What a Christian can learn from Buddhism

DhammaDhatu

DhammaDhatu

Theswingisyellow

Thank you DD for posting this. It was interesting as well as insightful.
All the best,
Todd

shanyin

touching. keeper.

Yishai

What a great talk!

GuyC

Thanks for sharing, DD. Very true message and very down to earth.

SimpleWitness

Shoot.... The link doesn't show. Would it be possible to message it to me, please DD. :-/

tmottes

@SimpleWitness If you right click on the video and select 'Watch on Youtube", it will launch a new window and go directly to the video in Youtube. You can get the link from there.

genkaku

I watched the video because Christianity infuses the (U.S.) culture I belong to. And I was very taken with the proposition of 'dismantling' beliefs if anyone might want to come to "love Christ." And I agreed with the suggestion that any belief will lead to discord if it is maintained over a long period of time.

I was taken enough with the video to send an email to the speaker, David A. Morse, and ask in what way a Christian-inclined person might divest him- or herself of beliefs. What practical approaches were suggested? In short, "how do you do that?" It's one thing to speak the truth or make a valuable suggestion, but it's quite another to actually do something about it.

In return, Mr. Morse sent me a series of sermons by a minister he agreed with ... lengthy links that seemed to make proposals similar to his own and yet didn't seem to get down to the "how" part. Inspiring, yes. Instructive in practical terms, no.

And since belief is an incredibly fierce component of the average uncertain life, I think practicality is important. If emotion and intellect really don't answer life's nagging questions (if they did, all any of us would have to do would be shed a sincere tear and listen to uplifting lectures) then what, precisely, does?

I have to admit that I didn't listen to the links Mr. Morse sent along. I'm quite interested in what individuals have to say, but am too old for uplifting lectures by parties who are not the parties I wish to speak with.

Nevertheless, I was grateful for the above link and its fallout because it made me realize how grateful I am to Buddhist practice. Buddhism may acknowledge the limited usefulness of belief, but it doesn't really care what you believe. Seriously, you can believe anything you want. But Buddhism's tag line is, "believe anything you want, but keep up your good and constant practice." It is this practice itself that will inform and clarify the limited nature of belief. Buddhism, for me, answers the question of "how" in very simple terms. Meditation, for example, is an actual-factual, sit-down-and-do-it effort -- and an effort that pays dividends beyond the uplifting quality of thought and emotion.

I was just grateful to have lucked out in this way and grateful to the video for reminding me how lucky I am.

Sorry for so much blither.

BloodyCactus

That was pretty interesting. There was others in the series, I watched It think the dao and confucianist ones.

Simonthepilgrim

@genkaku,

Oh yes, my friend! I, too, asked Philip's question, "What do we do to be freed?" and I found the answer in a Buddhist practice, which would make little sense to me if it were not also underpinned by as much Buddhist theory as I can accept. Whilst I quite enjoyed the video - particularly his comments about bombing people to liberate women - he did fail to show "what a Christian can learn from Buddhism." The fact that similar myths/stories/legends exist across both geography and history is far from new info.

Have you ever introduced someone who believes in a literal Flood/Noah event to the Epic of Gilgamesh? Wonderful to watch - if they have a spark of genuine intelligence - the dawning realisation that it might be a story rather than history. Once that is discovered, whether in Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or the Norse Myths, we free our minds to discover the lessons and challenges that lurk under the surface of such myths and legends.

Although I am a lover of the Jesus and the Gotama stories, I do sometimes wonder if we wouldn't be better off letting go of the persons and their biographies. The cult of personality is just too dangerous as, ironically, Mao Tse Tung points out.

ddrishi

Where is the conflict? The only Zen zendu in India is run by a christian priest. You can look for it on internet.

Simonthepilgrim

As a Buddhist board, would it not be more interesting to ask what Buddhism can learn from Christianity?

vinlyn

As a Buddhist board, would it not be more interesting to ask what Buddhism can learn from Christianity?

I was afraid to ask that.

genkaku

I always thought, perhaps unfairly, that Buddhists generally bent over backwards trying to have a conversation with Christians but that the favor was seldom if ever returned. The idea that a Christian might entertain, however superficially, that Christianity could learn something from Buddhism is mildly refreshing.

But my impression is that a lot of Buddhists have jumped the Christian ship to one degree or another and that rehashing old stuff is not their favorite pastime... ergo Buddhism learning something from Christianity is sort of old hat, if not downright annoying, for them.

vinlyn

I always thought, perhaps unfairly, that Buddhists generally bent over backwards trying to have a conversation with Christians but that the favor was seldom if ever returned. The idea that a Christian might entertain, however superficially, that Christianity could learn something from Buddhism is mildly refreshing.

But my impression is that a lot of Buddhists have jumped the Christian ship to one degree or another and that rehashing old stuff is not their favorite pastime... ergo Buddhism learning something from Christianity is sort of old hat, if not downright annoying, for them.

Actually, I've had quite a few friends who wanted to learn at least a little bit, and two who asked me to take them to a local temple.

Yishai

I was thinking the other day the same question: What can Buddhists learn from Christianity.

I was kinda at a loss.

Cloud

I learned a lot from Christianity. Just can't say that I kept much.

genkaku

I think that those who found something unsatisfactory (even if it was just hormonal) about Christianity before they began to snoop Buddhism have actually learned quite a lot. They know they have an interest in (for lack of a better word) spiritual life and they know at least one approach that doesn't quite fill the bill. Knowing what doesn't work can often be as useful as finding something that does.

DhammaDhatu

As a Buddhist board, would it not be more interesting to ask what Buddhism can learn from Christianity?

The answer is "nothing"

Our problem is most of us have not learnt Buddhism sufficiently

DhammaDhatu

...he did fail to show "what a Christian can learn from Buddhism."

what he showed was to practise the teachings completely rather than turn them into a divisive belief system

when Jesus said "love thy neighbour", "who is my neighour? the Samaritan", it means love everyone without exception

so in Buddhism, this is a given; that metta means to love all beings without exception

where as in contemporary Christianity, this is not a given

Simonthepilgrim

As a Buddhist board, would it not be more interesting to ask what Buddhism can learn from Christianity?

The answer is "nothing"

Our problem is most of us have not learnt Buddhism sufficiently

I feel regret that you, who demonstrate so often how well-versed you are in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and beliefs, should have learned nothing from so much study.

DhammaDhatu

I feel regret that you, who demonstrate so often how well-versed you are in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and beliefs, should have learned nothing from so much study.

as i said, our misunderstandings come from not having learnt Buddhism sufficiently

your feelings of "regret" are misplaced & unwarranted

as for your limited knowledge about Buddhism, my mind does not feel any "regret"

it is more appropriate that you explain what the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and beliefs have to offer that were not originally taught by the Buddha

all the best

Simonthepilgrim

I feel regret that you, who demonstrate so often how well-versed you are in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and beliefs, should have learned nothing from so much study.

as i said, our misunderstandings come from not having learnt Buddhism sufficiently

your feelings of "regret" are misplaced & unwarranted

as for your limited knowledge about Buddhism, my mind does not feel any "regret"

it is more appropriate that you explain what the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and beliefs have to offer that were not originally taught by the Buddha

all the best

Leaving aside the historic encounters between Christianity and Buddhism in the early Christian centuries which many scholars appear to credit with influence on the development of the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal - particularly because it can be challenged, there is one aspect of the Christian tradition which TNH, for example, has acknowledged as an example to Buddhists. This is, of course, the notion, deriving in part from the letter of Saint James in the New Testament, of "good works" at a social as well as a personal level.

From a personal point of view, Christianity presents me with some questions and challenges which are different from those I find in Buddhism, and which I deem relevant to my own path.

I do wish that both Buddhists and Christians, along with all others engaging in dialogue, could accept that we all have something to learn from each other. I have no idea how much more I have to learn but it looks like a lot and, behind that lot, another lot and another, ad infinitum.

genkaku

Speaking from afar as someone unversed in texts and tradition, I am grateful to Christianity and its followers for underscoring the difficulty that arises with belief ... belief, the stuff that is inextricably bound with doubt; belief, the stuff that, while helpful at first, becomes less and less credible as the separateness of things becomes less and less reliable. These are helpful lessons.