Draft of a Very Brief Introduction to Buddhism

　　-- Gerald Grow

　　Buddhism and Protestantism

　　European history was deeply changed when Protestantism arose in 1517 in rebellion against the abuses of the Catholocism of its day. In a similar way, Buddhism arose on the northern border of India around 500 B.C. in response to the Hinduism of its day. Like medieval Catholocism, ancient Hinduism was a religion of rituals, with an elite priesthood who administered a complex theology. It supported a society in which people were rigidly pided into a system of caste, role, and power.

　　Like Martin Luther, Buddha proposed radical alternatives to the religion of his day--some of which resemble the ideas of the Protestant reformation. Buddha advocated inpidual effort, plain language and simple means. His approach emphasized direct experience rather than relying on priests or theology. In his vision, all people (including women and the poor) were equal before the Infinite and equally capable of spiritual development.

　　Although some sects later considered him pine, Buddha spoke of himself only as "one who is awake." Original Buddhism was less like a religion than it was like a set of psychological practices--exercises to do with your mind until you no longer need them--like a raft discarded after you cross the stream.

　　The core of Buddhism spread to India, China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet--where it combined with the native traditions of each place to produce results as different as Zen in Japan--with its starkness and piercing beauty--and the colorful cheerfulness of Tibetan monks.

　　Starting in the 1950s, Zen attracted the interest of several prominent American artists, such as Allen Ginsberg and John Cage. But Buddhism first became widely known here after a wave of Tibetan lamas (driven out by the Chinese invasion of 1956) arrived in America the 1970s, established centers like the Naropa and Nyingma Institutes, set up schools and publishing houses, and began teaching on a wide scale. Buddhism began to appear in popular culture, as in the film, "What”s Love Got to Do With It

　　" Though many Americans seem to have been puzzled by Bertolucci”s 1994 film, "Little Buddha," it spoke to a growing interest in this country in the spiritual teachings of other cultures.

　　The Message of the Buddha

　　Buddha described his message in simple terms that are somewhat difficult to pin down -- because they do not refer to ideas so much as to experience.

　　Life is suffering.

　　No one gets out alive: All suffer pain, sickness, decay and death. But "suffering" in Buddhism also refers to larger, more pervasive condition. I understand it like this: Instead of experiencing life directly, we create a worldview and experience it. That worldview serves to protect us through a system of explanations; but it also separates us from nature, from real experience, from spirituality, and from one another--causing all experience to be distorted and "out of joint," and ourselves to suffer from living at one remove from life. We are outsiders to the world and to ourselves.

　　Suffering is caused by craving.

　　"Craving" in Buddhism extends far beyond the sense of "greed" to something closer to what the Christian tradition would call "pride"--a self-centered isolation, the separate selfhood, "ego" in the worst sense. This selfhood acts upon others and the world as if they were forever separate from oneself, generating what author Charlene Spretnak described as "the continuous chain reaction of craving, jealousy, ill will, indifference, fear, and anxiety that fills the mind." This is a deep, pervasive, but normal kind of alienation--one seemingly built into the nature of the human nervous system.

　　The most significant form of self-centered suffering takes place as we project upon everyday expe…

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