The Soul Of Christianity: Restoring The Great Tradition by Huston Smith

The Soul Of Christianity: Restoring The Great Tradition

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The Soul Of Christianity: Restoring The Great Tradition Paperback – 4 December 2006
by Huston Smith (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 55 ratings

In this elegant and concise treatise, Huston Smith examines and puts forth what being a Christian has meant for him personally and how it shaped his life and beliefs. In contrast to the misguided course of culturally rigid and intolerant evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity on the one hand, and the non-transcendent liberal Christianity of Marcus Borg, John Shelby Spong, on the other, Smith presents a passionate and convincing argument for a vital alternative that is a deeper, authentic Christian faith that is both tolerant yet substantial

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Denis Poisson

5.0 out of 5 stars Huston looks at the moon

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 November 2008

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When the wise man point at the moon, the foolish man looks at the finger.

Huston Smith is one of the few authors who seems to have grasped the fact that religions are only systems, human maps that merely point at a truth. It is useful to have these pointers because the truth that they point to is beyond human experience, so we need pointers, metaphors, indicators, helpful words and visualisations that can give us an idea of what we're looking for.

After all, what is more important? The map that helps us understand what the ground is like or the ground itself? If the map is torn, does that change the ground itself?

Once we get to our destination, we realise that the map was useful, and did what it promised: ie. explain in human terms and on a human scale what the actual ground is like, so that you can take the appropriate direction even if (when you look up) the ground is unfamiliar.

Huston Smith understands that Christianity is such a map. A map that points to the reality that is eternal, beyond the physical world that we perceive with our mere 5 senses, and that we can only guess at.

His personal preference for this map remains nothing but that: a preference, and he uses other maps - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism Buddhism, Taoism etc... - to show that Christianity points in the same direction, and is therefore trustworthy (if all maps tell you to go south and the one you have tells you to go south too, you can assume that South is a pretty good bet!) However, he also goes into the individuality of Christianity and how its specific, exclusive features can be particularly helpful. (Much like the functions of a sat-nav versus a traditional paper map, to drive the metaphor even further)

Smith's acceptance that the Moon is what is important, not the finger really makes this a delightful read about the "finger" that I have found most accurate (Jesus' words, I mean, not the Roman Empire's Church's words).

For fans of Huxley's "the Perennial Philosophy".

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Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Overview of Christianity

Reviewed in the United States on 8 October 2022

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I’ve searched a long time for this book. Simply grateful to have found it. The overview, and deep intellectual defense, is what I’ve been looking for since 2009.

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Beverly H.

5.0 out of 5 stars A JOY TO READ.

Reviewed in Canada on 3 November 2022

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BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN.

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Marlene Oaks

5.0 out of 5 stars For Everyone On the Path

Reviewed in the United States on 17 June 2022

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This is almost required reading. If I could, I would prescribe this book for your soul's health. I've read it before, quite a long time ago. I came to it this week with an open heart, and I was rewarded. It is stunning. It is one I will re-read. It is a treasure.

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Robert W. Kellemen

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Smith's Opus

Reviewed in the United States on 15 September 2005

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Huston Smith is not one to take on small tasks, as evidenced by his universe-sized purpose statement, "I have tried to describe a Christianity which is fully compatible with everything we now know, and to indicate why Christians feel privileged to give their lives to it." If anyone has earned the right to try, Smith would be that person given his life-long scholarly, passionate pursuit of the history of world religion.

"The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition" arrives just in the nick of time to perhaps halt something of the great Christian capitulation to post-modern thinking. When so many other Christian authors are hyping the latest trend and hoping on the latest bandwagon, Smith calls a halt to the march.

He does so not as a naïve, head-in-the-sand cultural rejecter, but as a world-aware, Word-wise scholar who is well aware of the multiplicity of competing narratives. Smith expertly presents Christianity as THE meta-narrative that explain all the other mini-narratives. Further, he concisely and precisely sifts through the myriad of competing Christian narratives to restore the great tradition-the grand essentials of core Christian belief.

Granted, not everyone, including this reviewer, will name and claim the identical doctrines nor define them identically. However, it is difficult to refute the grand movement in the symphony that Smith composes.

Personally, one of the most helpful apologetical (reasoned, logical defense of Christianity in light of apparent contradictions) premises is Smith's pithily worded insight that modern (and post-modern) culture has not been able to "distinguish absence-of-evidence from evidence-of-absence." That is, we may not always be able to scientifically prove the active presence of God, however, nor can we prove the absence of God scientifically, and we certain can discern His affectionate, sovereign presence spiritually.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."

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Donald B. Strobe

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but not excellent

Reviewed in the United States on 1 December 2005

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The book has all of the good aspects which other reviewers have given it, but Smith should have given it a re-read before publication. It reads as though he rushed through it to get it on the market, and re-used material from his other works. (He says as much at the beginning and at the end.) I am pretty sure that he knows that the word "Christ" comes from the Greek, not the Hebrew, (as the text says), and that most New Testament scholars think that Paul did NOT write Ephesians as his very clever illustration on p.24 says. These appear to be mistakes made in the haste of writing. Still, this is a very helpful book, even though it is not quite up to the standard of C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" or even Marcus Borg's recent elucidation of the essence of Christianity. His critiques of both fundamentalism and the modern religion of scientism are on target, and worth the price of the book.

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lightshow

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book Especially for Christians Who Have Explored Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.

Reviewed in the United States on 6 November 2018

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Huston Smith's life was all about spirituality. He was completely open minded and open hearted and I have enjoyed his books for a few years. I identify with him very much -- I dropped acid, wandered away from Christianity (not sure he did that), have lived in India and practiced a Hindu/Vedic path, have explored Buddhism, and come back to Christianity. For me, it's been a journey reconciling my spiritual quest in other religions with my Christian faith. Smith helps me do that. He is unapologetically exuberant in his praise of other religions as he expounds the richness and, like the title says, soul of Christianity with love and devotion and passion. I recommend all his books to everyone interested in spirituality, God, Jesus, everything.

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John Goerzen

4.0 out of 5 stars Mere Christianity for the 21st Century

Reviewed in the United States on 12 May 2009

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I bought this book after reading Huston Smith's  Why Religion Matters .

I was less impressed by this book than than Why Religion Matters, but that may have just been because I read it first and it was just so spectacularly amazing.

This was a more dense read. I had to read slowly, especially in part 1; parts 2 and 3 lightened up considerably.

I have learned quite a bit about Christianity from this book. It is a good, level-headed report that doesn't shrink from controversy, but rather reports it even-handedly where it matters and ignores it where it doesn't.

I heartily endorse it.

It is Mere Christianity for the 21st century, I'd say.

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Celestra Cassidyne-Hook

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writer, the best of what is true in Christianity

Reviewed in Canada on 16 June 2020

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Huston Smith is my favorite writer on religions. Here he presents the best of Christianity with philosophical depth and beauty. Worth reading!

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Emily G

4.0 out of 5 stars Smith really shows the soul of Christianity

Reviewed in the United States on 17 October 2005

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I read this book while at a crossroads about Christianity. Smith's views on the possibilities of this religion were hopeful and refreshing. The first chapter, which listed the beliefs of Christians was a little dry. Chapter 2, which focused on the Christian Story, was my favorite. Chapter 3 was a thoughtful history of the religion. Smith was passionate and knowledgeable without being "preachy". The bottom line, "The Soul of Christianity" reminded why I am a Christian. A good read, especially if you need a reminder.

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Amos Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Smith convincingly argues that we need a radically theistic world-view. Nothing else will ultimately satisfy.

Reviewed in the United States on 25 May 2014

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I learned a great deal from this book.

Smith accurately points out that human beings are hard-wired for transcendence.

That is what we yearn for instinctively.

Smith also writes that liberal churches often don't offer transcendence. Instead they offer rallying cries to be good, which ultimately doesn't satisfy. And as a result of this approach many liberal churches are digging their own graves.

We need a radically theistic world-view, which is the legacy of the Christian Mystics.

An emphasis on justice is essential, yet without a theistic world view at the center, we miss the mark.

-Amos Smith (author of Healing The Divide)

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Titillated

5.0 out of 5 stars A valuable review Christianity's contribution to world religions

Reviewed in the United States on 30 August 2017

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An outstanding review of the core strengths of Christianity and the ways cultural developments in the 20th and early 21st centuries have impacted Christianity. It is clarifying to read a synthesis from a longtime dedicated Christian who is also the most sympathetic and knowledgeable student of all the major world faiths.

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JJ

5.0 out of 5 stars I felt like I never really "got" Christianity before reading this book

Reviewed in the United States on 12 November 2016

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I felt like I never really "got" Christianity before reading this book. I grew up in a Western country and found Buddhism and Eastern religions much more attractive in my 20's. But after reading this book I now understand Christianity. The book addresses many modern issues around religion and is beautifully written, illuminating and inspiring.

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Jean E. Peterson

3.0 out of 5 stars The Soul of Christianity

Reviewed in the United States on 1 June 2015

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I haven't made up my mind., some of it was very informative but i wouldn't say it depicted the soul of Christianity to me. I've had to read several parts again.I can't say I understood it or some of his ideas.. His acceptance of some of the creeds turned me off . I prefer Borg.

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Roy J Squires

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour deforce of Christian thought down the ages and ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 April 2017

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A tour deforce of Christian thought down the ages and the language of symbolism, story and legend mixed with history and sort of biography of a kind.

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Allen Robins

3.0 out of 5 stars Book was interesting

Reviewed in the United States on 15 June 2013

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This book was good but no where near as good as his book on World Religions. Much of the material was redundant to the material on Christianity in his World Religions book which was one of the best books I have ever read on the subject.

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Ahmad

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on 25 May 2017

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Excellent

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Soulseeker2021

3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on 17 May 2017

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This book summarizes Christian beliefs. If you are aChristian you might pick up a few bits of new information.

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Robert M. Wills

2.0 out of 5 stars Huston Smith is a great scholar, but dated

Reviewed in the United States on 12 September 2014

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Huston Smith is a great scholar, but dated. He sets out to "refute" Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity and ends up simply restating the old traditional beliefs that Borg seeks to restate from a new paradigm. Smith's paradigm is traditional Christianity. He doesn't understand the new paradigm, yet he thinks it is wrong.

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Pam J

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 August 2017

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Always an interesting read, Huston Smith does it again!

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CONTENTS 

 PREFACE PROLOGUE INTRODUCTION Part One THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW Part Two THE CHRISTIAN STORY Part Three THE THREE MAIN BRANCHES OF CHRISTIANITY TODAY CODA ACKNOWLEDGMENTS SEARCHABLE TERMS ABOUT THE AUTHOR BOOKS BY HUSTON SMITH CREDITS COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

Part One

THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

Part Two

THE CHRISTIAN STORY

Part Three

THE THREE MAIN BRANCHES OF CHRISTIANITY TODAY

CODA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SEARCHABLE TERMS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOKS BY HUSTON SMITH

CREDITS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Previous ChapterNext Chapter

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[독서생활] [나를 바꾸기] 위한 [타오이즘]공부 - 나를 위한 간단한 일차적 정리

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[독서생활] <나를 바꾸기> 위한 <타오이즘> 공부 - 나를 위한 간단한 일차적 정리
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- 나를 포함한 많은 사람들이 <도덕경>과 <노장사상> 공부를 해본다. 그런데, 그런 공부를 해서 뭐를 배울까? 어느 정도의 지적 이해를 얻는 것 이상 뭐가 남는가? <자신의 삶의 방식이 달라지는> 뭔가를 배울 수 있을까? 그런 생각을 하면서 <타오이즘 Taoism/Daoism> 공부를 다시 한다.

- 이번의 포카스는 

(1) 동양에서는 흔히 <노장사상>이라고 불리우는 <철학 사상>으로서의 <타오이즘>과 

(2) <기공>같은 일종의 <수련문화>로서의 <타오이즘>, 그리고

(3) 흔히 <도교>라고 불리우는 <종교>.로서의 <타오이즘>간의

 <차이와 관계>를 제대로 이해하자는 데에 있다. 거기에서 무언가를 깨달을 것 같다고는 전에부터 생각했다. 

- 나도 많은 사람들처럼 <삶의 철학>으로서의 <노장사상>에 관심을 가지고 있었다. 세상을 보는 눈으로의, 또는 인생철학으로서의 노장사상이다. 그리고 또 한편으로는, 몸에 대한 동양식 이해와 제대로 실천은 하지 않았으나  태극권, 또는 요가같은 <몸 가꾸기>에 관심이 있었다.  <도교>라는 <종교적> 타오이즘에 대해서는 중국인들의 일종의 <미신적> 민중종교라고 생각하여 특별히 관심도 없었고, 제대로 읽어본 적이 없었다. 그러니 철학사상으로서의 타오이즘 (노장사상)과종교로서의 타오이즘 (도교), 그리고 수련이나 의학으로서의 타오이즘의 관계를 제대로 이해하지 못하고 있었다. 그런데 그 관계를 설명하는 책들을 만났다. 첫번 째 만난 책이 종교학자 최준식의 책 <,,,>의 <노장사상과 도교>라는 부분 (장)이다. 이 부분에 대하여는 약 10년 전에 읽은 듯하여 어느 정도에서  최준식의 책을 다시 읽게되었고, 이 세 책에서 타오이즘에 대한 나에게는 가장 도움이 될만한 프레임이 떠 오르게 되었다는 것을 이제 여기 기록해두려고 한다. 이 정리를 일차적이라고 부르는 이유는 앞으로 몇년 간 더 공부를 하면서 뭔가가 바뀔 가능성을 열어둔다는 말이다. 그래서 제 2차 정리와 제 3차 정리가 몇년에 한번씩 일어나리라 생각한다. 

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- 우선은 휴스턴 스미스와 최준식의 <타오이즘> 이해에 대하여 말하자면, 타오이즘에 대한 다른 책들과 달리 이 두 저자는<노장사상> 만이 아니라 <도교>에 대하여도 함께 논한다는 것을 지적해야겠다. 그러나 두 저자 사이에는 차이가 있다. 휴스턴 스미스는 타오이즘에는 세가지 면이 있다고 한다. 그 하나는 <철학으로서의> 타오이즘이고, 그 둘째는 <종교로서의> 타오이즘이다. 

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+5

25:38

Organized Daoism & Internal Alchemy (Neidan)

Let's Talk Religion

10 A Final Examination Huston Smith

10 A Final Examination

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Chapter X.  A Final Examination   What have we gotten out of this inquiry? Has it done any good? Three answers are suggested: A. The Relation between Religions.  This book has found nothing that privileges one tradition above the others, but that could be due to the kind of book it is: It eschews comparisons in principle. Nothing in the comparative study of religions requires that they cross the finishing line of the reader's regard in a dead heat.   There is a second position that holds that the religions are all basically alike. It is suggested that if we were to find ourselves with a single religion tomorrow, it is likely that there would be two the day after. A third conception of the way the religions are related says that for God to be heard and understood divine revelations would have had to be couched in the idioms of its respective hearers. B. The Wisdom Traditions. - What wisdom do they offer the world? 1. Ethics - The Decalogue pretty much tells the cross-cultural story: we should avoid murder, thieving, lying, and adultery. 2. Virtues - The wisdom traditions identify as basically three: humility, charity, and veracity. 3. Vision - The wisdom traditions' rendering of the ultimate character of things a. Things are pervaded by a grand design. b. Things are better than they seem. c. Reality is seeped in mystery for which the human mind has no solution except to be transformed by flashes of insight into abiding light. C. Listening.  If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it. We listen not uncritically but we listen expectantly, knowing that it houses more truth than can be encompassed in a single lifetime. But we also listen to the faith of others, including the secularists. We listen for understanding, understanding can lead to love. But the reverse is also true, love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. God speaks to us in three places: in scripture, in our deepest selves, and in the voice of the stranger.

07 Judaism Huston Smith

07 Judaism

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Chapter VII. Judaism Part One: Their Passion for Meaning One-third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry. What lifted the Jews from obscurity to permanent religious greatness was their passion for meaning. A. Meaning in God. From a very early date, possibly from the very beginning of the biblical record, the Jews were monotheists. The supreme achievement of Jewish thought was not in its monotheism as such, but in the character it ascribed to the God it intuited as One. God is a God of righteousness, whose loving-kindness is from everlasting to everlasting and whose tender mercies are in all his works. B. Meaning in Creation.  Judaism affirms the world's goodness, arriving at that conclusion through its assumption that God created it. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and pronounced it to be good. To affirm that existence is God-created is to affirm its unimpeachable worth. The Semitically originated religions emerge as exceptional in insisting that human beings are ineradicably body as well as spirit and that this coupling is not a liability. C. Meaning in Human Existence.   The striking feature of the Jewish view of human nature is that without blinking at its frailty, it went on to affirm its unspeakable grandeur. We are a blend of dust and divinity. Human beings, once created, make or break themselves, forging their own destinies through their decisions. People are God's beloved children. The ingredients of the most creatively meaningful image of human existence that the mind can conceive - grandeur, sin, freedom, divine parentage; it is difficult to find a flaw in this assessment. D Meaning in History.   1. For the Bible, history is neither Hinduism maya, illusion or a Greek circular process of nature; it is the arena of God's purposive activity. 2. Second, if contexts are crucial for life, so is collective action; social action. 3. Third, nothing in history happens accidentally; God shapes each sequence as a teaching experience for his people. 4. Finally, all events are important but not equally important. Each opportunity is unique, but some are decisive. For India, human destiny lies outside history altogether. Judaism, by contrast laid the groundwork for social protest. It is in the lands influenced by the Jewish historical perspective that the chief thrusts for social betterment have occurred. E. Meaning in Morality.  Without moral constraints, human relations would become as snarled as traffic in the Chicago loop if everyone drove at will. The Jewish formulation of "those wise restraints that make men free" is contained in her Law. The Hebrew Bible contains no less than 613 commandments that regulate human behavior. Four of these will suffice for our purposes: the four ethical precepts of the Ten Commandments, for it is through these that Hebraic morality has had its greatest impact. Appropriated by Christianity and Islam, four of the Ten Commandments constitute the moral foundation of  most of the Western world. There are four danger zones in human life that can cause unlimited trouble if they get out of hand: 1. Force - You can bicker and fight, but killing within the in-group will not be permitted, for it instigates blood feuds that shred community. Therefore thou shalt not murder. 2. Wealth - As for possessions, you may make your pile as large as you please and be shrewd and cunning in enterprise. One thing, though, you may not do, and that is pilfer directly off someone else's pile, for this outrages the sense of fair play and builds animosities that become ungovernable. Therefore thou shalt not steal. 3. Sex - You can be a rounder, flirtatious, even promiscuous, and though we do not comment such behavior, we will not get the law after you. But at one point we draw the line: Sexual indulgence of married persons outside the nuptial bond will not be allowed, for it rouses passions the community cannot tolerate. Therefore thou shalt not commit adultery. 4. Speech - You may dissemble and equivocate, but there is one time when we require that you tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. If a dispute reaches such proportions as to be brought before a tribunal, on such occasions the judges must know what happened. If you lie then, while under oath to tell the truth, the penalty will be severe. Thou shalt not bear false witness. F. Meaning in Justice.   It is to a remarkable group of men we call the prophets more than to any others that Western civilization owes its convictions (1) that the future of any people depends in large part on the justice of its social order, and (2) that individuals are responsible for the social structures of their society as well as for their direct personal dealings. Whereas the Pre-Writing Prophets Such as Elijah and Elisha challenged individuals the Writing Prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah challenged corruptions in the social order and oppressive institutions. Thanks to the Prophets, what other nations would have interpreted as simply a power squeeze, the Jews saw as God's warning to clean up their national life: establish justice throughout the land, or be destroyed. Stated abstractly, the Prophetic Principle can be put as follows: The prerequisite of political stability is social justice, for it is in the nature of things that injustice will not endure. Stated theologically the point reads: God has high standards. God will not put up forever with exploitation, corruption, and mediocrity. One thing is common to all the Jewish prophets: the conviction that every human being, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is a child of God and therefore in possession of rights that even kings must respect. Wealth and splendor count for nothing compared with purity, justice, and mercy. G. Meaning in Suffering. From the eighth to the sixth centuries B. C., during which Israel and Judah tottered  before the aggressive power of Syria, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, the prophets found meaning in their predicament by seeing it as God's way of underscoring the demand for righteousness. God was using Israel's enemies against her. The experience of defeat and exile was teaching the Jews the true worth of freedom. Another lesson was that those who remain faithful in adversity will be vindicated. Stated abstractly, the deepest meaning the Jews found in their Exile was the meaning of vicarious suffering: meaning that enters lives that are willing to endure pain that others might be spared it. "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." H. Meaning in Messianism.  Part Two: The Hallowing of Life. - Jewish ceremonies and observances The West, influenced by the Greek partiality for abstract reason, emphasizes theology and creed, the East has approached religion through ritual and narrative. Ritual plays a part in life that nothing else can fill. In Judaism it aims to hallow life - ideally, all life. The name for the right approach to life and the world is piety. The secret of piety consists in seeing the entire world as belonging to God and reflecting God's glory. The Jews preserve this sense of the sanctity of all things through tradition. Judaism the most historically minded of all religions finds holiness and history inseparable. The basic manual for the hallowing of life is the Law, the first five books of the Bible. Part Three: Revelation.    The Jews in their interpretation of the major areas of human experience arrived at a more profound grasp of meaning than any of their Mediterranean neighbors; a grasp that in its essentials has not been surpassed. The Jew's say they did not reach these insight on their own. They were revealed to them. For the Jews God revealed himself first and foremost in actions - not words but deeds. It was through miracles, divine intervention. God took the imitative. The God that the Exodus disclosed was powerful and a God of goodness and love. A God who was intensely concerned with human affairs. It followed that God would want people to be good as well. Finally, suffering must carry significance because it was unthinkable that a God who had miraculously saved his people would ever abandon them completely.  All this took shape for the Jews around the idea of the covenant. Yahweh would continue to bless the Israelites if they, for their part, would honor the laws they had been given. Part Four :The Chosen People.  The idea that a universal god decided that the divine nature should be uniquely and incomparably disclosed to a single people is among the most difficult notions to take seriously in the entire study of religion. The Jews did not see themselves as singled out for privileges. They were chosen to serve, and to suffer the trials that service would often exact.   Isaiah's doctrine of vicarious suffering meant that the Jews were elected to shoulder a suffering that would otherwise have been distributed more widely. It is the doctrine that God's doings can focus like a burning glass on particular times, places, and peoples - in the interest, to be sure, of intentions that embrace human beings universally. Part Five: Israel.  Judaism cannot be reduced to its biblical period. In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and the focus of Judaism shifted to Rabbinic Judaism - from the sacrificial rite of the Temple to the study of the Torah and its accompanying Oral Tradition in academies and synagogues around the world. Today, almost two thousand years later, there are four great sectors of Judaism that still constitute its spiritual anatomy - faith, observance, culture, and nation.  The reasons for the establishment of the modern of Israel in 1948 present complex problems. Without presuming to answer these problems, we can appreciate the burdens they place on the conscience of this exceptionally conscientious people.

04 Confucianism Huston Smith

04 Confucianism

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Chapter IV. Confucianism Part One: The First Teacher.    Born around 551 B.C. Prompted as if by call - "At fifty I perceived the divine mission" - he gave his next thirteen years, with many a backward look and resisting footsteps, to "the long trek," in which he wandered from state to state proffering unsolicited advice to rulers on how to improve their governing and seeking a real opportunity to put his ideas into practice. The opportunity never came. Only a small band of faithful disciples stood by him through rebuff, discouragement, and near starvation. He spent his last five years quietly teaching and editing the classics of China's past. In 479 B.C., at the age of seventy-two he died. With hid death began his glorification. Within a few generations he was regarded throughout China as "the mentor and model of ten thousand generations." Part Two: The Problem Confucius Faced.    By Confucius' time interminable warfare had degenerated from chivalry toward the unrestrained horror of the Period of the Warring States. The old mortar that had held society together was chipping and flaking. Unreflective solidarity was a thing of the past. Part Three: Rival Answers.    As the alternative to tradition, the United States has proposed reason. Educate citizens and inform them, and they can be counted on to behave sensibly - this is the Jeffersonian-Enlightenment faith on which the United States was founded. It has not been fulfilled. Until recently the world's leader in education, the United States leads likewise in crime, delinquency, and divorce. One option that ancient China proposed was put forward by the Realists. What do you do when people don't behave? Hit them. The Realists' philosophy of social order proceeded by way of an elaborate mechanism of "penalties and rewards". A social philosophy as different from the Realists' as fire from ice existed alongside it in Confucius' China. Known as Mohism, it proposed as the solution to China's social problem not force but love - universal love. One should "feel toward all people under heaven exactly as one feels toward one's own people, and regard other states exactly as one regards one's own state." Neither of these rival answers to the problem of social cohesion impressed Confucius. He rejected the Realists' answer of force because it was clumsy and external. As for the Mohists' reliance on love, Confucius agreed with the Realists in dismissing it as utopian. The West's current approach to the social problem - through the cultivation of reason - probably did not occur to Confucius. If it had he would have dismissed it as not thought through. Part Four: Confucius' Answer.- Deliberate Tradition   Confucius was all but obsessed with tradition, he saw it as the chief shaper of inclinations and attitudes. Spontaneous tradition- tradition that had emerged without conscious intent had ruled villages without dissent but could no longer be counted on. The most appropriate solution must be continuous with the past and at the same time must take a clear-eyed account of developments that rendered the old answer unworkable. The shift from spontaneous to deliberate tradition requires a power of suggestion that can prompt society's  members to behave socially even when the law is not looking. The technique pivots around "patterns of prestige." The interminable anecdotes and maxims of Confucius' Analects were designed to create the prototype of what the Chinese hoped the Chinese character would become. A. The Content of Deliberate Tradition.  Deliberate tradition requires attention first to maintain its force and second attention to the content of that education. The character of the social life Confucius intended to engender can be gathered under five key terms: 1. Jen.-  The ideal relationship that should pertain between people Involves simultaneously a feeling of humanity toward others and respect for oneself Expressed in courtesy, unselfishness, and empathy "Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you." 2. Chun tzu - The mature person Opposite of a petty person, a mean person, a small-spirited person Armed with self-respect that generates respect for others Speech free of coarseness and vulgarity Person who is entirely real 3. Li - Has two meanings: a. Propriety, the way things should be done - Confucius taught this mainly by: the Rectification of Names - the creation of a language in which key nouns carry the meaning they should carry if life is to be well ordered. the Doctrine of the Mean - the way that is "constantly in the middle" between unworkable extremes the Five constant Relationships - those between parent and child, husband and wife, elder and junior sibling, elder friend and junior friend, and ruler and subject -It is vital to the health of society that these key relationships be rightly constituted. the Family - "The duty of children to their parents is the fountain from which all virtues spring. Age - Confucius saw age as deserving veneration by reason of its intrinsic worth. b. Ritual - When right behavior is detailed to Confucian lengths, the individual's entire life becomes stylized in a sacred dance, leaving little need for improvisation. 4. Te - the power by which men are ruled No state, Confucius was convinced, can constrain all its citizens all the time, nor even any large fraction of them a large part of the time. It must rely on acceptance of its will, an appreciable confidence in what it is doing. This spontaneous consent arises only when people sense their leaders to be people of capacity, sincerely devoted to the common good and possessed of the kind of character that compels respect. For the process to work, however, rulers must have no personal ambition. Only those are worthy to govern who would rather be excused. 5. Wen - The arts of peace as contrasted to the arts of war Music, art, poetry, the sum of culture in its aesthetic and spiritual mode Ultimately, victory goes to the state that develops the highest wen, the most exalted culture - the state that has the finest art, the noblest philosophy, the grandest poetry. B. The Confucian Project. - how life would appear to a Chinese set within it As a never-ending project of self-cultivation toward the end of becoming more fully human Apart from human relationships there is no self. The self is a center of relationships. It is constructed through its interactions with others and is defined by the sum of its social roles. A notion very different from Western individualism - the human self as a node, not an entity. Ascent means becoming a fully realized human being through expanding one's sympathy and empathy indefinitely. The expansion is in concentric circles that begins with oneself and spreads from there to include successively one's family, one's face-to-face community, one's nation, and finally all humanity. In shifting the center of one's empathic concern from oneself to one's family one transcends selfishness. The move from family to community transcends nepotism. The move from community to nation overcomes parochialism, and the move to all humanity counters chauvinistic nationalism. Inside and outside work together in the Confucian scheme. Always the practice field is the Five Constant Relationships. Mastering a role in one of the five sheds light on the other roles. To improve as a parent throws light on what being a good child (of one's own parents) entails. The nuances of the other roles likewise illuminate one another. C. Ethics or Religion? If religion is taken in its widest sense, as a way of life woven around a people's ultimate concerns, Confucianism clearly qualifies. Even if religion is taken in a narrower sense, as a concern to align humanity with the transcendental ground of its existence, Confucianism is still a religion. To understand the total dimension of Confucianism as a religion it is important to see Confucius shifting his people's attention from Heaven to Earth without dropping Heaven from the picture entirely. The Confucian project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism. ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism and (we now add) isolating self-sufficient humanism. D. Impact on China.   For over two thousand years Confucius' teachings have profoundly affected a quarter of the population of this globe. Confucian values merged with the generic values of the Chinese people to the point where it is difficult to separate the two. The features mentioned below pretty much blanket East Asia as a whole, for Japan, Korea, and much of Southeast Asia deliberately imported Confucian ethic. 1. Confucius' social emphasis produced, in the Chinese, a conspicuous social effectiveness - a capacity to get things done in a large scale when need arose. 2. Unique among the world's civilizations, China syncretized her religions. Traditionally, every Chinese was Confucian in ethics and public life, Taoist in private life and hygiene, and Buddhist at the time of death, with a healthy dash of shamanistic folk religion thrown in along the way. 3. The importance of the family in China - Strong family bonds can smother, but they also bring benefits, and these work for East Asians right down to the present. 4. East Asian respect for age borders on veneration. 5. Confucius' Doctrine of the Mean continues to this day in the Chinese preference for negotiation, mediation, and the "middle man" as against resorting to rigid, impersonal statutes. 6. China honors Confucius' conviction that learning and the arts are not mere veneer but are powers that transform societies and the human heart. 7. The East Asian economic miracle of the last forty years, shaped by the Confucian ethic, constitutes the dynamic center of economic growth in the latter twentieth century. 8. The courtesy for which Orientals have been famous echoes the Confucian spirit.

01 Introductions Huston Smith

01 Introductions

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Introductions Foreword   "Not of my doing! It all came from Above." Preface to the Second Edition    The Book's aim: "to carry intelligent laypeople into the heart of the world's great enduring faiths to the point where they might see, and even feel, why and how they guide and motivate the lives of those who live by them." Acknowledgments   the chief support ... "a wife's help" Chapter I. Point of Departure   There are God-seekers in every land. Does one faith carry the lead? We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen. Such listening, listening for well defined themes defines the purpose of this book. A. What this book is not: 1. This book is not a textbook in the history of religions. 2. Even in the realm of meanings the book does not attempt to give a rounded view of the religions considered. 3. This book is not a balanced account of its subject but of religion at its best. The empowering theological and metaphysical truths of the world's religions are, this book is prepared to argue, inspired.  Religious institutions are another story. When religions are sifted for those truths, a different, cleaner side appears. They become the world's wisdom traditions. 4. This book is not a book on comparative religions in the sense of seeking to compare their worth. B. What this book is: 1. It is a book that seeks to embrace the world. We have come to the point in history where we must all struggle to be a citizen of the world. The only thing that is unqualifiedly good is extended vision, the enlargement of one's understanding of the ultimate nature of things. 2. It is a book that takes religion seriously. Religion is at work on the things that matter most. Authentic religion has power to inspire life's deepest creative centers. 3. This book makes a real effort to communicate. The author has tried not to lose sight of the relevance this material has for the problems that human beings face today.

02 Hinduism Huston Smith The World's Religions

02 Hinduism

https://archive.org/details/illustratedworld0000smit/page/35/mode/1up?view=theater

The illustrated world's religions : a guide to our wisdom traditions

by Smith, Huston

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Chapter II. Hinduism   Gandhi wrote: "Such power as I possess for working in the political field has derived from my experiments in the spiritual field."   In that spiritual field, he went on to say, "truth is the sovereign principle, and the Bhagavad-Gita is the book par excellence for knowledge of Truth." Part One: Hinduism in terms of its practical import, focusing on practice A. You can have what you want - The Path of Desire 1.We begin by wanting pleasure.  This is natural, but it too trivial to satisfy one's total nature. 2.The time comes when the individual's interest shift to the second major goal of life, which is worldly success with its three prongs of wealth, fame, and power.  This too is a worthy goal but individuals whose development is not arrested will move through delighting in success and the senses to the point where their attractions have been largely outgrown. 3. Hinduism does not say that everyone in their present life will find the Path of Desire wanting, but at some point in their reincarnations they will renounce the ego's claim to finality and transfer all allegiance to a religion of duty. This marks the first great step in religion. 4. But in the end all worldly rewards prove insufficient and in some reincarnation we turn to the Path of Renunciation. This is the moment Hinduism has been waiting for. B. What People Really Want - The Path of Renunciation - The Beyond Within:  Hinduism sees the mind's hidden continents as stretching to infinity. Infinite in being, infinite in awareness, there is nothing beyond them that remains unknown. Infinite in joy, too, for there is nothing alien to them to mar their beatitude.  What the realization of our total being is like can no more be described than can a sunset to one born blind: it must be experienced. 1. Four Paths to the Goal. - The realization of our total being: Hinduism's specific directions for actualizing the human potential come under the heading of yoga. What is distinctive in Hinduism is the amount of attention is has devoted to identifying basic spiritual personality types and the disciplines that are most likely to work four each. The number of the basic spiritual personality types, by Hindu count, is four. The first step on every yoga involves the cultivation of such habits as non injury, truthfulness, non stealing, self control, contentment, self discipline, and a compelling desire to reach the goal. The four Paths are: a. The Way to God through Knowledge.   Jnana yoga, intended for spiritual aspirants who have a strong reflected bent, is the path to oneness with the Godhead through knowledge. Such knowledge has nothing to do with factual information; it is not encyclopedic. It is, rather, an intuitive discernment that transforms, turning the knower eventually into that which she knows.  The yoga of knowledge is said to be the shortest path to divine realization. It is also the steepest. Requiring as it does a rare combination of rationality and spirituality, it is for a select few.   b. The Way to God through Love.      Bhakti yoga has countless followers, being, indeed, the most popular of the four.  The basic principles of bhakti yoga are richly exemplified in Christianity. Indeed, from the Hindu Point of view, Christianity is one great brilliantly lit bhakti highway toward God.   c. The Way to God through Work.    The third path toward God, intended for persons of active bent is karma yoga, the path to God through work.  To such people Hinduism's says, you don't have to retire to a cloister to realize God. You can find God in the world of everyday affairs as readily as anywhere. Throw yourself into your work with everything you have; but do so wisely, in a way that will bring the highest rewards, not just trivia.   d. The Way to God through Psychophysical Exercises.   Raja yoga is designed for people who are of scientific bent. It is the way to god through psychophysical experiments.  Hinduism encourages people to test all four yogas and combined them as best suits their needs.   2. The Stages of Life. The preceding sections traced Hinduism's insistence that differences in human nature call for a variety of paths toward life's fulfillment. Not only do individuals differ from one another each individual moves through different stages, each of which calls for its own appropriate conduct. The stages are: a. That of the student b. Beginning with marriage, that of the householder c. Eventually decline leads to the third stage - retirement -the time to leave family and home and plunge into the forest solitudes to launch a program of self-discovery. d. Beyond retirement, the final stage wherein the goal is actually reached, the state of the sannyasin where "one neither hates nor loves anything" 3. The Stations of Life.  - The caste system What is called for here is recognition that with respect to the ways they can best contribute to society and develop their own potentialities, people fall into four groups; at the top being the brahmins (intellectual and spiritual leaders) down to shudras (followers or servants). Caste has decayed and is as offensive as any other corrupted corpse. Part Two: Hinduism focusing on theory, the principal philosophical concepts that rib the Hindu religion A. "Thou Before Whom All Words Recoil."  - The concept of God Concepts of God contain so much alloy to begin with that two contradictory ones may be true, each from a different angle, as both wave and particles may be equally accurate heuristic devices for describing the nature of light. On the whole India has been content to encourage the devotee of Brahman as either personal or transpersonal, depending on which carries the most exalted meaning for the mind in question.  B. Coming of Age in the Universe. - Reincarnation The process by which an individual soul (jiva) passes through a sequence of bodies is known as reincarnation or transmigration of the soul - Sanskrit samsara, a word that signifies endless passage through cycles of life, death, and rebirth. On the subhuman level the passage is through a series of increasingly complex bodies until at last a human one is attained. With the soul's graduation into a human body, this automatic escalator-like mode of ascent comes to an end. the soul has reached self-consciousness, and with this estate come freedom, responsibility, and effort. Each thought and deed delivers an unseen chisel blow that sculpts one's destiny. Everybody gets exactly what is deserved. Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the God within, exerting pressure to "out" like a jack-in-the-box.  Never seen but is the Witness; never heard but is the Hearer; never thought but is the Thinker; never known but is the Knower. In the end it is God's radiating warmth that melts the soul's icecap, turning it into a pure capacity for God. What happens then? Some say the individual soul passes into complete identification with God and loses every trace of its former separateness. Other that some slight differentiation between the soul and God will still remain - a thin line upon the ocean that provides nevertheless a remnant of personal identity that some consider indispensable for the beatific vision. C. The World — Welcome and Farewell.    What kind of world do we have? Hinduism answers: 1. A multitude of worlds that includes innumerable galaxies  horizontally, innumerable tiers vertically, innumerable cycles temporally. 2. A moral world in which the law of karma is never suspended. 3. A middling world that will never replace paradise as the spirits destination. 4.  A world that is maya, deceptively tricky in passing off its multiplicity, materiality, and dualities as ultimate when they are actually provisional. 5. A training ground on which people can develop their highest capacities. 6. A world that is lila, the play of the divine in its cosmic dance - untiring, unending, resistless, yet ultimately beneficent with a grace born of infinite vitality.  D. Many Paths to the Same Summit.   That Hinduism has shared her land for centuries with Jains, Buddhists, Parsees, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians may help explain the final idea that comes out more clearly through her than through the other great religions; namely, her conviction that the various major religions are alternate paths to the same goal. To claim salvation as the monopoly of any one religion is like claiming that God can be found in this room but not the next, in this attire but not another. In practice India's sects have often been fanatically intolerant, but in principle most have been open.  Part Three: Appendix on Sikhism.  Hindus are inclined to regard Sikhs as somewhat wayward members of their own extended family. Sikhs see their faith as having issued from an original divine revelation that inaugurated a new religion. The revelation affirms the ultimacy of a supreme and formless God who is beyond human conceiving. It rejects the notion of divine incarnations, caste distinctions, images as aids to worship, and the sanctity of the Vedas. The Sikh revelations endorse the doctrine of reincarnation. Sikhs seek salvation through union with God by realizing, through love, the Person of God, who dwells in depths of their own being. Union with God is the ultimate goal. Apart from God life has no meaning; it is separation from God that causes human suffering. World renunciation does not figure in this faith. The Sikhs have no tradition of renunciation, asceticism, celibacy, or mendicancy.

09 The Primal Religions Huston Smith

09 The Primal Religions

An Outline  Review of Huston Smith's  The World's Religions (Our Great Wisdom Traditions) Chapter IX. The Primal Religions   The historical religions span less than four thousand years as compared with the three million years or so the religions that preceded them. This mode of religiosity continues in Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Siberia, and among the Indians of North and South America. Tribes without depending on writing may have retained insights and virtues that urbanized, industrial civilizations have allowed to fall by the wayside. Part One: The Australian Experience.  God does not evolve; everything that we find flowering in the historical religions - monotheism, for example - is prefigure in the primal ones in faint but discernable patterns. The muted character of distinctions in the primal religions is nicely illustrated by the religion of the Australian aborigines. Aboriginal religion turns not on worship but on identification, a "participation in," and acting out of, archetypal paradigms. The entire life of the aborigine, insofar as it rises above triviality and becomes authentic, is ritual. Here there are no priests, no congregations, no mediating officiants, no spectators. There is only the Dreaming and conformance to it. Part Two: Features that the Primal Religions Share A. Orality, Place, and Time. 1. Orality - Literacy is unknown to the primal religions Exclusive orality protects human memory. It increases the capacity to sense the sacred through nonverbal channels such as virgin nature and sacred art. Not being written, information that is useless and irrelevant is quickly weeded out. 2. Place versus Space - Primal religion is embedded in place. No historical religion, not even Judaism and Shinto, is embedded in place to the extent that tribal religions are. The exact and rightful place is a feature of sanctity. 3. Eternal time Primal time is a temporal; an eternal now. For primal peoples, "past" means preeminently closer to the originating Source of things. Closer-to-the-source means to be in some sense better. B. The Primal World.  Primal peoples are embedded in their world, starting with their tribe. They are related to their own tribe almost the way that a biological organ is related to its host's body. The tribe is embedded in nature. Even the line between animate and "inanimate" is broken. Rocks are alive. Everything is alive; nature extends itself to enter deeply into them, infusing them in order to be fathomed by them. In the primal world there is an absence of a line separating this world from another world that stands over and against it. In historical religions this division emerges and much comes to be made of it. Primal peoples are oriented to a single cosmos, which sustains them like a living womb. The overriding goal of salvation that dominates the historical religions is virtually absent from Primal people.    C. The Symbolic Mind.  A common stereotype pegs primal religions as polytheistic. The issue is not whether tribal peoples explicitly identify a Supreme Being who coordinates the gods but instead, whether they sense such a being whether they name and personify it or not. The evidence suggests that they do. The most important single feature of living primal spirituality is its symbolist mentality, a vision that sees the things of the world as transparent to their divine source. Mysticism and symbolism are more frequently utilized among them than among Western Europeans today. Only when we have fully grasped the mystic and symbolic meaning inherent in most activities of primitive man can we hope to understand him. This section should not end without mentioning a distinctive personality type, the shaman. They are heavily engaged in healing, and appear to have preternatural powers to foretell the future and discern lost objects. Part Three: Conclusion. Though millions would now like to see the primal way of life continue, it seems unlikely that it will do so. There is still time for us to learn some things from them.

03 Buddhism Huston Smith

03 Buddhism





An Outline Review

of

Huston Smith's

The World's Religions

(Our Great Wisdom Traditions)

Chapter III. Buddhism

Part One: Buddha the Man


The Man Who Woke Up. - The Silent Sage.


Born around 563 B.C.

Heir to a throne, he deserted it at age twenty-nine.

Sensing that that a breakthrough was near, he seated himself one epoch-making evening vowing not to arise until enlightenment was his. At morning his mind pierced at last the bubble of the universe and shattered it to naught, only, wonder of wonders, to find it miraculously restored with effulgence of true being.

Nearly half a century followed, during which the Buddha trudged the dusty paths of India preaching his ego-shattering, life-redeeming message.

Part Two: Buddhism the Religion


A. The Rebel Saint.


Buddhism drew its lifeblood from Hinduism, but against its prevailing corruptions Buddhism recoiled like a whiplash and hit back - hard.

Buddha preached a religion devoid of authority, devoid of ritual, a religion that skirted speculation, devoid of tradition, a religion of intense self-effort, devoid of supernatural.

Original Buddhism can be characterized in the following terms:


empirical - experience was the final test of truth

scientific - quality of lived experience its final test

pragmatic - concerned with problem solving

therapeutic - "One thing I teach, suffering and the end of suffering."

psychological - begins with the human lot, its problems, and the dynamics of coping with them

egalitarian - women as capable of enlightenment as men; rejected the caste system's assumption that aptitudes were hereditary

directed to individuals - each should proceed toward enlightenment through confronting his or her individual situation and predicaments

B. The Four Noble Truths. - the postulates from which the rest of his teachings logically derive


1. Life is suffering, is dislocated, something has gone wrong.

2. The cause - all forms of selfishness


Instead of linking our faith and love and destiny to the whole, we persist in strapping to puny burros of our separate selves, which are certain to stumble and give out eventually.

3. Since the cause of life's dislocation is selfish craving, its cure lies in the overcoming of such craving.

4. The Forth Noble Truth prescribes how the cure can be accomplished.


The way out of our captivity is through the Eightfold Path.

C. The Eightfold Path. - it is a treatment by training - by right association - We should associate with Truthwinners, converse with them, serve them, observe their ways, and imbibe by osmosis their spirit of love and compassion.


1. Right Views - The first step summons us to make up our minds as to what life's problem basically is.

2. Right Intent - The second advises us to make up our hearts as to what we really want.

3. Right Speech


first become aware of our speech

second move toward charity

4. Right Conduct


understand one's actions

change to the direction of selflessness and charity

do not drink intoxicants

5. Right Livelihood - For the lay person, Buddhism calls for engaging in occupations that promote life instead of destroying it.

6. Right Effort - A low level of volition, a mere wish not accompanied by effort or action to obtain it - won't do.

7. Right Mindfulness


This seventh step summons the seeker to steady awareness of every action that is taken, and every content that turns up in one's stream of consciousness.

Special times should be allotted for undistracted introspection.

8. Right Concentration


This involves substantially the techniques of Hinduism's raja yoga and leads to substantially the same goal.

The final climactic state is the state in which the human mind is completely absorbed in God.

D. Basic Buddhist Concepts. - Certain key notions in the Buddha's outlook


1. nirvana - Life's goal - boundless life

2. anatta - The human self has no soul

3. karma - One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence

4. anicca - impermanence, everything finite is transitory

5. Arhat - a Buddhist who has reached the stage of enlightenment


Do human beings survive bodily death? - his answer is equivocal

E. Big Raft and Little. - Two main Paths in Buddhism


Buddhism divided over three questions: are people independent or interdependent, is the universe friendly or hostile toward creatures, and what is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart.

One group says "Be lamps unto your selves, work out your salvation with diligence"

For the other group, human beings are more social than individual, and love is the greatest thing in the world.

The division into the two main paths is schematized as follows:

THERAVADA	MAHAYANA
Human beings are emancipated by self-effort, with out supernatural aid.	Human aspirations are supported by divine powers and the grace they bestow.
Key virtue: wisdom	Key virtue: compassion
Attainment requires constant commitment, and is primarily for monks and nuns.	Religious practice is relevant to life in the world, and therefore to laypeople.
Ideal: the Arhat who remains in nirvana after death	Ideal: the boddhisattva
Buddha a saint, supreme teacher, and inspirer.	Buddha a savior
Minimizes metaphysics	Elaborates metaphysics
Minimizes ritual	Emphasizes ritual
Practice centers on meditation	Includes petitionary prayer

After Buddhism split into Thervada and Mahayana, Theravada continued as a fairly unified tradition, whereas Mahayana divided into a number of denominations or schools. The two with the most influence in western society, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism are discussed next.

F. The Secret of the Flower. - Zen Buddhism Buddhism that Taoism profoundly influenced, Ch'an (Zen in Japanese) It makes breaking the language barrier its central concern. Strains by every means to blast their novices out of solutions that are only verbal. Zen masters are determined that their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to take its place. By paradox and non sequitur Zen provokes, excites, exasperates, and eventually exhausts the mind until until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about, or feeling more than feeling for. It counts on a flash of sudden insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life. Zen's object is to infuse the temporal with the eternal. A condition in which life seems distinctly good Also comes an objective outlook on one's relation to others. The life of Zen does not draw one away from the world; it turns one to the world. An attitude of generalized agreeableness Even the dichotomy between life and death disappears. G. The Diamond Thunderbolt. - Tibetan Buddhism The Tibetans say that their religion is nowise distinctive in its goal. What distinguishes their practice is that it enables one to reach nervana in a single lifetime.  They say that the speed-up is effected by utilizing all the energies latent in the human make-up , those of the body emphatically included, and impressing them all into the service of the spiritual quest. The energy that interests the West most is sex, but the physical energies they most regularly work with are the ones that are involved with speech, vision, and gestures. Tibetan Buddhism distinctiveness also includes a unique institution - The Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is a receiving station toward which the compassion-principle of Buddhism in all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings. H. The Image of the Crossing.    Do the various Paths of Buddhism deserve to be considered aspects of a single religion?  Yes, in two ways: (1.) They all revere a single founder from whom they claim their teachings derive. (2.) All can be subsumed under a single metaphor - the image of the crossing. Buddhism is a voyage across life's river, a transport from the common-sense shore of ignorance, grasping, and death, to the further bank of wisdom and enlightenment. Before the river was crossed the two shores, human and divine, had to appear distinct from each other, different as life and death, as day and night. But once the crossing has been made, no dichotomy remains. The realm of the gods is not a distinct place. It is where the traveler stands; and if that stance happens to be in this world, the world itself is transmuted. Part Three: The Confluence of Buddhism and Hinduism in India. Today Buddhists abound in every Asian land except India, the land of its birth. The deeper fact is that in India Buddhism was not so much defeated by Hinduism as accommodated within it. Its contributions, accepted by Hindus in principle if not always practice, included its renewed emphasis on kindness to all living things, on non-killing of animals, on the elimination of caste barriers in matters religious and their reduction in matters social, and its strong ethical emphasis generally.