More Popular Than Ever
One of the most popular “religions” is Buddhism. The primary reason for it’s modern surge in popularity is it’s ability to provide absolution from guilt without the need for adherence to any particular structure of reconciliation. All you have to do is rack up more “good” deeds than “bad” deeds and you’ve got your shot at Nirvana. The problem(or the advantage depending on how you look at it) with this is that neither good nor bad are defined. Good is what’s advantageous to you, without being harmful to others. Bad is what’s bad for you and is harmful to others.
The real problem is that most people who believe in the precepts of Buddhism don’t really understand the precepts behind Buddhism. Like many other religions, most of it’s adherents pick the most palatable items from the philosophy and don’t bother to get into the details. This is like reading the crib notes for Shakespeare without ever actually reading a play by Shakespeare. You get the gist of the story line, but what you miss is the subtlety of the interplay between characters. What you also miss is the motivation of the players. This merely allows you to insert your own motives into the story. While that may be an entertaining exercise in imagination, you haven’t done Shakespeare any service, and when you start spouting your ideas to someone who really knows Shakespeare you begin to show your true ignorance.
In truth there are far more “denominations” of Buddhism than there are Christian denominations or Muslim denominations, but just like it’s counterparts there are some general precepts. Buddhism, like Christianity, encourages personal enlightenment, but Buddhism encourages you to find your own truth. What Buddhism infers is that when you seek your own truth you will inevitably have to arrive at the truth, but the way you see the truth and the way I see the truth are different. What really happens is that this pursuit makes each person’s truth different, even though they should be the same. That is, except for the “big” issues of life that are undeniable and fixed. Yet, there are necessary exemptions for these issues as well. The problem of the difference between killing and murder comes to mind. How does one determine what is a kill, and what is a murder?
All of this mental wrangling is nothing more than a way to bring the concept of right and wrong down to a personal, subjective choice because affixing yourself to a single, objective standard abrogates many of your personal choices.
By removing the rational mind from the physical realm, you get to do, say and believe just about anything you want. This is why many Buddhist sects try to levitate, fly or teleport themselves through transcendental projection. They are attempting to remove themselves from the physical realm simply to assert their subjective selves over objective reality.
The idea of yin and yang, positive and negative constantly in flux with each other is the idea that you have to have evil in order to describe good, and good cannot be defined unless you have evil to contrast it. This paradigm doesn’t work if you use any form of natural expression. In other words, if you were to apply this thought process to light and darkness, it doesn’t work. Light does not require darkness to exist, darkness doesn’t need light. In fact, darkness is the absence of light and light doesn’t need darkness to exist. Where the rational mind and the physical meet is in the fact that without shadow (the absence of light) the human eye cannot determine dimension, depth, and distance.
This simple example of the human condition is where Buddhism fails, and Christianity succeeds. In Buddhism you must separate the physical world from the rational mind. In Christianity freedom is found when you find the perfect conjunction between the physical and the rational. The very person of the Christ is the prime exhibition of this paradigm. Throughout the Bible it uses the concept that the light shines in the darkness, showing us the dimension, depth, and distance of all creation, including the human condition and that the light is God, and the darkness is sin.
In Christianity sin is the absence of God, but God is not required to do evil, nor does evil need to exist. Rather, it is the light which shines against sin, showing the shadows of evil, revealing them to the eyes. In Buddhism, everything is both shadow and light, depending upon where you place yourself, and how you choose to look.
In order to subscribe to Buddhism you have to set your mind above reality. It’s no wonder that you see the most devout Buddhist monks separating themselves into remote monasteries, sequestering themselves into secluded spaces.
Buddhism is more popular than ever because it gives the human mind license to ignore reality, mold reality, shift reality into the thing the rational mind most desires. The truth is that Buddhism cannot withstand the intrusion of reality and so cannot overcome the shadow. In response, it tells you that you will become part of the shadow and you must embrace that shadow as a part of your existence.
This is also the reason why Christianity, real Christianity, is not so popular; because Christianity exposes the shadows, opposes the shadows and reminds the Buddhist that they live in a real world, where both the rational mind and the physical body must coexist. There is no escaping the darkness of sin without the light that shines on the world; Jesus, the Christ.
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