On Escaping the World

In response to a previous post on the nature of attachment, John made the following comment:

In many ways, Christianity and Buddhism share the same beliefs when it comes to the diagnosis of our problems - that we are too attached to the things of this transient world instead of being attached to the things that are eternal. The differences (and they are severe) come when we start to talk of the solution to our problem. Buddhism teaches that we need to sever our connections to the things of this world, to become detached, in order to escape suffering. Christianity teaches that the answer to suffering is to form new attachments to the God who created this world, and that these new attachments will enable us to withstand suffering, grow from it and make the world a better place. That is, Christianity teaches us not to escape from the world but to transform it.

I have been thinking about this issue since first reading John's comments, and although I had a clear sense of how Buddhism is not about escaping from the world, I wasn't clear about how to express that truth. While reading the current issue of Buddhadharma, I came across the following quote from Tenzin Palmo, the British nun best known for having meditated in a Himalayan cave for twelve years.

". . . we don't want to go to heaven. We want to be reborn so that we can keep going and realize the dharma so as to benefit other beings endlessly. It's a very different thing. We're not collecting merit scores for ourselves. We're making merit so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit others, and ourselves, again and again and again, more and more every time. We are in a position to deepen our understanding to be of genuine benefit to other beings."

What she is describing here is known as the bodhisattva vow, a commitment that is central to the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. Essentially, one promises to devote one's life to becoming enlightened -- to attaining non-dual consciousness through relinquishing attachments to this world, or to knowing Spirit as source and destination of all things -- so that one may be reborn again and again to help others become enlightened. One commits to continuous rebirth until all sentient beings are enlightened.

There is nothing in Mahayana Buddhism that encourages escape from the world. Rather, one is encouraged to transcend the attachments of this world so that one may devote one's lives to helping others do the same.

Buddhism does not reject the world out of fear (as do fundamentalist versions of other traditions), but rather in recognition that the manifest world is an illusion hiding the true face of Spirit. And even in being clear that all is illusion, Buddhism is also clear that ultimate truth is to be found in the dharma, but that we live as physical beings in a world that is relative. Knowing this, we work with what we have in this reality. We practice bodhicitta (loving-kindness) and attempt to develop the tender heart of the Shambala warrior.