Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: "Dear God"? (video)

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

"Dear God"? (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; XTC (COMMENTARY)

"When I am silent, I fall into that place where everything is music." - Rumi

Hey, mouth off and I'll smote ye!

XTC's Skylarking spawned the controversial track "Dear God," which was originally issued as the B-side of the album's first single

Interest in the song saw the U.S. album re-issued with "Dear God" included, and the new version of the LP sold a quarter million copies in the U.S., reviving the band's commercial fortunes and earning critical accolades.

"Dear God" lyrics

Why don't Buddhists believe in God...or do they? (thankingthespoon.com)

Dear God, hope you got the letter, and I pray you can make it better down here. I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer, but all the people that you made in your image, see them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God, I can't believe in you. Did you make disease and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you? And the devil, too?

I'm getting to it later. I'm busy right now.

Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but your name is on a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look, and all the people that you made in your image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't and so do you, dear God, I can't believe in, I don't believe in

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound

That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax, and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in it's you, dear God.

"Deus"?
(Björk) Deus ("God") from The Sugarcubes before the singer became a famous soloist

"No one 'saves' us, no one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path; buddhas only point the way." The path we walk is our actions, our karma, the results of which will take us places. What is the karma to the end of suffering? The Noble Eightfold Path.

When Bjork was in The Sugarcubes she sang, "Deus does not exist." "Deus" is God's Latin name, of course, from which we derive diva, divine, divinity, borrowing the root from the Sanskrit deva, a "shining one" as the Buddha explained.

Buddhism does believe in God (Maha Brahma), in many Gods (brahmas) and gods (devas), and many Buddhists can believe or not, worship or not. (The route is the meditative absorptions).

Ultimately, however, the Great God or countless other gods, who themselves are not enlightened and liberated from suffering and rebirth, cannot lead us to enlightenment or even point the way. They have a much better time than humans, on the whole. But they may not even be able to tell us how we can get to be reborn where they are. They can say how they did it, to the extent they know the karma (actions) and root causes.

Be here now at every moment like Ziggy.

A buddha (fully enlightened teacher) knows the route to all rebirth-destinations. In the book The 31 Planes of Existence, a treatise on ancient Buddhist cosmology, it is laid out. Do you wish for rebirth in God's company? That's called "Brahma's Retinue" and is rather lowly.

Do you wish to be a God, a brahma or "supreme one"? That's in there. How about a "messenger angel"? That's very low but still above human, a state known as a gandharva or gandhabba, the lowest rank of deva, the heavenly musicians. Why not aspire to rebirth as a beautiful, long-lived, and influential human? That will be very short life compared to any of the deva lives. There are much worse places to land than the human state or manussya loka. Just look at the wild animal world or the ghosts and ghouls.

Wheel of Life (E. C. Baptist)

This human plane offers one advantage over all others -- the ease with which it is possible to attain enlightenment from here, midway between luxurious hedonism and woeful suffering. The devas in general have much better strands of pleasure, so much so that they're intoxicated with parties and good times, rarely allowing themselves to perceive any suffering or shortcoming to the endless round of rebirth...until they fall from their perches/stations. But then it's a little bit late to do anything about it. Now is the time.

The Buddha saw all of these destinations and declared that nirvana -- which is neither a location nor a temporary state but "the unconditioned element" -- is the best, highest above all, the only true refuge and safety. Until then, choose rebirth-destinations wisely. We're choosing all the time by our karma.