East Meets West: Food for Thought

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Eastern and Western traditions of thought have intersected throughout the ages, yet these cultures continue to influence each other.

What is Western Thought and what is Eastern Thought?

There are differences between the East and the West in the approach to answer the question: what is the meaning of life?

Eastern religion would include the following types:
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Taoism
• Confucianism
• Sikhism
• Jainism
• Islam (“near East”)
• Ba’hai
While philosophy differs from China to Japan to India to Tibet to Afghanistan, (etc.), there are some similarities that Eastern Philosophy shares.

They are:
1. Generally, Eastern philosophy is more concerned with the whole and the cosmic than Western philosophy, while still being concerned with everyday life. Eastern philosophy tends to look “inward” as opposed to the West looking “outward.”
2. The West over emphasizes the individual, the East emphasizes the whole or group. The East tends to see the “interconnectedness” of things, while the West sees the individual.
3. The East traditionally does not attempt to distinguish clearly between philosophy and religion.
Buddhism the philosophy, for example, is often confused with Buddhist religious practices. This is also true of Hinduism and Taoism, among other “religious philosophy”.
4. The search for KNOWLEDGE in the East has always been more holistic, less scientific, trying to reach a state of ENLIGHTENMENT through inner reflection; while the West is more concerned with TRUTH, LOGIC, REASON, and INDEPENDENCE. It is generally believed that knowledge and reason leads to salvation.
5. In the East, morality is based on the concept of Karma, as opposed to Sin.
Themes for writing:
• If there is a global economy, can there be a “world philosophy or religion”?
• Can cyberspace and inner space be reconciled as essential reality?
• Can Eastern mysticism meet Western rationalism?
• Will mass media and Western science corrupt Eastern thinking?
• Can East survive in the West or vice versa?
• Will Reason win out over Enlightenment? (Or vice versa?)
• The conflict of the struggle of the Self with the self.

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