Greetings! In the last blog post, I mentioned that for years I followed the rules of Buddhism’s 8-fold path, and that there definitely is some wisdom in it. However, I have found much more wisdom (and power) in Christianity.
Now let’s take more of a look at what the 8-fold path is. Buddhists believe that when practiced these 8 rules will lead to enlightenment. The 8 rules below (with a brief summary of each) are based on ethics (# 1-3), meditation (# 4-6), and wisdom (# 7-8).
1. Right action (behaving in a skillful way and not harming others)
2. Right speech (speaking truthfully)
3. Right livelihood (earning a living in a way that doesn’t cause suffering or harm to others)
4. Right mindfulness (being aware of yourself and the emotions of others)
5. Right effort (putting effort into meditation and positive emotions, and letting go of the
outcomes (one way of stating this is the concept of “effortless effort”)
6. Right concentration (developing focus so that you are able to meditate and stay in the
moment at all times)
7. Right view/understanding (remembering that actions have consequences)
8. Right intention (being clear about following the Buddhist path)
In my experience, these rules can be helpful, especially toward gaining improved focus and concentration, which we looked at in the last blog post and that is something that everyone certainly wants to have. One of the more helpful concepts above is #5 – effortless effort. That basically means that I need to simply do what I believe I need to do, stop struggling, striving, procrastinating, and overthinking things, and let the outcome go. It means that I can be trying too hard and when I do that I tend to screw things up. There certainly is a lot of wisdom there, but it turns out that Christianity has even more wisdom.
In Christianity, once we believe in Jesus, we then gain access to our eternal Father and all of His spiritual gifts. We don’t have to strive to succeed, we are now sons and daughters of the Most High God and we have access to all of God’s amazing promises. We also should realize that God has given us dominion (control) over the whole earth and everything in it (except other adults of course). Therefore, a Christian whose father is God, is better off than a non-Christian son or daughter of the richest person in the world, and we can access all that God wants to give us through faith! We might not see what we want right away, but Jesus said many different times that we can have anything that is within His will if only we will believe, and He said to ask for anything in His name and He would give it to us (Mark 11:23-24, John 14:14). Romans 8:32 says, “Since He [God] did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else?” Psalm 91:4 says, “His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” Knowing and believing that, all Christians should be operating in faith and effortless effort.
Again, because Buddhism contains some half-truths, there certainly is some wisdom in it. But Christianity has all of the wisdom of the above 8 rules AND much, much more! Christianity contains not only ideas, but it contains the POWER of God. Many Christians unfortunately do not operate in that power, nonetheless it does exist.
When I was seeking spirituality in the past through the various teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Chi-lel, and New-Agism, among other things, I was looking for spiritual power. I found at times what looked like some forms of spiritual power, but I never found anything to make me superhuman and break me free of the many bondages that I was a slave to. I found some wisdom and improved focus, all different kinds of meditation, different kinds of ways to try to tap into power like crystals, tea-leaf reading, astrology, etc., but I never was able to get free of several things that plagued me for so many years.
For example, I was a slave to all kinds of nicotine including smoking for about 18 years. I could never stop using nicotine for long before picking it back up (and kicking myself every time for it). But once I became a Christian and I realized that my body is God's temple for Jesus and the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and every time I smoked I was sinning and feeding a spirit of addiction while at the same time turning my back on God, it broke my heart! I only smoked a handful of cigarettes after that realization because every time I would smoke it would break my heart more and more. But I would still have that same intense desire to smoke, so every time I was tempted to smoke I would cry out to Jesus for help to not want it anymore. And not long after doing that, one day it worked! The cravings left me and I'm still smoke free 3+ years later, thank you, Lord. No other religion in the world could have done that for me because the only chain breaker, the only deliverer is Jesus! Also, no other religion in the world contains nearly as many stories of people being healed as Christianity does – God wants His children set free from all oppression.
So in short, there is some wisdom and practical principles in the Buddhist 8-fold path, but ultimately they are meaningless and Christianity has the real full truth and most importantly, it has POWER and the only way to heaven.
In the upcoming blog posts, we’ll continue to compare and contrast more of the basic teachings of Buddhism and Christianity.
