Skip to main content

When Has "Everything" Ever Been Everything? — A Critique of "Seven Major Differences Between Buddhism and Other Religions"

Yesterday I saw an article titled "Seven Major Differences Between Buddhism and Other Religions." It merely treats the Dharma as scholarship in the ordinary sense, trapped and bedeviled by words, lacking the eye at the crown of the head. Here I will dialectically refute each point:

One: The first difference between Buddhism and other religions: "Buddhism denies that God created the world and denies a primordial beginning."
Dialectical rebuttal: The words are not wrong, but denial is itself merely a raft for ferrying people across. If you get tangled up in the denial itself, you've entered another demon's cave. The world begins anew at every moment, and every moment of beginning is the world. So who exactly is "beginning" and who is "the world"? Without the eye here, both affirmation and denial are blind babbling.

Two: The second difference between Buddhism and other religions: "The goal of Buddhism is to enable every person to become a Buddha, while other religions absolutely do not permit people to become God."
Dialectical rebuttal: If a Buddha can be "achieved," then a Buddha can also be "destroyed." The Tathagata — coming from nowhere, going to nowhere — tell me, what exactly is there to "achieve"?

Three: The third difference between Buddhism and other religions: "Buddhism is a teaching with inclusiveness and perfect comprehension, while most other religions are exclusionary."
Dialectical rebuttal: The Dharma has no outside and no inside. To even say the word "perfect" is already putting a head on top of a head. Tell me, what is there to teach? What is there to systematize?

Four: The fourth difference between Buddhism and other religions: "The gods of other religions have afflictions and ego-attachment; the Buddha is the great liberated one, free from afflictions."
Dialectical rebuttal: To say the Buddha has no afflictions is a great slander of the Buddha. Afflictions are themselves bodhi — does the Buddha have no bodhi?

Five: The fifth difference between Buddhism and other religions: "Buddhism is democratic and rational; most other religions are dogmatic and dictatorial."
Dialectical rebuttal: What nonsense about democracy and dictatorship — that's just tangled vines. As the saying goes, "Above heaven and below heaven, I alone am honored." Tell me, is that democracy or dictatorship?

Six: The sixth difference between Buddhism and other religions: "The love of Buddhism is infinite; the love of other religions is finite."
Dialectical rebuttal: Pure thought leads to flying upward; pure love leads to falling downward. Even flying still tumbles within the Three Realms. So tell me, where has the Buddha fallen to?

People of the world know only the Bodhisattva's lowered brow of compassion — but can they see the Vajra's wrathful glare? When has "everything" ever been everything? Everything is sentient beings — and when have sentient beings ever been sentient beings? No one has bound you, so what is there to liberate?