Buddhism often speaks of compassion, of mercy, of the development of both in the human soul.
This in contradiction to passion.
Passion can quickly lead to fanaticism, emotionality, blindness that prevents us from clearly seeing and hearing.
Calvin's passion was partly the cause that dissenters ended at the stake.
Fundamentalists are passionate believers, like the Ku Klux Klan.
In short: passion often leads to intolerance.
Hitler was also a passionate man.
An important aspect of (Zen) meditation is precisely the detachment of passions.
In its place originates a calm mind that leads to insight and, last but not least, to compassion.
Obviously, compassion is of an altogether different order than passion.
In the latter case, the saying that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions maybe applicable as well.
Just compare a silent lake to a lake that is violently driven by the wind.
The violent lake is totally preoccupied with itself, but when you toss a small pebble into the silent lake, the lake will clearly react.
Also compare emotion and feeling.
The violent lake is preoccupied with itself, passionate as it were, while the silent lake is more receptive, sensitive.
In our culture, the two concepts are often lumped together, just like love and sex for instance.
Our culture doesn't seem evolved enough to be aware of this difference between feeling and emotion.
To me, Jesus seems more a figure of compassion than of passion, although I can imagine that theologians could hold a passionate debate about this.
In short, some comments to the concept of passion seem useful.
From the figures mentioned, I'd like to highlight Mary Magdalene.
She is also mentioned in a recently published book by professor in theology Auke Jelsma.
The book is called: "Doorgevingen van Jezus" (Transmissions from Jesus).
Jesus appears to Auke Jelsma in a sort of vision, and also speaks about who Mary Magdalene really was.
It appears that Mary Magdalene was a paranormally highly developed woman.
And although they loved each other very much they never had an erotic relationship, because Jesus, as he said himself in this book, didn't have time for that.
The absence of any form of patheticness, which I think is related to passion, in my opinion added to the believability of this document.
Author Ruud Steenbergen.
