A spiritual journey in the footsteps of the Buddha by Mishra, reviewed by Michael Mcgirr

A spiritual journey in the footsteps of the Buddha
MICHAEL MCGIRR, REVIEWER
1059 words
5 March 2005
The Age
First
3
English
© 2005 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.theage.com.au Not available for re-distribution.

RELIGION

BOOK REVIEW: AN END TO SUFFERING: THE BUDDHA IN THE WORLD, By Pankaj Mishra, Picador, $30

TO THE naked eye, there appears to be more religion in Australia now than ever before. You only have to think back to the federal election campaign to be reminded of this. Never before had a prime minister been filmed going to church on the day after an election victory, presumably giving thanks to the Almighty for the deliverance of Australia from high interest rates. The subtext of the entire campaign was that God hates high interest rates. God wants us to be comfortable.

There was a moment of breathtaking hypocrisy soon after the campaign when a senior cabinet minister, Tony Abbott, raised his concern about the prevalence of abortion in Australia, a concern I share. But having just won a campaign in part by playing on people's anxieties that they might miss out on the good things, it defied belief that Abbott would then criticise people for making a priority of their personal prosperity and choosing not to have children.

It is curious that an increase in religiosity coincides in Australia with a period of unparalleled prosperity for many. Normally, it is the other way around. Bruce Ruxton, the former head of the Victorian RSL, once told me that church parade was well attended by troops on their way into battle. It was not usually so popular on the way home. In other words, people think of God like an ageing relative they haven't been in touch with for ages when they think the old bloke might be able to help them.

In years to come, wiser heads than mine will ponder the current phenomenon of sharpening religious attitudes in Australia. In doing so, I am sure they will need to grapple with the relationship between Christianity and global politics. They will also need to consider something known as the "Gospel of prosperity". This is a form of Christianity that sees wealth and success as a sign of God's blessing. It takes a few pieces of scripture and uses them to develop an argument that runs directly counter to the whole purpose of the Bible. It turns a communitarian religion into a licence for individuality.

This is the context in which an Australian reader might encounter Pankaj Mishra's philosophical epic, An End to Suffering. It is a book that sheds light, sometimes soft and sometimes harsh, into many hidden corners of human experience, not least the human proclivity to seek material prosperity and, at the same time, to seek liberation from it. We are a confused species and, as time goes by, it seems that confusion more than choice is our hallmark.

Material prosperity is among the forms of suffering to which Pankaj Mishra brings insight gained from his acquaintance with a broad band of thinkers. If this book had an index, it would be a long one. But an index encourages a reader to approach a book like a supermarket and, in this case, that wouldn't be such a good idea.

This book rewards patience. In that regard, it is not unlike its subject, Buddhism, a way of life and thought that is often bowdlerised as a few low-impact cliches. Indeed, you could reduce Christianity to a few well-rubbed sentiments but, if you did, it would no longer be Christianity. It is in the nature of Christianity that it seeks to express itself in new and unfamiliar ways. If Christianity loves jokes, then Buddhism loves riddles. Buddhism maintains its strangeness by its rich sense of irony and humour: even the most profound insight loses something in the very act of finding expression. It is a good foil for Mishra's restless, over-burdened and often anxious spirit. At times he is like an alcoholic trying to describe the beauty of a single glass of wine.

An End to Suffering is an engaging book because, in trying to write a personal history of Buddhism and its relationship to the cultures of the world, Mishra has set himself an impossible task. Yet to have succeeded would have been a most un-Buddhist outcome. He forms judgements slowly. In describing the spiritual paths of two close friends, Vinod and Helen, he shows some of the challenges posed by living in a material world without needing to reach answers. The same is true of his own disjointed journey that never seems to reach a resting place. Mishra is no Buddha and his book is better for it.

At one level, An End to Suffering belongs to that beguiling type of biography, the one written about a figure of whom little is known. Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born about 2500 years ago in the Nepalese town of Lambini, a place that Mishra finds now bears little evidence of this distinction. Buddha's moment in history coincided with the development of urban communities, a form of egalitarian living, different from castes, that allowed reflection on the idea of humanity in general, something shared by all people regardless of status.

As the story goes, Buddha left his wife and young family and found enlightenment under a pipal tree. This is often the image that is used to portray Buddhism as a form of disengagement or escape. But Mishra's sturdy explorations of Buddhism in countless contexts return again and again to its ethical demands. In treating the worship of individuality and the tyranny of the ego with a wry smile, Buddhism has offered as radical a view of human depravity as any other. Mishra points out that, in history, different forms of Buddhism have never come to blows in the way that Catholic and Protestant Christians or Sunni and Shiite Muslims have.

Of course, one wonders what Jesus and the Buddha might have said to each other had they ever met. Perhaps this is the wrong question. They probably would have found no reason to speak. They would have shown each other their wounds, perhaps, and shared their compassion for those colourless beings with no wounds to show.