Finding Your Own Way: The Discipline of Transcendence (On Buddha's Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters)

Preface

Remove Buddha and something of tremendous importance would have been lost, but his rebellion is very invisible, very subtle.

Before Buddha, the search, the religious search, was fundamentally a concern with God - a God who is outside, a God who is somewhere above in the heavens. The religious search was as concerned with an object of desire as the worldly search. The worldly man sought money, power, prestige, and the otherworldly man was seeking God, heaven, eternity, truth. But one thing was common, both were looking outside themselves, both were extroverts. Remember this word, because this is going to help you understand Buddha.

Before Buddha, the religious search was not concerned with the within but with the without. It was extrovert, and when the religious search is extrovert it is not really religious. Religion begins only with introversion, when you start diving deeply within yourself.

Contents