Re: Suffering

I think there's something in what you write. Buddhism starts from the fact of suffering, whereas Christianity regards suffering as the result of divine judgement for sinfulness. One cannot help feeling that Buddhism is nobler than Christianity in this regard. (Nietzsche thought so in The Anti-Christ.) I would say that Hinduism is more like Buddhism in this regard. Although Hinduism has gods and goddesses, it does not explain suffering to be the result of sin. In fact, it doesn't explain suffering at all, but either takes this world to be basically inexplicable or regards the world as the outcome of the god's lila (play), and thus without any purpose as such. Like Buddhism, it regards suffering as the result of prior actions, and sinful acts are sinful more in the sense of imprudent, since they will only lead the agent to further suffering. But why this should be the law of the universe is not further explained, and is certainly not explained as the result of some originating sinful event that has left its stain of corruption on all subsequent humanity. Sexual guilt is perhaps far more likely to be fuelled by the figure of the watchful paternal god. The notion that a judging God sees everything you do must inevitably make sexual transgression much more psychologically distressing. Whether this religious difference makes Eastern societies more disposed to democracy I do not know. It can't be said that there is much evidence for this. Do you really want to avoid rebirth? Let me put forward a hypothetical: as we know, nirvana is to be achieved through a rigorous path of self-discipline. But suppose there were a magic pill - a nirvana pill - that you could take, and it would give you instant nirvana. Would you take it? I certainly would not, because to become indifferent to life, to lose my desires, would also destroy my personal identity, and my identity is something I want to keep. Besides, why would I want to step off the wheel into nothingness? I love life, I ascribe a positive value to life, and can't imagine why anyone would want to get off the wheel. Life is a cabaret, old chum! The nearest modern philosophical equivalent to the original Buddhism seems to me to be David Benatar and the antinatalists, who desire the painless extinction of all higher life on the planet (including humanity). I wonder whether Western Buddhists don't distort the Buddha's message, because it's pessimism is just too radical for them, and cannot be fitted in with the West's optimism. To acknowledge that the Abrahamic faiths have some very unfortunate features is consistent with acknowledging that "The Abrahamic religions all have a deep capacity for compassion and healing", and I think you put the matter well. I read The Perennial Philosophy when I was 16. I don't think I believed it at the time, because I think I was still in my inevitable adolescent Nietzsche phase, but over the years I came to realise that Huxley's book is a masterpiece. Whereas most mystics talk a lot of rhetorical nonsense, Huxley's book is filled with a wonderful clarity, as he expounds what he takes the mystics to have discovered. It is, perhaps, the best book on the mystical strain in diverse religious traditions ever written. I haven't read Merton, but I have read Aelred Graham's Zen Catholicism, which I believe may have influenced Merton - though the only reason I read Zen Catholicism was because it is mentioned in Bradbury Robinson's The Owl and His Boy.