Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Choice Words For A Budding Buddhist

"It ought to be possible for me to pursue my studies and researches in one house, and for the Buddhist to spin his wheel in another. But contempt for the intellect has a strange way of not being passive. One of two things may happen: those who are innocently credulous may become easy prey for those who are less scrupulous and who seek to 'lead' and 'inspire' them. Or those whose credulity has led their own society into stagnation may seek a solution, not in self-examination, but in blaming others for their backwardness,..

...A faith that despises the mind and the free individual, that preaches submission and resignation, and that regards life as a poor and transient thing, is ill-equipped for self-criticism. Those who become bored by conventional 'Bible' religions, and seek 'enlightenment' by way of the dissolution of their own critical faculties into nirvana in any form, had better take a warning."
--From There Is No "Eastern" Solution, the fourteenth chapter in Christopher Hitchens' excellent tome, God Is Not Great (How Religion Poisons Everything)

1 comment:

  1. I noticed the label "New Age" for this excerpt on Buddhism, which interested me, since the Enlightened One himself was born over 2500 years ago.

    And Christopher Hitchens, the poor guy, really sounds like he could do with a concentrated injection of Zen.

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