The Buddha and the Christ

Remember back when I said my piece about "religion" vs "lifestyle" and how some folks like to mix-and-match religious beliefs to fit their personal views or interests? Time to get a bit more specific. How often I've heard that Buddhism and Christianity are compatible (interestingly, I've only ever heard white Americans make this claim). In short, no they are not. You cannot delve wholeheartedly into both. You will only end up depreciating the value of one, or more likely both.

I admit that, despite taking a great interest in Christian theology, I am nothing more than an (extreme) amateur. So how much less I must know about eastern religion; and yet I'm convinced that only a basic knowledge of the core tenets of Christianity and Buddhism are needed to prove their incompatibility.

The symbol of the new amalgam religion, Buddhianity. Heh. Booty.

Let's start with Buddhism. Central to Buddhist thought are the Four Noble Truths, the first teachings of the Buddha upon achieving enlightenment. We all learned a little about these in high school.

1. There is suffering. This suffering, called dukkha, includes physical suffering, inner suffering, and the general unsatisfactory nature of the world. Suffering is the cause of the life-death-rebirth cycle (samsara) which is driven by the action-result engine we call karma.

2. The origin of suffering is craving. Craving something (a pleasure, an experience, etc.) results in the suffering that pervades the world.

3. Suffering can be eliminated. This is the central goal of Buddhism. To eliminate suffering is to achieve enlightenment (nirvana or nibbana). The achieve enlightenment is, in turn, to be freed from the karmic cycle of samsara.

4. The Noble Eightfold Path is the means by which one escapes suffering. The Eightfold Path consists of: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Achieve these, and you can achieve nibbana.

Now I'm going to take each of these central Buddhist tenets and compare/contrast them with Christian theology.

1. That suffering exists cannot be denied. Like most systematized religions, Christianty attempts to explain and deal with the problem of human suffering. That it results in a cycle of literal rebirth, however, is the first major instance of irreconcilable difference. Rebirth in mainstream Christianity refers to rebirth into the life of Christ; it is not the literal rebirth that reincarnation envisions. There is the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (inherited from Judaism) at the end of times, yet this again does not envision Buddhist rebirth (inherited from Vedic Indian religion). We live one literal life, die one literal death.

2. In Christianity, human suffering is caused by sin. Western Christian thought specifies our tendency toward sin as the result of original sin inherited from Adam. In Buddhism, suffering is caused by all desire. Do we sin because of our human desires? Absolutely. Do all of our desires result in or from sin? Absolutely not, because, despite our selfish desires, we also have a built-in desire for an all-good God. Unperturbed, this desire for God does not result in sin. Desire does not result necessarily in sin, therefore desire does not result necessarily in suffering. Basic teachings are again conflict.

3. Buddhism seeks to eliminate suffering in our lives. Christianity at its core teaches us to emulate a man who willingly subjected himself to extreme physical and emotional suffering. At the end of his or her life, is a saintly Christian eventually freed from suffering in the Kingdom of God? Yes; but in life, suffering in imitation of Christ is considered one of the greatest virtues. Christianity glorifies suffering. Buddhism attempts to reject and escape it. Can two views be any more different than this?

4. In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is the means by which a human being frees himself or herself from suffering. In Christianity, the Grace of God is the means by which a human being is freed by Christ from sin. The Christian believes that there is no freedom without the merit of another. So, yet again, I cannot see how these two ways of life can be fully reconciled.

If you couldn't tell, I am not a fan of needless religious syncretism. So, Christians, to use a far-eastern lifestyle for your own purposes is highly disrespectful to followers of that lifestyle. Additionally, to use another's religion to fill in what you perceive as gaps in your own religion is highly disrespectful to other Christians. Finally, using religion purely to seem trendy disrespects everyone, including yourself. Taking interest in other philosophies is one thing; attempting to pick at them for convenience's sake is another issue entirely. By all means choose your religious life, but please do not diminish it.

Little Signs

I have of late been praying for God to speak to me in a way which is direct enough to make more obvious the path He desires for me. I am not asking for supernatural "proof" of His existence like our friend St Thomas, but sometimes I can't help but feel like I'm being a little selfish. Not every "sign" is a fantastic revelation or vision from on high; God is always speaking to us in subtle ways, and we can hear His words if we are willing to.

When I first had started to regularly pray the rosary, I received a little sign. There had been a small storm, and the power in my house had gone out. About halfway through my rosary, I thought, Maybe I should pray for the lights to turn back on; but spontaneously I thought something else along the lines of, Nah, Mary and Jesus have bigger fish to fry than my minor inconvenience. I had not even begun to reach for the next bead when immediately the power came back on, and all the lights with it.

So what good did this "little sign" accomplish in me? Well, indeed, anything that even minutely increases a person's faith is a good thing. Additionally, since then I have started to slowly but surely cultivate a relationship with the Blessed Mother; I attribute this sign to her intercession since I was praying her rosary. Finally, it taught me that no prayer, however insignificant, is passed over and ignored by God, and that answering our little prayers is not a burden on the Almighty One.

Back in September, I started praying off-and-on for God to help me to see His Image in the faces of His people. At that time I could identify three people within memory in whom I had seen the Divine Visage. A couple months later, I witnessed the most intense Heavenly Joy that I had ever seen radiating from a man. I still have a ways to go, but seeing that man was yet another "little sign" for me; a sign that my prayers were being answered and that I was on a better path.

It's easy to reason away God's "little signs" as coincidences; but, if I may slightly twist the words of Commissioner James Gordon, "You're a Christian now, you're not allowed to believe in coincidences." If something increases your faith in Christ, it cannot be a meaningless coincidence. Our ability to have faith in Christ comes from the grace of Christ. If you're willing to see the world from that standpoint, then each of these happy accidents is indeed a "little sign."

Love, Part One

The following is adapted from some thoughts I've been writing in a book I call my "spiritual journal." Some folks, even amongst those who follow and believe in God as strongly as anyone, do not or cannot feel God's love in their lives (Mother Teresa was a prime example of this at certain times in her life). Now, an emotion like love is not something that should only be reasoned out logically. It must be experienced to be felt fully. Therefore, I recognize the imperfect and potentially futile nature of this post that attempts to "prove" that God loves us. That being said, I hope that perhaps my thought process will be at least a little helpful as it was to me.

Note: At no point do I attempt to argue for the existence of a deity, please do not take this as such. For better or worse, I'm starting with the base assumption that the universe was created by someone/something.

Love, Part One
The Necessity of God's Love

If there is a God, and I have come to believe with relative certainty that there is, then it seems to me that He must love us. I see no way around this. How could we exist if He did not love us?

Many who express belief in a Creator God, self-identified deists and others, assert that He made the universe yet does not interfere in its subsequent motions. He cares nothing of us in the sense that 'love' implies. I see two possible implications here.

1. We were created as some cosmic experiment for the Divine,

or...

2.We were created without purpose, for no reason, without meaning.

If God is the boundless, all-knowing Being that the name implies, then I must take issue with Implication #1. We cannot add to the knowledge, entertainment, or purpose of the already-infinite One Who made us from nothing. If, on the other hand, God is not the omnipotent being described, then He is not truly God. Thus, I outright reject Implication #1.

Regarding Implication #2, the notion that the universe is without any meaning or purpose whatsoever is not entirely unreasonable - if you are an atheist. Starting from the theist's point of view, however, I simply do not see how our universe can be a haphazard vacuum concocted by an aimless divinity. Would an all-perfect being create anything without an all-perfect purpose? His mind is not the mind of a mistake-making man. How can He be the cause of imperfection? Why would He be the cause of imperfection? If a being of immaculate understanding created us and our world, He must not have done so without reason.

So where do we stand? We were made for some purpose, yet that purpose cannot be the entertainment or edification of an already-perfect God. I see only one conclusion here... The universe was created for the universe's own sake. Indeed if there are only two things - Creator and creation - then the purpose of creation must be either for the former or for the latter itself. Ruling out the former as we previously have, this leaves but the one option. God desired that we be created not for His benefit, but for our own benefit.

We humans often quantify or describe our love for others in terms of positive or desirable qualities. Now, it isn't wrong to do this necessarily. "I love my wife because she is smart and beautiful and funny." "I love my friend because he understands me and he's always there for me." These are good statements because they compliment the loved one, but they most certainly do not encompass the fuller idea of 'love.' Intelligence, beauty, jocularity, empathy, and other 'lovable' qualities are great, but we tend to like these qualities because they are in some way beneficial to us. Would a man ever claim to love his wife simply because she is beneficial to him? Ideally, no. Love is that emotion of fondness for someone purely because they exist. Love at its fullest does not desire self-benefit, it desires the other and the benefit of the other.

Thus, I believe, God's desire to create for creation's sake insists that He loves that creation. What else could he feel for something He made yet cannot benefit him in the slightest? He did not make the universe because He was lonely, He made it out of love.

The Heart Nebula

And this is, uh, Maxine of Arc...

This is just a clarification post which felt needed regarding something I said last post. It'll be super-short, I promise. Since I didn't post anything for seventeen days this month, this is my way of meeting some arbitrary quota, I guess.

Last post, I stated that Catholicism is appealing on an intellectual level. I did not mean that Catholics are all smart people, or that people with strong faith are always the well-educated. Each of us is called to Christ. While the intricacies of Christian theology and apologetics may attract the Chesterton-type, Catholicism is at its best a religion of the meek. Faith isn't about deciphering doctrine like a formula, it's about accepting them as a necessary truth from God. Some weaker men, like myself, need to be convinced through axiomatic reasoning that one religion is right. Others know it to be right, down to their very bones. The strongest faith is the one that is felt, not the one that is intellectually unraveled.

Take the great French saint, Jeanne d'Arc, a favorite of mine (in no small part, I have to admit, due to one of my favorite movies). St Joan was an illiterate peasant girl in the fifteenth century. If there had even been any internet or books for her to study her Catholic faith, she still wouldn't have been able to read. Anything she learned about God and the Christian faith, she would have learned from her family and priest. Could she have articulated her faith rationally like Chesterton, or recited doctrine and Canon Law like the Pope? Probably not, I'd guess. And yet, she believed. She believed so strongly that she followed God's will for her into uncertainty, into war, and eventually into martyrdom. For her compliant and humble faith in the Lord, she has been given her eternal reward.

Do you wanna pray?

Okay, point made. 'Til next post!