Islamic/Buddhist Eschatology

Buddhism and Islam have very different visions of the ultimate goal of humanity and, accordingly, possess strikingly different views on the meaning and purpose of earthly existence. Both religions see life as filled with suffering and hold that human efforts must be directed at liberation from suffering and from constraint by earthly things. But Buddhism--with its emphasis on discovering the path to transcendence and enlightenment--sees suffering, or the ability to be affected by suffering, as the result of human ignorance. Once ignorance is overcome the knowledge acquired means an end to suffering in the achievement of nirvana, "the ideal state of being." Islam, on the other hand, holds that after death those whose actions were in accordance with the rules and values revealed to Mohammed by Allah will attain Paradise. In this life the individual is subjected to suffering and all the trials of existence because s/he does not follow the guidance Allah so clearly offered through the Prophet. For almost every religion it has been important to account for earthly suffering in some way that explains it and offers a promise of escape from it. How a religion does this is intimately related, therefore, to the kind of promise it makes regarding some state in which the potential for suffering ends. A comparison of Buddhist and Islamic ideas about this sort of promise will demonstrate the connection between the activities of humanity in this world and the altered state of bein

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ng assaulted by Mara, the Evil One, the Buddha-to-be kept to his resolve and after a great spiritual struggle "all the evil factors which tie men to this imperfect, mortal existence were overcome." In the fourth stage of his meditation his mind became, as his words are reported in The Middle Sayings, "quite purified, quite clarified, without blemish, without defilement, grown soft and workable, fixed, immovable." In attaining the Dharma, or eternal truth, he became the Awakened, the Buddha, and entered a transcendent realm of being. The Buddha might have remained in this realm if he had wished. Although "wisdom alone would have led to total silence", the Buddha, because he was moved by compassion, returned to the world in order to preach the Dharma. It was impossible to truly communicate the transcendent vision of Dharma in mere words and the Buddha could only hope to point the way to enlightenment for people who would have to discover it themselves. The truth of his teaching was initially to be accepted on faith but "personal verification" was absolutely essential to individual enlightenment. The Buddha, hoping to spread the message to as many as possible, therefore set out his guidance in parables, similes, anecdotes

Category: Philosophy - I