The Unmistaken Child, a Buddhist movie

Intro:

Yesterday, I blogged my opinion that the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist heretic. Today, I post a bit of back up for that opinion in the form of a movie review. I had seen the Unmistaken Child about two years ago, and these are my impressions based on that viewing:

Opening Statement:

I had problems with the film Unmistaken Child, especially since I happen to view Tibetan Buddhism as a serious hindrance to the worldwide attainment of enlightenment. For what the Dalai Lama preaches is not Buddhism but, indeed, is (only) Political Tibetanism.

The movie's basic premise:

A monk searches for his recently-deceased master, and finds him in the form of an 18-month-old child. There was a Q&A after the screening I'd attended which was hosted by a gentleman who mentioned something quite interesting. I didn't catch his name, but he was from a local Tibetan cultural society and was not an official spokesman for the film. [In fact, he made a pitch for donations for his local society.]

He said there are dozens of such young people in each of the Tibetan monasteries, who had been (basically) taken from their families after being declared reincarnated masters. My gut reaction upon hearing that: "Well, that's one way to ward off depletion of the ranks of monks."

Ty Burr, movie critic, had this to say in his July 17, 2009 review:

QUOTE:

We [the film's viewers] simply are present from 2001, when the 84-year-old Geshe Lama Konchog died, to 2005, when the toddler recognized as his reincarnation was presented to the Buddhist community of Nepal and beyond....The film's central character, actually, is Tenzin Zopa, the tenderhearted young acolyte whose life, since the age of 7, has been devoted to serving Geshe Lama. Upon his master's death, the grieving Zopa is instructed by the Dalai Lama himself to seek out the reincarnated boy, a task he feels unsuited for.

:UNQUOTE.

Some of the problems I had with this movie:

·         "Existence after existence these living beings are reborn in company with that Bodhisattva, hear the Law from him, and all have faith in and understand it" - Lotus Sutra, Chapter 7. I understand the concept of living beings being reborn in company with their teachers. I'm not clear at all on the (apparently Tibetan) concept of teachers being reborn in the company of their disciples, especially so soon after they pass away. And even murkier to me is the idea that monks have to go scouring through the countryside to find their former masters in the form of newborn babes. My view? If he's truly any kind of master, he'll find his disciples (not the other way around)!

·         The film shows 27-year-old Tenzin Zopa telling us how "lost" he felt after the death of his master, to whom he was faithful servant for 20 years. Zopa tells us, while lamenting his personal disorientation, "I didn't know what to do." If Zopa's master was truly worthy of the title "master," then he would have better prepared his young servant for the eventuality of his passing.

·         I was amazed by the palatial residence of the Dalai Lama, and the huge throng of monks who live with him in Dharamsala. I couldn't help thinking: "Wow, where's all the money coming from to support this group?" I personally tend to be wary of worldly and wealthy monks, especially those who are international celebrities. And especially those who had accepted money from the CIA.

·         Moviegoers were treated to the sight of a child crying (the Unmistaken Child, that is) as his hair is being shaved off with a razor. I might not be an enlightened Tibetan lama and never even went to barber school but I know this much: It causes a lot less pain to first give the initiate a haircut with an ordinary pair of scissors and then shave off what's left over. That's loving kindness! When the child wouldn't stop fussing and crying out "Please don't cut off my hair," at the half-way point of his tonsorial he was conveniently taken off camera to a private room to finish the job.

·         The child's parents were asked to permanently give up their child to the monastery. The mother had trouble with this, but I was wondering if she really had the option of saying no. [You know, cultural pressure and all that; people, that's what theocracy looks like.] Also, the movie didn't make clear (didn't even bother to ask) whether the parents would have any visitations rights. My heart went out to the mother, who was "asked" by a benevolent kidnapper to give up the fruit of her womb.

·         Unmistaken Child is really a terrible movie. I might not be a famous film critic like Ty Burr (quoted above), but I am absolutely amazed that any professional critic can fawn over such flawed minimalism when, indeed, a more in-depth treatment of this search-for-reincarnated-masters theme is called for. For instance, Ty might have started by looking at this movie's protagonist's website. That's right, the simple, unassuming disciple in search of his master is, upon closer inspection, quite a sophisticated fellow - which I suspected right away upon hearing how well he spoke English in the movie (an ability unnoticed by Ty). Anyway, for the curious, here's Tenzin Zopa's website: http://geshezopa.blogspot.com/

The larger issue of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism

Make no mistake about this: The Dalai Lama is a Pope. I have trouble with Popes. Don't much like them. They take too much and give so little in return. I've seen footage of Dalai Lama's supporters calling him a "god" or a Buddha. But I would ask them a few questions:

·         "Why does your God need to refer to an oracle [Nechung - the State Oracle of Tibet]?"

·         "Why was your God not able to protect Tibet from the Chinese?"

·         "Why is the Dalai Lama afraid of the deity Dorje Shugden, going so far as to forcibly suppress his worship among Tibetan Buddhists? I understand that one who is a Buddha is totally without fear. So if the Dalai Lama is a Buddha, why is he afraid of Dorje Shugden? [Apparently, the Lama fears for his life and his followers believe this.]

·         "The Dalai Lama admitted he himself once worshipped Dorje Shugden (whom he now refers to as ‘evil'), but now says that was a mistake. Let me see if I'm understanding this: Our Dalai Lama (the God King or, as some claim, a Living Buddha) actually admits to having made a mistake of this magnitude?"

·         "How did it come to pass that the United States, back in the 1950's, allowed China to march into Tibet unopposed? Tibet must have had some terrible karma for it to have fallen so easily - at a time when the US possessed nuclear weapons and China did not."

·         "How much money does the Dalai Lama call ‘mine' - what is the extent of his personal wealth? No one seems to talk about that at all."

·         "Why does your Buddha lament the loss of Tibet's sovereignty, the loss of his country? Shakyamuni Buddha voluntarily gave up his kingdom, and lived to see it conquered by a foreign army. Perhaps the Dalai Lama should more deeply contemplate the notion of impermanence."

During my campaign against Barack Obama for the US presidency, I had blogged frequently on my beliefs of the evils of national sovereignty. And I pledged to work for the elimination of nationalism and the concept of national borders. However, the Dalai Lama seeks to restore his old fiefdom. Maybe he should redirect his efforts toward making all land on earth an enlightened Buddha land. Nations come and go - that is the way of impermanence. Only the Buddhist path to enlightenment is worthy of any kind of serious attention as a global goal.

End note

This link is a fascinating view of what might be motivating the strange behavior of the Dalai Lama in his efforts to suppress Dorje Shugden's followers. Written by a westerner who had served on numerous occasions as the Dalai Lama's translator:

http://www.dorjeshugden.com/articles/HelmutGassner01.pdf

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

"The Dalai Lama is the head of the Yellow Hat Sect, while I myself (tongue in cheek) wear a paisley hat which is invisible - so what's the point, one might ask? As for the Dalai himself, as long as Shakyamuni Buddha is alive, we don't need a Dalai to play with. As for all these Tibetan masters flying around, well, the world really is full of magicians though one should carefully ponder the source of their magic" - Steve.

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

A Buddhist reflects on the Bible: Part I

I call this post, “A Buddhist reflects on the Bible: Part I” – the Buddhist being the wholly Trinity of Me, Myself, and I. “Part I” is merely a label of convenience – meaning that I do not intend to give (here and now) my detailed impressions of the entire Bible. At some future date, I might post a Part 2, 3, 4 etc, but at this point, I only have a yawning enthusiasm to do so.

To be fair, I’ve read precious little of the Bible’s texts. Oh, I’ve tried over the decades to fathom its mysteries but I just couldn’t penetrate the archaic, flowery, and (in my opinion) vague and stilted prose.

However, I feel I’ve been blessed with an open mind (which used to be called liberal, but not in polite society any more). So I want to give you an idea of what goes through my mind as I try to process certain “givens.” Toward that end, I’m going to touch on the Old Testament stories of Job, and of Abraham in the episode commonly called the Binding of Isaac.

QUOTES* followed by COMMENTS

In my usual style, I will QUOTE source material and follow with my COMMENTS. I purposely omit entire sections of narrative on which I don’t intend to comment.

  * All QUOTES are from http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.og/

From the Book of Job

QUOTE:

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name [was] Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

COMMENT:

The word “perfect” hit me like a brick. Did the text mean “perfect” as in “[only] as perfect as a mere man can be?” “Perfect” covers a lot of territory – so much that the entire rest of the sentence could have been omitted after that word.

QUOTE:

His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.

COMMENT:

“Five hundred she asses,” you say? What? No he asses?

“The greatest of all the men of the east,” you say? There were no kings who were greater? Not to mention, how should one define “greatest” in this context? Does the mere possession of wealth make one great?

Can you imagine the sheer number of acres which had to be at Job’s disposal to feed all this herd? And the number of herders under his employ? Job was very rich, to say the least. But whenever I hear of a man’s wealth, a couple of things are at work in the back of my mind. How did he obtain this wealth; or was it all just bestowed upon him as blessings from the Lord? How did he defend himself from pilferage or blatant thievery?

I never begrudge a man his fortune but it does give me pause. Especially since, as the old saying goes, “Victors write history books.” So if the Bible should be at least partly regarded as a history book, shouldn’t we be suspicious as to how much of that historical reporting is (shall we say) self-serving or self-vindicating?

QUOTE:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

COMMENT:

Why is Satan permitted to attend a gathering of the LORD and the sons of God? Unless he too should be considered a son of God?

QUOTE:

And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

COMMENT:

What a strange greeting is, “Whence comest thou?” More to my sensibility would be, “What brings you here?”

And what a strange answer. A good friend tells me that “in the earth” refers to exactly that – literally, “inside the earth,” which contains an underground world much embraced by devotees of the Hollow Earth narrative. As for “walking up and down in it,” could the “walking up” part refer to how he got from within the earth to its surface?

QUOTE:

[NOTE: This section follows the immediately preceding QUOTE(D) section.]

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that [there is] none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

COMMENT:

Of course, the rest of the story is well known – how Satan is permitted by the LORD to put Job through a variety of trials. Satan claimed Job would curse the LORD if he were to lose his divinely provided bounties and if his health or life were to be threatened.

However, suppose instead Satan did not challenge the LORD. Suppose instead he said something like this, “You say, ‘[there is] none like him,’ and that he is ‘a perfect…man.” If there are none like him and he is perfect, you’re saying he is the only man among the entire multitude alive at this moment who is perfect. He may well be perfect – I won’t challenge that. What I will challenge – How is it that he is the only perfect man? How poorly you have nurtured the human race that this must be so.”

Of course, if Satan had offered these alternate words, must we assume that God would never have tested Job? Remember: It was Satan who, only after being permitted to do so by the LORD after challenging the LORD, had savaged Job so terribly. So if God had it in His mind that Job was to be tested, and if Satan hadn’t been a willing tool in this test, would God have tested Job in another way? Maybe deciding to test Job directly Himself, without Satan’s assistance?

QUOTE:

So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

COMMENT:

Eww…Much of the rest of what follows contains speeches made by Job after seven days of silently suffering from these boils. He is in utter agony and yet – he manages to speak so eloquently. Why is that? How is that possible? [Again, I had trouble penetrating his meaning but I could sense how others could obtain at least the general drift of Job’s words.]

QUOTE:

Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die.

COMMENT:

Sounds like his wife is saying, “Since you’re in such awful physical pain, why not cut short your life by cursing God. For then He shall surely smite thee, removing you from this life and from any life hereafter. If your pain is so great, how could you be expected to endure it without [apparent] end?” [NOTE: It could not have been known to Job for how much longer he would suffer, nor by what means.]

QUOTE:

[This immediately follows “Curse God, and die” from the above QUOTE.]

But he said unto her…shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

COMMENT:

I will answer his question (“…and shall we not receive evil?”) with an emphatic, “No, we shall not – at least, we should not receive evil and still call God great.” The whole thrust of this story seems to be, “If we can only man up and suffer silently at the hands of our superiors, bounty shall surely be ours.” That ethic has been suggested to all of the lowly throughout all of the ages by all of our superiors. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it; and it surely doesn’t mean we have to call them “great” as they torture us.

QUOTE:

[After Job’s trials are over and he is no longer suffering.]

Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before…every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.

COMMENT:

Why did all of those people give Job money? He surely didn’t need it, for as the next QUOTE tells us:

QUOTE:

So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.

COMMENT:

What, still no he asses? What’s with that?

After most of Job’s herders had been killed by Satan’s hand, where did Job find replacements to manage this even larger-than-before flock? Did he enslave them, which was not an uncommon practice of the time? How did he obtain extra land for their forage and roaming?

QUOTE:

He had also seven sons and three daughters.

COMMENT:

Ah, these would have been to replace those seven sons and three daughters which the LORD God had allowed Satan to kill earlier in this narrative. I don’t know how Job felt about losing his first ten children; I don’t even know if he mourned their loss. But here and now, I (in the twenty-first century) will say a prayer for them. For the narrative continues by saying, “And thus lived Job an hundred and forty years…So Job died, [being] old and full of days.” Sad this couldn’t have been said of his dead children.

The Binding of Isaac

Much of what I’ve heard about Abraham has forced this conclusion: Were I to see Abraham approaching me as I should walk down the sidewalk, I would cross the street to avoid him.

Since the story of the Binding of Isaac is so well-known, I will not summarize it here but I will furnish a link should you care to review its words, which are rather few in number:

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/book.php?book=Genesis&chapter=22&verse

More QUOTES and COMMENTS follow:

QUOTE:

And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here [am] I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where [is] the lamb for a burnt offering?

COMMENT:

In answer to that question, Abraham lies by saying:

“…My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”

Since Issac was supposed to have been a rather profound individual in his own right, Abraham should have said, “You are to be that lamb. I will bind and cover thee with sticks which I shall set aflame, after I slit your throat so you feel no pain. For God has told me to make of you a burnt offering.”

To me, this is what makes an offering profound – that it is voluntarily given, not demanded as tribute is demanded by all-too-common tyrants.

QUOTE:

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

COMMENT:

There’s no hint in this telling that Isaac resisted in any way or said anything. This is part of the problem I have with Abraham – it’s always all about Abraham. You’d think this story would allow for some words or actions to be offered by the man who is about to die.

QUOTE:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind [him] a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

COMMENT:

This was done after an angel of the LORD told Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac, and indeed had praised Abraham by saying, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearst God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only [son] from me.”

So there we have it:

1)   God tells Abraham to kill his son and burn him up as an offering;

2)   An angel of God, at the last moment, tells Abraham not to kill his son.

3)   However, no mention is made of that angel (or God Himself) asking for a substitute burnt offering (that ram).

4)   That substitute was Abraham’s inspiration of the moment upon seeing some poor, defenseless animal trapped.

5)   The angel of God did not stop Abraham from killing the ram.

If I were any kind of a fiction writer, I might have added these considerations toward the end of this story:

Killing that ram was the real test which God had in mind for Abraham.

The binding of Isaac wasn’t much of a test since God told him to kill his son but withdrew that order. In other words, Abraham didn’t have to do any thinking, he simply followed the words of the Lord. However, killing that ram was a thought that came directly from Abraham, unsolicited by God. That ram, as a symbol, would have been Jesus Christ in disguise, of whom the world (or at least Abraham) was not yet ready.

The irony is that this ram was “attached” to a wooden framework (his horns caught in a bush) in a manner similar to how Jesus Christ was to be later crucified. So, in his own way, Abraham pre-crucified Christ so to speak. If that was the case – God was truly forgiving indeed.

QUOTE:

…I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which [is] on the sea shore…

COMMENT:

Hmm…as many as all that, eh? That’s way more than the known population of the earth.

QUOTE:

And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

COMMENT:

In my humble opinion, the descendants of Abraham (specifically, those of Isaac) haven’t done much to bless “all the nations of the earth.” When’s that supposed to happen?

As for “because thou hast obeyed my voice,” I would have much preferred “because thou hasn’t obeyed my righteous laws.” Harkens to an age old situation: Just because one hears the voice of one claiming to be God, doesn’t make it so. Even today, there are too many claiming they did some really awful things because “God told me to.” Well…something told them to but…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In closing

Please, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just as questioning of Buddhist scripture as well, much to the discomfort of my fellow Buddhists. Which might explain why we no longer keep each other’s company.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“Why is it that children can offer interesting questions, but they seem to lose that ability when they get older? Where’s Peter Pan when you need him?”

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

What’s in a name, BuddhAllah-Christine?

How’s this for a girl’s name: BuddhAllah-Christine? That first part is pronounced “Boo-doll-uh.”

Note: The uh sound in this name is used to indicate, according to Dictionary.com: “hesitation, doubt, or a pause.” All three of these are encountered before crossing the bridge (the hyphen in the name), which leads to Christine (which literally means “follower of Christ”).

BuddhAllah-Christine popped into my mind when I saw this sign in my local bookstore:

“Megan ________ will soon give birth to a baby girl. What names do you suggest?”

So I picked up the magic marker, and thought for a moment while quickly glancing at the names listed by other customers: Alice, Julie, Amber, Melissa…etc. I thought: “My God, can’t anyone be a bit more original than that?”

That’s when BuddhAllah-Christine occurred to me, and that’s what I wrote on the sign as my suggestion.

All of this happened very quickly, much in the manner of lightning-induced inspiration. And that was a few days ago, but I kept thinking over and over since then: “Why exactly did that particular name come to mind?”

While trying to answer that question, I came up with:

·   BuddhAllah-Christine is one of those names like “Henrietta.” It’s too long to use in casual conversation and sounds too unusual – which invites nicknames (which of course is okay).

·   So what would her parents or friends call her for short? Boo? I like “Boo” since this name implies some scary things (more on that in a bit, though what I mean is “scarier to some than to others”). On the more positive side, “Boo” is also used as a “term of affection or endearment for any close friend or family member”[http://onlineslangdictionary.com/definition+of/boo ]

·   “BC” as a nickname should be agreeable to those of the Judaic persuasion. Buddha lived “BC” (Before Christ). Most Jews I’ve known would have no problem with Buddha, since they feel a resonance with the Buddhists they have come to know and love. Or at least they wouldn’t feel threatened when hearing “BC” called out. What Jews do have problems with are certain personalities and movements which came after BC.

·   It’s a stretch, but even this nickname might work: “B-Christine.” Since Christine means “follower of Christ,” when called out, we would hear “be Christine” (that is, “be a follower of Christ”). I have no problem with that, since I consider Christ (and Allah, for that matter) to be followers of Buddha. So it’s easy for me to think of the truest Christine (the truest “follower of Christ”) to be a follower of a Follower (that is, to be a follower of Christ who, in turn, is a Follower of Buddha).

Contemplations on the meaning of BuddhAllah

If you say it: To the ear, it sounds like “Boo-doll-ah.” Joining that, hyphenetically, to Christine, the name could be one way of considering Megan’s daughter as a “Boo Doll… ah*, (who is a) follower of Christ.” [* ah is, among other things, “an exclamation of joy,” according to Dictionary.com]

Of course, much depends on the meaning of “Boo Doll.” In developing this meaning, I favor these particular definitions of doll from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doll : “an attractive person; a helpful or obliging person.” Therefore, a Boo Doll is a “helpful, attractive person [that is, a person who attracts others to the truth] by means of the twin meanings of boo: to be endearing and (when the occasion calls for it) to startle or frighten someone into realizing a truth which can be scary at first.”

If you look at it: Look at this name carefully: BuddhAllah. Now, let’s split the letters and associate some meanings:

Splitting:

Bud: the first 3 letters of this name

d: The 4^th letter of this name, to which I assign a special significance when considered as part of a sequence including the 5^th and 6^th letters.

h: the h is silent, which (as you’ll see) is important.

a: the lower case a, which doesn’t appear in this name, but which is part of the title Buddha and which I designate as the 6^th (though invisible) letter mentioned above.

A: this is the 7^th letter of this name - the upper-case A, which is the first letter in the name Allah, which is formed by the 7^th thru 11^th letters of this name.

Associating meanings:

Bud refers to the flowering of the seed of Buddhahood, which is in all of us.

d, h, and the invisible lower-case a, which comprise the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th letters, have a special meaning when their contextual implications are considered:

The 4^th letter represents redundancy or repetition, since the 4^th letter is the same as (or a repetition of) the 3^rd letter. In the Buddhist teachings, there are many instances of repetitious teachings which are meant to reinforce key doctrines, and redundancies which (upon more careful reflection) aren’t really redundant at all but serve as gateways to more subtle truths.

The 5^th letter – h – is silent, which represents the void as well as silent meditation.

The 6^th letter – the invisible letter a. It’s there but you can’t see it – kind of like the protuberance on the top of the Buddha’s head which is a symbol of his wisdom but which is invisible to the common mortal.

Some concerns and resolutions:

The 7^th thru the 11^th letters (A-l-l-a-h) allow for two interpretations, Allah (worshipped by the Muslims) being the first I’ll consider:

I was at first a bit concerned about incorporating the personal name of God as part of a broader concept. In the Islamic world, you will encounter many men named Mohammed, just as you will encounter many Christians named Jesus. But you will never encounter anyone named Allah (I can guarantee that).

And I can doubly assure you that you will never find any female named Allah.

I am taking advantage of the fact that, in English, the letters A-l-l-a-h can be grouped as “All ah,” which I claim to be my intended meaning. The fact that it also happens to spell Allah I consider to be beneficial (and is not meant to be blasphemous), though not as important as the philosophy behind All ah.

About this second possible interpretation:

The 7^th thru the 11^th letters (A-l-l-a-h) allow for a second interpretation, when arranged as: All ah.

Some people think of all as being equivalent to “the universe” – that is, “all” equals “everything.” What I’m doing here is capitalizing the A in All, in order to refer to a god concept. If BuddhAllah-Christine were my daughter, I would use her name to teach her a great deal. For instance:

A Lesson for my Daughter

In the name of humoring the Abrahamic worldview, before the (alleged) Creation, the only Thing that existed was God. Not only was God All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Encompassing, God was All there was! That’s why I designate the pre-Creation God as All.

However, after the Creation, God no longer was All. There was something other than God, and (frankly) I think that frightened Him. Mankind sensed this fear/insecurity, so man worshipped God as a way of reassuring Him that even though God was no longer All there was, He had nothing to fear from the beings He’d created. God especially appreciated efforts made by a wide-variety of humans (in a wide variety of ways) to get “close” to God. That closeness was important so that God would not anxiously dwell on the fact that He was no longer All there is.

The ah of All ah is a bold assertion on our part, as in “ah, what a relief is this thing called Enlightenment, which comes after contemplating the All of which we are a part. And which comes after we realize we never had anything to fear from any kind of All which was misidentified as a Creational God.”

The meaning of BuddhAllah-Christine

The literal meaning: “The bud that flowers, by means of repetition and redundancy and the silent contemplation of things not visible [as represented by that invisible lower-case letter a] which lead to an understanding of All, who sighs ah in appreciation, after being connected by a bridge [the hyphen in the name is a bridge] to a follower of Christ.”

Christ, in this context, I choose to mean “the anointed” in a broad sense rather than meaning Jesus Christ in particular. The anointed One or Ones are the spiritual teachers or forces this daughter encounters in her lifetime, after being introduced by “followers” (lesser teachers).

This name’s audio dynamic flow goes like this:

Start with Bud. Even with an emphasizing capital B, Bud sounds flat and dull (like dud).

Then it fades progressively from redundant (lulling?) sound to silence and then to invisibility, utilizing the meanings assigned (above) to the next three letters (d, h, and the invisible lower-case a).

Then it grandly and emphatically proceeds from nothingness to everything as pronounced by the next three letters: A-l-l, which spells the word All.

And ends in a sigh: ah.

Then it crosses a bridge (the hyphen), which leads to a means to an end, though itself is non-judgmental.

That “means to an end” is Christine, the sound of which produces a smile:)

Another lesson for this daughter

It bothered me somewhat to offer this name to a girl. I mean, Buddha and Allah are names of male figures and the sound “doll” in that name could be seen as derogatory to females (as in male society’s view of females as objects or playthings).

However, this name can be used by a skillful parent to help move this girl past certain stereotypes. While young, she might appreciate being called a “doll” or nicknamed boo. As she gets older, though, she could be weaned away from doll (in particular) by being told, “Yes, the sound of doll is in your name, but that’s the least important consideration and shouldn’t be a major focus. I mean, when you think of fireman, do you think of a man made out of fire?”

As for boo: “Yes, it’s a term of affection, but there’s a scary meaning – actually, several scary meanings. Someone can say boo like Casper the Friendly Ghost and make people laugh. Or they can boo and be terrifying. Sometimes in your life, you’ll have to be firm with people – even those you love – and they might find that scary. But if you are firm and they know what a caring, kind, compassionate person you are, your firmness will not be as scary to them. Or at least, not for long.”

As for Buddha and Allah being “male” figures:

Buddha was not always male (in prior incarnations) and even in his earthly life, he “stopped” being male in the usual sense after he left his wife (who also “stopped” being female in the usual sense after she became a Homeless Sister). And Allah is very far from being considered a man in the usual sense.

The common theme here is, usual sense. I like expanding that to indicate that none of us has to be (merely) human in the usual sense.

As for Allah

I think Islam is going to be around for a very long time. Indeed, I believe Islam will undergo a Reformation (with a capital R). Now that’s a bit ironic since the Prophet Mohammed is held by Muslims to be the last prophet in an historic succession of prophets. So it will be interesting to see how a unifying, global Islamic Reformation comes into being – especially if espoused by one particular individual. Especially if that individual happens to be female.

I duly noted this bit of info from http://www.allah.org/ : “Allah is the personal name of the One true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural or gender.” However, this very same webpage refers to Allah as “God Himself.” Last time I checked, the word “himself” was male. And yet, as claimed above, “The term has no … gender.”

As for “nothing else can be called Allah,” that may well be so, but I don’t see why those five letters can’t appear in the context of a name chock full of meanings. I suppose, though, that someone somewhere will offer to explain why they can’t.

As for Allah as “the Being Who comprises all the attributes of perfection” that is, the Being Who is perfect in every way,” according to http://www.muslim.org/islam/allah.htm :

What a wonderful ideal to try to emulate!

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“So what’s in a name, BuddhAllah-Christine? After all is said and done, the only things in a name are the things we decide to put there” - Steve

Contact me: bpa_cinc@yahoo.com