One of Thich Nhat Hanh's pet projects in life is to promote harmony between different religions. After befriending Thomas Morton, and living in the predominently catholic south of France, he was involved in a lot of discussion with Christians, and thus sought to help bring together both Buddhists and Christians so they could work side by side in peace.
The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh has produced at least two books on this subject, "Living Buddha, Living Christ" and "Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers". They're good books and I highly recommend them.
However, I personally do not believe there is much room for any true reconciliation between these two religions. There are fundamental differences that I think many followers of both religions would have difficulty reconciling.
For one, Christianity is a fundamentally mystical and mysterious religion. It requires a lot of faith to believe in both the anthropomorphic nature of God and many of the stories in the Bible, not least the resurrection of Christ and his ascention into Heaven.
Buddhism requires very little faith from its followers. Many of its teachings are quite practical, at least those centering on the more practical 'engaged buddhism' that Thich Nhat Hanh promotes. Many of its central teachings on inter-being become evidential with simple meditation.
But that is not the main problem. The main problem is that Christians, like Jews before them, have this fundamental view that man is the center of the universe. Earth, all planets, all animals, all trees and everything in the environment was created purely for the benefit of man. According to Genesis, even women were created for men.
Buddhists, however, believe that there is no self. Not only is man not the center of the universe, but men, women, dogs, trees, grass, planets... everything is part of the one consciousness that is Buddha Nature. Everything is connected and everything is one. Nothing was created for the purpose of anything, and the revelation of these truths is the focus of meditation in Buddhism.
Now in his books Thich Nhat Hanh says that he has met Christians that are more Buddhist than some of the so called Buddhists he knows. The problem here is that these Christians probably are not true Christians. More than likely they have their own beliefs but continue to go to church because they don't fully understand their faith. I actually think there are a lot of Christians in this situation, and it's great that Thich Nhat Hanh's books are helping people to see the differences more clearly.
These concepts are so totally opposite one another that it is impossible for a true Christian to accept the Buddhist way of seeing the universe. There cannot be a personal omniscient God in Buddhism. There cannot be a Christ who was exclusively sent from God to save us from our sins. There cannot be exclusive paths to God through sacraments when Buddhists believe that God, if you can call it that, is everything and everywhere without preference. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us a way to see these aspects of Christianity through the lens of a Buddhist world-view, which is wonderfully revelational, but I doubt it will do much to convert many true Christians.
I think there is hope though. There seems to be to be a growing trend of next generation Christians who seem more open to the less disciminatory beliefs of Buddhism. Call it Gnostic Christianity if you like, there is definitely a trend emerging, possibly influenced by various new movies popular among kids. I think movies like Star Wars (written by the Buddhist George Lucas), the Matrix, Da Vinci Code and several others are all helping shape and open the minds of young Christians to new metaphysical concepts beyond a judgemental God.
I don't think there is much hope for Christians and Buddhists to develop a joint theology. But there is perhaps hope for some Christians at least to look beyond their church for a religion that is less entrenched in dogma, discrimination and often hypocrisy.
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2 comments:
Interesting post there! =) I have read the book Living Buddha Living Christ and no doubt it has opened up my views.
I like the way you describe that everything is part of the Buddha-nature, and i couldnt agree more on that! This nature is inside all of us, and by practicing what the Buddha taught we're only nurturing this nature and forming good roots for ourselves.
I have met Christians who are open-minded and accept the teachings of the Buddha, and sometimes we do share discussions. Hopefully by introducing the Dharma to them, we are able to share this wonderful gift and joy. =)
There is an anecdote that says that the reason God made children so cute is to prevent us from killing them. Even though it sounds like a joke it actually touches on many complex issues in the human condition. Adults are not so much gratified by the fulfillment of their personal needs, as from the fulfillment of their personal need to be needed. We instinctively see selfish people as immature and incapable of love, because children are by definition immature and incapable of love; except of course for our own children. Children are born knowing how to draw milk and love from adults; but they are the black hole of human need and the very definition of selfishness.
We see children as pure and unsullied, but in fact our view of children is set by instinct, as is their ability to show innocence and affection. To measure human nature against a child’s nature is a serious error. A child is naturally drawn to strong, lucky, popular, or otherwise useful friends. That skill has been the key to their survival over thousands of generations of evolution. That in no way means that humans are selfish by nature, if we were we would all abandon our children.
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