Author: Jim

NYTimes: Why Mortality Makes Us Free

Why Mortality Makes Us Free nyti.ms/2HohH9I

The aim of salvation in Buddhism, however, is to be released from finite life itself. Such an idea of salvation recurs across the world religions, but in many strands of Buddhism there is a remarkable honesty regarding the implications of salvation. Rather than promising that your life will continue, or that you will see your loved ones again, the salvation of nirvana entails your extinction. The aim is not to lead a free life, with the pain and suffering that such a life entails, but to reach the “insight” that personal agency is an illusion and dissolve in the timelessness of nirvana. What ultimately matters is to attain a state of consciousness where everything ceases to matter, so that one can rest in peace.

The Buddhist conclusion may seem extreme when stated in this way, but in fact it makes explicit what is implicit in all ideas of eternal salvation. Far from making our lives meaningful, eternity would make them meaningless, since our actions would have no purpose. This problem can be traced even within religious traditions that espouse faith in eternal life. An article in U.S. Catholic asks: “Heaven: Will it be Boring?” The article answers no, for in heaven souls are called “not to eternal rest but to eternal activity — eternal social concern.” Yet this answer only underlines the problem, since there is nothing to be concerned about in heaven.

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