Carmody's Journey

2012: 56) have been collated and now form the part of the Bible known as the New Testament. The New Testament doesn’t offer any detached views of Jesus, it only reflects the faith of its authors that Jesus was the Christ (Carmody & Carmody 1996: 193); and what is most mystical about it is His intimacy with the God he called Father (Carmody & Carmody 1996: 195). Over the following generations the Christian movement suffered turmoils; faced reform and grew through the patristic period, the medieval period, the late medieval period and into the modern period. Over these generations Christians have had to explain how they understand the natural world, human nature, human sociability and ultimate reality; in doing so, Christian theologians developed

The Trinity are the three persons of the Christian Godhead; namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Carmody and Carmody (1996: 190) state this concept clearly when they say, “The Father generates the Son. The Son, incarnate in Jesus through Mary, expresses the Father fully. The Spirit is the love between Father and Son, as substantial as they are. While grace can be seen as God’s forgiving love of the sinner; sin can best be described as the wrongdoing of man, the darkening of the mind, man’s weakness. Cleansing oneself of sin varies in form throughout the different sects of Christianity (and has varied through the ages), but many sects believe in confession. Protestants confess directly to God, while Catholics and the Orthodox have similar systems of confessing mortal sins to a Priest and venial (lesser) sin straight to God. In essence, Christianity is based on spiritual conviction, or faith, and this remains dominant over reason. The primary places of worship for Christians are churches, chapels and cathedrals but many Christians pray to and worship God in their own homes. The clergy is made up of priests, bishops, ministers and in some cases monks and nuns.

Their primary places of worship are Buddhist monasteries, temples and shrines. (http://www.diffen.com/difference/Buddhism_vs_Christianity) As mentioned previously the Buddhist parallel to Christian prayer and worship can be viewed as meditation. There are many different topics on which one can meditate and, for example in the Theravadist tradition there are writings that at one stage Buddhaghosa had listed forty topics. The first ten topics are referred to as the “first 10 foci” (Kruger, Steyn, Mason 2012: 40) and consist of things representing the meditator’s physical world, such as earth, water, fire, air, blue, yellow7, red, white, light and enclosed spaces (Carmody & Carmody 1996: 70) the second set, or “Second 10 foci” (Kruger, Steyn, Mason 2012: 40) consist of “repulsive things connected with death”, such as corpses and skeletons (Carmody & Carmody 1996: 70). The third group of foci is composed of recollections. These recollections include the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha (Carmody & Carmody 1996: 71). After the third group you move into the “stations of Brahma” which are friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy and even-mindedness, which are all attitudes that can be brought to your social life. Theravadist meditation masters have also traditionally offered their disciples four topics known as “formless states”: endless space, unlimited