I am probably not the first one to notice the common ground in the “Origin” stories of both “Judeo/Christianity” and Buddhism.
I use the term “Judeo/Christian” in this context because both Jewish and Christian faiths share the same creation mythology with the book of Genisis. Despite the divergent and bloody paths (mainly for the Jews) the two faiths have taken in the years since Jesus of Nazareth preached on a hillside in Galilee, the core mythology of the Garden and the fall has endured. The Christian Right still disputes scientific information that challenges the Genisis timetable, for reasons that I think this study will illustrate.
In Genisis, the first man and woman start out in a state of naked innocence, in an environment protected by a loving parent. All their needs are met and they are, as far as they know, immortal. After eating the forbidden fruit of “knowledge of good and evil” they are punished by the parent with expulsion from the Garden into a world of hunger, aging, the need to labor for survival, pain in childbirth (labor again) and, biggest of all, death – “Dust you are and to dust you shall return”.
In the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the young Buddha is raised in a protected environment by a loving father. He gains “knowledge of good and evil” when he leaves the protected environment and for the first time observes aging, illness and death.
Here is where the stories diverge.
Adam and Eve are forcibly dispelled from the Garden by their angry parent. Their only way “back in” is by obeying the Parent’s commands and, in the Chrisian tradition, pledging their faith to Christ the Redeemer who will set them free in the afterlife from labor, disease, aging and death by admitting them to heaven. The hardships of life are seen as the result of human sin, not as the natural course of things.
As opposed to Adam and Eve, Siddhartha Gautama, chooses freely to leave the protected environment of his father’s palace and to share in the harsh realities of his fellow sufferers. Instead of retaining the privileged life of a Prince, he chooses the life of an aesthetic, a life of prayer and poverty. The hardships of life are seen in this tradition as the natural order of things, not as a punishment. Being “set free” means attaining a state of inner peace or “enlightenment”, not escaping to a more comfortable afterlife.
Where the two traditions reconnect is that Jesus, the son of God, is also seen as freely choosing to leave heaven and share the lot of sinful mortals in order to offer them a chance at salvation, much as the Buddha left his comfortable palace to find inner peace and share it with as many people as he could reach.
So what does all this have to do with the price of eggs? Just about everything.
What humans choose to believe - what reverberates with our inner needs – tells us a lot about us. Since humans first began to think and communicate symbolically, through words and works of art, we have struggled with the principal problem of human existence – the sense of feeling like disembodied souls housed in bodies that sicken, age and die. Using our ability to turn ideas into working tools, we have moved from the cave to the condo, from walking barefoot on rocky ground to flying coast to coast in a few hours – but the basic problem remains. Our comforts can distract us from our underlying problem but they can’t fix it. No matter how many times modern medicine cures you, both you (and your doctor) will sooner or later wind up dead.
Through most of human history, religion in its many forms has been our way of dealing with this problem. As we enter what I have described before as the “post religious age”, fewer and fewer of us are able to take this traditional route, despite a great deal of push-back from conservative religious groups, who quite accurately see their way of life as threatened.
My suggestion is that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The religious traditions that have reverberated with millions of us over the centuries have much to tell us about us and should not be ignored.
In the stories of Jesus and Buddha, we see an approach to the human condition that is as valid as it was when these beliefs were formed. Both see the human condition for what it is. Both offer a religious leader who embraces the human condition rather than hiding from it. Both reject the acquisition of wealth and power as a symbolic way of denying the human condition for oneself - a tendency that has caused most of the harm done by humans to each other. And both offer a way in rather than a way out as the way of dealing with the strange hand we’ve been dealt.
The way out is wealth, fame and the ability to push other people around, or the more easily available bottle (pill or liquid, take your pick). The way in is to connect to the inner place where our sense of selves come from and may be, as virtually all religions have suggested, a part of something much bigger than any or all of us.
Buddha and Jesus were on to something. What they most have in common is their wish to share it. Maybe it's time we took them up on it.
I use the term “Judeo/Christian” in this context because both Jewish and Christian faiths share the same creation mythology with the book of Genisis. Despite the divergent and bloody paths (mainly for the Jews) the two faiths have taken in the years since Jesus of Nazareth preached on a hillside in Galilee, the core mythology of the Garden and the fall has endured. The Christian Right still disputes scientific information that challenges the Genisis timetable, for reasons that I think this study will illustrate.
In Genisis, the first man and woman start out in a state of naked innocence, in an environment protected by a loving parent. All their needs are met and they are, as far as they know, immortal. After eating the forbidden fruit of “knowledge of good and evil” they are punished by the parent with expulsion from the Garden into a world of hunger, aging, the need to labor for survival, pain in childbirth (labor again) and, biggest of all, death – “Dust you are and to dust you shall return”.
In the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the young Buddha is raised in a protected environment by a loving father. He gains “knowledge of good and evil” when he leaves the protected environment and for the first time observes aging, illness and death.
Here is where the stories diverge.
Adam and Eve are forcibly dispelled from the Garden by their angry parent. Their only way “back in” is by obeying the Parent’s commands and, in the Chrisian tradition, pledging their faith to Christ the Redeemer who will set them free in the afterlife from labor, disease, aging and death by admitting them to heaven. The hardships of life are seen as the result of human sin, not as the natural course of things.
As opposed to Adam and Eve, Siddhartha Gautama, chooses freely to leave the protected environment of his father’s palace and to share in the harsh realities of his fellow sufferers. Instead of retaining the privileged life of a Prince, he chooses the life of an aesthetic, a life of prayer and poverty. The hardships of life are seen in this tradition as the natural order of things, not as a punishment. Being “set free” means attaining a state of inner peace or “enlightenment”, not escaping to a more comfortable afterlife.
Where the two traditions reconnect is that Jesus, the son of God, is also seen as freely choosing to leave heaven and share the lot of sinful mortals in order to offer them a chance at salvation, much as the Buddha left his comfortable palace to find inner peace and share it with as many people as he could reach.
So what does all this have to do with the price of eggs? Just about everything.
What humans choose to believe - what reverberates with our inner needs – tells us a lot about us. Since humans first began to think and communicate symbolically, through words and works of art, we have struggled with the principal problem of human existence – the sense of feeling like disembodied souls housed in bodies that sicken, age and die. Using our ability to turn ideas into working tools, we have moved from the cave to the condo, from walking barefoot on rocky ground to flying coast to coast in a few hours – but the basic problem remains. Our comforts can distract us from our underlying problem but they can’t fix it. No matter how many times modern medicine cures you, both you (and your doctor) will sooner or later wind up dead.
Through most of human history, religion in its many forms has been our way of dealing with this problem. As we enter what I have described before as the “post religious age”, fewer and fewer of us are able to take this traditional route, despite a great deal of push-back from conservative religious groups, who quite accurately see their way of life as threatened.
My suggestion is that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The religious traditions that have reverberated with millions of us over the centuries have much to tell us about us and should not be ignored.
In the stories of Jesus and Buddha, we see an approach to the human condition that is as valid as it was when these beliefs were formed. Both see the human condition for what it is. Both offer a religious leader who embraces the human condition rather than hiding from it. Both reject the acquisition of wealth and power as a symbolic way of denying the human condition for oneself - a tendency that has caused most of the harm done by humans to each other. And both offer a way in rather than a way out as the way of dealing with the strange hand we’ve been dealt.
The way out is wealth, fame and the ability to push other people around, or the more easily available bottle (pill or liquid, take your pick). The way in is to connect to the inner place where our sense of selves come from and may be, as virtually all religions have suggested, a part of something much bigger than any or all of us.
Buddha and Jesus were on to something. What they most have in common is their wish to share it. Maybe it's time we took them up on it.
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