How do Kabbalah and Buddhism Differ from Each Other?

Everyone is searching for happiness, and one of the methods that offers a path toward it is Buddhism. What lies at the foundation of this method? What is the difference between the definition of happiness in Buddhism and its definition in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

It is said that Buddha grew up as a prince in a palace, and when, as an adult, he ventured into the outside world and witnessed human suffering, he decided to search for a solution to it. The Buddhist method emerged from this need, and this is what it is directed toward. Its central message is that by learning to control the mind, one can eliminate suffering and attain inner peace and happiness.

In recent decades, elements of the Buddhist method have spread throughout the West. There are countless courses and workshops that teach practices for everyday life. Alongside meditation, thought, and contemplation are physical practices such as yoga, breathing exercises, special sitting postures, and more. Together, these create a multifaceted system of influences upon a person aimed at bringing about a state of calm.

Generally speaking, Buddhism is an individual method of calming oneself. A person turns inward rather than connecting with others. They can sit alone, detach themselves from the world in order to experience inner quiet, and thereby enter a kind of pleasure and tranquility, as though floating along some inner current. The method does not correct society, does not unite a nation—as can be seen, for example, in India, which is divided into castes—and does not provide solutions to the problems of humanity as a whole.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, by contrast, is based on connection between people and on correcting a person’s attitude toward others and society. It brings a person to the attainment of eternity and wholeness through discovering the general force of nature, the general law of nature. This force has a plan, with a beginning and an end, which in Kabbalah is called the thought of creation and the purpose of creation. Kabbalah teaches how to discover this plan of development and successfully integrate oneself within it.

Unlike the Buddhist method, which is based on reducing the use of the ego—reacting less to what is around us, breathing less, moving less, thinking less, attempting to neutralize the ego in order to experience greater tranquility—the wisdom of Kabbalah regards the ego as an engine of development. It explains that by nature, the ego is constantly growing, not so that we will diminish or suppress it, but so that we will learn how to use it correctly and thereby continue to grow. In order to develop, a person must reveal the ego as much as possible and rise above it. The ego appears beneath their feet like a mountain that continually grows and intensifies, while the person climbs higher and higher toward its summit.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, happiness does not lie in escaping the sensation of suffering, but in experiencing constant fulfillment through maximum development. Happiness is attained when the ego begins to be fulfilled perfectly, and this happens when a person uses the power of the ego not to fulfill themselves, as we are naturally built to do, but to fill others with everything good. The fulfillment then passes through the person to everyone else, and because of this, it does not disappear. All goodness flows through them into the world, endlessly and without limitation. “One who lights one candle from another,” the sages said, “one enjoys and the other does not lose.” A person complements others, completes themselves, and “the entire world is worthwhile for them.”

The concept of contemplation also has a unique meaning in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Contemplation is directed toward the plan of creation, which determines that humanity is destined to reach the state of being “as one person with one heart” through the complete realization of the law “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love of others will bring all parts of reality—the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels—into unity, and all of creation will come into alignment with its one root, the general force of nature, also called the “upper light.” The quality of this force is positive bestowal, love, and pure giving, and when we acquire a quality similar to its own, we will reach unity with it. We will rise to its level.

The method of Kabbalah is based on studying human nature and the nature of the world, along with practicing connection with others within a small group. Through special connection exercises, participants make efforts to draw closer to one another in love. The more they invest in this, the more powerfully the ego is revealed within them. It separates them, awakens friction and rejection, and thereby compels them to make an even greater effort to rise above it and connect despite it. Thus, as the ego intensifies and the effort to connect above it increases, the conditions are created for a more powerful revelation of the upper light.

A person who develops according to the method of Kabbalah constantly examines themselves in relation to the purpose of creation: Is their attitude toward the world directed toward everyone being properly and equally connected? Do they wish to reveal within this connection the quality of love and giving that will fill all of creation? They focus their desire and thought, their heart and mind, on this purpose, and the group within which they work helps them continually maintain such an attitude toward life, which is called “intention.”

At every moment, they want to be on the same wavelength on which the upper light operates—to move in accordance with it, grasp its plan, arrange themselves according to it, and see how it moves everyone and everything as though on a theater stage. Gradually, they discover that all these scenes are being shown to them so that they themselves will discover the force governing them, understand its plan, and grow to become like it.

Thus, while the aspiration in the Buddhist method is to be free from existential suffering and attain inner tranquility, in the wisdom of Kabbalah the goal is the attainment of the upper force. True happiness is a consequence of a person becoming increasingly similar to this force and thereby rising to its level. At such a level, it is no longer a matter of suffering and escaping from it, or of evil and good. Instead, a person rises above all these distinctions and exists on the level of wholeness.

Today, as the world becomes increasingly interconnected and our mutual dependence grows, while at the same time the ego reaches proportions that prevent people from seeing anything beyond themselves, humanity faces an existential danger. We are like people sitting together in one boat that is heading toward an abyss. The signs of this can be seen at every level and in every area—from the international arena and the ecological situation, through divisions in society, violence, and corruption, to the breakdown of the family unit and relationships between partners.

People are unable to get along with one another, and this will only intensify. Yet precisely from within this darkness and distress, the wisdom of Kabbalah will be revealed, the universal method for connecting above the great ego, the method for building a new humanity.

Based on "New Life 240 – Happiness and Buddhism" with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.