Buddhism 101: A Short Introductory Lecture by Jorge Luis Borges

In 1977, eru­dite Argen­tine writer Jorge Luis Borges deliv­ered a series of sev­en lec­tures in Buenos Aires on a vari­ety of top­ics, includ­ing Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy, night­mares, and the Kab­bal­ah. (The lec­ture series is col­lect­ed in an Eng­lish trans­la­tion enti­tled Sev­en Nights.) One of the lec­tures is sim­ply called “Bud­dhism,” and in it, Borges presents an overview of the ancient East­ern reli­gion. Borges had pre­vi­ous­ly made scat­tered ref­er­ence to Bud­dhist sub­jects in his writ­ing, though he cer­tain­ly nev­er devot­ed as much atten­tion to it as he did Catholi­cism or Judaism, a faith and her­itage he found end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and admirable.

His por­trait of Bud­dhism, though much less in depth, is no less sym­pa­thet­ic. The lec­ture is adapt­ed, it seems, from a short book writ­ten the pre­vi­ous year, Qué es el Bud­is­mo?, a “clear and con­cise expla­na­tion of the reli­gion, its val­ue sys­tems, and how some of its prin­ci­pal teach­ings share some sim­i­lar­i­ties with oth­er faiths.” So writes the blog Vague­ly Bor­ge­sian, who also com­ment that Borges’ book—and by exten­sion the lecture—“rarely goes beyond what one might find on say a Wikipedia arti­cle on Bud­dhism.” That may be so, but—as we can see in this Eng­lish trans­la­tion of Borges’ lec­ture—the author does sev­er­al times dur­ing his sum­ma­ry offer some dis­tinct­ly Bor­ge­sian com­men­tary of his own. Below are just a few excerpts:

Buddism’s Tol­er­ance:

[Buddhism’s] longevi­ty can be explained for his­tor­i­cal rea­sons, but such rea­sons are for­tu­itous or, rather, they are debat­able, fal­li­ble. I think there are two fun­da­men­tal caus­es. The first is Buddhism’s tol­er­ance. That strange tol­er­ance does not cor­re­spond, as is the case with oth­er reli­gions, to dis­tinct epochs: Bud­dism was always tol­er­ant.

It has nev­er had recourse to steel or fire, has nev­er thought that steel or fire were per­sua­sive…. A good Bud­dhist can be Luther­an, or Methodist, or Calvin­ist, or Sin­toist, or Taoist, or Catholic; he can be a pros­e­lyte to Islam or Judaism, with com­plete free­dom. But it is not per­mis­si­ble for a Chris­t­ian, a Jew or a Mus­lim to be a Bud­dhist.

On the His­tor­i­cal Exis­tence of the Bud­dha:

We may dis­be­lieve this leg­end. I have a Japan­ese friend, a Zen Bud­dhist, with whom I have had long and friend­ly argu­ments. I told him that I believed in the his­toric truth of Bud­dha. I believed and I believe that two thou­sand five hun­dred years ago there was a Nepalese prince called Sid­dhar­ta or Gau­ta­ma who became the Bud­dha, that is, the Awok­en, the Lucid One – as opposed to us who are asleep or who are dream­ing this long dream which is life. I remem­ber one of Joyce’s phras­es: “His­to­ry is a night­mare from which I want to awake.” Well then, Sid­dhar­ta, at thir­ty years of age, awoke and became Bud­dha. 

On Bud­dhism and Belief:

The oth­er reli­gions demand much more creduli­ty on our part. If we are Chris­tians we must believe that one of the three per­sons of the Divin­i­ty con­de­scend­ed to become a man and was cru­ci­fied in Judea. If we are Mus­lims we must believe that there is no oth­er god than God and that Moham­mad is his apos­tle. We can be good Bud­dhists and deny that Bud­dha exist­ed. Or, rather, we may think, we must think that our belief in his­to­ry isn’t impor­tant: what is impor­tant is to believe in the Doc­trine. Nev­er­the­less, the leg­end of Bud­dha is so beau­ti­ful that we can­not help but refer to it.

Borges has much more to say in the full lec­ture on Bud­dhist cos­mol­o­gy and his­to­ry. He con­cludes with the very respect­ful state­ment below:

What I have said today is frag­men­tary. It would have been absurd for me to have expound­ed on a doc­trine to which I have ded­i­cat­ed many years – and of which I have under­stood lit­tle, real­ly – with a wish to show a muse­um piece. Bud­dhism is not a muse­um piece for me: it is a path to sal­va­tion. Not for me, but for mil­lions of peo­ple. It is the most wide­ly held reli­gion in the world and I believe that I have treat­ed it with respect when explain­ing it tonight.

To learn more about Borges and Bud­dhism, see this arti­cle, and the watch the video above, a short intro­duc­tion to a lec­ture course giv­en by Borges’ friend Amelia Bar­ili at UC Berke­ley.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Jorge Luis Borges’ Favorite Short Sto­ries (Read 7 Free Online)

Borges Explains The Task of Art

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness