"Mind and Life, Religion and Science: The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist-Christian-Science Trilogue,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 28 (2008): 43-63 (original) (raw)
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Horizons on Christianity's New Dialogue with Buddhism
Horizons, 1981
A survey of recent Christian literature on the dialogue with Buddhism reveals a conversation which is new in both spirit and content This article summarizes these new directions in five areas: (1) the methodology of dialogue; (2) the nature of the Ultimate and of religious language; (3) religious experience as an experience of selflessness; (4) tibe value and need of acting in the world, and (5) the unique, salvifíc mediation of Jesus and Gautama. In each of these areas, suggestions are offered as to how the new insights from the dialogue with Buddhism might aid in clarifying questions and incoherencies in present-day Christian doctrine and practice.
On Buddhist-Christian Studies in Relation to Dialogue
Buddhist–Christian Studies, 2006
In taking on the task of co-editing Buddhist-Christian Studies, it would seem appropriate to provide some background by way of introduction. Being a disciple of Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., a man who refuses to sign his name with capital letters, since the late 1960s, it goes against my grain to write too much about myself. Therefore, the following comments are meant also to serve as a foreword to the current issue. My own background in Buddhist-Christian studies has its roots in ongoing collaboration with Br. David, who will be remembered for his decades-long study of Zen and his affectionate rapport with the San Francisco Zen Center community, among others. I later studied interreligious dialogue and its theological implications with George Rupp and Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School. In order to let my studies sink their roots into contemplative soil, I served as Br. David's assistant at the Benedictine Grange and then went on to edit theological books at the Seabury Press in New York. Thanks to the kindness of the late and revered Alex Wayman, I was able to complete a doctorate in Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, where I gained some ability to work with Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. I sought additional tutorial guidance from José Pereira of Fordham University, a polymath scholar deeply appreciated for his extraordinary ability to introduce students to the intricacies of Sanskrit literature. Our lengthy conversations about the Baroque Scholastic Catholic theologians formed my eagerness to welcome at least three of the articles in the current issue of BCS. After the doctorate, I continued to pursue study and contemplative practice in Europe and Asia, developing collegial friendships, especially with members of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. In 2003, M. R. John C. Wester, auxiliary bishop of San Francisco, asked me to participate in the Northern California Zen/Ch'an-Catholic Dialogue that had arisen from earlier dialogue programs in various monastic milieux such as Gethsemane and New Camaldoli. In the context of that dialogue, I was asked to serve the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumencial and Interreligious Affairs in Washington, DC, in 2004. Given this ongoing interplay in my own life between scholarly research and con
Buddhist-Christian Studies, 2011
The question before us is the desirability of Buddhist-Christian dialogue in the work of (what Christians call) constructive theology. As a feminist theologian whose work is ever more deeply shaped by such a dialogue, my immediate answer is an unequivocal yes. 1 This dialogue fits a general pattern over two thousand years in which theologians have drawn from the wisdom of other traditions or cultures to better understand the mysteries of human experience. Without neo-Platonism and Aristotle there could hardly have been anything we recognize as Christian theology. Without pre-Christian Irish religion, there would be no Saint Brigit or Celtic Christianity. Without phenomenology, process, and Marxist philosophy the greatest works of twentieth-century Christian thought would not exist. Christianity, like all religions, is a moving river changed by time and culture and nearly as interiorly diverse as its members. The dialogue with Buddhism might be seen as a contemporary example of Christianity's openness to exchange with other ways of thinking that broadens and deepens its best insights. It is perhaps analogous to Origen's reliance on neo-Platonism or Thomas Aquinas's inspiration by the rediscovery of Aristotle. 2 The porous boundaries between Christianity and its culture open it to wisdom beyond itself but they also open it to cruelty and ignorance. Nothing protects religions from participating in the human condition and thus the prejudices and power structures that mutilate human society. Consumer culture and oppressions by class, ethnicity, and gender are seamlessly incorporated into Christian identity. The tacit synthesis of a culture's values with those of a religion neutralizes possible critique and can elevate a society's oppressions to a sacred duty. For this reason, too, dialogue with Buddhism is important to call Christianity back to its ethical moorings in the ideal of universal love and compassion. Religions are porous to the world around them, but they tend to conceal this from themselves and often imagine themselves to be not only untainted but also uniquely
Thoughts on Why, How, and What Buddhists Can Learn from Christian Theologians
Buddhist-Christian Studies, 2011
This essay attempts to establish foundations for doing comparative theology, deep learning across religious boundaries, from a Buddhist perspective (from the author's location in Tibetan Buddhism). The essay argues for the necessity of developing a Buddhist theology of religions, a way of understanding the possibility of liberating truth in other religions, that is consistent with Buddhist principles and would appropriately motivate and guide a Buddhist approach to comparative theology. It develops such a theology of religions, a Buddhist form of open inclusivism, by drawing on relevant principles from Buddhist texts together with recent academic scholarship in theologies of religions. With that basis, the essay gives examples of five areas of comparative theological learning for Buddhists from Christianity, focusing on the following themes: atonement theory, faith in God, the two great commandments, ecclesiology, and justice. It concludes with the author’s reflections on how this process of inter-religious learning further informs his Buddhist approach to theology of religions. .