Vir Lucis Ex Deus wrote:
I would suggest that Buddhism is less about 'desire' and more about impermanence...the problems with suffering are caused by our attachment to impermanent things, to be sure, but the true crux of the Buddhist philosophy (again I am not a practicing Buddhist, so I may be off the mark a bit) is impermanence. Once you understand that, you begin to see that the practice of Buddhism isn't merely about 'getting rid of desire', which is a way that the 'West' likes to simplify it
For the original context of the description,
here is the original post.
Here I am just going to play around with the idea of 'the crux of Buddhism' for a bit . . .
Certainly the
flavour of Buddhism vis-a-vis the other world religions is well expressed in the Buddhist account of impermanence. In the world of religion, we hear so much of permanence, eternity, the enduring principle of things etc. - and Buddha by contrast was notable for repeatedly pointing out where such a permanence could
not be found. Where Buddha resembles other religious teachers (and consequently does not stand out in contradistinction) is that he taught a way of deliverance from the world of impermanent things - as Vir Lucis Ex Deus has written, Buddhism advocates the removal of "attachment to impermanent things".
Mindfulness is the path of immortality, thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are mindful do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.(Dhammapada)In the above quote, one of the earliest recorded Buddhist sayings, there is the same flavour of permanence as anything we might find in the New Testament. What then is the
crux of Buddhism? From the perspective of exoteric doctrine, I would name the content of Buddha's first sermon ie. the Four Noble Truths:
1. ['suffering'].
2. the cause of ['suffering'],
3. the cessation of ['suffering'];
4. the way to the cessation of ['suffering'].
(I have used square brackets and inverted commas for two related reasons: one is that 'suffering' is a hopelessly inadequate translation of
dukkha . . . 'inadequacy' is itself another; the second is that the parts of this 4-fold formula outside the brackets are actually Buddha's appropriation of traditional Indian medical diagnosis and prescription. Where originally any ailment of disease would go in the space indicated by my square brackets, Buddha was talking about THE great ailment of existence - something like the 'Fall' in Abrahamic traditions.)
Buddha's first sermon, where the Four Truths are introduced, is called
Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma in English.
From a more esoteric perspective, the
'crux' of Buddhism is arguably this 'Wheel of the Dharma' or
dharmacakra, it is this which is most akin to the Christian Crux or Cross in terms of being a central symbol. I have been thinking about the differences between the
dharmacakra and the
crux insofar as they relate to the hagiographies of Buddha and Christ respectively. What strikes me is the apparent presence of similar elements, except that they are given in quite a different sequence.
Christ: Baptism; Fasting; Temptation; Ministry (sermons/parables);
Crucifixion; Resurrection; Ascension
Buddha: Fasting (the Mortification); Temptation; Nirvana (under the Bodhi Tree);
Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma (ministry / sermons); parinirvana (occasion of death)
Where the Christ on the Cross is especially climactic in the Christian narrative, I would say the image of Buddha on the night of his enlightenment is the nearest Buddhist parallel. The key Buddhist symbol, the Dharma Wheel, refers instead to the beginning of Buddha's ministry. By contrast, I have always felt the most famous of Jesus' sermons occurred before his transfiguration (if anyone has another view on this I would be grateful for their contribution to this thread). In a sense, there is also a parellel between the Passion of the Crucifixion, followed by Resurrection, with the Mortification of Gautama . . . which was followed by the Nirvana after an interval of Temptation. Of course Christ also had a period of fasting followed by Temptation - I just feel there is some deep similarity between the artistic depictions of Gautama at the point of Mortification with those of Christ on the Cross.
A difference, of course, is that Gautama Mortified is not the central image, which as I have said already is the Nirvana. Nirvana I usually associate with the Resurrection - it is the fulfiillment of the central promise of the religion. It might also be connected to the Baptism - as a key event prior to the start of a ministry, and as a sign of salvation . . . the difference is that the Nirvana was the promised 'hour' for Buddha in which he would essentially fulfill his quest (in the way that Jesus would refer to his 'hour'.) (The later sermons, imparting the salvation he had found, were of course part of this quest too, but it was the nirvana which made the sermons possible). Also, Jesus' Baptism comes before his fasting and Temptation, the Nirvana came after these events in Gautama's life. Although in a sense Buddha had already 'ascended' on attaining his nirvana, from a narratological point of view his Parinirvana (or 'complete snuffing-out') is perhaps most similar to the Ascension of Christ. It's when he leaves the world, and when the story of the disciples really begins. Yet there is the difference that Christ's goes from life to death and back to Life again, while Buddha goes from life to almost-death to (healthy) life to death. I would not call this 'death' the same as the Death which opposes the Life to which Christ was born after his initial 'death', because Chrsitian Death is more like Buddhist Birth-Death, while Buddha's equivalent to Christ's (big 'L') Life is 'deliverance from Birth-Death' - a status Buddha is assigned while alive (after the Nirvana) and after his (little-'d') death. (Apologies for the clumsy sentence
!)
There is something compellingly intriguing about the differences between these respective hagiographies, as well as their similarities. If anyone has any thoughts about this, I'd be interesting to read them.
Author
