Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

vanish, and you won’t be able to find me”, and the Buddha denied this. According tothe sutta the god tried to vanish but wherever Brahma went the Buddha followed. Ithink that is because Brahma lives in the highest of the sensory realms and he can gofrom there into the first jhāna realm. But when the Buddha went into the second jhānarealm that was beyond Brahma’s conception and experience, he couldn’t find theBuddha. The Buddha won the psychic contest and, because of that, Brahma realisedthat this was no ordinary person and started to listen and understand the laws ofimpermanence. He understood that he wasn’t a permanent being in this universe. Hewasn’t the almighty, the permanent, etc. He understood he was just like any otherbeing, subject to the law of kamma, subject to impermanence. That was whenBrahma became a disciple of the Buddha.So, if anyone knocks on your door and asks if you believe in God, you can say, “Yes,but we also believe in the Buddha and that the Buddha is your God’s teacher”. Thatway you will get rid of them pretty quickly. Only say this if they get heavy with youbecause we want to be diplomatic. We want to be kind, but sometimes it’s worthfighting fire with fire. Buddhists should at least stand up for their beliefs, understandwhat their beliefs are, and not just be wimps.Freedom of InquiryI spoke in Malaysia about such things as the Gnostic gospels, which is anothertradition of Christianity. In early Christianity there were three strands of Christianbelief. One was the church at Jerusalem, which was basically a Jewish Christianity.They were still circumcising each other and keeping the Jewish traditions. It wasn’tvery popular with the Gentiles in Rome because they didn’t have anaesthetic in thosedays. The Gentile church was found in many other centres outside of Jerusalem.Places like Antioch, Corinth, and Rome. Then there were the Gnostic Christians.They weren’t centred anywhere but were an independent strand of Christianity withno hierarchy or organisation but with groups of people meeting in many differentplaces.121