Suffering

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How Christianity Differs from Hinduism and Buddhism
and Other Eastern Religious Practices
Suffering
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Jeff Lampl

The writings of Siddhartha Gautama (583-483 BC) the Hindu founder of Buddhism, who came to be known as the “enlightened one” (the Buddha) challenge each of us with regard to the things we are attached to. He is right in noting that our attachments, clinging and desires can lead to suffering.   His solution was detachment, the practice of eliminating desire and thereby eliminating the pain of loss, transience, and ultimately death.  

While recognizing that some attachments are good (to our spouse and children).  Christians also recognize that many desires and attachments can become idols, which can not only separate us from God but can also become false gods which we worship (can’t live without). Among these are the craving, desire and attachment to our possessions, power, or an unhealthy obsession with even good desires.

How does Jesus instruct his followers regarding the suffering we experience when our desires and attachments let us down and leave us in despair?  

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?    

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”                 Matthew 6:24-34 (NIV2011)  

The Buddha taught non-attachment through meditation. Jesus calls us to keep our minds focused on the most important things first (6:33), to trust in God for the rest, and to not be obsessed with wealth. Invite.  

Do you notice the difference?  In Buddhism and other eastern religious practices the emphasis is on self-emptying.   In Christianity the focus is on filling, filling one’s mind, heart and life purpose with God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  This is no minor difference.  In Christianity there is a God who gives us desires as a means to drive us to Himself, in Whom fulfillment is found, and in Whom our deepest desires are met.   In many eastern practices God either does not exist, or is irrelevant, or is a supreme impersonal truth into which the finally detached person is ultimately subsumed.   Christianity actually teaches “not that our desires are too strong, rather that they are too weak.    We are like children who settle for playing in the mud when a holiday at the beach is available”   (C.S. Lewis paraphrase)

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