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A Hindu & A Buddhist Walk Into A Marriage: What Is The World Made Of?

A Hindu & A Buddhist Walk Into A Marriage: What Is The World Made Of?

Last updated on: February 24, 2017 at 6:02 am by Ambaa Choate

A Hindu & A Buddhist Walk Into A Marriage: What Is The World Made Of? 2017-02-19T17:38:34-05:00 Ambaa Choate

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I had this idea for a video series a while ago and we finally recorded our first one! My husband and I enjoy discussing philosophy and I thought it would be fun to share that with you guys and capture some of our funny conversations that highlight our similarities and differences as a Hindu and a Buddhist/Taoist.

Transcript

Ambaa: Hi, I’m Ambaa. I’m called “the white Hindu.” I grew up in an Advaitan family, so that is a branch of Hinduism that is focused on non-duality and I’ve been writing “the white Hindu” blog for seven years as of this recording. And this is my husband.

Brad: Hi, I’m Brad. I’m the white Hindu’s husband. I have a background in western philosophy but also eastern philosophy. I’ve studied a great deal of Buddhism in particular but I consider myself Taoist. Of course, I don’t think Taoism and Buddhism have any mutually exclusive parts so I really consider myself both. And you’ll find in these conversations I like to, uh, I like to be many things.

Ambaa: [laughter] And this is Garrick Ravi, our son. All right, I hope you will enjoy our, uh, silly conversations and a peek into our marriage, basically.

QUESTION: What Is The World Made Of?

Ambaa: So, I think that the world is maya, which is an illusion, but what it really is is Brahma. So everything is actually made up out of God. All the particles. The “God particles”, if you will.

Brad: You leave the Higgs-Boson out of this.

[laughter]

Ambaa: What do you think?

Brad: Um. Hmmm. I think rather than categorizing the whole of the world, one can categorize only their own experience. I think, in that way, the world is made up of moments and experiences.

Ambaa: That’s very, um, not physical.

Brad: Well, is it? It doesn’t make a comment upon the physicality of the moment. It merely makes a comment upon the way that we interact with the moment.

Ambaa: Okay, so you’re saying the world is created out of moments?

Brad: I’m saying–

Ambaa: Or are we not talking about creation?

Brad: We’re not talking about creation because we as finite beings can only understand the creation of our own experience. We can extrapolate to other things and we can use various methods for that but that involves expanding our perception. Uh, whether through tools or through refinement. But that too is from our own perspective which is in this moment alone.

Ambaa: Okay, so like what is this made out of? [grabs Brad’s shirt]

Brad: Well, it depends. It’s made out of cotton [smile].

Ambaa: What is cotton?

Brad: Cotton is a plant.

Ambaa: Okay…and that’s it? That’s all there is to it? It’s just…exactly what we call it? There’s no deeper, like, thing that it is?

Brad: Well, it’s a thing of mine. That I love. That has relevance to me.

Ambaa: Okay, so in relation to your experience. I never thought about the world in that way.

Brad: Yeah, it’s existentialism, sort-of. But it’s also a mix of process philosophy. Understanding the world as an unfolding process rather than a group of physical things. Or, for that matter, spiritual dream things. I don’t think it’s–and I say “dream things” not to be insulting, just a lot of people use the analogy of us being Brahma’s dream.

Ambaa: Right, yeah, that makes sense to me.

Brad: Yeah.

Ambaa: I mean, they say Brahma wanted to experience…things. Wanted to experience, I guess, emotions? Wanted to experience everything. And so created the world as a play to act that out?

Brad: Mm-hmm. And I’m not against that as a world view at all.

Ambaa: So they can kind of both be true?

Brad: Exactly. Exactly. Um, but I don’t want to guess at things outside of the experiences that I can possibly have. Which is not to say that I wish to remain ignorant but once something gets beyond an ability to experience I don’t think it’s relevant to our world. [pause]. For example, if there are aliens which are invisible and inaudible and cannot in any way interact with us, then they don’t matter at all.

Ambaa: Hmm. I still want to know about them!

Brad: But you can’t know about them–

Ambaa: Just for curiosity’s sake!

Brad: –because you can’t interact with them. And they’re, by virtue of them being non-interactable, they’re irrelevant to our everyday life.

Ambaa: Yeah, I suppose day to day the world being made up of God doesn’t necessarily impact me. It does in a way because, like, it would inform how I treat things, interact with things. The respect that I would have for…objects, and nature, and stuff like that. The sort-of reverence that one has for it. So that knowledge, or belief, of what the world is made out of changes the nature of the interaction.

Brad: I don’t–for me, I don’t know that it does. ‘Cause I go out into nature and I see a world of beauty that demands respect on its own regardless of whether it’s God or not. I go out into a crowd of people and I see a group of individuals who demand certain, uh, certain respect. Based on just being a group of humans. And some of them can lose that respect if they do some things, but you know, there’s basic rights that they deserve based on being human and there’s a basic…I’ll actually say a basic love that I have for each and every human and each and every animal that is inherent in my being and does not need to be informed on something’s relative divinity or not.

Ambaa: I don’t know. It’s not that I think I wouldn’t have reverence, respect, and love for things if I didn’t know that it was all God. But I think that the very reason that you feel that is a response to the divine it has in it.

Brad: Hmm. And, you know, I don’t think that that is–

Ambaa: And again, like you said, it’s not relevant at all. It doesn’t change or impact for you how you treat things.

Brad: Yeah, but I was going to say I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive. You know, I go out and see an inherent respectability or lovability or beauty in the world and you go out and you see God in all things and what does that mean? It means people need to be respected and nature needs to be appreciated.

Ambaa: Yeah, you make it sound , I don’t know, like very…prescriptive? I guess? Like we’re coming at it from opposite directions but I’m not…pleased with the direction that you’ve given me. [laughter].

Brad: [laughter] What do you mean?

Ambaa: Like it…I guess it reminds me of a girl I knew in college who was very evangelical Christian, as so many people I knew in college were, and she would get on the bus and go up to a stranger and say, “I love you. I love you because Jesus loves you.” And, you know, the stranger would be horrified and confused and like, “Get away from me, you psycho.” And I feel like this is putting me in that position of like saying, “I love you because God. But not because you.” And that doesn’t sound right. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it is right. I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Brad: It does and for a second I thought you were categorizing my side like that.

[laughter]

Brad: Um, but that is just how–

[baby crying]

Ambaa: Uh oh. Oh no! Are you done? Oh, okay. Pause for baby feeding.

***

Ambaa: Okay, where were we?

Brad: Oh man.

Ambaa: I was saying how the girl on the bus…

Brad: Oh yeah.

Ambaa: Yeah…was and how I don’t want to be that.

Brad: Well, I don’t think you are that. Because I think that’s a weird place to take a conversation with a total stranger–

Ambaa: Take a conversation?! That’s how it started!

Brad: Yeah. To have a conversation with a total stranger. And, I mean, it would be just as inappropriate for me to walk on a bus and walk up to someone and say, “I love you for being exactly who you are.” I mean, that’s just not a thing you say to a stranger.

Ambaa: Okay, but I’m not necessarily just uncomfortable with it for that. I mean, I’m also uncomfortable with it for the sort-of, like, prescriptiveness, like I said before. Like this is…well, I guess it is because of the conversation. Because it’s forcing somebody else to, like, view the world in your way.

Brad: Yeah. And just, I suppose, my way, because it only ascribes goodness to a person being the way that they are sounds more acceptable. Because it’s not saying that one particular or any group of Gods that are part of one pantheon or another make you good. It’s just “you’re good and you’re fine just the way you are.”

Ambaa: Yeah, and I do think that people are good and inherently good the way that they are.

Brad: Yeah

Ambaa: But it’s because they’re God! [laughter]

Brad: Exactly

Ambaa: They have God within them. Which is kind of a whole other topic.

Brad: But I think this brings up an interesting point, which we’ve kind of brushed over a little bit, which is there is a conventional way of interacting with things and people and there’s an ultimate way of interacting with things and people. ‘Cause you understand that on an ultimate level, from your perspective, all things are Bramha. But in the meantime, they’re Steve and Barry and Joanne and whatnot. And we’re sitting on a bed and we are in a room in a house. Ultimately that’s all Bramha but there are instances where there are good solutions on the conventional level that are conventional and there are good solutions on the ultimate level that are ultimate. But realizing the nothingness of a bus is not a good way to not die from a bus running into you. Stepping out of the way is a good way to not die. If a bus is careening down the street.

Ambaa: Right. Like playing your part in the play, in the drama.

Brad: Exactly.

Ambaa: Even if it’s not the ultimate reality it’s important to behave as though what’s around us is real.

Brad: Yeah. So the girl on the bus is trying to use an ultimate solution to a conventional matter. Which is why it seems inappropriate, I think.

Ambaa: Okay.

Brad: You know, because she’s espousing what, to her, is a fundamental truth but she’s espousing a fundamental truth to say “hello.” And it doesn’t work that way. [laughter] I mean, imagine if–

Ambaa: I guess she’s just trying to skip the in-between part. She’s trying to get to straight to “you should be Christian.” You know? “I’m doing my job, converting the…heathens.”

Brad: But to bring it to Hinduism, Krishna doesn’t walk around in his true form all the time. Which would be the truth. He plays his part and he uses, you know, verbal conversation and he has–and a human body.

Ambaa: That’s a really good analogy.

Brad: Thank you. And so I think a part of his lesson is that we are all here to be human even if we’re also all here to realize a divinity. And I think there’s something very special about that.

Ambaa: Seems legit.

Brad: [laughter] Yeah, yeah. Krishna. Seems legit. [laughter] Krishna is my charioteer, b-t-dubs [by the way].

Ambaa: [laughter]. Okay, so yeah, yeah, we answered the question. Right?

Brad: Yeah, we totally answered the question of what is–

Ambaa: Yeah, we totally understand what the nature of the world is. Mmm-hmm

Brad: No, I don’t think we actually did. I mean, you had an answer. Which is: what is God? And I had an answer. Which is: the everyday experience that we have. But I guess–

Ambaa: And they’re both true on different planes. Like if you look at the different…the subtle world and the physical world. Your answer is the physical world and mine is the subtle world, I guess.

Brad: Not entirely.

Ambaa: Do I have it backwards?

Brad: No, you don’t. Your subtle world…you’ve gone with the subtle world and I feel like my answer was both the physical and the subtle. Um, because, to quote–

Ambaa: Why do you get to have both? [laughter]

Brad: To quote Nagarjuna “samsara is nirvana. Nirvana is samsara.” And so I think–

[Ambaa gives a look]

Brad: Because I’m Taoist, that’s why I get to have both. Because the physical world *is* the subtle world and the subtle world *is* the physical world.

Ambaa: Why do we separate them, then?!

Brad: Because they’re different.

[pause]

Ambaa: But they’re the same?

Brad: Yes. Yin and Yang.

Ambaa: Yes, you’re a Buddhist all right.

[laughter]

Brad: Actually, that’s more Taoism but Buddhism too. The two lived together for so long that they’re very co-influential. Um, but, you know, every day waking up performing deeds, whether good or ill, and existing is kind-of the point, I think.

Ambaa: What do you think, Garrick [8-month-old]? Are you going to weigh in on this? Should you be the judge? Can you say which one of us is right? Garrick! Hi, sweetie.

Brad: Oh you want the selfie stick now?

[laughter]

Ambaa: Well, I think that might be as much of an answer as we’ll get, anyway.

Brad: Yeah. I think so.

[kiss]

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