Buddha and Jesus: Could Solomon Be the Missing Link? (30 page)

Transitioning from Solomon to Buddha

Wise men from diverse cultures of necessity have similar views on many of the fundamental issues and questions of life. And so, it should be expected that there would be many areas of agreement between the sayings of Solomon and Buddha. Nevertheless, it is surprising that Solomon’s writings thoroughly cover every key tenet in the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. Because of this it is natural to wonder if Solomon’s teachings somehow influenced Buddha.

The fact is that if you start with the wisdom of Solomon’s proverbs and the cynicism of his Ecclesiastes, remove all references to God—occasionally replacing God with “mind”—make a few departures based on traditional Hindu beliefs in reincarnation, and advocate a general renunciation of the world, you end up with Buddhism.

Despite the remarkable similarities, there are some key topics covered in Solomon that receive little or no mention in the Dhammapada. Renunciation involves withdrawal from life in some very important areas. While Solomon’s proverbs offer advice on the important subjects of women, marriage, family, children, government, and God quite extensively, Buddha’s proverbs say little or nothing on these topics. All of them would be areas of life in which it would be important to apply an ethical consciousness. What are we to make of the relative absence of these topics in the earliest known collection of Buddha’s writings?

The story of Buddha’s life offers some possible explanations. Buddha was forced to marry at a very early age and was sequestered by his controlling, possessive father even into his late twenties. Buddha chose to eject himself from all of this by abandoning his wife, child, palace, and future kingship and withdrawing from life to meditate and seek enlightenment. It is no wonder that Buddha’s proverbs have scarcely anything to say on the topics named above. Buddha’s life experiences predisposed him to have
an obsessive resistance to authority and avoidance of close relationships.

Is it possible for a philosopher to avoid expounding on these key areas of life and to still be regarded as a real philosopher? Buddha demonstrated that it was. However, he should be viewed as a philosopher whose perspective and realm of expertise was noticeably constrained. But both Buddha and Solomon had limitations. On one hand, Buddha essentially became a “dropout” from Indian society, while Solomon tenaciously held on to his position as king. As a result, Solomon’s proverbs are rich in insights regarding topics about which Buddha had little or nothing to say. On the other hand, it was Solomon’s obsessive zeal to remain king, while also attempting to be a philosopher without equal, that led to his moral downfall. His willingness to honor the wide array of religions brought to Israel by his many foreign wives caused him to betray his loyalty to the one true God of the Jews. By so doing, he violated the very system of beliefs he had so ably delineated.

What we have in Buddha is a philosopher traumatized by many disturbing phenomena, including suffering, oppression, disease, and death. And what we have in Solomon is a corrupted, double-minded philosopher. When we compare and contrast the two sets of proverbs, many intriguing observations emerge. Buddha’s ways are comparatively existentialist and stridently antiestablishment. Relationally, to westerners they feel somewhat akin to Asperger’s syndrome. For example, Buddha’s love of homelessness is quite extreme:

In great contrast, Solomon took a very dim view of people who would make solitude a great priority:

The ways that Solomon advocated (but often did not practice later in his life) were temperate and balanced:

Yet Solomon’s desire to try to please everyone meant that, at the end of his life, no one was happy with him. It is possible that the tragic story of Solomon’s end-of-life failures to uphold his own beliefs, known throughout the world, were part of what motivated Buddha to be an intense fanatic about remaining utterly righteous in everything he did and taught. Perhaps this was one of the obsessions (fears) that Buddha struggled with, leading him to develop an entire religion of compulsions and rituals to calm his anxiety. We know that Buddha was obsessed with fears of moral failure, disease, endless suffering, and death, as these are well chronicled in his proverbs:

Some of the writings of Solomon stand in sharp contrast to virtually all of the rest of the Old Testament. Most of this distinctive writing is in the book of Ecclesiastes. We see these areas of dramatic difference:

What is intriguing is that in each of the above areas, Buddha’s views are much closer to Solomon’s than to those of the vast majority of the Old Testament. Perhaps Buddha had access to Solomon’s writings but not to most of the rest of the Old Testament. Or perhaps he had seen much of the Old Testament, but found that his views resonated with Solomon’s writings much more readily than with the rest of Judaism’s holy book. Or it could be just a coincidence that his ideas matched Solomon’s at all.

Ecclesiastes is clearly labeled as Solomon’s opinions, not as a “Thus says the Lord” type of document. It contradicts other books in the Bible. For example, Solomon’s assessment that “All is meaningless” conflicts with Psalm 139, which depicts man as a
creation that is deeply precious to his Creator, who plays an overwhelmingly integral part in fashioning each person.

The great majority of the Old Testament was written by prophets, not kings. Solomon became a king not by conquest but by succession to the throne as his father, David, was dying. He accumulated an enormous amount of power and wealth and a large number of wives and concubines during his reign. He hungered for wisdom and, in his search for meaning and truth, ultimately despaired of the emptiness of a life where he was able to have everything he wanted. In the process, he lost the personal relationship with God that he had enjoyed early in his reign. The shift from relying on God to spiritual self-reliance occurred sometime before he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.

Buddha was raised to be a prince and rebelled against his father’s determined efforts to make him a captive of the life of the rich at the complete expense of his identity and independence. If Buddha read Solomon’s writings during his years of discontent, those writings may have inspired him to shun the established order and find his own way in a search for truth and meaning in life. Buddha would not have had to exercise much imagination to progress from Solomon’s teachings to his own. He would have only had to make three departures from Solomon’s path:

Other than these departures, every one of the Four Noble Truths and the individual steps of the Noble Eightfold Path have numerous precursors in the writings of Solomon. We observed this in extensive detail in
Chapters Three
through
Eight
. Some of the emphases shift, to be sure. While there is no literal mention of meditation in Solomon’s writings, his descriptions of how one should focus on his proverbs sound like guided meditation.

Right View, Intention, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration—we have seen that each step in this progression is illustrated by precursor proverbs from Solomon. According to one summary of Buddhist thinking, Buddhism has this view of the steps: “The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps[;] instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.”
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The opening verses of Solomon’s Proverbs enumerate the same purposes that Buddhists seek, saying the proverbs are:

Where Buddha Parted Company from Solomon

In the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on areas where Buddha’s beliefs are clear departures from Solomon’s. We will look at the following areas in turn: