Abstract
This article seeks to explore the mystical approaches to suffering characteristic of both Buddhism and Christianity. Through the analysis of the meanings, the two traditions in question ascribe to suffering as a ‘component’ of mystical experience; it challenges the somewhat oversimplified understanding of the dichotomy ’sage-the-robot versus saint-the-sufferer’. Thus it contributes to the ongoing discussion on the theological–spiritual dimensions of the human predicament, as interpreted by various religious traditions. It also illustrates (though only implicitly) in what sense – to use the Kantian distinction – the mystical experience offers boundaries (Schranken) without imposing limits (Grenzen) to interfaith encounter and dialogue.Man [sic] is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering, as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it. (Frankl 1967:56)
Highlights
Throughout the ages, religions and philosophical systems have formulated a myriad of explanations of the human predicament
What first grips our attention when we look at Buddhism and Christianity is the distance which divides Banaras from Jerusalem
Even though Buddhism and Christianity start from different points,18 they can meet each other in the two important aspects of their respective approaches to suffering:
Summary
Throughout the ages, religions and philosophical systems have formulated a myriad of explanations of the human predicament. In the case of Francis of Assisi, the means and the ultimate aim of the transformation through suffering is, again, love, ‘the fire of ecstatic love’, as Bonaventure (1978:263), the biographer of Povorello, puts it.16 And, like in the case of Bernard, the final word belongs not to bodily pain, but to saving grace, because, according to Bonaventure, in the last analysis, Francis was transformed ‘not by the martyrdom of his flesh, but by the fire of his love consuming his soul’ (Bonaventure 1978:306).17 The revelation of paradise made by Christ to the good thief has been made to Francis of Assisi and, in a broader sense, to many other mystics.
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