Surviving the End Times Unperturbed

Important in the Judeo-Christian belief is the understanding of history as, implicitly, salvation history which falls within the sphere of eschatology (i.e., concern with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind).  

This eschatology alludes to the eventual salvation of the flesh—the carnal man.  There is no transcendence of the temporal here:  seeing beyond samsara which is the repeated birth and death cycles that are always conditioned.

When Marx wrote, “The task of history, therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of this world.”  Marx couldn't help but see that truth is always this worldly.  What lies beyond us cannot be our world.  Maybe one day the flesh can be genetically modified into an undying flesh by science!  

Marx’s words, I must say, are not lost on any generation in the first stages of physiological adulthood.  None today really believe the words of the Buddha who taught that “rejecting the other world (paraloko), there is no evil that could not be done.”

This naive rejection leads, inevitably, to activism or at least a call for activism that first falls on immature ears.  This can only be accomplished by indoctrination which transforms nascent sensations and feelings into a political perspective that can be scaled up at some future point into rebelliousness.  

But salvation never comes.  Eschatology does not include the fleshy man who is always mired in the senses.  He must be transcended.  This includes even his thoughts which are the biggest problem Zen faces.  The transcending attitude is difficult to inculcate in the student’s mind.  Yet, while seemingly impossible it can be accomplished.  This is what Zen’s history teaches us.