Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism

c o m m o n g r o u n d between i s l a m a n d b u d d h i s m
in which we are to understand the nature of the world in which we
live, according to the two traditions. Given the Buddhist conception
of this world as being but one minute particle in the immeasurable
series of universes of which the illusory web of samsara is woven,
and given the Buddhist stress on the interminable series of reincarnations
to which the unenlightened soul is susceptible within samsara,
one might think that there is little in common between the two
traditions as regards the fundamental attitude towards the ‘world’.
However, if one focuses upon the Buddhist idea of anicca, impermanence,
and restricts one’s view to the fundamental nature of this
world—leaving out of account the cosmological framework within
which this world is situated—then we will be brought to a position
remarkably close to that fashioned by the Islamic understanding of
‘the life of this world’, al-hayāt al-dunyā.
Suffering
As was seen in the introduction, the crux of the Buddha’s message
concerns suffering and how to avoid it. The fact that we all undergo
suffering (dukkha) is the first of the four ‘noble truths’; the second is
the cause of suffering: ‘thirst’ (tanhā, Sanskrit: trishnā) for the impermanent;
the third is the cessation of suffering through the extinction
of this thirst; and the fourth is the path that leads to the cessation
of suffering. The crux of this fundamental teaching of the Buddha
is the element of ‘thirst’. This thirst for the perishable things of this
world arises out of the ego in its unbridled, untamed, unmastered
state. Not only does this thirst generate the seeds of suffering for
oneself, by producing a passionate attachment to things from which
one will ineluctably be detached, sooner or later; this thirst also gives
rise to all the vices that result in the infliction of suffering upon others.
Therefore, one must overcome thirst for the perishable both for
the sake of one’s liberation from suffering, and for the sake of liberating
others from the consequences of one’s egotistically-driven
vices. The opposite of suffering is not simply a state of ease for the
ego; it is the highest good—Nirvana, thus, the Absolute, which transcends
the ego and all its states. Thus the fundamental motivation
for ridding oneself of suffering is not situated on the same plane as
that upon which the suffering is located—the empirical ego. For this
ego is, like all compounded (samskrta) things, itself impermanent,
whence the idea of anattā or no-self. Rather, the motivation for this
liberation from suffering is grounded in a quest for the Dharma,
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