Flight: An Existential Conception of Buddhism

A concise discussion of the similarities between eastern and western thought on flight, refuge, and return. Batchelor starts with a description of the existentialist conception of Flight (as described by Heidegger and Sartre) as state of being arising from our anxiety towards our death; this escape mechanism drives us away from awareness of our Being and into the labyrinth of particular entities. He argues that this forms the allegorical substance of the story of the Siddartha's path to enlightenment, and thereby provides a bridge for the western thinker to cross over towards the wisdom of the Dharma.