Re: Conciliatory moves over Easter

Brad Coon wrote, quoting myself:

> > In a nutshell, my perspective on Buddhism is
> > this: that the person and life of Buddha
> > illustrates very nicely what Christ meant by:
> > "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for
> > total righteousness, for they will be
> > satisfied".
>
> And I was going to stay out of all this religious
> stuff, sigh.
>
> Buddhism is all about the cessation of thirst and
> desire. I once tried to explain the difference
> between Buddhism (to which I weakly adhere) and
> Christianity; Christianity offers the salvation
> OF eternal life, Buddhism offers salvation FROM
> eternal life.
I said 'person and life of Buddha', not 'teachings
of Buddhism'.

As I understand it, the whole historic basis of
Buddhism is that upon discovering the existence of
very dejected, unhappy people in the world, his
resultant longing for a solution to the world's
problems was so intense that he could not bear
even to eat until he caught a glimpse/vision of
such a solution.

For many years I have held that this is a superb
illustration of Christ's words.

Adrian.
http://www.flinders.edu.au