Anyway, I checked out a couple of your podcasts and thought they were great. So thanks for putting them out there.

Thanks for the reply. Your words only confirm what I was trying to say, that the Buddha and his followers have said everything BUT life is suffering. Birth is suffering, of course, but not life. I understand what you are saying about the khandhas as well, but nibbaana is khandhavimutti (free from the khandhas), but it is not considered absence of life. Indeed, the Buddha said in the Dhammapada that “the heedful never die” (appamattaa na miiyanti). Nibbaana is, in essence, eternal life (though, of course, without the presence of arisen phenomena).

But my real point is not whether it is accurate to say that life is suffering or not, but whether it is useful. Indeed, it is the worst thing one can say to someone who is a newcomer to one’s practice that “everything is suffering”, and that is what Maher picks up on. We have to be surgically precise in this regard or else we will be demolished by silly people like this.

The four noble truths are a pedagogical tool, and so, at least in the interests of reaching out to the students, there is nothing about life being suffering therein.

But, nonetheless, most of the mainstream Buddhists in those countries would be able to tell you that they chant things like “namo amitafa” not because anyone will come down and forgive them, but because it helps to purify the mind, which of course it does. No teaching in any Buddhist school that I know of suggests that one can escape one’s karma without working for one’s own salvation. In the end, the one thing most Buddhists throughout the world agree on is that you have to do the work yourself, and no one’s forgiveness will help. This is certainly a core teaching of Buddhism.

Christianity is pretty clear that it is God, not man, who does the work deciding who is good and who is bad, based on his largely arbitrary rules of obedience and fidelity. I think it is at least fair to say that for most Christians, fidelity to God is more important than fidelity to one’s partner. Or, to put it in a more Christian tone, the best way to overcome infidelity to one’s partner is to become faithful to Christ. Sure, there is some benefit to doing so, since the teachings of Christ do put adultery as a sin, and faith can have a temporary calming effect on one’s addictions, but in the end it is just another way to avoid dealing with the issues.

This is really the problem with Christian practice in general; the solution (God) is a total non sequitur to the problem (addiction), and so the results are generally substandard to actually dealing with the issues. It is not that Christians don’t think adultery is wicked, they just don’t think you need to deal with that wickedness, as long as you are always on your knees praying to Christ to forgive your failure to overcome it. To me, that’s a cop out, and I’m not afraid to say it.