The Course and Buddha
Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality. And they have suffered from a sense of loss, and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand.
Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. (W-155.4-5)
Do you know the story of Prince Siddhartha, who became Buddha? (The word Buddha is derived from Sanskrit and means “to wake up” or “to be enlightened”. Buddha and Christ are the same state of awareness of Oneness). As a prince, he had everything material in the world one could ask for. He also married and had a family. But he did not have fulfillment and was overwhelmed by how much of life was suffering. So he renounced the world, became a mendicant and went to study among ascetics and seek for enlightenment. But he found that fighting against what we call sin, or separation from God, did not make him any happier. So he found the third way – to neither embrace sin nor to fight against it. He let sin go.
This is what the Course teaches us – that to fight sin is to make it as real to us as to be immersed in it. The only way out of sin, or a sense of separation from God, is to let it go. This is how the Course resembles Buddhism.
www.acimmentor.com
Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. (W-155.4-5)
Do you know the story of Prince Siddhartha, who became Buddha? (The word Buddha is derived from Sanskrit and means “to wake up” or “to be enlightened”. Buddha and Christ are the same state of awareness of Oneness). As a prince, he had everything material in the world one could ask for. He also married and had a family. But he did not have fulfillment and was overwhelmed by how much of life was suffering. So he renounced the world, became a mendicant and went to study among ascetics and seek for enlightenment. But he found that fighting against what we call sin, or separation from God, did not make him any happier. So he found the third way – to neither embrace sin nor to fight against it. He let sin go.
This is what the Course teaches us – that to fight sin is to make it as real to us as to be immersed in it. The only way out of sin, or a sense of separation from God, is to let it go. This is how the Course resembles Buddhism.
www.acimmentor.com
Comments
What I have heard from some who have come from Buddhism to the Course is that Buddism teaches them how to meditate and detach from ego but it does not teach them how to undo ego, as the Course does.