If Buddhism seems to be nihilistic, it would be because those who have fallen into despair, who have found life almost meaningless, have embraced it, thus making it appear such. In this despair they cannot see that the Buddha is condemning the conditioned world to which they cling. They have not the strength to shake off nihilism’s bewitching power which makes all spiritual endeavors seem meaningless and a lie.
Even when it is in front of their eyes they cannot see the Buddha’s great saving light which lies beyond their walls of despair; which reveals the stream to nirvana where begins the awakening from the poisonous sleep of nihilism.
When the Buddha declares, in so many words, again and again that there is no self in this corporeal body why do the nihilists, who make up the bulk of the Buddha’s flock, say the Buddha is a denier of the self or âtman? Has he really proclaimed such?
But where and in what discourse, has the Buddha taught his followers other than their self is not the physical body (rûpa), the physical body being impermanent and suffering? Has he also not taught these same followers that the physical body is murderous and is Mara the killer? Did he teach them that they should reject the self and cling, instead, to the murderous five skandhas of physical form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness?
Only a person fallen into despair would declare there is no self using their physical body as the criterion. On the other hand, only a wise person would understand that an island and a refuge, such as the self, cannot be found in the physical body which is impermanent and suffering. The Buddha only taught his followers to abandon desire for what is not their self which is all that is conditioned.
Although staring right at IT, their eyes are wide shut to the reality and dark luminousity of their true nature.
It is with this grave spiritual deficiency at heart, they love to slander the dharma and anyone propagating its profound simplicity, that rests single mindedly in the immutable reality of Nirvana at all times.
To escape the cause and origin of this deficiency, they invent and refer to a pre-set rule-book of social and moral principles, declared sacrosanct in the complex web of their skandhic prison-world.
Anyone breaking said rules, trying to shake them up from their deep slumber, in which they dream of and live an endless stream of desires, conviently suitable gods and devils, is seen as an imposter and ostracised as such. All this to protect their hive of the interdependent collective delusion, known as samsara.
You and I know who "they" are. These putthugjanas do not alter what they consider to be a good game, despite their enchanted attachement to their suffering skandhic matrix, or more correctly, refuse to accept what stares back at them from the mirror of their confused psyche´s in their daily strife to convince themselves that the false reality they conjure up as the go about is true, and the true reality escaping their clogged spiritual eye is false.
I admire your most compassionate attempts to awake them despite their continuous resistance in so many colorful ways. You surely keep a vow you took in the presence of the Tathagata, countless lives ago.
You have my deepest respect.
Posted by: minx | May 18, 2014 at 06:34 AM