On The 'Desiring God' Blog

Those who say that 'all religions are true' or 'all religions lead to the same thing' or 'all religions are one' either don't know what the words 'religion' or 'same' or 'true' mean, or they shamelessly make such assumptions and conclusions without actually delving into or even making a slight effort to understand the fundamental basis of said 'religions'.

*I use the word 'religion' here in terms of what the secular world might call religion, although I personally don't think Christianity is in fact defined as 'religion'.

Jesus and Buddha on Happiness
June 19, 2008 | By: Jon Bloom
Category: Commentary

Greatly disturbed by the suffering he saw in the world, 29-year-old Prince Guatama Siddhartha (563-483 BC), who was later called the Buddha (enlightened one), left his wife and young child and set out on a search for the meaning of life.

What struck him was the impermanence of the world—nothing lasted. In spite of this, people were attached to impermanent things. They desired to hold on to life, health, possessions, and each other. But life, health, possessions and people pass away. This, he reasoned, was the cause of human suffering. Therefore, he concluded that if he could kill desire his suffering would cease and he would be happy.

But the Buddha did desire something: lasting happiness. Ironically, it was this great desire that fueled his philosophy of killing desire.

There is a vacuous absence of God in the Buddha’s pursuit of desire-less joy. He didn’t say much about God’s existence. To him, God was irrelevant to human happiness. Rather, happiness was being free from desire-induced suffering and reincarnation. It was the blissful end of individual existence—the sweet annihilation that is Nirvana.

How different are Jesus’ answers from the Buddha’s. When a rich young man, not so different from the rich young Guatama, sought out Jesus’ direction for eternal happiness, Jesus replied,

You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. (Mark 10:21).

Note that Jesus did instruct the man to become detached from his possessions, but he did not mean a Buddhist detachment. The Buddha taught that nothing lasts, so be attached to nothing. Jesus taught that One Thing lasts, so at all cost, be attached to that!

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. (Matthew 13:45)

Jesus knows that our desire for happiness is designed by God and so is our desire for permanence. They are not evil. Here is what is evil:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

We are designed to be satisfied with the one eternal, permanent God. Evil is when we believe that God will not satisfy us and therefore pursue happiness in transient things. That’s the essence of sin.

Jesus and the Buddha agree that pursuing happiness in transient things is futile, but they direct us to opposite solutions. The Buddha says satisfaction is treasuring nothing. Jesus says it is treasuring God. In treasuring God we end up receiving all things. In treasuring no thing we end up with, well, nothing.

Which, of course, is why we are not Desiring Nothing Ministries.

Britain's Got Patriotism...?

(This post was written a while ago....but never published it....)

Being in Japan, 6000 miles away from Britain, has not stopped me from following closely to the much talked about Britain's Got Talent (mostly thanks to listening to BBC Radio 1 and keep hearing Susan Boyle this Susan Boyle that...). I absolutely loved it. The whole show. It was brilliant. The range of talents, acts, ages, interests, skin colour...

And I was totally content that Diversity won. They weren't perfect, but Boyle wasn't either. No one is. The point is, Boyle has practically won already, by securing contracts with theatre productions even before the BGT Final. Diversity, if they hadn't won, would have been forgotten by the British public in less than 2 hours after the Final.

Anyway, what caught my attention throughout the whole show wasn't just the talent, but how all the contestants who were interviewed all echoed a common theme: Patriotism. Perhaps not the Oath-taking, flag-saluting, anthem-singing kind, but when asked what it would mean to win the show or get to the royal variety show...etc. almost all said something about how wonderful it would be to perform in front of the Queen; what an honour it would be to sing in front of the Queen, it would be great to perform in front of the Royal Family...whatever the talent, most echoed such similar ambitions, as they marched on to the audition on a stage that was dazzling with Union Jack colours. Commentators as well, saying how wonderful it is to uncover raw home-made British talent from your mother's hometown's local church or community centre etc. Yes I quite agree. Just like the encouragement of consumption of local farm produce is increasingly popular, why shouldn't we encourage more appreciation of more local talent eh?

On TV

During a morning breakfast programme on Japanese TV they showed a few societal statistics and surveys taken from the 1980s all the way to early 21st century, and one of the survey questions was 'How important is religion in life?'

I know the picture isn't very big but in short, the red line (decreasing) illustrates the trend for those who answered 'Very or quite important'. The blue line (increasing) illustrates the trend for 'Not really & not at all important'.

I somehow doubt that the people surveyed had the same idea of 'religion' as the pastor at Taira Church on Sunday did, who said, ' "Religion" is what WE humans have to do in order to be saved; whereas "the Gospel" is what GOD had to do in order for humans to be saved'.

Nigella in training

There's something about studying that gives one the desire to make things, or cook things. Otherwise known as excuses for procrastination. As my Japanese Proficiency Test approaches, I have found myself working in the kitchen more than on my desk. Last week, I made my first batch of cookies. It wasn't great, although on the following day at school there was a resounding 'UMAI!'* from all the teachers that were privileged (or brave) enough to try. Last Friday I made another batch, a better batch, and gave most of it to my calligraphy class - 3 grannies and 2 elementary school kids. I got mugicha* teabags in return from the teacher. Que Japanese reciprocity.

On Monday, after a long and difficult day at work, I decided to express the stress in the form of shopping - more specifically household shopping, and ended up buying a blender. ('Twas less than 1500 yen! Win!) And today I made peach-&-banana-&-zero-fat-yogurt-&-soymilk-&-honey smoothie. Ooh-la-la.


I also made 'Sunny's scones' - I got a vague scone recipe from my friend Sunny. They're tomato-onion-cheese-basil scones, except I didn't have any basil. So I put pepper instead. After making an epic mess in the kitchen (as well as on myself...I just found scone-mix in my right ear), the scones came out pretty good, to my surprise (see picture). Until now I was never able to boast any sort of cooking skills, despite both my parents being good cooks themselves.

Next challenge - banana bread!


Note:
* umai = delicious
* mugicha = 'roasted barley tea'

Creative Writing

As much as I, as an ALT, would like to think I should be encouraging more oral communication from students, most of the time it is writing exercises that really bright up my day. Or more specifically, reading the students' creative writing exercises.

This week the students were taught the grammar point "I'm going to (verb)", and they were made to write what their aspirations or expectations for themselves in 15 years time.

I managed to sneakily take pictures of 2 students' masterpieces without getting weird looks from the teachers around me. Take note: both of these are written by 13 or 14 year old boys. And while they are very materialistic, they're also quite creative in some ways.


Exhibit Number 1:

I am going to have two kids. I am going to marry a cute girl. I am going be an office worker. I am going to be happy. I am going to make 300,000 yen. I am going to have tropical fish. I am going to have a big house. I am going to pick up 1,000,000 yen.





Exhibit Number 2:

I am going to have three kids.
I am going to marry Yusuke (a boy's name).
I am going to take care of Yusuke.
I am going to kiss Yusuke everyday.
I am going to love Yusuke.
Yusuke is going to love me.
I am going to cook tororo imo (type of potato).
I am going to live in a pink house.

This was not the only uhh 'boy wants to marry boy' piece we got.

This is another 'culture shock' issue I faced in Japanese schools - that how boys have very um close and loving relationships with each other, which is kinda cute in some way, but then it can also get a bit erm 'ero' sometimes and they get really huggy and touchy feely with each other.......yeah.

(But then apparently its normal here......)

I never went to school with boys...can anyone shed any light on what 12-15 year old boys are like in other cultures..?

Sufficient Grace

This morning I woke up feeling kind of annoyed, irritated, and grace-less.

First of all, trying to organise a party without knowing numbers (and hence how much food to get) because people don't RSVP or people cancel last minute is irritating. Especially when it's my birthday. Yes I am vain in that way. Secondly, JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is 2 weeks away and knowing I still have lots to learn is irritating. And then waking up at 7:30am on a Saturday is irritating. I also wasn't feeling well, physically, which is irritating.

All these little things sound rather trivial, but with all this all rolled together on a warm and humid Saturday morning got me feeling grace-less.

But God, with all HIS abundant grace sent gentle reminders that made me realise a few things...

For starters, upon opening Firefox to check my email, these big headlines on Yahoo news front page -Miracle recovery of 'amazing Grace' - hit me right in the face. It reported of a miraculous recovery of a baby called Grace who survived and recovered after her life-support machine was turned off after her parents gave up hope of her ever recovering from "incurable" meningitus - story here. There is no other explanation other than God's sufficient grace to give this baby life, and bring her parents joy. That story appearing on Yahoo News, today, was no coincidence, I believe. The baby's name being Grace was no coincidence either, I believe. Thus first reminder - God's grace is sufficient.

Then after getting bored of studying, I decided to re-listen to a Ravi Zacharias talk on 'Why don't I feel my faith', and at one point he said how easily we let our emotions and feelings control us, when actually, we ought to kick those moods that get us down and less Christ-like. It's the language of me to myself, to train our emotions, to be the master of our feelings. Second reminder.

The party turned out to be better than I had expected. The people that I actually enjoy hanging out with came, and even though it wasn't a massive turnout, it was just big enough (about 10 people) for everyone to enjoy each other's good company, chatter & banter, good food and wine - just generally have a good time. Any bigger and it would've gotten a little chaotic, which would have been irritating.

So praise Him for his Grace, His perfect plan, His little reminders, and how He 'works for the good of those who love Him', even though I probably / definitely didn't deserve it today...(I'm not even sure if that verse really applies to my situation today)...

But at least now I'm going to bed NOT irritated, NOT annoyed, and NOT grace-less :)

Stupidity Tax

Two news story on BBC news really pushed my wtf buttons this morning - A 20-year-old woman from Leicester was imprisoned because thought it would be funny to overtake a siren-sounding ambulance, laughing and making obscene gestures at the ambulance crew, and slowed down, causing the vehicle to brake suddenly, whilst at the back of the ambulance a paramedic was giving heart compressions to an elderly patient. Full story here. Seriously...wtf! Who does that..!?!!

And story number two is where an NHS Trust clinic caused a couple's embryo to be wrongly implanted in a different patient, causing much distress to the couple who have been having pregnancy difficulties for years, and the Trust having to pay an undisclosed settlement to the couple. Full story here.

Turning to the plank in my own eye, I managed to melt the anti-slip rubber on the bottom of one of my little floor mats by keeping my rice cooker and electric kettle/hot water pot on it at all times. The consequence was I had to peel off the mat from the floor, and spent 20 minutes scrubbing off the melted bits off the wooden floor in the kitchen. But not really that big of a plank compared to the above stories from the BBC.

Which brings me to stupidity tax. Stories like that make me think it's not actually an such absurd thing. Acts of stupidity usually bring an amount of unhealthy or harmful consequences to society - either to the person himself and/or to others in society. In both of the above cases they've caused considerable damage to people outside of themselves, as well as to themselves (being imprisoned and paying the settlement respectively).

If stupidity can be seen as a demerit good, and if the government's role is to reduce demerit goods in society, then maybe people like this should be taxed in order to internalise this negative externality. And then the government should use the money to educate people in common sense. Or maybe society needs 'common sense licenses' where everyone is required to hold one in order to be allowed interact in society, and is taken away and must either be on house arrest or put in isolation when stupidity is breached.