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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Make me Buddhist ... ... but not yet By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 796 words Publication date: July 2, 2006 I have always been attracted to Buddhism. When I was drifting in and out of my there-must-be-something-more-to-life phase in my twenties and early thirties, the eastern religion offered several advantages over Christianity. Firstly, it was relatively uncomplicated. Instead of the God whose personality and form mutated from the Old to the New Testament, Buddhism offered no God at all. Secondly, Buddhism was peaceful. Like Jesus, but unlike Jehovah, Siddhartha Gautama both preached and practised non-violence. And unlike Jesus, his life ended in wise and comfortable old age, not tortured on the cross. Thirdly, Buddhism offered hope, not fear. Christianity’s message was obey all the rules during your one and only life or you’ll suffer torments throughout eternity. Buddhism merely said if you don’t get it right, come back and try again. I was never devout. I skipped through books about Buddhism rather than studied the original texts. I could never remember the difference between Samsara, Nirvana and other states of being or non-being. I read and promptly forgot about the differences between Hinayana, Mahayana and the various other sects. And while I was aware that there were Bodhisattvas – enlightened beings who had postponed their own stage of Buddhahood in order to help benighted beings like myself to reincarnate to a better life – I was sure that none were living in my neck of the woods. Because I wasn’t ready for sexual abstinence, total vegetarianism and being nice to everyone 24-7, I kept postponing the moment when I would sit down and learn by heart the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path. A would-be Augustine, I suggested to the God-who-didn’t-exist to make me Buddhist, just not yet. Instead I took up meditation, In London and, several years later in Los Angeles, week after week I sat crossed-legged and eyes closed in a Buddhist center, beckoning Peace and Tranquility. Neither state came; instead, the enforced leisure heightened my physical and emotional energy and I needed half a day to recover from the stress of doing nothing. Of course I had Doubts. Just how old did Buddhism say the earth was? Nor was I convinced by the idea of reincarnation, particularly as the earth’s population kept growing, And where did demons and spirits they fit into the picture? But the idea that I could work out salvation at my own pace and still be guaranteed a pleasant afterlife swept such Doubts aside. Perhaps it was best not to look to closely at Buddhism, in case its foundation proved weak. I stayed in that semi-believing state for several years, until my growing disgust at the immorality of fundamentalist Christianity and Islam prompted me to try and distinguish between “good” and “bad” religion. The inevitable occurred. All religion proved itself an illusion and I was forced to recognize that Buddhist theology was as absurd as that of monotheism. And yet… It depends on how Buddhism is defined. It grew out of Hinduism, a polytheistic religion with all the bells and whistles of reincarnation. It succeeded in demoting the Hindu gods and demolishing the idea of a Supreme Creator; perhaps 2,500 years ago it was too soon to abolish all the other supernatural trappings. Or, equally likely, Siddhartha expected us to do that for ourselves. In the essential elements of Buddhism that he gave us – the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path – he made no reference to God or an afterlife. Unlike Christianity and Islam, where we have to humor a deity, Buddhism's central message is that our moral and spiritual responsibility is to ourselves. At the end of our existence, our reward for living well is not submission to our capricious creator, but the final extinction of our consciousness. How do we do live well? By recognizing that the conflict in our lives – conflict which spills over into our relations with others – stems from our egos. We commit acts of folly and crime for many reasons, but underlying them all is the desire to control events around us and the fear of being ignored. Extinguish the ego and morality automatically ensues. With no ego, we have no desire. We cannot be offended, we cannot be hurt. Sin – however you define it – comes to an end. This is morality and psychology, not faith. At heart, Siddhartha has more in common with Freud than with Christ and he leaves Mohammed far behind. The religious aspect of Buddhism remains ingrained in the cultures of Asia. Even my most educated Thai friends believe in spirits and the afterlife. But for those who come to Siddhartha late in life, particularly through Zen and Zazen meditation, there is no contradiction in calling themselves atheist. One day I may indeed become Buddhist. But give up meat and sex? I still don’t want it to happen yet...
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |