Buddhist-Christian Studies 31 (2011) 119–133. © by University of Hawai‘i Press. All rights reserved. Thoughts on Why, How, and What Buddhists Can Learn from Christian Theologians

120

BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN STUDIES

may be shifted in ways that permit new insights to emerge. This does not merely

involve learning at a distance

about

other religious beliefs and cultures that leaves your

own religious self-understanding unaffected. Rather, comparative theological analysis

provides a method to learn

from

religious others in specific ways that newly inform

your understanding of your own faith and may also energize and deepen your practice

of it.

For this kind of learning to occur, certain supportive dispositions are necessary,

such as those identified in Catherine Cornille’s book

The

Im-Possibilty of Interreligious

Dialogue

. These include: (1) doctrinal humility, the acknowledgment that the doc-

trinal formulations of your own tradition, including its formulations of other reli-

gions, are conditioned viewpoints that have never perfectly captured the whole truth;

(2) knowledgeable commitment to your own religious tradition, so that whatever

you learn from religious others may inform your religious community and tradition

through you; and (3) in the context of potential Buddhists learning from Christians, a

belief that there is enough common ground between Buddhism and Christianity that

it is possible to hear things from Christians that make a positive difference for Bud-

dhists in their own understanding and practice of awakening.

theologies of religions

For such dispositions to support comparative theological learning, in turn, they must

be motivated and informed by an adequate theology of religions. A theology of reli-

gions is an understanding of other religious systems that explores their potential

truth from within the theological framework of your own religious tradition. You

can, as an individual, learn many things from other religions. But for your learning

to inform not only yourself but also your religious community and tradition, it must

make sense to your tradition in its own framework of understanding. And as Mark

Heim, John Thatamanil, and Kristen Kiblinger have argued, behind

any

interest (or

disinterest) in learning from other religions lies a theology of religions that is either

conscious or unconscious.

How do I see the potential to learn significant truths from

religious others? If my theology of religions is uncritically exclusivist, I may see only

errors in religious others unaware that my perspective on them is limited by my own

vision. Or if my theology of religions is uncritically pluralist, I may only hear from

religious others the presumed commonality of religions that I think I already know.

In either of these cases, new learning is not permitted.

For example, if I were to see

an unconditioned truth as the revelatory source of my own religious tradition while

viewing other religions merely as conditioned human artifacts, how paltry other reli-

gions’ teachings would appear to me compared to my own. To support learning

for

religious tradition

from

a religious other that permits something really significant and

fresh to be heard, my theology of religions, while rooted in my own tradition, would

have to see religious others as potential sources of profound truth, without reducing

them just to what I thought I knew before engaging them.

Diverse theologies of religions are possible for any religious tradition, and a num-

ber of alternative theologies of religions have been operative throughout the history

of Buddhism in Asia.

Below I will offer considerations toward constructing a con-

BUDDHISTS CAN LEARN FROM CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS 121

temporary Buddhist theology of religions that would support interreligious learning.

Such a theology of religions, if it is to be taken seriously by Buddhists, must be based

in fundamental Buddhist understandings of core teachings. Some of the implications

of those teachings could turn the attention of Buddhists toward religious others as

potential sources of truth. But such teachings have been employed traditionally in

ways that orient Buddhists away from the possibility of religiously important learn-

ing from non-Buddhists. So to explore how core Buddhist teachings could newly

inform interreligious learning for Buddhists today, I must not only summarize them

in their traditional forms, but also relate them to experiences of interreligious learn-

ing today and to current work in theologies of religions.

buddhist theology of religions

Why did the Buddha teach? A principal reason, Buddhists believe, is that different

spiritual paths taught in the world lead to different spiritual results, many of which

fall short of complete liberation from the inmost causes of confusion and suffering.

This, Buddhists believe, compelled the Buddha to “turn the wheel of the dharma,” to

reintroduce the way of the Buddhas to the world, the way that leads to inmost libera-

tion, the realization of nirvana. In the

Salleka Sutta

ascribed to

Ăë

kyamuni Buddha, the

Buddha describes dozens of ways that religious practitioners, mostly of non-Buddhist

traditions known in his time, believed they had accomplished complete liberation

(Skt.

mok

), the highest religious end, while falling far short of it unawares. The Bud-

dha then explains in detail how proper practice of his liberating path provides a way

to be released from every layer of clinging to conditioned experience, fully to realize

the freedom of the unconditioned state, nirvana. This is formulated in Indo-Tibetan

Buddhist traditions like my own as follows: The fullest realization of reality is a

stable, nondual insight into the empty, unconditioned nature of all experience—the

emptiness of all conceptualized appearances—accompanied by an impartial, powerful

compassion for all beings who have not realized the inmost freedom of such insight.

Any religious beliefs or practices that encourage reifying and clinging to any concep-

tualization of truth, God, scripture, religious identity, ritual, religious experience, or

ethical prescription as an ultimate would obstruct realization of the emptiness of all

such constructed forms, and thus, even in the name of religion, prevent the attain-

ment of the fullest religious end, the unconstructed, unconditioned nirvana. Careful

guidance is required to learn to pay such penetrating, stable attention to experience

that even the subtlest clinging to reified concepts collapses.

The Buddhist understanding that different modes of practice lead to different

soteriological results and the fullest result can only be attained by methods appropri-

ate to it (methods that the Buddha imparted) has established the main purpose for

communicating the Buddha’s teaching in the world.

In sharp contrast to this foundational Buddhist understanding, a popular contem-

porary option in theology of religions, developed by John Hick and others, called

“theological pluralism” asserts the following. Since all great world religions engage

the same ultimate reality, which they call by different names, then in spite of their

122

BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN STUDIES

differences in belief and practice all such religions should lead to the same essential

realization of that ultimate reality, the same basic salvific result.

But as the previous

paragraph implies, to accept that assertion is to put aside a primary concern of the

Buddha and his followers—to investigate the efficacy of specific beliefs and practices

promulgated by religions because the results of religious practice, which could be

inmost liberation or unconscious bondage to suffering in the name of religion, depend

on the

specific

functions of those beliefs and practices—

not

on a grand narrative of

equality of religions.

Nevertheless, for Buddhist philosophers to assert that different kinds of spiritual

paths lead to different results does not mean that just one narrowly specified way of

belief and practice is authentically liberating. Buddhist traditions have also com-

monly taught that there are many possible modes of learning and practice that lead

to liberation, not just one way, as exemplified in

Ăë

kyamuni Buddha’s diverse ways of

guiding different kinds of people in the practices of his liberating path. This teaching

is the doctrine of skillful means (Skt.

ya-kau

alya

), according to which the teach-

ings of the Buddhas are ever adapted to the diverse mentalities and needs of beings so

as to meet them effectively in their own horizons of understanding.

In a number of Mah

na Buddhist scriptures that emerged in the early centuries

, such as those of the

Avata

saka

collection, the teaching of skillful means was

expanded in connection with the cosmic dimension of Buddhahood,

dharmak

, the

infinite, nondual awareness of the Buddhas that pervades all reality. The infinite mind

of the Buddhas, these scriptures assert, communicates the dharma in

limitlessly diverse

ways to meet the varied mentalities of beings in all realms of existence, compas-

sionately entering persons of varied walks of life and religious culture into dharma

practices conducive to their mundane and supramundane well-being.

Indeed, the

skillful means of Buddhahood, in communicating the buddha’s core teaching of the

Four Noble Truths, goes

beyond

all

established religious expectations and teaching

norms

, including familiar Buddhist ways of expressing those very truths

. As the

Avata

saka

scripture puts it:

In this world there are four quadrillion names to express the four holy truths

in accord with the mentalities of beings, to cause them all to be harmonized

and pacified. . . . [And] just as in this world there are four quadrillion names

to express the four holy truths, so in all the worlds to the east—immeasurably

many worlds, in each there are an equal number of names to express the four

holy truths, to cause all the sentient beings there to be harmonized and pacified

in accordance with their mentalities. And just as this is so of the worlds to the

east, so it is with all the infinite worlds in the ten directions.

Such a scriptural passage implies that it is the infinite mind of the Buddhas that is the

ultimate ground and source of liberating truth for all peoples, cultures, and religions,

analogous to the Abrahamic belief in the one God as the transcendental source of

revelation for all humankind.

But, from a Buddhist perspective, even if there is one underlying source for diverse

expressions of truth in the world, it does not necessarily speak with equal clarity,

BUDDHISTS CAN LEARN FROM CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS 123

depth, and fullness in all the world’s traditions. Even if the infinite mind of the Bud-

dhas is the ultimate source of liberating truth for all, it is

Ăë

kyamuni Buddha, many

scriptures proclaim, that is the preeminent manifestation of that Buddha-knowledge

for this eon. He is the one who has spoken the liberating truth of dharma with the

greatest specificity, depth, and completeness, with a unique focus on core liberating

principles that are not as central to other traditions—foundational Buddhist doc-

trines that proclaim no substantial self in persons and the emptiness of independent

existence of all phenomena as keys to the deepest liberation of persons. And it is the

Buddha’s dharma heirs, contained in the

gha

community that he established, who

uphold this unique teaching for the world.

For a theology of religions to make sense to Buddhists (including those in my

Tibetan tradition), the principles summarized in preceding paragraphs cannot be

ignored. The teaching that Buddhahood employs infinite means of communication

that transcend the established expectations of all traditions, including Buddhist ones,

could direct the attention of Buddhists to the possibility of profound truth in other

religions. So can the Buddhist concern to critically analyze beliefs and practices of

religious traditions (both Buddhist and non-Buddhist) for soteriological efficacy. But

the tendency narrowly to identify the primary source of revelation with

Ăë

kyamuni

Buddha and his community makes it difficult for many Buddhists to view non-

Buddhist religions as possessing a source of truth comparable to their own. And the

concern to critically analyze all beliefs is usually marshaled for Buddhist critiques of

beliefs of religious others (including beliefs of Buddhist others), not as an analytical

tool to avoid missteps while learning

from

religious others. The traditional Buddhist

allergy to the notion of learning important religious things from religious others,

including Christians, has been exacerbated in the modern period by the Asian expe-

rience of Western colonialism, which many experienced, in part, as an aggressive

assault by Christian missionaries on indigenous Asian beliefs in support of the West-

ern domination of their societies.

The Buddhist principles summarized in this section, as traditionally employed,

have tended to constrain the possibility of new learning from religious others by sub-

suming others within a Buddhist system of belief that is functionally closed to new

input by them. Such principles, then, cannot be drawn on uncritically if they are to

inform a Buddhist theology of religions today that would adequately support inter-

religious learning. Yet they must contribute to any theology of religions that would

make sense to Buddhist traditions, including my tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

I believe those principles can be drawn on in fresh ways that avoid closing off new

learning from religious others, if they are informed by fresh experience of interreli-

gious learning and by some current work in theologies of religions.

my buddhist interreligious learning

This section will focus on elements of my learning as a Buddhist from Christians.

Such learning has reinforced for me the Buddhist understanding that Buddhahood,

as a source of limitless skillful means, can communicate

through

non-Buddhist modes

124

BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN STUDIES

of teaching in ways that transcend accustomed frames of reference, including my

conditioned Buddhist expectations. In dialogue and study, I have encountered Chris-

tians whose spiritual insights and qualities profoundly illumined my own Buddhist

understanding about which they knew nothing, for example, by embodying absolute

trust in the ground of being; by recognizing the holy, sacramental nature of everyday

things; or by vividly expressing the intrinsically communal nature of spiritual awak-

ening. What follows are examples of a few areas of Christian theology that are rich

sources of reflection for me. This is not the place to provide extensive analysis of each,

but to give a fuller sense of my learning process, I will discuss the first of these areas

at a little more length below.

1. Christian models of

atonement

include

the

understanding that human beings

are not in a position to redeem themselves from sin; rather,

God

is the effec-

tive

agent

of atonement and

redemption

for humanity. This expresses what

theologians call an

objective

aspect of atonement. Christian concern with salvific

power from beyond the human ego deepens my engagement with analogous

issues of agency and objectivity implicit, it seems to me, in elements of Bud-

dhist practice, as in the method of exchanging self for others (

tong-len

) central

to Tibetan Buddhism.

2. The Judeo-Christian teaching of absolute

surrender in

faith

to God

as source

and ground of all creation has helped anchor Christian reflections on

poverty

and

sacramental vision

. Because

all beings, as creations

God, are grounded

God, to know them in their depth is to know them as visible manifestations

of grace, as holy beings of immeasurable worth.

Such teachings have further

informed and energized my Buddhist understanding of

refuge

(in Nyingma

tradition) as absolute surrender to the expanse of openness and awareness that

is the empty ground of all beings. To be surrendered to that ground (

zhi

) is

to be surrendered to the inmost being of persons, a purer vision of them that

elicits reverence, love, and compassion for them. Articulations of Christian

sacramental vision have further inspired me, as a Nyingma Buddhist, to

see persons not as ungrounded, isolated entities of no intrinsic worth but as

expressions

of a primordial ground, embodiments of original wakefulness and

profound goodness (

tath

gata-garbha

, Buddha-nature), however obscured that

may be in them by inner tendencies of delusion and grasping. Christian sacra-

mental teaching somehow further informs and energizes this Buddhist way of

knowing for me.

3. The themes above inform (and are informed by) the

two great command-

ments

of Matthew 22:36–40. A Pharisee asks Jesus: “Teacher, which com-

mandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus replies: “‘You shall love the Lord

your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You

shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all

the law and the prophets.” The New Interpreter’s Bible comments: “One can-

not first love God and then, as a second task, love one’s neighbor. To love God

is to love one’s neighbor, and vice versa.”

The striking equation of the second commandment with the first has made

me repeatedly reflect (from my Nyingma perspective) on the relation between

BUDDHISTS CAN LEARN FROM CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS 125

devotion to Buddhahood (

dharmak

ya,

Buddha-nature) as the empty

uncondi-

tioned

ground (

zhi

)

beings and

unconditional

love

for

all those beings. Because

of this connection, to cultivate unconditional love, compassion and joy in per-

sons empowers and is empowered by increasing surrender to Buddhahood as

the empty cognizant ground of all persons. This becomes the unity of wisdom

and love within the bodhisattva path of my tradition. And the ancient Jewish

term “commandment” in the quote from Matthew points me with further

depth into the Tibetan concept of

dam tsig (samaya

), the exigence of deepest

commitment to the ground and practice of wisdom/love for the sake of all.

Ecclesiology:

As Dominican theologian J. M. R. Tillard has written: “To be

‘in Christ’ is to find oneself under the power of the Spirit of God that . . . knits

into the unity of one body those who receive the gospel of God. . . . Whoever

is ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Spirit’ is never in a relation of one to one with God.”

Human participation in God, in this view, is

intrinsically

communal

ecclesiological. The individual is

incorporated

into the

body

of Christ that

reaches out to all in the building of God’s kingdom. One’s relationship to

God can never be isolated from one’s relation to others in God.

Although communal participation has been a central part of Buddhist

practice from the beginning, Buddhist communities were understood as

collections of individuals, following in the Buddha’s footsteps individually

while guided by common disciplines and rules of living (

dhamma

and

vinaya

The rhetoric of path as ontologically individual was retained even as com-

munal dimensions of path gained increasing emphasis and centrality in a

number of Buddhist traditions, prominently in Mah

na movements. And

the Buddhist doctrinal thread of individualism was given renewed emphasis

in the meeting of Buddhism with the modern West, as it seemed to match the

intense individualism of Western interest in spirituality.

Nevertheless, “ecclesiological” aspects of Buddhism took highly developed

doctrinal expression in Mah

na traditions (including my own), in ways that

indicated the path and fruition of awakening must be understood as

intrinsi-

cally

, ontologically communal. Seemingly separate individuals awaken to a

communal dimension of reality that they were not previously conscious of,

remaking them into a collective extension of the Buddhas’ liberating activ-

ity on behalf of the world. The ultimate fruition of the bodhisattva path,

Buddhahood, embodies itself not just as an individual attainment (

rang don,

dharmak

) but as a power to coalesce

communities

of awakening (

zhen don,

pak

) and to

incorporate

bodhisattvas into

bodies of Buddhahood

—enlight-

ened dimensions known as

sambhogak

and

nirm

nak

—as agents of

enlightened activity for beings.

But unlike Tillard’s Christian understand-

ing, bodhisattva path and fruition are intrinsically communal not because

bodhisattvas are “knit into one body” by a supernatural Spirit, but because

their practices awaken them in wisdom and love to the interdependent,

ultimately undivided nature of all beings (undivided suchness,

tathat

5. I am struck by the Christian concern with a

God of justice

, vividly embodied

in Jesus as the one who challenges oppressive attitudes and structures with

special attention to the poor and marginalized. It has pushed me to seek

increased clarity on the meaning of the unconditional compassion associated

with the bodhisattva path of awakening. The Christian theme points me back

126

BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN STUDIES

into Buddhist sources further to observe how bodhisattva compassion, as an

unconditional expression of wisdom,

upholds

something in persons by simul-

taneously

confronting

something in them. To uphold persons in their deepest

potential of freedom and goodness is

to confront us in all the ways we hide

from that potential—the individual and social inhibitions and structures that

prevent us from responding fully to others with reverence and care. And, to

be pointed by Christian ecclesiological thought to “ecclesiological” aspects of

Buddhism noted above shifts my understanding of what it means as a Bud-

dhist to respond to needs of the contemporary world. Instead of focusing on

individual attempts to address social problems in the context of each indi-

vidual’s own practice of dharma, we might freshly explore how communal

dimensions of awakening in Buddhist praxis “knit” Buddhist individuals and

communities into interconnected, integrated responses of service and action

that respond to concrete needs and problems of societies and the natural world.

Each Christian theme above shifts my lens on a corresponding aspect of Buddhist

thought and practice, shining light on further implications of corresponding Bud-

dhist themes in their similarity and difference, infusing them with greater depth and

energy in my understanding and practice. It is as if Buddhahood is speaking in and

through the Christian mode of expression to empower a deeper engagement with

Buddhist principles, in ways I had not expected, do not control, and do not fully

comprehend.

an objective aspect of christian atonement

that sheds light on buddhist praxis

I will discuss a bit more the first theme mentioned above, atonement. The Christian

doctrine of atonement concerns Christ’s redemption of humanity from sin through

his life, death, and resurrection. Two aspects of this doctrine have caught my atten-

tion: (1) the

agent of atonement

for humankind is God in Christ, not sinful humans.

Since humanity does not even know the full depth of its own sinful condition, includ-

ing its distorted tendencies of will and judgment, human beings are powerless to

rectify that condition. (2) There is an

objective aspect

of God’s atonement for our sins

through Christ. The redemptive power of God’s action comes not just through the

subjective

personal responses of human beings to such a loving God, but by Christ’s

self-offering on our behalf.

God came to us in Christ and Spirit to do the work of

reconciliation we cannot do for ourselves. This expresses an objective structure to

reality—both with regard to the fallen condition of humankind and to the

objective

power of God’s grace to reintegrate his creatures back into his loving purpose. John

Macquarrie, discussing Christ’s salvific work as it reached completion on the cross,

says: “the classic view [of atonement] includes an objective side. The self-giving of

Christ is continuous with the self-giving of God, and the whole work of atonement

is God’s. . . . something needs to be done for man, something that he is powerless to

do for himself. . . . Here that absolute self-giving, which is the essence of God, has

BUDDHISTS CAN LEARN FROM CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS 127

appeared in history in the work of Jesus Christ, and this is a work

on behalf of

man, a

work of grace.”

In Tibet, one of the principal practices for progressing on the bodhisattva path of

awakening is the contemplative exchange of oneself for others, given vivid expres-

sion in the practice of

tong-len

, literally the practice of “offering and receiving.” After

experiencing the power of love and compassion through prior contemplative cultiva-

tions, the practitioner takes that power into the

tong-len

contemplative pattern of

offering and receiving. From compassion, one imaginatively

takes

the sufferings of

beings upon oneself, into the empty nature of one’s mind. From there, out of love, one

imaginatively

offers

them all of one’s well-being, resources, and positive capacities.

There is a tendency in some Buddhist discussions of

tong-len

to articulate it as a

technique to become more compassionate through the effortful use of imagination. In

this articulation, the agent of

tong-len

is the ego-centered human being who is learn-

ing to reverse her ego orientation by reconditioning subjective patterns of her mind

toward greater love and compassion for beings. This is true as far as it goes. But from

the perspective of my own tradition, it doesn’t capture the fuller Buddhist ontology

behind

tong-len

, which Christian reflections on the agency and the objective dimen-

sion of atonement help point out.

In the contemplative understanding of my tradition, Tibetan Nyingma, the ulti-

mate agent of

tong-len

is the awakening mind of enlightenment (

bodhicitta

) that has

been hidden within the human being, the innate Buddha awareness that is the infinite

cognizant ground and backdrop of all our experiences. Buddha awareness (

dharmak

rigpa

) is our deepest nature, but has been obscured by the conditioned patterning of

our ego-centered thought and reaction. The pattern of

tong-len

helps reconform the

person to her deeper nature, bringing out her innate capacity of enlightened response,

of compassion and love for beings as her greater self. When engaged in depth,

tong-len

flows progressively more spontaneously from the empty-cognizant ground of one’s

being, taking the world’s delusions and sufferings back into that ground, and from

that place of oneness with the Buddhas, blessing beings. The liberating power that

tong-len

unleashes gradually incorporates the practitioner into the body of the Bud-

dhas by drawing her into the stream of their enlightened activity. From this perspec-

tive, it would not be correct to say that the transformative power of the practice comes

just from reconditioning the subjectivity of the practitioner, as if the ego-centered

personality were the primary agent of the practice. The ultimate agent of

tong-len

gradually discovered from within its practice, is innate Buddhahood (

dharmak

which works in and through the practitioner from beyond her ego-centered mind, to

do what is not possible for that mind.

This is not to say that

tong-len,

though broadly analogous in its pattern of exchang-

ing self for others, soteriologically equates with the cross of Christ. Each such concept

is embedded in its own framework of doctrinal understanding that differs founda-

tionally from that of the other tradition. But because the similarities are embedded

in such radically different worldviews, elements of Christian reflection on subjective

and objective aspects of salvation both reveal analogous tensions in Buddhist tradi-

Last Completed Projects

topic title	academic level	Writer	delivered

Are you looking for a similar paper or any other quality academic essay? Then look no further. Our research paper writing service is what you require. Our team of experienced writers is on standby to deliver to you an original paper as per your specified instructions with zero plagiarism guaranteed. This is the perfect way you can prepare your own unique academic paper and score the grades you deserve.

Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.

[order_calculator]