[Buddha-l] Karen Armstrong was in Boise last night

[jkirk]

Posted by Joanna

She's the author of _The Battle for God_, about the causes of the rise of 
fundamentalism world-wide. She was invited to Ketchum ID in September, when 
the Dalai Lama was here, to moderate an interfaith discussion after his 
public talks.

"It was her first meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, and it left a 
strong impression.
'We were in the presence of a very holy man, completely without ego," she 
said. "We really should all lighten up a bit because so much of our 
pomposity comes from egotism and a sense of our own righteousness.'"

>From a local article and interview with her, see
http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051002/NEWS04/510020314&SearchID=73222442394537

What is your next project?

I've got a new book coming out in the spring. It's a history of the Axial 
Age, a period from 900 to 200 B.C., when all the world's major religions 
came into being at much the same time.

It shows what the religions have in common, how profoundly similar they are, 
right across the board, how none of them are particularly interested in 
doctrines or beliefs or metaphysics. They're interested in behavior and, 
above all, they emphasize the importance of compassion and nonviolence.

The book is also a kind of critique of the way we are religious today, 
because very often people like Buddha or Jesus would be rather astonished at 
the kind of religions that are going on in their name. This is the kind of 
religiosity, for example, that they wanted to get rid of.

Does your knowledge of so many of the world's religions make you optimistic 
or pessimistic about the future?

I'm trying very hard to be optimistic because it's very dangerous to be 
pessimistic. Pessimism and despair lead to nihilistic terrorism. We must 
keep optimistic. It's very hard, but we have to keep optimistic. The 
alternative is unthinkable.

Increasingly now, more groups are going to have powers of destruction that 
were previously the preserve only of the nation-states (political units of 
organization). Nineteen men with box cutters and penknives brought the 
United States to its knees. It's only a matter of time before one of these 
groups gets a nuclear weapon. This is catastrophic. We have got to sort 
these problems out.