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Category: Bodhisattvas

Nihilism, Hell, and Self-Interest

Nihilism, Hell, and Self-Interest

Often when people fear hell, they fear it in the sense of an afterlife of eternal torment, or, perhaps more sophisticatedly, eternal separation from God. As others have noted, though, hell exists on earth in a variety of forms. For example, you can read Sartre’s “No Exit” as making the case that “hell is other people.” As an introvert, I find that line of thinking attractive, but I think a more pressing form of hell on earth is putting one’s…

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“You cannot petition Kannon with Prayer!”—Calling upon Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara through Embodied Compassion

“You cannot petition Kannon with Prayer!”—Calling upon Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara through Embodied Compassion

In Mahayana Buddhism, enacting the life of the Bodhisattva is the goal of every practitioner. The Bodhisattva is one whose compassion for others’ suffering is so great that she delays her final escape from samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, life to life, and which is characterized by suffering and dissatisfaction) until she has helped to awaken all other sentient beings, freeing them from suffering and samsara. There are two basic varieties of Bodhisattvas. The first are the…

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