Beyond transcendence

Continuing this post, excerpts from David Loy's article “Toward a new Buddhist story”:

“We need to become aware of the difficulties with traditional Buddhist worldviews as well. […] It originated as an Iron Age mythology and still contains many mythological elements that shouldn’t be accepted merely because they are traditional.

“Like other Axial developments, Buddhism basically rests on cosmological dualism. Instead of God and the created world, it’s samsara versus nirvana. […] On the popular level of understanding, however, Buddhism devalues this world as a place of suffering, craving, and delusion, and the goal of Buddhist practice is to transcend it.

“Another implication of cosmological dualism is that my individual salvation or liberation is independent of yours. But trying to attain nirvana by escaping from this world of samsara is incompatible with the situation we face today. What is called for now is not people seeking to transcend this world but people who take responsibility for its well-being.”