I'm not a Buddhist but I am quite fond of the hermetic poetry tradition of China, which was a blend of many different spiritual approaches -- Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist.
Although Buddhism had been extant in China from about the beginning of the Common Era, there were only a limited amount of Buddhist texts available to Chinese practitioners. In 628, (curiously, while the Prophet Muhammad was still on the earth) a young monk named Xuanzang decided to (illegally) leave the country and travel West -- that is, to the homeland of Buddhism -- India.
Braving highwaymen, the robbers and bandits of the day, some of whom were so impressed by his fearlessness and character that they joined him, Xuanzang made it to India, where he lived for 17 years. He settled at the great Buddhist university known as Nalanda, which was located in what is now Bihar, east of Varanasi (nee: Benares) in northeastern India. There he studied for many years before returning home with over 600 Buddhist texts, which greatly influenced the further development of Buddhism in China.
Why should that matter to me if I'm not a Buddhist practitioner? Well, I am interested in the various spiritual developments that have taken place in different places on earth, in different ages. I've never seen them as competing with one another; instead, I view them as the (im)perfect, particular, and peculiar blends that were just right for the time and place in which they arose.
Buddhism has a deep knowledge of different states of consciousness and their relative merits because of the emphasis upon meditation within the faith. It's really an inquiry into the nature of consciousness itself, as opposed to the more dogmatic faiths in the West, which evinced a more pronounced dichotomy between the exterior, exoteric aspect of the faith and the more interior, esoteric dimensions of those particular expressions.
It's a little like climbing up a mountain via different and various routes. It's the same mountain. Rather than argue about the best method or route, just start climbing right where you are. You will create your own path as you go.
Anyway, this young fellow is a fairly astute student and it's a fun and informative video. Give it a watch, you might learn something.
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