Part 2

What made them click moving from Christianity?

From as in where I started, not where I left. I’d still consider myself a Christian, just not a traditional Christian, and probably not a trinitarian. But I don’t know how one can be a nondualist and a trinitarian. Haha. Meister Eckhart got in a lot of trouble back in the day, and I’m sure that was part of it.

I’m sure eastern orthodox has such a tradition of thinking of Jesus as a flame within your heart, never being separate from him.

I like this metaphor!

Me, too! Linguistics was the other great love of my teen years, so it helps me to think in those terms.

Did you study any languages that you maintain today? What about Sanskrit for your religious interess.

That’s the thing, though, I don’t think there are that many radically different core beliefs. Even something as inherently dualistic as Gnosticism has nondualist branches. I think ultimately there is far more in common, at the core, than there is in difference. It’s the trappings, the metaphors and the explanations that differ. We use different stories to explain similar concepts, and we end up with radically different traditions, but the basic concepts are often very similar. I mean, I’m not suggesting they’re all identical or the same, or even that all different faiths or traditions are ultimately compatible, but that many, many, many of them are trying to say the same thing, it’s mainly the vessels that are change.

I think this is a good approach world religious harmony across the world :) I don’t take this cosmological view because I think it’s important for my practice but I can understand it.

Honestly, yeah, I am completely and totally bastardizing everything. Haha. I am well aware of it. But I also attempting to do so in a way involves actual academic study and a more fleshed out understanding of a tradition before going all shopping cart religion on it. I think that what we find when we do any kind in depth study on the philosophical side of most traditions, as opposed to the practical, lived side of things, is that most of traditions have had at least a few people who stumbled or found their way to the idea of nonduality, or something similar to it.

This is smart! Then you don’t go down the hippie path of just making up your own thing without taking the traditions seriously.

From what I understand (which, again, not a lot) the buddhist concept of emptiness is also compared to the Advaitin idea of nonduality, just, obviously, nontheistic. Can you help me understand Emptiness? I’m at a bit of a loss on it, to be honest.

One of the main points of emptiness is that everything even the dharma is empty of intrinsic nature. Reading the heart sutra and the diamond sutra will explain it more clearly. The five senses are empty and there is no self, these are to emptiness based ideas. Everything arises from causes, conditions, and interdependence. Things do conventionally exist but not ultimately. Things have no ultimate existence. There is no deeper self.

Here is an interesting read on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śūnyatā#Chinese_Buddhism There is a part on advaita!

Oh and I didn’t say but I would just say I am a Mahayanist. Early on I would try to find a specific Buddhist identity but outside of cults and Japanese unique Buddhist history that’s quite unique. All 84,000 dharma gates lead to the same dharma as is traditionally said.