St. Augustine and the Buddha
A Comparison of World Views
Were St. Augustine and the Buddha to have a conversation, they might find their points-of-view quite interesting. Of course, Augustine might feel a bit inconvenienced by having to crouch down under a bodhi tree, but once there he could easily find common ground with this introspective Easterner. Both the Buddha and Augustine were in agreement regarding the deplorable conditions faced by much of humanity in this world. At the core of the Buddha's teaching was the belief that the physical world represents little more than an aspect of continual suffering and trial. Imperfect beings all, we human beings desire too much, and it is because of our desires that we imprison ourselves in this physical shell. We will suffer so long as we want, and so long as we want we shall remain moored in this imperfect world. Yet the world of Buddhist teaching is fundamentally very different from that preached by Judaism and Christianity. In the Bible there is an absolute beginning, and in many varieties of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Belief, a very definite end. In Buddhism, however, this is not so. Creation is cyclical:
A Buddhist creation myth found in the Agganna Sutta tells...
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