Do Buddhist believe in God?

Depiction of Jesus and Buddha by Xilrion

As the definition of the word “god” varies throughout the various religious traditions of the world, there is no straightforward answer to this question. Whereas the notion of a personal creator god is clearly incompatible with Buddhist teachings, some of the more abstract concepts of “god” may be reconciled with them to a certain degree.

Ryokan Says

In my experience talking about religion with others often can lead into a heated argument, this is because everybody has a different way to build and attach to their opinions. I tried, after a lot of talking, to avoid those senseless discussions, and in the process detach myself from my own opinions, because they only represent just a little brush-stroke of the whole painting. Realizing that is the first step to truth, similar to the position of Socrates when he said is famous phrase “I only know that I know nothing”.

In this sense we get away from opinions and get closer to the pragmatic aspect of things; Buddha himself took this into account when he told the analogy of the poisoned arrow in the Culamalunkya Sutta:

“It’s just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… until I know his home village, town, or city… until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated… until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.’ The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.

“In the same way, if anyone were to say, ‘I won’t live the holy life under the Blessed One as long as he does not declare to me that ‘The cosmos is eternal,’… or that ‘After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,’ the man would die and those things would still remain undeclared by the Tathagata.”

This help us to understand the reason behind why the Buddha preferred silence before giving an answer for certain questions, this subjects didn’t lead to the spiritual development and at the same time were distracting. The question about the existence of the Abrahamic God never was directly addressed by the Buddha, in part because he never knew a Jew, but even if we think about it is probable that he wouldn’t had given an answer about this.

Has Ajahn Jayasaro said, there’s some concepts in Buddhism in direct contradiction with concepts in Abrahamic religions like those of impermanence and not-self. However the official Buddhist position is more practical than conceptual, you can believe whatever you want if you do it in a correct wholesome way. The eightfold path is the way that take you to liberation and it can be expressed in practical terms, believing in a God is just a one-point aspect that doesn’t represent much, this is the reason why there are believers with immoral-unwholesome views or actions and at the same time we have believers wich they are virtuous and wholesome, is not the believe that condition them, is how they do it and how they translate that into thought, speak and actions.

~Ryokan