Is Buddhism The Answer?

A reader writes:

In your dialogue with Sam, I'm surprised you have not referenced Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, which does a pretty good job traversing the divide between reason and faith. Buddhism, of course, is non-theistic – the question of who created the universe is set aside in favor of a focus on addressing the vicissitudes of the human condition. In various forms of Buddhism, semi-divine or transcendental beings come into the picture, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But the focus is always on the alleviation of individual suffering and, ultimately, awakening or enlightenment, which is often defined as seeing into the 'true' nature of things, beyond the conditioned, contingent reality you eloquently wrestled with a few weeks back. The premise of Buddhism is that enlightenment is available to all. Indeed, it is right under our noses at all times. Zen Buddhist thought, which focuses particularly on this question, does not ascribe divine or suprahuman labels to this reality – it is simply the way things really are, absent our subjective judgments and conditions. In Buddhist Pali texts, this is called tathata, or 'suchness.'

On the philosophical level, this tension between the relative and the absolute literally leads to paradoxes. How can something be conditioned and unconditioned at the same time? (Hence the Zen koan.) This is where the spiritual dimension enters into it. Only with some wisdom and insight into these questions – Why do we suffer? What is my life about? What am I? – can we resolve the paradox, usually through an intuitive leap of some kind, an insight. This is one reason your otherwise fascinating debate with Sam Harris is going in endless circles. Intellectual inquiries can nourish faith and wisdom. But they will, eventually, lead you to a paradox, a set of circles, that cannot be negotiated through reason alone. They cannot be the sole basis for an inquiry into the meaning and nature of existence.

Yes, and this will probably become more explicit as we continue talking. Reasoning about faith is a paradox. Some readers have asked when I'm simply going to surrender to Sam. Well: in many ways I have surrendered. I'm fascinated by what reason can illuminate about faith - and have found Sam's arguments enriching to my own faith. But I can no more be reasoned out of faith than I was reasoned into it. I really have no choice in the matter. But I hope to understand it better and to see it in the truest light possible.

(Photo: Burmese light insense at night at the most important Buddhist temple in all of Burma, Shwedagon Pagoda during the full moon festival March 2, 2007 in Rangoon, Burma. By Paula Bronstein/Getty. Two decades ago, I got to see that amazing padoga myself.)