Cultish: An Overview Of Classical & Zen Buddhism, Pt. 2

We know that Buddhism, as one of the major world religions, has a tremendous following.

It has more than 153 million persons interested in various aspects of this religious philosophy or quest.

Zen, which is in the United States, is engineered and designed to appeal to the

American mind. Today, Zen claims more than 5 million adherents in the

United States and in Japan. And these are zealous promulgators of a philosophy which is attempting to bring man to nirvana.

Now, what is this nirvana? What is the goal of Zen? We hear it all the time, nirvana.

It is reaching a state of enlightenment of the soul or spirit, whatever that may mean, until you are at last absorbed totally in the divine intellect.

The Buddha attained this. This is the most desirable of all states. Well, we had better be concerned with Zen Buddhism because it is growing so rapidly in the

United States and penetrating so many college campuses that the average Christian is running into this all the time.

And the Christian says, I don't understand it. They talk about prayer. They talk about meditation. They talk about Jesus as being a son of God.

Why, there must be some reality to what Zen is saying. And you know, there is.

There is some reality to what Zen is saying. It is a reality that is grounded in us as human beings.

It is not grounded in the word of God and not grounded in divine revelation.

It is certainly a means of trying to find peace, but it is not

God's peace. Jesus Christ said, My peace I give you, not as the world gives do

I give you. The Zenists are looking for enlightenment. They call it satori. They are looking for seeing into one's own nature, trying to understand and comprehend one's own nature.

But the deeper you go into your own nature, the more rapidly you find out that the heart of man is deceitful above everything and incurably sick.

Who can understand it? And you can sit cross -legged on the floor and contemplate stones and contemplate pools of water or spiders spinning webs and all of the other trappings of Zen concentration.

And you are never ever really going to understand what's wrong with you until you recognize that man fell from his state of fellowship with God in Eden.

And that that fall is not remedied by looking inside yourself. That fall is remedied by looking outside yourself to God who in Jesus Christ on the cross reconciled the world to himself.

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to cultish where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.

My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. I'm here with Andrew sleuthing up in Harriman, Utah.

How are you doing, man? Good to have you back for part two. Thank you, bro. I'm doing well. I'm very excited to be here again.

And yeah, this is this has been great, dude. Last episode. Phenomenal. Introduce our guests again.

Jerry, let's get this going. We are back with Marcia, the crack and Montenegro. It's always good and wonderful to have you with us.

And like I said, the honorary clip is in part two because that means part one. This is part two of the continuation of this conversation.

It is a pleasure to have you back. We are going to be focusing in on this episode, kind of really giving doing our best to try and maybe give us some ideas of an apologetic, a response to the questions people have in regards to Buddhism.

You talk about the cultural implications. We kind of talked about that in the last episode. You have people that are influential like Steve Jobs.

You have Jeff Bridges, George Lucas, people from your time that we didn't recognize, but all the same.

There's people even now who are younger than us, the Gen Z people that now the TikTok world.

I'm starting to kind of feel like out of touch trying to understand that world. It is an interesting world. But this is a worldview.

This is a world religion. This is a worldview that has implications that are antithetical to the

Christian worldview, antithetical to the gospel. And we're commanded to give an answer for the hope that is within us.

And we need to be able to do that for people who have these sorts of beliefs. And what you heard there was sort of a summary of Walter Martin.

He also talking in his own lecture about Buddhism. And I think he was always great because he was always able to articulate a lot of very complex issues in regards to comparative religions, but then show the relevance of the gospel to it.

And so I think you've also done that on a really great – you've done that with your ministry. And again, if you want to check out

Marcia's content yourself, go to – tell us the website again. It's Christian Answers for the New Age, but what's the actual website domain?

Yeah, ChristianAnswersForTheNewAge .org. And on Facebook, I have a ministry page called

Christian Answers for the New Age. Those two are two sources online.

Okay. Well, let's just start from the very beginning. You heard some kind of compare and contrast that Walter Martin was giving.

But just for yourself personally, this is something you practice yourself. This is an area of ministry that you're in.

Your focus is to give Christian answers for the new age, and there's nothing really new about the new age.

It's always a reformulation of Eastern religions in many different ways.

So just off of the get -go, what do you think for someone, just the average listener, they might have a friend who's kind of exploring this.

They're probably exploring like a westernized version of Buddhism, and they're just trying to practice meditation.

What's a good starting point for someone to bring up the gospel?

Where's a good point to begin in all of this? Well, I would probably ask the person what got them into it.

Why did they think they would find an answer there? And what do they like about it?

I think that goes really for talking anybody into any kind of non -Christian belief system.

Why did you choose to pursue that? How did you get introduced to that?

And what are you getting out of it? Do you think that there's some answers provided there?

Because then you kind of give the person a chance to share what they think, or why they like it, or whatever.

Because you can't just start off by saying, well, let me tell you why that's not really the right way to go.

Obviously, they're not going to want to talk to you. And you want to be able to understand them.

You want to be able to understand what's going on with them that's causing them to look at Zen Buddhism, let's say.

So they might say, well, a friend of mine was reading this book, and I looked at it, and it had these really cool stories in it.

And this is one of the things I was captivated by in Zen Buddhism, are these texts where they have these different stories, like stories of the two monks going on a journey, and then some kind of conversation.

There's always some kind of profound thing. Or maybe the guy who comes, he wants to learn, he wants to be a monk, so he goes to the monastery, and the head monk meets him.

And the guy says, oh, I want to follow the path of enlightenment. I want to be a monk and really understand things or whatever.

So then the head monk says, okay, the most important thing you can do is get that broom over there and sweep the floor.

Now, that's a very Zen Buddhist type story. It's very Zen Buddhist, because it's kind of like, what?

Why is he telling him to sweep the floor? How's that going to help him be a monk? It's supposed to be sort of almost sound nonsensical, because that's kind of the way

Zen Buddhism comes across. But you're learning a deeper truth behind doing something that seems simplistic or ridiculous.

Well, and it kind of like, supposedly, you can't think highly of yourself either.

Because there's this idea in Zen Buddhism of beginner's mind. So you have to have, in fact,

I read a book called The Beginner's Mind. And you have to have the beginner's mind, which means you have to, your brain and your mind is full.

And you have to empty it, because you can't get the teachings, the

Zen Buddhist teachings in there, if you have this other stuff in there. And that has to go. So there's this idea, you have to start from zero.

And then you can learn. So kind of sweeping the floor, it's kind of like saying, well, don't think you know anything, or you're going to learn anything today.

You just sweep the floor. And then you just supposedly, eventually, as the guy learns the teachings, if he's still sweeping the floor, he kind of begins to see this in a

Zen Buddhist context. And it starts to make sense to him. I am just sweeping the floor, because everything in Zen Buddhism is about, you focus on the present moment.

And that's what people say. And I didn't really get to talk too much about mindfulness before. I talked about the goal of it.

But the way it's marketed in this country, it sounds good. Like they say, well, it's just being aware of the present moment, and not judging yourself, and things like that.

So you hear this kind of way it's marketed. But the reason they say you have to be in the present moment, is because the past and future don't really exist.

And all that exists is the present. And once you realize that, see, you're kind of beginning to understand the true nature of reality.

So it's really just the present moment that counts. So I'm sweeping. That's all that I'm doing. That's all that's going on right now.

That's all that matters. I'm sweeping the floor. So it's this mindset. It's really like a worldview.

It's a mindset. So there's those kind of stories. And you have the guy, the monk tells the guy, the student, to look in the lake, and there's a reflection of the moon.

And he says, what do you see? And the student says, well, I see the moon.

And then the monk says, well, is that the moon? And he says, no, it's a reflection of the moon. So then he's supposed to, like, maybe suddenly realize the truth that that's just a reflection.

That's not really the moon, but it looks like the moon. So things that look real maybe aren't real. Although that's never said.

It's implied. And they have the famous koans, K -O -A -N, which are things like, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

And these are kind of riddles that are asked, that are supposed to, when you ponder them, are supposed to click and make you understand some great truth of Zen Buddhism.

So that's, you know, what was your original face? What's your original face before you were born?

You know, that's another one, another famous one. So I was reading all this kind of stuff.

And it seemed very profound to me because I had never, you know, heard this kind of thinking before.

And not even in the Hindu stuff I read. And so it's kind of understated.

And yet at the same time seems real profound, like there's some kind of great truth being conveyed. And so I was, you know, asking somebody why they like it.

You know, they might say, well, I really feel like I'm learning or I'm really seeing things in a new way, you know.

And then you're more able to talk to the person, you know, like what is it about seeing things in a new way that you think makes it right, you know, or whatever.

You know, you just have to kind of pursue. I think a lot of talking to people or into these things, you have to go by relying on the

Holy Spirit to give you wisdom. And by your kind of your gut feeling in the interaction with a person.

And then, of course, whether you know them or not, it's going to make a big difference. So somebody was met, you might talk one way.

If it's somebody you've known, you've known for a while, you can have maybe more of a conversation or maybe ask more personal questions.

So, you know, a lot depends on the relationship there. But I think that you have to give people a chance to express why they find or finding something in this.

And what is it that they think is so great about it? Because if there's taking time to read about it or follow it, there must be something they think is right and true.

I think that's really good. In fact, Andrew can give me your thoughts too. And maybe you can ask a question that's on your mind, Andrew, because I know your mind's always being blown.

You always have questions in the back of your mind as always. But you know what, actually, when you thought about, we're talking about that cultural influence of teaching someone something simplistic, like go sweep the floor.

The first thing that came to mind, and I don't know, Marcia, this might be in your era or not, but I thought immediately of the classic scene in The Karate Kid where Mr.

Miyagi, he's training Daniel's son and he wants to learn karate. And he says, well, you need to go ahead and paint the house.

And then you need to sand the floor. And so he's teaching these very simplistic house chores.

And he's like, why haven't you taught me karate? But all of a sudden he goes, show me sand the floor. Next thing you know, he knows how to block kicks and punches.

And so he was secretly training him the whole time, this deeper meaning behind him teaching how to punch a block or a kick.

So I saw just a subtle similarity with what you were saying for sure. Yes, no, really. That is a very

Zen Buddhist kind of thing. Yeah. And that's just something too where, again, I'm an 80s kid.

Karate Kid is one of my favorite movies. But even in that, it's good just to be aware that there's an underlying worldview that Mr.

Miyagi had as his character. I mean, I don't remember if it says specifically what his religion was.

There might have been a Buddhist statue in his house or something. But that would make perfect sense, though, given what you're telling me, that he would then apply this the way that he did in this film.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's like, I think I've only seen clips of that.

I may have seen Karate Kid 2. I'm not sure, but I can't remember it well. But yeah, there's definitely like Buddhism.

Even that Panda movie that came out. Oh, Kung Fu Panda? Was that eight or ten years ago? Yeah. Remember the panda who's meditating?

Yeah, it's Kung Fu Panda. There's a couple of them. I never saw them. Yeah, it's Kung Fu Panda. I saw that, or one of those.

I think there's more than one movie. And I think I even did a Facebook post about it because there was a lot of Eastern stuff in there.

There really was. There was a lot of the Eastern ideas, principles of a spiritual worldview that were in there.

And I've seen that in a lot of children's programs. Oh, definitely. And you'll see even books of now they're trying to teach meditation for children.

It's being popularized now in public schools. I've seen people send me stuff all the time.

Some of the content, it's like I only have to look for people to send me stuff. Is this cultish? But no, I think there's one.

It was somewhere. It was a preschool or a public school where there are children who are maybe four or five years old and they're in the lotus position and they're just going after it, teaching them at a very young age.

And it shows, again, that neutrality is a myth. And I'll just comment one thing, and Andrew, I'll let you ask the next question, is it is absolutely correct that while part of this is that there's not a definitive script to follow, like how to talk to someone who's in the new age, because it is very experiential.

So, one, there is an aspect where you need to show there is a saying, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

So I think there is an aspect where you need to be engaged and ask them those questions like what got you into this.

But be genuinely engaged with what they have to say. And then as a Christian, you have the high ground.

You have a vantage point knowing that these people know God and they're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness and that they're ultimately looking elsewhere for what they can only find in Christ.

But also, this is one of my favorite passages, and this is Colossians 4, verse 5, where it says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of time, or I think there's another translation that says making the best of the opportunity, and let your speech always be gracious and seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer every single person.

And so that is something that it's a different, that applies probably differently with every single person in the new age you talk to.

So it's a matter of like ultimately this is a spiritual war, a spiritual battle that you're dealing with, so you ultimately have to let the

Holy Spirit guide you with what and how you say. And there might be scriptures that come to mind as you do it, so you just have to kind of walk in that light.

So Andrew, what questions do you have? Because I know that especially with you, with the different evangelism that you're doing in Utah, the different involvement there, there's a huge broad variety of just different worldviews and religions and just everything that's out there in Utah.

What questions would you have, say you engage someone that's more aimed towards the ideas of Buddhism or sort of applying that, what questions would you have for Marcia with how you would engage them?

What comes to mind for you? Yeah, yeah. First I want to make a comment just because of what was being talked about earlier about sweeping the mind first.

This is what was blowing my mind, I just want to say it real quick, because it was reminding me so much of Scientology, right?

Like you have all of these engrams or whatever, and you have to go clear before you can become an operating

Satan in order to get this otherworldly knowledge. But first you have to get rid of everything else first.

I just, while you were talking about that, I just saw, I don't know, I was like, you know, L. Ron Hubbard, or yeah, he probably got that from Buddhism and Hinduism, but it was just interesting to even think about that.

But yeah, like when we're thinking about Buddhists today or the culture today, Marcia, like what type of amalgamation have we seen within Western culture now with Zen Buddhism?

Because I would assume that Zen Buddhism here is not even like the Zen Buddhism in Japan, right? Like we get the even more prepackaged lunch form or like fast food version of Buddhism.

That's like what Americans want, you know? So what do you think about that? Yeah, I think, well, you know, not having ever been to Japan, and I don't know how much the culture there is, even though Zen Buddhism is kind of like the,

I guess, sort of the official religion. I've been told by missionaries in Japan that even if the people are

Buddhists, they still practice usually Shintoism. Like they will go to the Shinto priests for certain things on New Year's or for weddings or whatever.

And Shintoism was an indigenous religion there in Japan before Buddhism came, just like the

Bon religion was in Tibet before Buddhism came. And so I imagine that in the day -to -day life, and people can make in the comments if they know better, that people may be kind of following Buddhism on an outward basis, but probably aren't totally living out the ideas, like what you would do maybe if you were a monk, you know?

So I'm not really sure how it really is over there, but I have a feeling that most people follow it kind of on a superficial level and then mix it with Shintoism.

Whereas actually here, New Agers who get into it, get into the ideas very, very seriously, because that's what a

New Ager is on a spiritual path. So they take spiritual things very seriously. So if they're getting into Zen Buddhism, they're going to really know like, okay, this is what

Buddha did. This is, we have to cultivate detachment. You know, this is why we meditate. This is, you know, this is the, here are these stories from these monks and they may actually know or be more familiar with the ideas of it than the average

Buddhist in Japan. Now, I don't know if that's true, but that's kind of the impression I've gotten from different things

I've read and from some things, you know, people have told me. But of course, like you said, you know, we are in the

United States and so we're going to kind of Westernize and Americanize things. We tend to do that, you know?

So for example, I don't think that probably a lot of New Agers get into this idea of all the different realms, like in Buddhism, there's like nine realms of hell or something.

And there's all these, I think I mentioned in the first episode that there's these different non -human beings, there's demigods, you know, there's demons, there's the hungry ghosts.

And this actually, a lot of these things sound, if you read anything about them online, it sounds very much like superstition, but this is a part of Buddhism.

I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was emerging of Buddhism with some folk religions or if it actually came from the teachings of Buddhism, but there's a lot of kind of, there's sort of a fear there because, you know, if you don't, if you are doing things that are going to cause a rebirth, and it's not going to be a good rebirth, then you might come, you might go and be in the, but the hells are all temporary, by the way.

They're not permanent. You might go into one of those hells or you might come back as a hungry ghost or something like that, which means you wouldn't be human, but you would be having a life as a hungry ghost somewhere.

I know some of the stuff I was reading, cause I did a post on this like several years ago and I was reading more.

Actually, I think I learned more about it after I became a Christian. Cause when I was into Zen Buddhism, I didn't hear about this stuff.

Cause this is a stuff that's kind of, it's too, it's too non -Western for Western followers of Buddhism.

It's like too out there, you know? And so, you know, some of the ideas are, I know that one of the ideas is, you know, how the

Dalai Lama is always saying, you know, we have to have compassion for all sentient beings.

You know, he's always saying that. And when Westerners hear that, I think they think he, they think, well, he's talking about people and animals.

I think that's what most people would interpret that. Is that what you think that that's how most people would hear it? That's what

I would think. Yeah. Yeah. What he is saying is he's including all those non -human beings, like the hungry ghosts and the, the you know, semi -divine beings of the half deities, half, half human cause that's actually not a desirable state.

So the idea is that if you're living one of those lives, you can only become enlightened.

If you're human, you can only be, you can't become enlightened. If you're a hungry ghost or you're a demigod or you're a demon or one of those other creatures, you can't become enlightened.

Your path is kind of blocked and you're going to have to come back. And until you come back as a human, you can't get on that path of enlightenment.

So there's kind of this fear where you have to be come back. So when he says have compassion on all sentient beings, what he's saying is let's have compassion on all sentient beings, especially those who are the non -human beings, because they can't even get on the path of enlightenment.

You see, so you, you have to interpret things according in the, in the kind of the Buddhist worldview, because we hear him and we think, well, he's just teaching compassion.

That's like what Jesus taught. You know, what's wrong with teaching compassion? Well, it's what he means by all sentient beings that counts.

And he thinks that the idea is that the more people learn

Buddhism and become more enlightened, then that spreads the teachings.

The more and more chances there are of people hearing about it and becoming like, because Buddhism is exclusive.

You cannot, you know, attain liberation except through Buddhism. So, you know, everybody thinks, oh, you know, they're probably, you know,

Dalai Lama is so tolerant because he'll say things like, oh, you know, if you're Methodist, then you can stay

Methodist. And if you're Catholic, you can stay Catholic. And if you're Jewish, you stay Jewish. That's okay. You don't have to become

Buddhist. You can just learn our meditation and, you know, if you want, maybe, you know, listen to some teachings, but you don't have to worry.

You can just stay Buddhist or stay Methodist or Jewish or whatever. Well, he says that because he thinks eventually you're going to get on the path of enlightenment.

That's another thing about it. Like he, and that's why he's in no rush, because you're going to just keep having rebirths, right?

So even if you die a Methodist, eventually you're going to get on the Buddhist path of enlightenment.

So there's two things there that are going on. One is you compassion on all these non -human beings.

And the other is eventually everybody's going to be human and get on that path of enlightenment.

Yeah. Well, even just, even just one thing that comes to mind too, is that talking about we can't dealing with neutrality being a myth and looking in, just looking at the actual implications.

So just even the word compassion, can you actually give an accounting for compassion within the worldview of Buddhism?

Because as a Christian, I can give an accounting. For example, that verse that I read about, you know, let your speech be seasoned with salt, which you know how to speak.

We know how you need to know how to speak with each person, that life and death is in the power of the tongue. And the reason being is that, you know, my view of metaphysics and my view of reality is that I'm talking objectively via God's revelation.

This person is an image bearer of God that needs to be treated with dignity, you know, respect.

Even though we have worldviews that are opposed to each other, there's ways I need to conduct myself because they are, they are unique.

They are a unique self. They are a unique individual in which you approach them. How within the worldview of Buddhism, like how do you account for compassion?

What are you giving compassion to? Indeed, if the self is an illusion,

I'm an illusion. How does an illusion portray compassion to another person who's an illusion?

When in reality, all of that is, you know, we're actually connected to something outside of ourselves, which is impersonal.

So in a sense of me, it just seems that they're trying to really borrow off Christian capital to say that there is a unique individuality.

They're presupposing a level of individuality between the two persons. I mean, the idea of compassion requires some level of distinction.

How do you have that distinction if they're both an illusion? That's just the thought that comes to mind. Right, right.

No, and I can see why you're asking that. I think the one thing is that compassion, he means it more as, you know, this general attitude that we're hoping will spread the teachings of Buddhism.

Because that's the way you really show compassion, is to spread the teachings of Buddhism, because then more people can learn about it and become, get on the road to liberation.

So that's really what compassion is. Not that they teach, you know, because then the eightfold path has to do with ethical living and not stealing, you know, and, and not, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't be mean to people.

That's considered a bad thing, But it's not compassion. Like the way we would mean it as a

Christian, the way Jesus showed it to the sick, when he healed the sick, or when he talked to people who were, you know, being ignored, or we're on the way down at the bottom of the totem pole in society, you know,

Jesus was showing a true, of course, godly compassion and love, which you can't, you won't find in Buddhism.

And I think as far as, well, how can you say that? And how do you interact with another person as individual?

If yourselves don't really exist, they have something called the conventional self. The conventional self is the self that you think you are and that you're living right now in this life.

So you have this kind of self that's built on, actually, it's called the five skandhas or the five aggregates.

And the five aggregates are like the intellect. It's like thinking, your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, your ideas about what you're experiencing.

There's like five of them. And if you look them up online, you'll find sometimes the categories use different terms, but those five things, those five aggregates are what the self, because of those five things, you think you have a self.

Okay. So because I have memories and I have these feelings and I'm having this experience right now, you know,

I know I have a self because I'm feeling all this, I'm reacting at them. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm going through it.

Nobody else is going through it. So this is shows I'm an individual. Well, you think you are because of those things, but it's just kind of a false self that they call the conventional self.

And you kind of, because you're in this life and you're in this material, this world of form, you have to interact as though you are an individual, even though you really aren't.

Right. Okay. No, I appreciate that. Let's go ahead and do this for the next sort of question.

This will be more of a clip. This is similar to, you know, we did a couple of clips in our episode a couple, a while back on which talk.

So this is a clip, even though you can't see it, this is a young man. He appears he's on a beach and he appear, he has his own tech talk and he appears to be in some sort of appears to be

Tibetan monk kind of attire with that certain type of, or it's like a dark orange

I think it is, or, or something of that nature and he's asking just questions about seeking enlightenment.

So this is a, so the question is why are those seeking enlightenment so miserable? So what

I'll do is I'll just play this is again, this is just a, we're kind of taking a pulse of the marketplace of ideas, especially with the younger generation.

And then we could just figure out how would we respond in real time to someone to this sort of conversation going back and forth in this, in this particular area.

So let's take a look at this. We only lose what we attach on to. For example, if I had a girlfriend, right?

Yeah. I love you. I care for you. I want you to be happy. I will be there for you.

To your thick and thin, to the darkest days, to happiness and sickness and health.

But you know, I am cautioned that yeah, one day you might leave me. We need to caution ourselves that one day they might leave us.

We need to caution ourselves that one day they might die. And when that happens and when we're clingy and attached to them, you know, it's going to be a very devastating day.

So, you know, we embrace these things, accept things as they are. And just enjoy the present moment with them while you have it, you know, clinging on to them.

It's not going to do you any good because people don't last forever. The subject is suffering and rarely can you control anything.

So just the context as well, too, there's a quite, he's answering a question from another person on tech talk.

And the question says, how can you be unattached to someone you love? Doesn't seem to make too much sense to me.

So I think he's asked, he's answering the question. That's what he's making that statement in that light of answering that question.

So just off the get go, like what comes to mind me? This is a young man, you know, the someone's trying and the person asking this question is probably seeking, trying to make sense of the world.

And maybe he's inquisitive. Maybe Buddhism is the right answer for me. Just off the get go, given your experience, how would we answer something like that?

Yeah, I would say that, you know, that sounds very good hypothetically, but really when you really do love somebody you're, you're committed to them.

You know, if you really, truly, as this is a spouse, a husband or wife, you're, you're called to be committed to that person.

And emotionally, you do become committed to them. You can't say I'm going to love you and enjoy you today, but realize that you might not be there tomorrow because then you're, you know, you're actually distancing yourself from them.

You're not truly loving them because you're kind of preparing yourself for living without them. You know, it's kind of like he's saying you can do that.

I don't think you can really do that emotionally. I, or I think if you try to do it, then you're going to hold back in some way in that relationship.

You're not really going to really have a deep bond with that person because you're like, always,

I'm just going to be in the present moment. This person could die tomorrow. They could leave me next week or whatever.

So you're holding back. You're not really fully giving yourself to that person in the sense of really loving them.

I don't mean fully giving in the sense of, you know, just you're going to live for them and nothing else, but that, you know, committed as somebody who loves them, whether it's a husband wife, of course, in Christianity, it wouldn't be girlfriend, boyfriend, it should be husband, wife or child.

You know, you're committed to that relationship, to that child. And, you know,

I'm not going to think, well, one day you're going to grow up and I won't, you know, I need to get ready for not having you around, you know, so I'm not going to,

I'm going to kind of hold back. You know, you, you can't do that. I mean, that's one reason it's hard to be a parent because you never, you know, your child's always your child.

You know what I mean? I have a son who's an adult where he's still, and many times to me, almost still like when he was a little boy, you know, it's really true.

When you have an adult child, they're still sometimes like your little child and your feelings are still very much the same for them.

You still want to protect them. You still want to comfort them, et cetera, et cetera. You have to give them more space, but it's very hard because the emotional bond is very strong and that's natural.

That's a natural parental bond with a child. If you don't have that, then you're, there's something wrong, you know, dysfunctional with the relationship.

So I think he's trying to have it both ways and, you know, maybe cause he's young, maybe he doesn't know.

You can't really do that. Yeah. Can I, can I add onto that too? Yeah. Go for it. So I would say, you know,

God is love. Love comes from God and his character, right? So God defines what love is and there's no greater love than one that lays its life down for its friends.

Right. And a sacrificial love between a husband and a wife is a husband lays down his life for his wife, for his children to protect them.

You know, like our God loves us so much that he was not detached. You know, he was literally attached in the hypostatic union.

He was fully God became fully man and he lived the life and felt the things that we feel right.

There's a Godly way to suffer. There's a Godly way to love. There's a Godly way to experience the human condition, but it's not in the form that says you just live only in that specific moment.

No, it's okay to think and plan for the future. We're actually commanded to do those things. Right. But at the same time, what we really need to realize is that what this, what this young man saying is he's not talking about God's version of love.

He's talking about a totally different God's version and he's imitating that God. He's becoming that God, which in itself is one that saying,

I really don't know. I really don't know how to do that. Like I have to take one thing one second at a time.

I don't really even know how to love really. That's what I hear. And it's, it's, it's sad. But there is an answer for that, right?

That's Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of love. He is the personification of love in itself.

And there's a beautiful answer that the God of scripture doesn't ignore any of those things.

He says, no, I lived it. I lived it. Right. I think that's an excellent answer,

Andrew. I really do. I think that is an excellent answer and an excellent way to talk about to somebody.

Well, here's how, here's how, you know, I see love as a Christian and then

Jesus Christ came. And like you said, he wasn't detached. He took on human nature, even though he had glory with the father.

He took on human nature, even, and he didn't even come as like a, you know, a wealthy

Prince or a Pharisee or something. He was this lowly born in lowly circumstances, a son of a carpenter.

So it's like, and Jesus, you know, he took on the human suffering. He got hungry.

He got tired. He got thirsty. And then of course suffered on the cross. So that is like, that's love.

It wasn't, it was anything but detached. It was anything but detached. Real love and detachment don't go together.

Amen. No, that's really good. And again, when you, when you come down to defining terms, you know, when you talk about not love is not some just vague abstract sort of esoteric feeling.

And that's usually when you, when you look at, you know, when the new age, when they're, when they're defining like what love is, it just, it seems to be the sort of vague impersonal force.

It's kind of just bigger than the both of us, you know? And, and I think this is, this is what I've always,

I can't remember who said it and it might've actually been Pastor Jeff Durbin, but I think it was a while back when he was talking about, look, when it says in first John, when it talks about like, how is

God, unless God is love, like how is God in and of himself love? Because usually love requires an object outside of yourself and wish to display that affection and give that love too.

But because of the fact that God is triune, that God is father, son, and Holy Spirit, you have this beautiful interpersonal relationship within the one being of God where that love is perfectly shared.

And that way God can be perfectly, he is perfect love and that's demonstrated through the fact, through the fact that you sent his son.

And that's really the beauty of the gospel is that, you know, love is not some sort of weird, strange, esoteric feeling, but it's ultimately true love is knowing that is having that Christ not only died for you to have your sins forgiven, but to be able to then, like it talks about in John 17 about really being able to share in that glory that the son had with the father before the foundation of the world.

Like that's the real beauty and the hope of the gospel that no amount of, you know, mindfulness and emptying yourself from meditation can ultimately attain.

And that's something that we really need to take into account as we try and talk to our friends and neighbors who are in, who are going down these different avenues.

So another question I think we could also bring up real quickly is, you know, I think we did have someone who messaged us and this is probably very true and indicative is that he mentioned he had this person mentioned he had a brother who grew up in evangelical

Christianity. Basically, you know, there's a whole conversation too about people who are deconstructing.

Not every single person becomes atheist. A lot of people are trying to get into different new age and pseudo spirituality.

It's almost sort of like a new atheism where people would kind of, they can be spiritual, but not give themselves any accountability to God.

But he was basically saying that his brother had sort of anger and bitterness and whatnot, sort of towards the church, but he's kind of using

Buddhism as a way to sort of channel, you know, his previous anger and whatnot.

But, but it is very true and indicative that a lot of people are in that transition of trying to leave the

Christian faith and look elsewhere. But here's another clip of a young man and he is talking about how to transition from Christianity to Buddhism.

So, yeah, one of our lady Brandy, shout out to Brandy. She always is good for finding little clips to put together.

So I found this one kind of amusing. So let's, let's take a look at this young man on tech talk is giving his thoughts in 60 seconds about how to do that.

And we'll respond here real quickly. Was anybody else raised Christian? And then like a couple of years into it, even as a kid, you're like,

I get it. Don't be, that's pretty much it. You can keep the book and the songs and all the weird stuff.

Uh, we're good. It's pretty common knowledge. Don't be an. Um, Jesus was pretty good at that.

Um, but a lot of y 'all aren't. So I'm just going to go over here.

And then I sprinkled a little bit of Buddhism on top of that and realized that all of my suffering internally and externally was due to the fact that everything is impermanent and I was grasping and craving at things or running away from stuff that never lasts anyway.

And I can't quite, I can't quite have it forever. And it was killing me inside, but then I realized what

I was doing because I trained in meditation and I was able to kind of come up with the perfect storm of,

Oh, right. Just be nice to myself and others and don't latch after things. Just me.

Okay. So, um, it sounds to me like he got, it was kind of a different, and that was bleeped out.

Cause he said a couple of things that we just didn't need to have on the podcast, but I think he does have an overall point that, you know, he, you can see he's, he's, uh, taking his experience, but now sort of now applying

Buddhism, now applying his Buddhist philosophies, why that doesn't matter. There's a couple of things I picked up on, but I'm going to let you comment first,

Marcia and, and Andrew, they don't let you comment. I'm going to give my thoughts too. Okay. Yeah.

So it does sound like he's been reading or listening to some Buddhist stuff because he used some of the words there about, you know, he's clinging.

He's grasping at things, you know, that, and then you hear that thing with Buddhist teachings. Um, so he seems to sum up the idea of really all you have to do is just don't cling to things.

Cause you know, they're not going to last and then you just be a nice, you know, be a good person, be a nice person to yourself and to others.

And that's really all that matters. I mean, that's he's, I think maybe he never really got the

Christian message. I don't, I don't think he really understood the concept of the fact we are separated from God.

There is a God we're separated from that God. And we can only be reconciled through faith in Christ because of what

Christ did on the cross. So I don't think he really ever understood that. And maybe he just heard moralism, which unfortunately sometimes in churches, that is what you hear.

You hear moralism, um, about being good or not doing this or not doing that. And you get this idea of, okay, well

I just have to try to be good. Yeah. I mean, that's the message I got, you know, and why I started looking in other towards other spiritual teachings.

Um, you know, I had really decided by age 15 or so that, you know, Christianity wasn't going to be my quote unquote path.

Um, although I was quite about it until I got to college. Tell my, tell my, my mother that, but my father's agnostic.

So he probably wouldn't have cared, but I just kind of kept quiet about it. um, the thing is, of course that's not what

Christianity is. And you can follow this path where you think, okay, I'm not going to get attached to anything because everything's impermanent.

And yeah, in a sense it is because I mean, in this life right now, I, one day

I, you know, I am going to die and I'm not going to be able to take my favorite scarves with me or my earrings or my, whatever else

I like, or my friends with me, you know, I'm like, okay, that's going to be it.

I'm not going to, none of this is going to go with me, but you know, that's okay.

I can enjoy some things now. It's all right to enjoy things. Um, it's okay to like things.

This, this, this idea of attachment being such a, a bad thing is because they think that's going to bring you back into rebirth.

But when, you know, you're just going to die once, um, It's okay to enjoy things.

And you understand, yeah, that's it. I'm not going to, you know, and, and you don't, and you're not going to want these things anyway.

I mean, when you're, when you go to be with Christ, that's going to be something we can't even conceive of, but it's going to be the best thing ever.

At least. And so, um, you know, I think it's because he's got this idea that one way he can deal with things is to see that they're not permanent.

And that's, that is one way of escaping, um, pain or things that causes pain and distress.

Cause we can think this too shall pass, you know, this isn't going to, this is going to come to an end and I can be free of this.

And it's, it's actually, I think a coping mechanism. So, I mean, that's my impressions from listening.

Yep. Andrew, what comes to mind for you? Yeah. I'm a piggyback off that. The same thing. I think it's a coping mechanism.

I think that it can actually be extremely dangerous, uh, psychologically because people develop disorders like dissociative identity disorder by trying to take themselves out of the equation to detach from horrible traumatic situations.

But one thing that really, uh, that really stood out to what this young man was talking about was how his suffering does something amazing for him, right?

No, it's the suffering of God that actually did something amazing. Cause it's the suffering of Christ to the perfect human, right?

That actually produces righteousness in others. Cause he gives his righteousness to us and takes our sin from us.

When we put place, our faith in him only through Christ would my suffering ever produce things as in hope and perseverance.

But it's only when I'm looking at Jesus, you're not divine. But when you believe that you come from this divine

Buddha mind, it makes sense that you would think that your suffering produces some, uh, supernatural quality in yourself.

But really, if you're looking at the situation, you're detaching, you're not even there, man, you're not even there.

You're not even experiencing what's really happening to you only through Christ. Can you actually understand the true meaning of suffering in itself and what it's there for?

It's in, it's a sad thing to see because I can see, uh, through the objective lens of scripture, uh, really that this person's not actually dealing with the situation that happened.

There's no forgiveness. It sounds like there's bitter bitterness, discontentment in a heart. That's that's, that's hurt, you know, and you can't live logically consistently in the, in the

Buddhist worldview. You can't do it because that pain is still going to be there. You live in God's world and on God's time, and you're going to have to deal with it one day, you know, like it's, you can only press it down so much that beach ball keeps coming right back up.

You're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. It keeps popping up. You're going to try so many different ways, but Christ is the only answer, my friend is the only answer.

That's not, that's good, Andrew. That's really good, man. I appreciate that. So just a couple of observations I have here as we wrap up here is that he made a point at the very beginning.

He talked about, you know, subtle, but he talked about some of the hypocrisy he saw, like people being, being, being hypocrites.

And again, I don't know his exact story. I can tell you that, you know, I grew up in the evangelical world and I was part of churches that were mega churches that would almost sort of be categorized as the, uh, you know, the church industrial complex of the evangelical industrial complex where he's very corporate, you know, and you know, part of that is like marketing and putting on a good face that everything is wonderful because you want to go to, you want to make a good face for the people who are coming in for the 30 minutes, you know, uh, 30 to 45 minutes of their week before they move on with the rest of their week.

Cause they get the people in, get the people out. And yeah, I saw hypocrisy behind closed doors. So I get that.

So what's interesting though, is that, you know, he gives account and I'm, I'm, there might've been stuff that happened to him where he was experienced hurt by the church, but what does he then go and say?

He goes, well, that's ultimately I realized that that's an illusion. That's an, that's impermanent. So what's interesting though, is that he's still sort of appealing to a very subtle, absolute truth claim that the way

I was treated was absolutely wrong. Well, well, if all truth is impermanent, then even the statement that truth is impermanent is impermanently true.

So he has, he lost any ground that he has to stand upon. Um, so it's, it's an aspect of like, this isn't say how we're right.

He is wrong. This is an aspect of telling this young man, look at your feet. You're still borrowing off a

Christian capital. You're made in the image of God and you can't give an accounting for what's happening.

And you were, and ultimately when it comes down to, you know, suffering and why things happen to us and, you know, realizing that, you know, when it comes to suffering, that the

Christian worldview is, is really what gives us a real catalyst for suffering, you know, to be made, to be conformed to the image of Christ.

And so, you know, you look at when you look at what Christ says in John 1633, he says, I have told you these things that you may have peace in this world.

You, you will have troubles and will tribulations, but take heart. I have overcome the world. And that's, that's the level of peace that Christ gives.

You know, he says in John 1427, where he says, you know, peace, I give you my peace.

I leave you not as the world gives you. And then he says, you know, let not your hearts be troubled. Do not like, do not be afraid.

So there's a level of peace that trend that surpasses all understanding. And then we can understand that suffering is not an illusion.

It's something that happens to us that we realize that there's, there's purpose and intent behind like what's happened.

So what God meant for evil, when I'm sorry, what others meant for evil, God meant that for goodness, goodness, gracious.

I almost missed that there. Yeah. So when you realize that you, you have a cat, we have a catalyst to understand like what suffering is for.

And so, and that you realize too that when it comes to even like love and relationships that you don't as a

Christian, like you, I can lay my life down for someone else and want the absolute best for them and not have to detach myself because in, in realizing that I'm actually laying myself,

I'm laying my life down to having like Christ's sacrificial love for that person, you know, and realizing that God has me in this moment at this exact time to help them where they are and not having to worry that,

Oh, they're just going to leave. They're going to go away in the end. Like you can realize that everyone is in your life for a particular purpose, you know?

So it's, it's unfortunate because I just see this worldview of just, everything's just sort of being this illusion and somehow you can just sort of arbitrarily, arbitrarily sort of meditate into this level of emptiness.

Like that can't, that level of emptiness, emptying your mind that can't answer the real cries and longings of the human heart.

You know, someone who's been raped or molested or has been violated in a horrific way.

Like, how do you tell someone who's a child sex trafficking victim who's been, who was just violated in so many horrific ways is the real answer to tell them, all that, that's just an illusion.

You just need to just empty your mind. Just don't, don't pay attention to that. I mean, there it's, it's, it's ultimately it's, it's a worldview that's bankrupt.

And to say that, you know, we, there has, there has to be an alternative and it's the impossibility of the contrary that really shows the reality of this, of this worldview.

Andrew, any last thoughts you have on that? No, dude, I think, I think you summarized, summarize it all perfectly, man.

Like with, when you deny the God of the Bible, you cannot live logically consistently in the reality that God has created according to any other worldview, except the one that God has created us in and made us in his image.

You said it perfectly. It's called the impossibility of the contrary. Yeah, good. And Marcia, so I appreciate you hanging out, hanging around for us.

This is a, and I think we covered a good amount of ground. Any last, any last thoughts you have before we wrap up here?

Well, no, I think that you summarized things pretty well there and Andrew did too.

And, you know, I always, I've always said any other, any belief system outside of Christianity is built on a house of cards and it is, it is going to come down.

You just remove a few cards and it will fall because like Andrew said, we're in the world

God created where, and we're made in the image of God reason, logic, order, all rooted in the character of God.

And you're always going to find these kind of illogical thoughts or, or contradictions and other belief systems, you know, and they just, and they just crumble because they can't, they can't stand on it because they're not standing on any kind of foundation of objective truth.

And so, I mean, that's very true of Buddhism. And I think we pointed out some of the problems with it and living, living that out, living that out, you know, as part of real life.

So, I think that that's something for people to ponder and people who are listening, who maybe aren't

Christians and maybe are interested in Buddhism or something or Hinduism, you know,

I can tell you, it can sound very good, but it's really very empty and it doesn't really give you the answer.

To live a real life in the real world. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I appreciate that.

So, Marsha, thank you for once again, making a wonderful appearance and I'm sure people are going to be blessed by this.

And I'm sure at some point we're going to have you on again in 2022. It's always great.

We get so much great feedback. So thank you once again. So all, so for the rest of you, thank you all for listening in.

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