Regina,
thanks for this interview. Nicholas makes many valuable points, and presents a far more intuitive and positive take on Christianity than I usually encounter.
I would like to comment though that your understanding of Buddhism and suffering is somewhat inaccurate.
The “The Four Noble Truths” actually something more like
“In our existence there is suffering”
“That suffering has causes”(clinging onto our partial understandings as a consequence of our unskilful understanding of reality”
“The possiblity of happiness exists”.
“There is a path to that happiness”
The idea that Buddhism sums up all life as suffering is quite wrong.
The later parts of Nicholas’ talk touch on a number of strong parallels with esoteric Buddhism.
One of the more striking assertions in Buddhism is that our “inner nature” is “buddha nature” and that it is inherently already perfect ad that on time we will become fully and organically aware of that.
“That becoming aware is very much the same event that Nicholas describes as “coming to God”.
Interestingly the most radical assertions of Varjayana and especially Dzogchen are that not only is our attainment of full enlightenment inevitable, but the actual nature of time is illusory.
There is a parallel here with the understandings of Quantum Physics that all possible pasts futures and present always exist in a state of quantum superposition.
In other words- in a sense our enlightenment is already real and it is possible to embrace this in a very real and constructive (and non psychotic!) way.
One of the great things about our age is that the false distinctions between beliefs that have caused so much trouble are now being recognised as false- and the possiblities for understanding between people of good will are increasing at an exponential rate.
Your interview with Nicholas is another valuable contribution to this work.
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Anglican church, Anglican priest, Developing Consciousness, india, meditation, Nicholas Vesey, norwich
The Yuga Cycles of the Ages,Nevada City, May 25-28
PDF
Regina,
thanks for this interview. Nicholas makes many valuable points, and presents a far more intuitive and positive take on Christianity than I usually encounter.
I would like to comment though that your understanding of Buddhism and suffering is somewhat inaccurate.
The “The Four Noble Truths” actually something more like
“In our existence there is suffering”
“That suffering has causes”(clinging onto our partial understandings as a consequence of our unskilful understanding of reality”
“The possiblity of happiness exists”.
“There is a path to that happiness”
The idea that Buddhism sums up all life as suffering is quite wrong.
The later parts of Nicholas’ talk touch on a number of strong parallels with esoteric Buddhism.
One of the more striking assertions in Buddhism is that our “inner nature” is “buddha nature” and that it is inherently already perfect ad that on time we will become fully and organically aware of that.
“That becoming aware is very much the same event that Nicholas describes as “coming to God”.
Interestingly the most radical assertions of Varjayana and especially Dzogchen are that not only is our attainment of full enlightenment inevitable, but the actual nature of time is illusory.
There is a parallel here with the understandings of Quantum Physics that all possible pasts futures and present always exist in a state of quantum superposition.
In other words- in a sense our enlightenment is already real and it is possible to embrace this in a very real and constructive (and non psychotic!) way.
One of the great things about our age is that the false distinctions between beliefs that have caused so much trouble are now being recognised as false- and the possiblities for understanding between people of good will are increasing at an exponential rate.
Your interview with Nicholas is another valuable contribution to this work.