The Christian Goal of the Eight-Fold Path

Today, I practiced a learning exercise that really does a lot for me: teaching. I did teach six times today, actually, but there was one main point at which I was really getting something from what I said. Hopefully, the students found my insight more valuable.

In world history, I covered the foundations of ancient India and China. This required a little on the Indo-Aryans, a little on the Huang river, and a lot on Hinduism and Buddhism. I was particularly interested in teaching this as I have a student whose mother is a Hindu, which is the basis for her own "faith." Well, I explained the basic teaching of the fragmentation of the Brahman and the karmatic cycle of reincarnation and the caste system and did a decent job of laying out the rudiments in the time I had. I went on to Buddhism, and I was talking about the "Noble Eight-Fold Path" when I said something I hadn't thought of before:

"See, the whole point of the eight-fold path is to get rid of desires. You can compare this to the Christian doctrine of dying to self."

Whoa, whoa, hang on, Conner. I'd just stumbled upon the idea that the main ethical teaching of Buddhism is comparable to salvific and sancitific principles in Christianity. But the whole point is totally backwards.

In Buddhism, the goal is to lose oneself in the One, the Life Force, the Brahman. To become nothing. In Christianity, the goal is to unite with the One, the Godhead, the Christ. To become whole.

While both religions teach a strange sort of brokenness (fragmentation in one, fallenness in the other), one teaches total annihiliation as the ultimate good, and one teaches total glorification as the ultimate good. Huge.