Ten years in Burma

by Julius Smith

A few years ago a former bishop of Calcutta saw a Buddhist in a temple, and asked him, “What have you been praying for?” “I have been praying for nothing.” “To whom have you been praying?” He answered, “I have been praying to nobody.” “What, praying for nothing to nobody?” said the astonished bishop. This is a fair sample of the religious expression of Buddhists.

This eminent writer admits that later Buddhism has developed a great reverence for Buddha, the law, and the monkhood, which is some expression of man’s sense of need. But in reality this is a cry from the hungry heart of man for God, which Buddhism does not recognize nor foster. Pure Buddhism is atheistic. This author also considers what claim Gautama has to the title, “The Light of Asia.” He first points out that “his doctrines spread only over Eastern Asia, and Confucius, or Zoroaster, or Mohammed, might equally be called ‘The Light of Asia.’” He also maintains that Gautama was not a true light in any sense; that he claimed little higher than intellectual enlightenment resulting from intense concentration of all man’s intellectual powers in introspection. He did not claim to have any voice regarding the origin of evil, nor concerning a personal God. His “light,” in this respect, was “sheer darkness.” And so the system he founded is as devoid of “light” as midnight. “All that he claimed to have discovered was the origin of suffering and the remedy of suffering. All the light of knowledge to which he attained came to this: That suffering arises from indulging desires, especially the desire for the continuity of life; that suffering is inseparable from life; that all life is suffering; and that suffering is to be gotten rid of by the suppression of desires, and by the extinction of personal existence.”

Here he makes his first great contrast in the teachings of Christ and Gautama, and says in part: “It is noteworthy that both Christianity and Buddhism agree in asserting that all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, in suffering, in tribulation. But mark the vast, the vital distinction in the teaching of each. The one taught men to be patient under affliction, and to aim at the utter annihilation of the suffering body.” Further: “But, say the admirers of Buddhism, at least you admit that the Buddha taught men to avoid sin, and to aim at purity and holiness of life! Nothing of the kind. The Buddha had no idea of sin as an offense against God; no idea of true holiness. What he said was, Get rid of the demerit of evil actions, and accumulate a stock of merit by good actions. And let me remark here, that the determination to store up merit, like capital at a bank, is one of those inveterate propensities of human nature, one of those deep-seated tendencies in humanity which nothing but the divine force imparted by Christianity can ever eradicate. It is forever cropping up in the heart of man, as much in the West as in the East, as much in the North as in the South; forever reasserting itself like a pestilential weed, or like tares amidst wheat, forever blighting the fruit of those good instincts which underlie man’s nature everywhere.”

He shows the contrast of Gautama and Christ; the former claiming to be self-sent, having no divine commission and no external revelation, while the latter claimed to be sent from God; to be the Son of God, whose every word has divine authority; that the gospel is to be proclaimed to every man in all generations, and that Christ himself was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He proceeds to contrast the Christian Bible with the Buddhist: “The characteristics of the Christian’s Bible are that it claims to be a supernatural revelation, yet it attaches no mystic, talismanic virtue to the mere sound of words. On the other hand, Buddhism utterly repudiates all claim to be a supernatural revelation; yet the very sound of its words is believed to possess a meritorious efficacy capable of elevating any one who hears it to heavenly abodes in future existences. In illustration, I may advert to a legend current in Ceylon, that once on a time five hundred bats lived in a cave where two monks daily recited the Buddha’s law. These bats gained such merit by simply hearing the sound of the words, that when they died they were all reborn as men, and ultimately as gods.”

We are given another contrast in the kinds of self-sacrifice taught by the two systems. “But again I hear the admirers of Buddhism say: Is it not the case that the doctrine, like the doctrine of Christ, has self-sacrifice as its keynote? Well, be it so. I admit that he related of himself that, on a particular occasion in one of his previous births, he plucked out his own eyes, and that on another he cut off his own head as a sacrifice for the good of others; and that again, on a third occasion, he cut his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a hawk. Yet note the vast difference of the sacrifice taught by the two systems. Christianity demands the suppression of selfishness; Buddhism demands the suppression of self, with the one object of extinguishing all consciousness of self. In the one the true self is elevated and intensified. In the other the true self is annihilated by a false form of non-selfishness, which has for its real object not the good of others, but the annihilation of the Ego, the utter extinction of the illusion of personal individuality.”

The doctrines which Christ and Gautama bequeathed to their followers present an equally great contrast. From the vast difference between them it is comparatively easy to believe the statement from Christ that he brought a divine revelation, and from Gautama that he was self-sent and had no revelation to make to his followers. The contrast between the two systems has been arranged by the same author.

“According to Christianity: Fight, and overcome the world. According to Buddhism: Shun the world, and overcome it.

“According to Christianity: Expect a new earth when the present earth is destroyed; a world renewed and perfected; a purified world in which righteousness is to dwell forever. According to Buddhism: Expect a never-ending succession of evil worlds coming into existence, developing, decaying, perishing, and reviving, and all equally full of everlasting misery, disappointment, illusion, change, and transmutations.

“According to Christianity, bodily existence is subject to only one transformation. According to Buddhism, bodily existence is continued in six conditions, through countless bodies of men, animals, demons, ghosts, and dwellers in various hells and heavens; and that, too, without any progressive development, but in a constant jumble of metamorphoses and transmutations.

“Christianity teaches that life in heaven can never be followed by a fall to a lower state. Buddhism teaches that life in a higher heaven may be succeeded by a life in a lower heaven, or even by a life on earth or in one of the hells.