{"id":10282,"date":"2011-10-11T16:41:58","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T16:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/11\/bierce-blondel-and-nirvana\/"},"modified":"2011-10-11T16:41:58","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T16:41:58","slug":"bierce-blondel-and-nirvana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/11\/bierce-blondel-and-nirvana\/","title":{"rendered":"Bierce, Blondel, and Nirvana"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> from The Devil's Dictionary<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

     Nirvana<\/em>, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable<\/span>
     annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough<\/span>
     to understand it. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary<\/em>, c. 1911)<\/span><\/p>\n

Although intended sardonically, there is a serious point here to which Maurice Blondel alludes in the following quotation:<\/span><\/p>\n

     . . . if there is a salvation it cannot be tied to the learned<\/span>
     solution of an obscure problem. . . It can only be offered clearly<\/span>
     to all. (Action<\/em>, p. 14)<\/span><\/p>\n

It might be fruitful for someone to develop a comparison of Buddhism and Christianity on this point. Buddhism is a religion of self-help: "Be ye lamps unto yourselves, etc." Trouble is, how many attain the <\/span>Goal? And if only a few renunciates ever attain it, how does that help the rest of us poor schleps? By contrast, in Christianity, God, in the person of the Word (Logos<\/em>) made flesh, does the work for us. Unable ultimately to help ourselves, we are helped by Another. And the help is available to all despite their skills in metaphysics and meditation. (By "do the work for us," I of course do not mean to suggest the sola fide<\/em> extremism of some Protestants.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, what I have just written is but a crude gesture in the direction of a whole constellation of problem-clusters. For example, a thorough comparison would have to go into the role of the Bodhisattva <\/em><\/span>as a sort of helper of samsarically-bound 'schleps.'<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This from The Devil's Dictionary:      Nirvana, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable     annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough     to understand it. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911) Although intended sardonically, there is a serious point here to which Maurice Blondel alludes in the following quotation:      … Continue reading “Bierce, Blondel, and Nirvana”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[550,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blondel","category-buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}