I definitely found some wisdom in Buddhism – that is what attracted me to it to begin with. But I more recently found out that the wisdom in Buddhism is based on half-truths. I am a truth-seeker and a scientist at heart, and like a totally objective scientist, I want nothing but the truth, no matter how hard to believe it may at first appear or how inconvenient it may be. That relentless search for the truth is what finally led me to Christianity. The Bible says to, “Seek and you will find.” I thank God that statement is true. So, let’s look at some various concepts of Buddhism, and compare and contrast them to what Christianity teaches.
The 8-fold Path is a set of Buddhist principles and practices that aim to lead a person to “enlightenment” and the end of suffering. According to Buddhism, to live is to suffer. We could do many posts on this topic, including God’s will for healing, but these 4 main points will suffice for now: (1) Christianity basically teaches that we live in a fallen world, a world where people choose to do evil despite God’s commands to unconditionally love everyone, like He does (Mk. 12:30-31). So because of the effects of sin (choosing to follow evil), life on earth is full of suffering. (2) Fortunately Jesus paid for us to prosper in all that we do. Romans 8:32 (NLT) says, “Since he [Father God] did not spare even his own Son [Jesus] but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?”
Christians will have to suffer persecution from non-believers, but that is the only suffering we are told that we have to endure. (3) The Bible also says that there is no suffering in heaven, further proof that it is not God’s will for us to suffer. (4) Lastly, in Christianity, to learn to love is one of the most important things a person can do in this lifetime, but whenever we love we inevitably open our hearts up to get hurt. Additionally, giving one’s life for someone else could easily be seen as the highest form of love. Jesus loved us so much that even while his own Jewish people wrongfully killed him, He gave His life for us all so that we can spend eternity with Him (Jn. 3:16).
Parents sacrifice themselves for their children and veterans and patriots do it for their fellow citizens to be free. So, for a Christian, suffering (persecution) is inevitable. Jesus commands us all to pick up our cross (our suffering) and follow Him (Matt. 16:24-26). But Jesus also promises to help us through our suffering, so that we don’t have to go through anything on our own and in our own strength. He tells us, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is comfortable, and My burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).
On the other hand, Buddhism also says that suffering is inevitable, to live is to suffer, but Buddhists seek to escape suffering through death and by reaching “enlightenment.” Their only hope is reaching the end of their cycle of reincarnation, which they believe to be the cycle of death and rebirth in which a person could live many lifetimes before being integrated (or absorbed if you will) back into the greater collective consciousness. So they see reaching the end of the reincarnation cycle by attaining enlightenment as the only way to get away from suffering.
Buddhism does teach self-sacrifice in the form of self-immolation. In early Indian Buddhism, self-immolation was an ascetic practice where someone would end their life or offer parts of their body by setting themselves on fire. In Buddhist literature, it was portrayed as a heroic act by a person seeking enlightenment. In China, self-immolation was seen as a way to turn death's negative effects into positive power. Essentially, Buddhism teaches that it is our attachment to impermanent things which leads to suffering, so they aim to get rid of all attachments - including eventually our bodies! That teaching falls short of wisdom because as we become attached to other people through love, which is a good thing, when the going gets tough we may believe that we need to rid ourselves of that attachment and therefore the love that binds us.
The more and more I practiced the principles of the 8-fold path, including mindfulness and meditation throughout every day, the more I became so absorbed in its principles that I lived with nearly constant total focus on whatever task I was performing, and I almost totally stopped caring about other people because I became like a task-oriented robot. When I started realizing that I was becoming antisocial – very focused and efficient at doing anything I set my mind to, yet very uncaring towards others – I then realized that I was becoming psychopathic.
Psychopathy is defined as a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. When a person starts to see everything as simply a task to complete, and your own feelings and desires as well as other people’s feelings and desires simply as unnecessary complications, you can see how this could lead to antisocial psychopathic behaviors. I had an epiphany as I was going deeper and deeper into becoming a task-oriented fully focused robot – I realized that I was getting colder and colder regarding my cares and feelings towards others, and the potential for me hurting them was becoming greater and greater. It was at that time that I stopped going further down the road of Buddhism, and I started heading back towards altruistic self-sacrificing love for my fellow human beings. As I allowed myself to divert more attention towards caring about other people, I became less task-oriented and more loving. I still had great focus due to all that time spent working on improving mindfulness and meditation, but I stopped believing so much in the other principles which allowed me to become less of a cold robot and more of a warm human being.
I still to this day believe that having awareness of one’s thoughts and actions throughout the day as well as practicing some form of meditation (which could be prayer) on a regular basis can greatly help to improve our focus. So many people are struggling to have good focus nowadays and it is because of all the constant stimulation around us, we forget that having good focus is like a muscle that needs exercise to function well. We could all take some wisdom from Buddhism and practice more mindfulness and meditation. The Bible also discusses these things to some degree. For example, God tells us to “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10) One of my favorite ways to meditate on God is to just sit or stand and focus on how amazing God is and all the wonderful things He has done in my life.
In the next blog, we will look at the 8-fold path of Buddhism and continue to compare and contrast Buddhism and Christianity.
Hello, my name is Andrew Rife, and I studied and practiced Buddhism for several years back in my early to mid-twenties. I love wisdom and more recently I have found so much of it in Christianity, so I want to look back and compare and contrast my newfound Christian wisdom with the wisdom that I once found in Buddhism.
