Quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
In any case, Buddhists believe in obliteration of the soul. That is what Buddha desired. (He desired no desire?) Freedom from the Karmic cycle of being continually reborn into what he percieved as an existence of suffering. To Buddha, Life = Suffering.
This is attained by a Buddhist Monk upon his death, losing all desire to be reborn.
It all sounds like a valid option to me.
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Buddhism has often been misunderstood, no less by Schoperhauer. Do your homework, please, Yorick. Buddhists do
not aim at
ceasing to exist. Nor did the Buddha equate
all of life simplistically with suffering -- as if one simply never wins in the Wheel of Rebirth, so the only way out is a kind of spiritual suicide. This is actually a nihilist outlook which the Buddha himself condemned.
The Buddha actually once said, "Monks, there exists
an Unborn, an Unmade, an Unbecome. If, monks, there were not this Unborn, Unmade, Unbecome, there would then be no escape from that which is born, made, become." What Buddhists aim at is a realization of this Unborn, Unmade, Unbecome. A realization of the eternal.
One of the keystone teachings of Buddhism is that of
interdependent origination. All things (except the Unborn, Unmade, Unbecome) arise from various contingent causes and conditions, and are ipso facto
transient and liable to be a source of suffering if we
attach ourselves psychologically to them, if we
cling to them. A car, for example, arises only from various factors such as the desire for cars, the knowledge of how to make cars, the materials required for making cars etc. Take one of these away and cars cannot exist. But once a car has come into being by virtue of the confluence of these causes, it will likewise go some day. Whatever has a beginning must have an end. Only that which is beginningless can be endless. If, in ignorance of all this, I make a fetish out of my car (I don't own one, BTW [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) and make it the object of my psychological attachment, then one day I'm going to be in tears. Same with everything else -- except, of course, the Unborn, Unmade, Unbecome, which the Buddha exhorts us to find.
I can elaborate more if you wish, Yorick, but for now let this do. And that much said, I do agree with you on Big Mammon being the one religion with the greatest number of followers today -- much to the planetary environment's sorrow, be it said...