas? The descriptions are similar to those mystical
experience of "God", and, Brahman described as satchitananda."

Yes I have heard of them. Never seemed to have gone all the way up though. I
seem to lose count at a certain point.

"Whereas formerly he foolishly had taken on mental acquisitions and brought
them to completion, he has now abandoned them, their root destroyed, made
like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not
destined for future arising. Thus a monk so endowed is endowed with the
highest determination for relinquishment, for this — the renunciation of all
mental acquisitions — is the highest noble relinquishment."
MN 140 Dhatu-vibhanga Sutta, tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Joy