Thoughts on Buddhism

[Angrboda]

This is just a thought, merely part formed, but it would seem to me that the type of hypocritical head in the sand denial of these human and religious tragedies does more to ensure that they will happen again than embracing them would. If you always walk around with an artificially cleansed coat, descending those few steps into causing suffering and committing evil is that much easier, as you have no past to reconcile, and no burden to carry forward with repentance and just simple fear of becoming that again. When you dissociate Buddhism from what it has been, you are giving it a pass which it, and Buddhists specifically, will likely avail themselves of in future actions. The guilty can repent and amend their being; the innocent are free to descend into evil with a clear conscience.

(I don't normally think about the Thuggee cult, but I certainly get a thrill telling people that I follow She Who Destroys; to pretend that the dark and the light can be separated by any religion known to man is, I think a forlorn hope, yet I understand why Buddhists are vulnerable to that delusion — that's precisely what their dogmatic religious beliefs tell them, that the Buddha can teach them a trick of the mind that will separate the two halves cleanly; and the Christians, if you place your heart in Christ, he will automagically split the baby; and if you're a Jew, finding that good half is done by dutifully following the 316 laws; and it goes on and on and on.)