Hyon Gak Sunim

Nice, love the positive Jesus references.

Love it!

Thanks for sharing this, Chris. He seems to be a very good teacher. Feel free to share more of his talks

The former bible scholar in me was cringing a little bit, though, which is a regularly occasioned by less than adequate interpretations of Christian scripture (which is odd, because I no longer consider myself a Christian...).

He quotes Jesus from Luke 17:21 as saying, "For, the Kingdom of God is within." (or "within you.") This is really a bad translation of the Koine Greek, which is better translated as, "For, the Kingdom of God is in your midst," or "... is among you."

Now, the better translation may have actually served Hyon Gak Sunim's purposes even better. To phrase it the way Chris might choose to (based on my own speculation... Chris, you'll have to chime in), Jesus may as well have been saying, "For, the Kingdom of God Is," or, "For, This is the Kingdom of God." In other words, you don't have to wait. This is it. Now there is no reason NOT to act accordingly.

That's how I understand it, anyway, which may be just as flawed. We're all just making guesses to the best of our knowledge and abilities.

Then again, this recent scholarship disagrees with what I just wrote...

Ramelli, I. (2009). Luke 17:21: "The Kingdom of God is Inside You" The Ancient Syriac Versions in Support of the Correct Translation. Journal of Syriac Studies, 12(2), 259-286.

http://syrcom.cua.edu/hugoye/Vol12No2/HV12N2Ramelli.pdf

It's fairly convincing, too.

This is the kingdom of God.
This is the kingdom of God.
The is the kingdom of God.

While I've always liked the "The kingdom of God is within you" quote because it helped with my arguments to make non-Christian Buddhist see how cool the teachings of Christ could be and to show non-Buddhist Christians how similar, maybe, Jesus' teachings might be to Buddhism, yoga, etc., I realize now that it was always ultimately unsatifsfying because it still smacks of an annoying dualism -- there is something special and separate inside of you that isn't you that you can connect with. At this point in my life I know that this isn't true and could never be true.

The translation Jackson brings up solves this problem for me.

But, I see that maybe "within you" IS what he might've said, or was quoted as saying, or maybe Jesus is actually just a myth and why do I care what Non Christian Buddhists and Non Buddhist Christians think about what he may or may not have said anyway?

I like his dukka explanation.

I realize now that it was always ultimately unsatifsfying because it still smacks of an annoying dualism -- there is something special and separate inside of you that isn't you that you can connect with. At this point in my life I know that this isn't true and could never be true.

-michaelmonson

I like "the kingdom is in the midst of you". That has a lovely ring to it, and prevents the misunderstanding you point to above Mike.