What Do Zen Buddhists Believe about God?

(Extracted from The Facts on Buddhism in America)

What Is Hinduism?

In its most simple definition, Hinduism may be defined as the religious beliefs and practices common to India. Defining Hinduism in a more precise manner is difficult because of the wide number of practices and teachings it offers. To illustrate, we present selected definitions of Hinduism from authoritative sources:

“The Way of the majority of the people of India, a Way that is a combination of religious belief, rites, customs, and daily practices, many of which appear overtly secular but in most cases have religious origins and sanctions. Hinduism is noted as being the only one of the major beliefs that cannot be defined, for any definition is inadequate, contradictory, and incomplete.”^[1]

“The name used in the West to designate the traditional socioreligious structure of the Indian people. As a religion based on mythology, it has neither a founder (as do Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity) nor a fixed canon. Myriad local cults and traditions of worship or belief can be distinguished.”^[2]

“The variety of religious beliefs and practices making up the major religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent.”^[3]

“... a complex product of [the] amalgamation of various cults and beliefs within a common social framework [e.g., the caste system].”^[4]

But in spite of its diversity, Hinduism in general does reveal a number of common themes. Some of these include pantheism (the belief that All is God, God is All), polytheism (a belief in many lesser gods), and a reliance upon occultic ritual and practices.

God in Hinduism

Brahman and Pantheism

Hinduism in America teaches that God is an impersonal divine essence they call Brahman. Brahman has two aspects, one that is called “Nirguna” and another that is called “Saguna.” The technical distinctions between these “forms” of Brahman are too detailed to discuss here.^[5] For our purposes we can state that Hinduism in America teaches that everything is God or part of God.^[6] This is known as pantheism.

In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna we read, “It is God Himself [Brahman] who has become all this—the [physical] universe, maya [the illusion] and the living beings…. It is God alone who has become everything.”^[7] Thus Hinduism teaches that “there is nothing that is not God.”^[8]

A God Who Cannot Be Described

Nevertheless, because the Hindu concept of God involves so many contradictions, Hindus have ultimately concluded that nothing concrete can be said about God. Thus, “no one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.”^[9] Further, “the nature of Brahman cannot be described. About it one remains silent.”^[10] The common phrase used by Hindus to describe Brahman is “Neti Neti”—“not this, not that.”

The Hindu God is also impersonal: “The idea of a Personal God is not a true generalization. We have to go beyond, to the Impersonal [God]... the Personal God... is not absolute truth.”^[11]

Hinduism also teaches that Brahman can be neither known nor worshiped: “God in His absolute [nirguna] nature is not to be worshiped. Worshiping such a God would be nonsense—It would be sin to worship that God.”^[12]

In Teachings of Swami Vivekananda, we are informed that Brahman does not know anything. He is described as—

“...an impersonal, omnipresent being who cannot be called a knowing being—He cannot be called a thinking being, because that [i.e., thinking] is a process of the weak only. He cannot be called a reasoning being, because reasoning is a sign of weakness. He cannot be called a creating being, because none creates except in bondage.”^[13]

Thus, the ultimate God of Hinduism in America is 1) pantheistic, 2) impersonal, 3) unknowing, and 4) unknowable. It cannot love or show mercy because love and mercy are personal attributes. It cannot know or be known because these are also attributes of personality. In conclusion, what Brahman is or isn’t no one knows, because the descriptions of it are contradictory.

Brahman and the God of the Bible

By contrast, the biblical God is personal, loving, and holy. He can be known and experienced personally. Because He is personal, and because we are created in His image, our personhood has meaning and dignity. There is no need to view ourselves as illusions or to seek to destroy our personhood in order to “reach” Brahman.

The Bible also teaches that God is a God who loves. In fact, the Bible teaches that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Nowhere is God’s love better demonstrated than at the cross, where He took on human nature and, in one act of unparalleled self-denial, took all the world’s sins upon Himself and was judged in our place. He did this because of His great love for mankind and His desire that no one should perish (Philippians 2:1-8; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9). But in Hinduism such ideas are rejected as illustrations of spiritual ignorance.

Endnotes

1. Edward Rice, Eastern Definitions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978), pp. 166-167. ↑
2. Kurt Friedrichs, “Hinduism” in Stephan Schumacher, Gert Woerner, eds., The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), p. 130. ↑
3. Keith Crim, ed., Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), p. 306. ↑
4. S.G.F. Brandon, ed., Dictionary of Comparative Religion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), p. 330. ↑
5. See Swami Nikhilananda, “A Discussion of Brahman in the Upanishads,” in The Upanishads, A New Translation, Four Volumes (New York: Bonanza/Crown Publishers, Harper & Brothers, 1949). ↑
6. Ibid. ↑
7. Swami Nikhilananda, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Sixth Edition (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1977), p. 395. ↑
8. Swami Nikhilananda, Vivekananda, the Yogas and Other Works (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1953), p. 355. ↑
9. Nikhilananda, Gospel, p. 102. ↑
10. Ibid., p. 218. ↑
11. Nikhilananda, Vivekananda, p. 740. ↑
12. John Yale, ed., What Religion Is in the Words of Vivekananda (New York: The Julian Press, 1962), pp. 195, 199-200. ↑
13. Swami Vivekananda, Teachings of Swami Vivekananda (Calcutta, India: Swami Budhananda, 1975), pp. 91-92. ↑