Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Daily Dharma: Flesh and Spirit

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Flesh and Spirit

The Buddhist challenge to conventional Western notions of spirituality illuminates the way we set flesh and spirit at war with each other. In Buddhism there is no original sin. Although noticing how we express our sexuality can certainly lead to an awareness of right conduct, the flesh is not regarded as representing a corruption or punishment of any kind, nor as an obstacle to the attainment of enlightenment. The root of human suffering is not sin, but our confusion about ego. We suffer because we believe in the existence of an individual self. This belief splits the world into "I" and "other."

~ Stephen Butterfield, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. I, #4; from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith.


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