s point on they
are so utterly unlike that the very similarity of all that went before
only suffices to make of the second the weird, life-counterfeiting
shadow of the first. As in a silhouette, externally the contours are all
there, but within is one vast blank. In relation to one's neighbor the
two beliefs are kin, but as regards one's self, as far apart as the West
is from the East. For here, at this idea of self, we are suddenly aware
of standing on the brink of a fathomless abyss, gazing giddily down into
that great gulf which divides Buddhism from Christianity. We cannot see
the bottom. It is a separation more profound than death; it seems to
necessitate annihilation. To cross it we must bury in its depths all we
know as ourselves.

Christianity is a personal religion; Buddhism, an impersonal one. In
this fundamental difference lies the world-wide opposition of the two
beliefs. Christianity tells us to purify ourselves that we may enjoy
countless aeons of that bettered self hereafter; Buddhism would have us
purify ourselves that we may lose all sense of self for evermore.

For all that it preaches the essential vileness of the natural man,
Christianity is a gospel of optimism. While it affirms that at present
you are bad, it also affirms that this depravity is no intrinsic part
of yourself. It unquestioningly asserts that it is something foreign
to your true being. It even believes that in a more or less spiritual
manner your very body will survive. It essentially clings to the ego.
What it inculcates is really present endeavor sanctioned by the prospect
of future bliss. It tacitly takes for granted the desirability
of personal existence, and promises the certainty of personal
immortality,--a terror to evildoers, and a sustaining sense of coming
unalloyed happiness to the good. Through and through its teachings runs
the feeling of the fullness of life, that desire which will not die,
that wish of the soul which beats its wings against its earthly casement
in its longing for expansion beyond the narrow confines of threescore
years and ten.

Buddhism, on the contrary, is the cri du coeur of pessimism. This life,
it says, is but a chain of sorrows. To multiply days is only to multiply
evil. These desires that urge us on are really cause of all our woe. We
think they are ourselves. We are mistaken. They are all illusion, and
we are victims of a mirage. This personality, this sense of self, is
a cruel deception and