Buddhism and the New Church

Ian gives a brief but insightful comparison between Buddhist and New Church ideas. For a consideration of what to make of differences in religion turn to Isaac's article Even as We are One.

All true religion is founded on the idea that love is the heart of human life. Both the New Church and Buddhism hold religious visions in which humanity's higher reality is one of love. More interesting are the perspectives Swedenborgians and Buddhists share on why, if love is our highest reality, we do not feel love all the time—or even at all. They also share common themes on how we can become a part of this higher reality.

Buddhist teachings stress the idea of non-attachment to our desires; whether they are for material possessions, physical pleasures, thoughts or emotional states. The teaching of non-attachment is compared easily to Swedenborg's view of love of self and of the world: love of self being an obsession and preoccupation with our self and our desires and love of the world being an imbalanced craving for possessions, wealth and pleasure (see for example New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine n. 65-73). It is our attachments to these things that lead us into the negative states we feel during our life.

At the heart of attachment lies a fundamental error in the way we view our self. The misperception is that we believe that we are actually our attachments and self-loves. We believe that our life is our wealth or poverty, our beauty or ugliness, our successes and failures, our vanities and insecurities. Buddhists refer to this false self as our ego and Swedenborg calls it our proprium. Swedenborg tells us that our proprium is created through the misperception that our life is separate from God or that we are capable of having life apart from God (see for example Divine Providence n. 308), while Buddhism claims that our ego is created by our misperception of our self as being separate from the whole of all life. It seems clear that these concepts are the same in spirit, although not in word; perhaps even more so when we take into consideration Swedenborg's concept of God as not only the source of all life, but life itself.

In Buddhist teachings it is said that the inherent nature of all beings is empty or that no being has any independent essence of its own. To say that we are empty is just another way of saying that in reality we have no ego—it is an illusion! It is important to understand that by becoming “empty” we do not become lifeless, paradoxically we become more alive. This is because we are becoming empty of our attachments and self-loves that produce the fear, anger, and anxiety that can overflow within us. Swedenborg's idea of emptiness is what he refers to as the Divine reality or that there is nothing real except God. To elaborate, by realizing that our ego or proprium is not real, we come to know that the only thing that is real is God. God is what fills us with life! While the idea of being filled is the opposite of being empty, both ideas identify the same spiritual reality—there is only One and that One is God.

Swedenborg and Buddha both taught that the real purpose and meaning for all people's lives is to realize and become a living part of the oneness of God. As a result of our union with God we are emptied of our negative states and filled with all things pertaining to love: compassion, generosity, innocence, and appreciation—to name a few. When we feel ourselves being filled with these qualities we can know that we are becoming an angel and a Buddha! The heaven and enlightenment of which Swedenborg and Buddha speak is not an imaginary world or a world of which we are not a part. It is actually the opposite, in that it is the very experience of our being led to and transformed by what is most real...love!

Ian Chapman

Ian Chapman says, “I didn't finish my degree at Bryn Athyn College (www.brynathyn.edu). I became a professional gambler on horse racing. I like to think of myself as a theosopher. I am from Glenview. Those are some randomish things about myself.”

Comments

[Janine]

Ian, I really liked your article. I find Buddist teachings to be quite refreshing because they are so focused on where the rubber meets the road. The concept of non-attachment and learning to hold our desires nutrally and respond to life rather than react to it is a very solid and real thing to work on and put into practice. Its a moment-to-moment, day-to-day practice. Sometimes REGENERATION can be like "what? what am i working on?" and so some of these Buddist ideas give it the "ahhh...now i know what I am working on." And practicing these things brings a lot of peace. These two religions do go so well together. Thanks for helping us to connect them and learn from them.

[Isaac Synnestvedt]

Beautiful! Inspiring!

I see you know horses and place your bets with skill and wisdom :D