This morning a colleague stated that Buddhism is a negative religion because the Buddha did not accept, or believe in, the individual.
I’ve learned about Buddhism in a haphazard way, and am probably certainly not an expert; nonetheless, that never stops me from pretending I am…
My lay-person’s answer to my colleague was that the Buddha was familiar with the concept of the individual, but he determined that the individual is not an invariable, immortal presence: each of us is an ever-changing process that interacts with an impermanent universe. Every moment brings change; we grow, we adapt; we are fluid beings, not static entities. This is an important aspect of the First Noble Truth: we suffer because we grasp onto a moment, but there is no going back: we should enjoy each new, precious moment as it manifests, alters us, and evaporates into the past.
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db johnston
almost falling 