Emily Nghiem
Active Member
You remind me of how I could not explain Forgiveness to my mother.Perhaps we are are saying the same thing but in very different ways. We may have learned to say these things in different ways based on where we grew in the faith.
I do not know how proficient your english, I see your last name is very asian. But I will accept we are conveying the same doctrine in just differently worded ways. I was concerned for your words hinted of other beliefs.
She is Vietnamese Buddhist.
I was born and have lived in Texas all my life, so not only American but Texan where Southern Christian and beliefs in God are heavily engrained in the culture and laws.
Talk about "talking about the same thing in different ways":
By the time my mother understood and accepted what it meant to "let go" it was more like Buddhist detachment.
The concept of "attachment to material thinking and conditions" is the Buddhist equivalent of "not coveting" or having "unnatural lust" (which Buddhists call "striving" from one own's will or expectations and this "attachment" is the cause of suffering which Christians refer to as "sinful conditions")
But to get to this agreement to let go, the Buddhist Monk who finally explained it to her, where she accepted it, had to say it using her cultural traditions:
He stated it in terms of Buddha advising to treat all beings with Equal Compassion and Wisdom REGARDLESS how they treat us.
How they act is not our responsibility.
How WE act is our responsibility.
So we still follow the same ethical standards and do not try to be bad to people just because they are bad.
Something like that.
But INDIRECTLY in order to let go means somewhere in that process Forgiveness has to take place.
Nobody I know can have the same loving Compassion "for all people" like God does WITHOUT the Grace that comes from Christ!
Nowhere in there did that explanation say or credit Jesus. But in order to meet that standard, guess what?
People would have to forgive on the level that God does. So to follow that standard, this still requires Christ Jesus to be able to forgive at that level.
It was the most "indirect" way of describing the same process.
But anyone would get stuck, not being able to forgive some things or some people, without God's help through Jesus.