Topic: Buddhism & Desire
Question:
The Buddha, purifying himself of all selfish desire, is surely purifying his heart, and it is hard to believe that good Christians will not meet the Buddha in heaven.
Answer:
What this gentleman seems to have forgotten is that Christian asceticism - purification of one's self from selfish desires - has a purpose: to allow true charity to grow within us, to acquire a righteous longing and a holy desire for God and the things of God.
We know for example that fasting is not an activity which is good in and of itself - it is good only insofar as it is a sacrificial offering to God, a mortification of our senses so that we may transcend coarser desires. If a person fasts as part of a dietary regimen so they'll have "totally ripped abs", their desire to look good in a bathing suit cannot be made a moral equivalent to the Christian who is fasting out of love for God.
Like our fad dieter, Buddhist asceticism aims at a very different goal from that of Christian asceticism: the Buddhist aims at the elimination of desire because the Buddha teaches that desire is the source of all pain and discomfort. The Buddhist does not discipline his will in order to purify his desires so that he desires only the love and honor of God - he does so in order to avoid emotional suffering. From a Buddhist point of view the intense longing of a St. John of the Cross or a St. Therese of Lisieux for God is evidence of failure - if you want to love and be loved by God then you have merely switched desires, not extinguished them.
The Buddha taught that all desires, even the desire for the love and honor of God, are false and harmful. His doctrine was evil, he lived evilly, and his followers do evil. Woe to them who call good evil and evil good.
William Frohnhoefer
August 8, 2001