Nietzsche for Creative Spirits
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Buddha's 'Religion' - a Kind of Hygiene
...that profound physiologist Buddha. His "religion" should rather be called a kind of hygiene, to avoid confusing it with so pitiful a thing as Christianity
...Buddha says: "Do not flatter your benefactor!" Repeat this saying in a Christian church: right away it clears the air of everything Christian.
...Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity --it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept of "God," had long been disposed of before it arrived....It does not speak of a "struggle against sin," but, yielding to reality, of the "struggle against suffering." Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.
...These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants;...finally, no worry, either on one's own account or on account of others...He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health....Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism....he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment... ...mental fatigue...he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha's teaching egoism is a duty.
...The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.--Under Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and the oppressed come to the fore: it is only those who are at the bottom who seek their salvation in it. Here the prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for boredom is the discussion of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of conscience; here the emotion produced by power (called "God") is pumped up (by prayer); here the highest good is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as "grace." Here, too, open dealing is lacking; concealment and the darkened room are Christian. Here body is despised and hygiene is denounced as sensual
...Buddhism is a religion for peoples in a late stage of development, for races that have become kind, gentle and over-spiritualized...it is a way of leading them them back to peace and cheerfulness, to a diet for the spirit and a certain hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering beasts of prey; its modus operandi is to make them ill - to make feeble is the Christian recipe for taming, for "civilizing."
...Buddhism promises nothing, but actually fulfills; Christianity promises everything, but fulfills nothing.
...the two world religions, Buddhism and Christianity, may have owed their origin and above all their sudden spread to a tremendous collapse and disease of the will. And that is what actually happened: both religions encountered a situation in which the will had become diseased, giving rise to a demand that had become utterly desperate for some "thou shalt."
from Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, (trans. W. Kaufmann), p1 s6Anger, pathological vulnerability, the impotence for revenge, the lust, the thirst for revenge, poison-mixing in any sense - for the exhausted that is surely the most disadvantageous way to react: it involves a rapid consumption of nervous energy, a pathological increase of harmful secretions, for example of the gall bladder into the stomach. Ressentiment is the forbidden as such for the sick man - it is his specific evil: unfortunately also his most natural inclination. This was comprehended by that profound physiologist Buddha. His "religion" should rather be called a kind of hygiene, to avoid confusing it with so pitiful a thing as Christianity: its effectiveness depended on the victory over resentment. To liberate the soul from it was the first step towards recovery. "Not by enmity is enmity ended; by friendship enmity is ended": this stands at the beginning of Buddha's doctrine - it is not morality that speaks thus, thus speaks physiology. - Ressentiment, born of weakness, is most harmful for the the weak themselves, - conversely, given a rich nature, it is a superfluous feeling, a feeling which, if one remains master of it, is almost a proof of riches. Whoever knows how seriously my philosophy has taken up the fight against feelings of revenge and rancor, even into the doctrine of "free will" - the fight against Christianity is merely a special case of this
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from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, (trans. W. Kaufmann), 142Frankincense.- Buddha says: "Do not flatter your benefactor!" Repeat this saying in a Christian church: right away it clears the air of everything Christian.
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from Nietzsche's The Antichrist, (trans. H.L.Mencken), 20In my condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of believers: I allude to Buddhism. Both are to be reckoned among the nihilistic religions--they are both decadence religions--but they are separated from each other in a very remarkable way. For the fact that he is able to compare them at all the critic of Christianity is indebted to the scholars of India.-- Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity --it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept of "God," had long been disposed of before it arrived. Buddhism is the only genuinely positive religion to be encountered in history, and this applies even to its theory of knowledge (which is a strict phenomenalism) -- It does not speak of a "struggle against sin," but, yielding to reality, of the "struggle against suffering." Sharply differentiating itself from Christianity, it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it; it is, in my phrase, beyond good and evil.
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from Nietzsche's The Antichrist, (trans. H.L.Mencken), 20The two physiological facts upon which [Buddhism] grounds itself and upon which it bestows its chief attention are: first, an excessive sensitiveness to sensation, which manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, and secondly, an extraordinary spirituality, a too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the "impersonal." (--Both of these states will be familiar to a few of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me). These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that activate the gall bladder and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one's own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer--he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism. There is no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of a monastery (--it is always possible to leave--). These things would have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to revenge, aversion, ressentiment (--"enmity never brings an end to enmity": the moving refrain of all Buddhism. . .) And in all this he was right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main regiminal purpose, are unhealthful. The ...mental fatigue that he observes, already plainly displayed in too much "objectivity" (that is, in the individual's loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and of "egoism"), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual interests back to the ego. In Buddha's teaching egoism is a duty. The "one thing needful," the question "how can you be delivered from suffering," regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet. (--Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon pure "scientificality," to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to the estate of a morality)
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from Nietzsche's The Antichrist, (trans. H.L.Mencken), 21The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of great gentleness and liberality, and no militarism; moreover, it must get its start among the higher and better educated classes. Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata, and they are attained. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal. -- Under Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and the oppressed come to the fore: it is only those who are at the bottom who seek their salvation in it. Here the prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for boredom is the discussion of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of conscience; here the emotion produced by power (called "God") is pumped up (by prayer); here the highest good is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as "grace." Here, too, open dealing is lacking; concealment and the darkened room are Christian. Here body is despised and hygiene is denounced as sensual; the church even ranges itself against cleanliness (--the first Christian order after the banishment of the Moors closed the public baths, of which there were 270 in Cordova alone) . Christian, too; is a certain cruelty toward one's self and toward others; hatred of unbelievers; the will to persecute. Sombre and disquieting ideas are in the foreground; the most esteemed states of mind, bearing the most respectable names are epileptoid; the diet is so regulated as to engender morbid symptoms and over-stimulate the nerves. Christian, again, is all deadly enmity to the rulers of the earth, to the "aristocratic"--along with a sort of secret rivalry with them (--one resigns one's "body" to them--one wantsonly one's "soul" . . . ). And Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage of freedom, of intellectual libertinage; Christian is all hatred of the senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general . . .
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from Nietzsche's The Antichrist, (trans. H.L.Mencken), 22When Christianity departed from its native soil, that of the lowest orders, the underworld of the ancient world, and began seeking power among barbarian peoples, it no longer had to deal with exhausted men, but with men still inwardly savage and capable of self torture--in brief, strong men, but bungled men. Here, unlike in the case of the Buddhists, the cause of discontent with self, suffering through self, is not merely a general sensitiveness and susceptibility to pain, but, on the contrary, an inordinate thirst for inflicting pain on others, a tendency to obtain subjective satisfaction in hostile deeds and ideas. Christianity had to embrace barbaric concepts and valuations in order to obtain mastery over barbarians: of such sort, for example, are the sacrifices of the first-born, the drinking of blood as a sacrament, the disdain of the intellect and of culture; torture in all its forms, whether bodily or not; the whole pomp of the cult. Buddhism is a religion for peoples in a late stage of development, for races that have become kind, gentle and over-spiritualized (--Europe is far from ripe for it--): it is a way of leading them them back to peace and cheerfulness, to a diet for the spirit and a certain hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering beasts of prey; its modus operandi is to make them ill - to make feeble is the Christian recipe for taming, for "civilizing." Buddhism is a religion for the closing, over-wearied stages of civilization. Christianity appears before civilization has so much as begun--under certain circumstances it might lay the foundation for one.
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from Nietzsche's The Antichrist, (trans. H.L.Mencken), 42One now begins to see just what it was that came to an end with the death on the cross: a new and thoroughly original effort to found a Buddhistic peace movement, and so establish happiness on earth--real, not merely promised. For this remains--as I have already pointed out--the essential difference between the two religions of decadence: Buddhism promises nothing, but actually fulfills; Christianity promises everything, but fulfills nothing.--Hard upon the heels of the "glad tidings" came the worst imaginable: those of Paul. In Paul is incarnated the very opposite of the "bearer of glad tidings"; he represents the genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred. What, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above all, the Saviour: he nailed him to his own cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of the whole gospels--nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter in hatred had reduced it to his uses.
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from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, (trans. W. Kaufmann), 347Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently where will is lacking; for will, as the affect of command, is the decisive sign of sovereignty and strength. In other words, the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets someone who commands, who commands severely - a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience. From this one might perhaps gather that the two world religions, Buddhism and Christianity, may have owed their origin and above all their sudden spread to a tremendous collapse and disease of the will. And that is what actually happened: both religions encountered a situation in which the will had become diseased, giving rise to a demand that had become utterly desperate for some "thou shalt." Both religions taught fanaticism in ages in which the will had become exhausted, and thus they offered innumerable people some support, a new possibility of willing, some delight in willing. For fanaticism is the only "strength of the will" that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain, being a sort of hypnotism of the whole system of the senses and the intellect for the benefit of an excessive nourishment (hypertrophy) of a single point of view and feeling that henceforth becomes dominant - which the Christian calls his faith. Once a human being reaches the fundamental conviction that he must be commanded, he becomes "a believer." Conversely, one could conceive of such a pleasure and power of self-determination, such a freedom of the will that the spirit would take leave of all faith and every wish for certainty, being practiced in maintaining himself on insubstantial ropes and possibilities and dancing even near abysses. Such a spirit would be the free spirit par excellence.
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