Dear Christianity,

Why do you have this belief that people are inherently not good?

Dear Zen Buddhism,

Why do you put such emphasis on the instantaneous one moment of enlightenment ("Kensho")? Okay, I guess I can see the emphasis; I imagine such an experience would be worth the years you put into it. But how are people supposed to follow Zen with no promise of said enlightenment? Furthermore, is it still worth following even if you can’t sit in a monastery and contemplate “Mu” for six years and reach this Kensho?

(readers may note that I am like four pages into “The Gateless Gate”.)

Dear history scholars,

If Christianity posits that we are all sinners in the hands of an angry god, and Buddhism posits that we all have a Buddha-nature within us, is this a cause or an effect of the differences between the Eastern and Western world?