Beautiful Thoughts

I absolutely love this post over at The Buddhist Blog. There are many things to like in Buddhism. First and foremost is the insistence that there are multiple paths to the Ultimate, whatever it may be. I particularly like this:

In Buddhism, we create our own suffering and therefore have control over how deeply we suffer. There is no "Satan" out there to tempt us and mislead us down the path of spiritual destruction. We are the ones in charge of whether we experience peace and freedom or suffering and fear. We are in charge of our own destiny rather than feeling at the mercy of two "Gods" fighting over the dominion over our "souls."

I might quibble a bit, but it really depends on how you use the word "suffering." In this case, I suspect it's in the vein of "Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional."