Buddhist Romanticism

16) Because religious teachings are expressive only of one individual’s feelings,
they have no authority over any other person’s expression of his or her feelings.
“[A]ll the teachings of books, maps, and beliefs have little to do
with wisdom or compassion. At best they are a signpost, a finger
pointing at the moon, or the leftover dialogue from a time when
someone received some true spiritual nourishment.… We must
discover within ourselves our own way to become conscious, to live a
life of the spirit.”
“Even the most creative, world-transforming individuals cannot
stand on their own shoulders. They too remain dependent upon their
cultural context, whether intellectual or spiritual—which is precisely
what Buddhism’s emphasis on impermanence and causal
interdependence implies. The Buddha also expressed his new,
liberating insight in the only way he could, using the religious
categories that his culture could understand. Inevitably, then, his way
of expressing the dharma was a blend of the truly new… and the
conventional religious thought of his time. Although the new
transcends the conventional… the new cannot immediately and
completely escape the conventional wisdom it surpasses.”
“It’s never a matter of trying to figure it all out, rather we pick up
these phrases and chew them over, taste them, digest them and let
them energize us by virtue of their own nature.”
“Even these ostensibly literal maps may be better read as if they
were a kind of poem, rich in possible meanings.”
* * *
17) Although a religious feeling may inspire a desire to formulate rules of
behavior, those rules carry no authority, and are actually unnecessary. When one
sees all of humanity as holy and one—and oneself as an organic part of that holy
Oneness—there is no need for rules to govern one’s interactions with the rest of
society. One’s behavior toward all naturally becomes loving and compassionate.
Buddhist Romantic explanations of morality can follow either of the
patterns set by the Romantics: that morality derives from one’s sense of
being part of a larger whole, or from the inspirations welling up from
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