Years ago, having read the delightful novel Don Quixote, I decided to read a scholarly criticism of the book. It was filled with fascinating insights, including, for example, why Cervantes killed off D.Q. at the end (because he wanted to stop other authors from writing the further adventures of…)
But the most interesting insight, one that had a profound effect on my thinking over the years, was the observation that although Cervantes intended to mock the age of chivalry in order to destroy the very idea of chivalry, the age had already ended before he picked up his pen. His novel was just kicking a dead horse. It was great that he did make such fun of it, exposing its absurdities, but the absurd chivalrous belief system was already in the history books when D.Q. sallied forth from his home.
Before reading that criticism, I would have loved to write a book mocking Christianity, holding its absurdities up to the light for all to see. The only reason I never did was because I lacked the writing skills of Cervantes. I would write a few lines, read them, and say to myself: That’s awful! You are not a writer!
After reading the criticism, I realized that if Cervantes were alive today, he could write the great book I never wrote, and his book would bury Christianity once and for all. And just like Don Quixote, the book would make a delightful read but it would be kicking a dead horse.
Only 17.6% of Americans go to church these days, and the percentages in Europe are even lower. Happily, the Christian era is coming to an end and we don’t need a great book to shove it over the cliff. We don’t need a great book to expose the meanness, the unforgiving ill will that lies at its heart. It is dying a natural death because people are waking up.
Even Adolf Hitler doesn’t deserve eternal punishment; such punishment could issue only from a Satan, if there was such a thing. The Christian threat of eternal hell fire and damnation is laughable but many have fallen victim to such psychological terrorism. (Blasphemy is a victimless crime).
When the punishment exceeds the crime, the punisher becomes the criminal. (That’s the moral of The Count of Monte Cristo, of course).
Most modern people know these things intuitively and that is why church attendance is falling each year.
So if such a great book were to be written today, it would just be Don Quixote deja vu.
I don’t understand the hatred that Christians have for gay people. The few bigots that I know are staunch Christians. I don’t understand why Christian churches put Thank You God For Victory signs up after the U.S. unlawfully invaded Iraq and murdered a million people. I see Jesus stickers on all the Support Our Troops cars. Why are Christians so pro-military? Why do they love hunting and fishing and why do they mock vegetarians? Why are they anti-environment? Why do they want to decrease the food stamp program by 21 billion dollars and then spend hundreds of billions on fighter aircraft?
The congressmen and women who want to starve the poor and enrich the military are 100% Christian. The people who insist Obama is from Kenya (while denying that they are racists!) are 100% Christian. The Tea Party members who hate seeing their tax money go to poor black people are unaware that most of their tax money goes to corporate welfare, supporting corporations who don’t even pay U.S. taxes even though they benefit from the U.S. war machine. And they are 100% Christian, too. It would be hard to find a more mean-minded group of selfish, utterly ignorant people so filled with ill will for others.
If I were a Christian, I would be ashamed of my fellow Christians.
But why kick a dead horse? The 18-34 crowd is not anti-gay and not pro war. They are pro environment, pro peace. They know Romney made his millions teaching rich people how to avoid paying U.S. taxes, while cheering for more military spending while paying nothing toward that spending. The dark reign of Christian ill will, Christian mean-mindedness is over. I only wish someone could have given it a swift kick in the butt as it went out the door as Cervantes did to chivalry.
We don’t need any religions on this earth. We know that kindness to all living things is the best policy and that is all we need to know. We knew that long before Christianity appeared. Everything else is just meaningless elaboration.
So why blog about Buddhism? Because its concrete practices have the magic quality of increasing good will. Anyone can do these practices (see www.howtopracticezen.com) and everyone will benefit from them. Just as lifting weights increases our muscular strength, meditation practices strengthen our minds. Increased mindfulness is a good thing.
And when our mindfulness becomes strong, we can see beyond the human dharma realm. We see the foolishness of religions. Everyone who practices every day will wake up and realize that time, space, and the human mind are infinite and inexhaustible, with no beginning and no ending. That is not a statement of belief, it is just an interesting fact. And that interesting fact has nothing to do with any religion.
The practices are called Buddhism for convenience purposes only. The Buddha was a human being who taught human beings how to develop good will, which he called loving kindness. He taught how to increase the strength of the human mind. When the mind is strong, it can see itself. But it can’t see its limits, because there are none.
I suspect Jesus the Christ was not a mean-minded person and therefore I guess he would be appalled by the behavior of the people who claim to be his biggest followers. But as Christianity becomes increasingly irrelevant, like chivalry, Buddhism rises. It’s not a religion because it does not claim to be delivered to humanity by a god or a man-god. It’s a set of practices that lead to awakening. We have seen what Christian practices lead to. Those practices will go the way of chivalry. To Christianity and the psychological terrorism it preaches we say: Good riddance.
To Buddhism and the rational lovingkindness it teaches we say: Welcome!
Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom
