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BUDDHISM

MADE PLAIN

An Introduction for Christians and Jews

Revised Edition

ANTONY FERNANDO

WITH

LEONARD SWIDLER

ORBIS BOOKS

Maryknoll, New York 10545

Eighth Printing, February 1998

The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll) recruits and trains people for overseas missionary service. Through Orbis Books Maryknoll aims to foster the international dialogue that is essential to mission. The books published, however, reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the official position of the society.

First published in 1981 as Buddhism and Christianity: Their Inner Affinity by the Ecumenical Institute for Study and Dialogue 490/5, Havelock Road, Colombo 6, Sri Lanka

Revised edition published in 1985 by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 10545

Manufactured in the United States of America

Manuscript Editor (revised edition): William E. Jerman

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Fernando, Antony, Leonard Swidler

Buddhism made plain: an introduction for

Christians and Jews

Rev. ed. of: Buddhism and Christianity.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Buddhism-Doctrines-Introductions. 2. Christianity

and other religions-Buddhism. 3. Judaism-Relations-Buddhism. 4. Buddhism-Relations-Christianity.

5. Buddhism-Relations-Judaism. 1. Swidler, Leonard J.

11. Title.

BQ4132.F47 1985

294.3 84-18880

ISBN 0-88344-198-5 (pbk.)

Contents

Abbreviations Used for Buddhist Scriptural Sources

viii

Buddhist Terms in Pali

Foreword by Rev. A turugiriye Sri Gnanawimala Thero

Toward Judeo-Christian-Buddhist Dialogue by Leonard Swidler

Preface to the Revised Edition

xxi

Introduction

PART ONE

HUMAN LIBERATION ACCORDING TO GAUTAMA

Chapter I

Life and Personality of Gautama

Home Life

Renunciation

Mission

Chapter 2

The Sermon on the Four Noble Truths: Exposition of the Middle Path

Theme of the Sermon

Revolutionary Dimensions of the Middle Path

Chapter 3

Universality of Human Sorrow: First Noble Truth

Chapter 4

Cause of Sorrow: Second Noble Truth

Chapter 5

Emotionalism in Knowledge

Chapter 6

Doctrine of Dependent Origination: A Cause of the Greed That Causes Sorrow

Chapter 7

Retribution and Rebirth: Karma and Samsira

Karma

Samsdra

Chapter 8

Nirvana: Relief from Mental Anguish: Third Noble Truth

Nirvana

Life after Death

Characteristics of Nirvanic Personality

Nirvana and Modern Life

Chapter 9

Right Understanding: The Doctrine of the No-self

Right Understanding

The Sermon on No-self Behavior

Universal Import of the Doctrine of the No-self

Chapter 10

Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action

Right Thoughts

Right Speech

Right Action

Chapter 11

Right Livelihood

Right Livelihood and Lay Spirituality

A Theravada-Mahayana Controversy

Significance of Right Livelihood

Principles of Right Livelihood

Chapter 12

Right Effort

Chapter 13

Right Mindfulness

Sermon on Mindfulness

Attentiveness to What Is Being Done

Attentiveness to the Realities of Life

Attentiveness to Inner Impulses

Chapter 14

Right Concentration

Calming the Mind

Widening the Vision of Reality

PART TWO

HUMAN LIBERATION: THE INNER AFFINITY AMONG THE VIEWS OF GAUTAMA, YESHUA, AND JUDAISM

Chapter 15

The Challenge of the Four Noble Truths

Religion as Liberation

Liberation as Personality Development

100

Liberation Theology

102

Chapter 16

Belief in God according to Gautama, Yeshua, and Judaism

104

Gautama's Exclusion of God

104

The Judeo-Christian Stance on Belief in God

106

Chapter 17

Worship of God: Its Inner Reality

110

Conceptualization and Experience

110

Conceptually Nontheistic Belief in God

114

Chapter 18

Liberation according to Gautama, Yeshua, and Judaism

116

Faith in a Provident God

119

Forgiveness of Sins

120

Human Interrelatedness

123

Epilogue

127

Notes

131

Works Cited in this Book

133

Index of Pali and Sanskrit Terms

135

General Index

137

Abbreviations Used for

Buddhist Scriptural Sources

Anguttara Nikaya (followed by reference to the volume and page of

the Pali text)

Cullavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka (followed by reference to the page,

chapter, section, and verse of the Pali text)

Digha Nikaya (followed by reference to the number of the Sutta)

Majjhima Nikaya (followed by reference to the volume and page of

the Pali text)

Mahavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka (followed by reference to the page,

chapter, section, and verse of the Pali text)

Samyutta Nikaya (followed by reference to the volume and page of

the Pali text)

Vinaya Pitaka (cited through MV or CV)

English translations are from the editions of the Pali Text Society, London.

Buddhist Terms in Pali

Buddhism, like any other religion, has a vocabulary all its own and its more cherished words and expressions are taken from the foundational scriptures. Among the languages in which the Buddhist scriptures are set down, Pali is one of the most important. Many technical terms in Buddhism-and almost all the terms in the Theravada form of Buddhism-are in Pali. A number of these Pali terms and expressions are included in this exposition in the hope that they could be an added help to the more earnest student. In some instances Sanskrit equivalents are also given.

Pronunciation

consonants

vowels

c = ch as in rich

a = u as in but

n = gn as in gnu

a = a as in art

t = th as in think

a = u as in fur

t = t as in to

i = i as in pin

d = th as in then

i = ee as in seen

m = ng as in ring

u = u as input

u = u as in rule

The vowels e and o are always long in Pali and Sanskrit, except when followed by a double consonant, e.g., ettha.

The aspirates kh, gh, dh, th, and bh are pronounced with the h sound immediately following, as in the English words, “blockhead,” “pighead,” “cathead,” “loghead.”

Foreword

It was with a great feeling of joy that I read the book on Buddhism written by Antony Fernando with Leonard Swidler. Writing a book on this topic, in English, and in an easily understandable style, is in itself something praiseworthy. But writing such a book expressly for Jews, Christians, and other Westerners, in an idiom that they can understand, is very opportune. It fills a void long lamented.

To write a book of this nature is not easy. Besides a thorough knowledge of the subject, great courage is necessary. For their courageous undertaking the authors deserve the gratitude of Buddhists, Jews, and Christians alike.

The great interest that Westerners, and particularly Christians, are showing today in Buddhism is something about which I have firsthand knowledge. I have experienced it while being in charge of the Buddhist Mission in West Berlin. But I realized too, and with a certain sadness, that many interested non-Buddhists could not gain the familiarity with Buddhism that they desired, because of the shortage of suitable books. Most books on Buddhism available today were written primarily for practicing Buddhists living in Buddhist countries. They are not easily understandable by non-Buddhists belonging to a totally different cultural milieu. The Fernando-Swidler book, I feel, will be a very great help to Westerners trying to understand Buddhism and its message.

One feature that I particularly cherish in this book is the respect with which its authors treat Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism. I have read exposés of Buddhism written by Christians whose hidden intention was to prove the superiority of Christianity. And I have read others by authors who think that Buddhism will be appreciated only by readers who hate Christianity. Neither of these two approaches really fits the modern world.

Typically, modern persons make their own judgments and decisions. They need only to be exposed to reality. They will then draw their own conclusions. The authors of this book understand this well. They respect the intelligence of their intended readers.

I am fully convinced that the revised edition of this book will help many Americans and other English-speaking readers come to know Buddhism in a way that will be truly beneficial to their lives. I wish the book every success.

ATURUGIRIYE SRI GNANAWIMALA THERO

Satipattana Vipassana Meditation Centre,

Aturgiriya, Sri Lanka

Buddhist Vihara, West Berlin

Toward Judeo-Christian-Buddhist Dialogue

Why a book on Buddhism for Christians and Jews? Because we have finally learned that we cannot “go it alone.” For example, until the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) the Catholic Church had the reputationdeservedly so-of being resistant to dialogue. It had pretty well made its own the triumphalistic statement of Pope Pius IX at Vatican I (1869-70): “La tradizione son' io!-I am the tradition!” (Bury, 124). But at Vatican II Catholicism did an about-face: “All the Catholic faithful” were mandated “to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism,” for “the concern for restoring unity involves the whole Church, faithful and clergy alike. It extends to everyone” (Unitatis Redintegratio, nos. 4, 5 [Flannery, 465]). Catholics were to enter into theological dialogue with non-Catholics as equals, par cum pari, equal with equal.

During the course of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI issued his first encyclical (Ecclesiam suam, 1964) specifically on dialogue. He was not at all, in those early days, hesitant in his language:

Dialogue is demanded nowadays. . It is demanded by the dynamic course of action which is changing the face of modern society. It is demanded by the pluralism of society and by the maturity man has reached in this day and age. Be he religious or not, his secular education has enabled him to think and speak and conduct a dialogue with dignity [quoted in Humanae Personae Dignitatem, no. 79 (Flannery, 1003)].

Addressing itself beyond the borders of the Catholic Church, the Vatican Secretariat for Unbelievers recommended that “all Christians should do their best to promote dialogue... as a duty of fraternal charity suited to our progressive and adult age” (ibid.). A key notion in this interreligious dialogue and dialogue with nonbelievers is freedom for all parties concerned:

Doctrinal dialogue should be initiated with courage and sincerity, with the greatest of freedom and with reverence.... If dialogue is to achieve its aims, it must obey the rules of truth and liberty. It needs sincere truth, thus excluding manipulated doctrinal discussion ... in discussion the truth will prevail by no other means than by the truth itself. Therefore the liberty of the participants must be ensured by law and reverence in practice [ibid. (Flannery, 1010)].

To be sure, there is risk involved in dialogue: if one is really open to what other partners say, one has to reckon with the possibility that they will prove to be persuasive on some given issue. The Vatican has an incredibly strong statement supporting this position: “Doctrinal discussion requires perceptiveness, both in honestly setting out one's own opinion and in recognizing the truth everywhere, even if the truth demolishes one so that one is forced to reconsider one's own position, in theory and in practice, at least in part” (ibid.).

One must, then, ask: Why has this dramatic turn taken place in that highly conservative institution, the Catholic Church? (And one can effectively argue that if it has taken place there, then it can happen, if it has not already, in other less conservative religious traditions.) The answer to this simple question is quite complex, but I believe that a foundational element for the revolutionary turn is the deabsolutizing of the understanding of truth that has finally carried through in the Catholic Church-and other Christian and Jewish institutions. This is not the place to spell out that deabsolutizing process in detail.¹ But a few lines in its regard might be helpful.

Until the nineteenth century truth in the West was thought of in a very static manner: if something was found to be true in one place and time, then it was thought to be true in all times and places, and this was so not only in regard to statements about empirical data, but also about the meaning or morality of things. For example, if it was true for St. Paul to say that it was all right for slaves to be subject to their masters (in fact, he demanded it!), then it was always true.

But no Christian theologian today would admit the truth of the Pauline statement. In the past one hundred fifty years our understanding of truth statements in the West has become historical, perspectival, limited, interpretive-in a single word: relational. And that means deabsolutized. It is now understood that the particular historical circumstances within which a statement about the meaning of something arose have a profound influence on the statement-the very framing of the question, the thought categories in which it and the subsequent answers were expressed and developed, the kind of language used (poetic, mythic, scientific, legal), the audience for which it was intended, the goal it was meant to accomplish. Text can be properly understood only within context; given a significantly new context, a proportionately new text would be needed to convey the same meaning.

Further, what the new sense of history did to make time and circumstances dynamic elements in the new view of truth statements, the development of the sociology of knowledge did in regard to such things as class, status, and sex in society; these also had a profound effect on how one perceived and expressed reality. With the development of language analysis and hermeneutics (the 6 'science of interpretation”), all our statements about the meaning of things were seen to be necessarily limited by the nature of language (although reality is multifaceted, we can speak of only one facet at a time: hence, all our truth statements are limited. And all such statements included an element of interpretation (I perceive reality, and I express my perception of it; although there clearly is an extramental it, I am inextricably bound up in the perception/description of it).

By way of an example, an object (reality) is perceived, by a circle of perceivers. My perception/description of the object (reality) may well be accurate, and therefore true, but it may not contain the perception/description of someone who is opposite me, which will also be true. An awareness of this nature of truth statements logically leads to the conclusion that I need to supplement my truth statements by being in dialogue with those who perceive reality other than I do. We shall never come to a complete perception/ description of reality, but we can move toward an ever fuller one. Hence, dialogue and consequent self-transformation is dynamic, never-ending.

Dialogue is a conversation between persons with differing views, the primary purpose of which is for all participants to learn from the others so that they can change and grow in the perception and understanding of reality, and then act accordingly. Minimally, the very fact that I learn that my dialogue partner believes “this” rather than “that” proportionally changes my attitude toward that person, and a change in my attitude is a significant change in me. We enter into dialogue so that we can learn, change, and grow, not so that we can force change on the other, as one hopes to do in debate. On the other hand, because in dialogue each partner comes with the intention of learning and changing, one's partner in fact will also change. Thus the goal of debate, and much more, is accomplished far more effectively by dialogue.

In addition, persons entering into interreligious dialogue must be at least minimally self-critical of both themselves and their own religious traditions. A lack of such self-criticism implies that one's own tradition already has all the correct answers. Such an attitude makes dialogue not only unnecessary, but even impossible, for we enter into dialogue primarily so that we can learn-which obviously is impossible if our tradition has never made a misstep, if it has all the right answers. To be sure, in interreligious dialogue one must stand within a religious tradition with integrity and conviction, but such integrity and conviction must include, not exclude, a healthy self-criticism. Without it there can be no dialogue-and, indeed, no integrity.

In interreligious dialogue there are at least three phases. In the first phase we unlearn misinformation about each other and begin to know each other as we truly are. In phase two we begin to discern values in the partner's tradition and wish to appropriate them into our own tradition. If we are serious, persistent, and sensitive enough in dialogue, we may at times enter into phase three. Here we together begin to explore new areas of reality, of meaning and of truth, of which neither of us had even been aware before. We are brought face to face with this new, as yet unknown to us dimension of reality only because of questions, insights, and probings explored in dialogue.

There is something radically different about phases two and three, on the one hand, and phase one on the other. in the former we do not simply add on quantitatively another “truth” or value from the partner's tradition. In stead, as we assimilate it within our own religious self-understanding it will proportionately transform our self-understanding. Because our dialogue partner will be in a similar position, we shall then be able to witness authentically to those elements of deep value in our own tradition that our partner's tradition may well be able to assimilate with self-transforming profit.

All this of course will have to be done with complete integrity on each side, both partners remaining authentically true to the vital core of their own religious tradition. In significant ways that vital core will be perceived and experienced differently under the influence of dialogue, but if dialogue is carried on with both integrity and openness, the result will be that Jews will be authentically Jewish and Christians authentically Christian, not despite the fact that Judaism or Christianity has been profoundly “buddhized,” but because of it. And the same is true of a judaized or christianized Buddhism. There can be no room for syncretism here: syncretism means amalgamating various elements of different religions into some kind of a (con)fused whole without concern for the integrity of the religions involved-which is not the case with authentic dialogue.

If we are to enter into dialogue with each other across religious lines, we shall have to learn to speak a language that will be understandable to our partner. The Jew and the Christian will have to learn something of the thought world, and language expressing it, of Buddhists, and Buddhists that of the Jews and Christians. This will be especially difficult inasmuch as the cultural milieux out of which the two perceptions/descriptions of reality arose are so very different, much more different than between Protestants and Catholics, or Christians and Jews, or even Jews or Christians and Muslims, for all these have a largely Semitic and biblical root.

In the West, Christianity and Judaism have been going through a deep crisis of demythologization. For modern critically-thinking Westerners the old language “from above” sounds too much like fairy tales; it is not convincing. The response of critically-thinking Christian and Jewish theologians has been to rethink their traditions with categories and language “from below ... .. from within,” that express the transcendent in terms of the immanent. It is precisely this language “from below,” “from within,” “immanent,” humanity-based, that must be developed as interreligious dialogue moves beyond a bilateral basis, for that is the only kind of language that we can have in common. In terms of the Judeo-Christian-Buddhist dialogue it is humanity-based language that provides a most apt bridge between the Judeo-Christian and Buddhist traditions, not only because it is more and more the language of critically-thinking Jews and Christians, but also because it is likewise the language of much of Buddhism.

In terms of the conceptualization and expression of reality, much the same sort of misadventure overtook Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. All suffered the fate of an externalizing and ontologizing of the original, metaphorical, nonideological message of their founders. In this connection the very names of the latter two religious traditions are revealing. The names come not from the names of the founding persons, Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) of Nazareth, but rather from their titles: Buddha (Enlightened One) and Christ (Anointed One). Here already is reflected the move from the interior to the exterior. One need only compare the language that Jesus, Yeshua, uses to describe himself and his relationship to the ultimate source of reality, which he, in good Jewish-indeed, Pharisaic-fashion, calls Father, with the language of the great christological councils of the fourth and fifth centuries to note clearly the move from metaphor to ontology. A similar comparison could be made of the language of Gautama in the Buddhist scriptures with some of the doctrines of later Mahayana Buddhism. Externalization and ontologization occurred in both instances.

What is necessary, then, in both traditions and in Judaism, is a ressourcement, a probing back to the sources, the original vital core, of each of the religious traditions, to the teachings embodied in both the words and lives of Yeshua and Gautama (there are of course immense historico-critical problems in achieving this goal, but significant progress has already been made), and the “rabbinical” founders of Judaism. When that is done one finds startlingly similar messages being taught by the original founders, despite the radically different milieux.

It will be worth our while to pause and look at a few of the teachings of Yeshua and the rabbis (Yeshua too of course was a rabbi, but, for the sake of clarity, the term “rabbi” will not usually be used here of him) to see just how close they are to those of Gautama.

Gautama teaches that at the heart of the human experience of life there lies a basic dissatisfaction or suffering (dukkha); it is his goal to bring us to face dukkha and liberate ourselves from it. Ignorance of our lot is the cause of our slavery, and knowledge is the way to liberation. Yeshua's and the rabbis' message too is one of liberation, a dialectic of slavery and liberation that comes about through truth. As a good teacher concerned for his disciples, Yeshua said to his Jewish followers: “If you follow my teaching you will be true disciples of mine, for you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

Gautama rejected the idea that the true meaning of human life, salvation, was to be found first of all through religious rituals, the practice of asceticism, virtuous acts, or intellectual speculations-though some form of all these things have their proper place in human life-but in a deep interior wisdom that sets all things in their proper order. Fundamentally this is what Yeshua and the rabbis taught with their central image, the reign of God. Unfortunately Christians have often been misled by the usual translation of the phrase basileia tou theou, as we have it in the New Testament Greek (Yeshua probably said malkut shomaim in Hebrew). In most instances, the phrase is translated as the “kingdom of God,” as if Yeshua were speaking of a place, a realm. In fact, some of Yeshua's contemporaries made the same mistake and were corrected by him: “Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the basileia tou theou would come. His answer was: 'The basileia tou theou does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, “Look, here it is! “ or, “There it is!”; because the basileia tou theou is inside you (entos hymon)'” (Luke 17:20-21). Equally unfortunately, in Judaism a similar fate befell the rabbis' image of malkut shomaim. The authentic meaning is that the reign of God is the situation wherein all things are rightly ordered according to their nature; God's will reigns.

Of course the rabbis and Yeshua spoke in theistic terms: God was the ultimate source and goal of reality, and so if things were ordered according to their nature, their fundamental structure, they would naturally be ordered according to the will, rule, reign of God. Gautama did not speak of God, either to affirm or deny; he was satisfied with speaking of a right ordering of things according to their ultimate authentic structure. Clearly there are differences here between the teachings of the rabbis and Jesus, on the one hand, and Gautama on the other, but there is an even more profound unity of their messages: our liberation is to be found within us in the right ordering of all things according to their fundamental structure.

In many different ways Yeshua and the rabbis spoke of the reign of God, the interior right ordering of things, the importance of seeking it first, and its relationship to other values. At one point Yeshua said: “Rather, seek first of all the reign and its rightness (dikaiosynen), and all these things [he had been speaking of not worrying about what to eat or wear] shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). In the Talmud this saying of the rabbis is recorded: “Did you ever in your life see an animal or a bird which had a trade? And they support themselves without trouble. And were they not created only to serve me? And I was created to serve my master. Does it not follow that I shall be supported without trouble?” (Kiddushin, 4:14 [Smith, 137]). Yeshua and the rabbis, like Gautama, did not reject the values of the body, but saw them as good things to be enjoyed within the right ordering of things. Then one can appreciate and enjoy all things for what they are, without any disordered clinging (tanha in the Pali of Gautama), but with a proper detachment, for as Yeshua said elsewhere: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also “ (Matt. 6:21).

Just how focused the message of the rabbis and Yeshua was on the interior right ordering of all things according to the structure of reality-and, in the theistic mode, that means on the source and goal of reality, God-can be seen in the summing up of the whole of religion in two great commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart (kardia) and with your whole soul (psyche) and with your whole understanding (dianoia). This is the great and first commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). Here all the essential notions are interior ones: love, heart, soul, understanding. That is the first and great commandment; all others flow from it-the interior right ordering of all things. But in the Jewish tradition-and Yeshua was a very devout Jew-one does not live isolated like a hermit, and so Yeshua went on to make an essential link between that first commandment and the second, which he described as like unto the first (homoia aute): “The second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as your self” (Matt. 22:39). Interior right ordering has immediate socioethical consequences. According to Yeshua, one does not “save” oneself alone, but liberation carries with it the impulse to share itself with others (as the medieval philosophers would say: bonum sui diffusivum est, goodness is diffusive of itself). This is exactly what the whole Buddhist tradition of the Bodhisattva is all about: the liberated ones teaching liberation to the unliberated.

It should be noted that in this summing up of religion in the two great commandments of love, Yeshua was not only quoting from the Hebrew Bible (Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18), but was also following his Jewish predecessors in linking the two together as the sum of religion as expressed two hundred years earlier in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. In fact in Luke's version of the encounter between Yeshua and the Jewish expert in the law who asked about how to be “saved,” it was the lawyer, not Yeshua, who summed up religion in the two great commandments of love; Yeshua simply agreed with him (Luke 10:25-28).

It is also important to discern that in the second commandment of love the Jewish tradition and Yeshua spoke of loving one's neighbor as one's self. There, indeed, is the standard, the authentic self, and there is the interior focus once again-which then has immediate outreach consequences. In another place Yeshua said: “But what does it profit a person to gain the whole world (kosmon) and suffer the loss of one's own self (heauton)?” (Luke 9:25). Should we humans not enjoy the cosmos? Yes, but we can really do so only through an interiorly rightly ordered self.

And in the sayings of Rabbi Nathan it is written: “To whomever saves a single soul [self] it is reckoned as if he saved the whole world.... To whomever destroys a single soul [self] it is reckoned as if he destroyed the whole world.... From this you learn that one human is worth the whole of creation” (Aboth Rabbi Nathan, 31 [Billerbeck, 1, 750]). It is the human self that follows the Torah-God's instruction on how to order life rightly-that is worth, and worthy of, the whole of creation.

One of the prime teachings of Gautama was that of concentration or focus of the mind-this is what the various techniques of meditation are aimed at. One should live fully in the “now. “ Of course the fullness of “now” includes an awareness of the past and a looking forward to the future, but they both focus in on and move out from the present, which is to be embraced fully and consciously (the Western medieval motto was: age quod agis, “do what you are doing”). The same message is found in the words of Yeshua: “Therefore, do not worry about things for tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34).

In some of later Buddhism nirvana has come to mean something like the notion of heaven, a place where one goes to live happily after death. The same thing happened to nirvana that happened to the basileia tou theou and the malkut shomaim: it was reified and localized. In fact, to Gautama nirvana was very much like Yeshua's basileia tou theou and the rabbis' malkut shomaim: a state of soul (psyche) wherein things are rightly ordered. Nirvana literally means “blown out.” What is blown out? All of the false selves that most men and women mistake for their true, deep self. So deep is this true self according to Gautama that he refers to it as a “nonself,” anattaª, a nonself in the sense of what we have normally mistaken for our self. These pseudoselves are “blown out” in nirvana, as is all tanha, “distorting craving,” which is the source of the pseudoselves. What is then left is the authentic self, at peace, deep peace, because it is rightly ordered in accordance with the structure of reality.

Yeshua spoke a different language, but sent much the same message, distinguishing authentic peace (his own) from pseudopeace (that of the world). “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give you” (John 14:27). As a Palestinian Jew Jesus spoke not Greek but Hebrew and Aramaic. Thus the word he used for peace was doubtless “shalom,” which means much more than the mere cessation of exterior hostilities; it indicates an interior right ordering of all things that positively spreads out throughout the surrounding world. The rabbis too had a similar message couched in Hebraic categories: “Peace (shalom) is great for it is set aside to be the portion of the just.... Those who love the Torah have great peace (shalom).... Peace (shalom) is great for it will be granted to the gentle” (Billerbeck, 1, 216). Thus for Yeshua and the rabbis a synonym for basileia tou theou/malkut shomaim-and for nirvana-would have been the pregnant word “shalom.”

In the end those persons who attain liberation, salvation (which comes from the Latin word salus, “vibrant health”), who arrive at nirvana, at the basileia/matkut, at shalom, do not lead a grim, stoic life. Rather, only they are able to live life “to the hilt, “ for it is only they who, having things rightly ordered, can fully appreciate and enjoy them. Yeshua said as much in a stunning call to full life: “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly! “ (John 10:10).

Let this suffice here to indicate something of the profound similarity of the messages of Gautama, Yeshua, and the rabbis. Of course there are also differences, but it must be asked whether these differences are over essentials or cultural variations, whether they are contradictory or complementary, whether they concern primary or secondary matters. In addition there will be many more differences-and some similarities-when one moves into a comparative study of the religious traditions that flowed from Gautama, Yeshua, and the rabbis over the millennia. That second move, of course, is important but, as in the very teachings of Gautama, the rabbis, and Yeshua themselves, the right ordering of the original vital core of the religious tradition is primary; all other developments are to be seen in that light. Hence our return to the sources, to the teachings of Gautama, the Torah, the rabbis, and Yeshua.

Naturally such a ressourcement may not be done in a reductionist or primitivist manner, as if we were to “play” first-century Bible land or fifthcentury B.C.E. India. Our contexts are different from that of the rabbis, Yeshua, and Gautama, and therefore their messages must be applied to our contexts; we must make interpretations. And that is precisely where the history of the institutions comes in creatively: millions of other disciples of Gautama, the rabbis, and Yeshua also tried to understand the teachings of their teachers and interpret them and apply them to their existential contexts. Their examples, their traditions, can be of immense help to us. But we must also be aware that these examples and traditions can be negative as well as positive (“the wise man learns by the mistakes of others; the fool by his own”). A tradition must always be tested by the original vital core in interpreting and applying it to the present.

Fortunately for us today the language of both the original vital core of Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity (the teachings and lives of Gautama, the rabbis, and Yeshua) and the language of modern critical thinkers (who are largely the ones interested in interreligious dialogue) are largely language “from below,” “from within,” the transcendent in the immanent-in short, humanity-based.

In this book Antony Fernando presents Buddhism in its original vital core in a language that is clear, “from within ... .. from below,” immanent, humanity-based. Connections are frequently made to the original vital core of the teaching of the Hebrew prophets, Yeshua, and the rabbis with language that is likewise “from below ... .. from within,” immanent, humanitybased. Thus the essential teachings of Buddhism appear as eminently meaningful, sensible, helpful to modern Westerners, whether Christians, Jews, or “nonreligious” humanists.

My contribution to this -the third-edition of this book has been to recast and expand the text so as to reach out to a broader readership: Jews, Westerners in general, Americans, women, and those concerned primarily with social justice.

LEONARD SWIDLER

Religion Department, Temple University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Preface to the Revised Edition

When I first wrote the book Buddhism and Christianity: Their Inner Affinity, I intended it to be a handbook on Buddhism for Christians and particularly for Christians in my part of the world. Not in my wildest dreams did I suspect that it would be of use to any other group.

Dr. Leonard Swidler, editor and founder of the well-known Journal of Ecumenical Studies and a professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University, saw such a possibility after reading my book. Eventually he wrote to me asking if I would like to get the book published in the United States with some adaptations that would make it suitable for Jews and other Westerners also. He felt that such a book would help (as explained by him in the preceding statement) the Buddhist-Judeo- Christian dialogue. It was easy to see his point. As much as possible, interreligious dialogue has to be broadened, and so I agreed with his proposal.

This explains why the revised edition of my book bears a new title and why our names are both on the title page. I am grateful to Dr. Swidler for adapting my book to suit a larger and newer readership, but I am more grateful to him for the manner in which he has done it. Showing great ingenuity and sensitivity, he has adapted my book to its new purpose without in any way damaging or altering its content and message.

He has effected improvements in several areas of this book, the most important changes being in those sections that deal with Judaism. He has added a number of explanatory notes on Judaism that will help Jewish readers to understand Buddhism better and will aid them in comparing Buddhism with their own religion. These notes may not be very numerous or very extensive, and being interspersed in the text may not even be recognizable as coming from him, but they are of great value. They give a new face to the book, a face that Jewish readers will, it is hoped, feel at home with.

The fact that this book on Buddhism is now addressed to both Jews and Christians reduces in no way its applicability to Christians, the group for whom the first two editions were exclusively meant. On the contrary, a Christian using the book will now have the added advantage of learning more about Judaism.

Granted the fact that this is a book that is now addressed to both Jews and Christians, Dr. Swidler has taken the initiative to change the name Jesus to Yeshua in those chapters that treat of Judaism and Christianity together. Yeshua is undoubtedly the name that Jesus would have been known by among his contemporaries. That alteration by Swidler, controversial as it may appear to some traditional Christians, does have a value. It will remind Christians of Jesus' Jewish background, a fact of no little importance for readers of a book that compares Buddhism with both Judaism and Christianity.

The improvements effected by Dr. Swidler are not restricted to those areas connected with Judaism or with Christianity's Jewish background. To expand the audience of the book and to make it more accessible to Westerners, he has revised my English as well. In my earlier text I had not, for instance, been aware of sexism in our language. Often I had used the word “he” in places where it could mean both “he” and “she,” and “man” in places where it could mean both “man” and “woman.” The alertness shown in matters such as this convinces me that Dr. Swidler has been sensitive to the feelings of all prospective readers of the book, including those who simply call themselves humanists.

Outside these additions and changes made by Dr. Swidler, I have made two major alterations in the second (Sri Lankan) edition of the book. I have considerably reduced that part of chapter 18 in which I had discussed at length the Christian notion of liberation. In an edition meant for Westerners, I thought the extensive treatment of such a topic would be superfluous. On the other hand, I have considerably enlarged the treatment in chapter 9 of the Buddhist notion of the “no-self.” This is because the Buddhist “no-self” is a notion about which Westerners often seek greater clarification.

Except for such easily understandable changes effected by Dr. Swidler and myself, the text of my original book is reproduced here completely and without reduction or alteration.

I take this opportunity to thank Dr. Swidler for all that he has done to bring out my book in a revised edition adapted for a larger readership. In addition, I thank all those who have collaborated with him in this regard, especially the editors of Orbis Books. I cannot, of course, forget at this juncture the numerous persons who helped me bring out the earlier editions of the work. It would be too lengthy to mention all their names here. I want them to know, however, that I have not ceased to be grateful.

It is my sincere wish that this book, which is now a coproduct of Dr. Swidler and myself, will lead many Westerners to a deeper and more respectful understanding of Buddhism, and that it will also be instrumental in fostering the spirit of mutual understanding and friendship among Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and (religiously non-affiliated) humanists.

Introduction

A startling feature of the evolution of society in the last few decades is the extremely close contact that has developed between groups of very diverse cultural traditions. Not long ago, peoples of one culture lived quite self-assuredly in total aloofness from other cultures, ignoring at times their very existence. Even when their existence was acknowledged, it was generally maintained that no bridges of intercommunication could ever be built between those other cultures and their own.

With regard to the East-West division, for instance, it was Kipling who said, “East is East, and [the] West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” But the strange fact is that, quite contrary to such prognosis, the turn of events has been that the East and the West have not only met, but have also come to accept and respect each other. They have even started to live together in a spirit of mutual give and take.

This new development in intercultural relationships, particularly between the East and the West, has had a revolutionary effect on religion. For ages, religious persons feared communication in any form with persons of other religions. Religious authorities considered such intercommunication hazardous to the security of their own religions. But now intercommunication between religions has come to be an irreversible and irresistible factor of modern society. The resultant situation is such that new demands are being made on the study of religion itself.

In the field of religious education, a stage is beginning to evolve in which, at least at its higher levels, no study of one religion is complete without a parallel study of other religions. Higher religious education thus is progressively becoming a comparative study of religions and philosophies.

More than many other religionists, Christians-and now Jews too-are becoming alert to this new exigency, and are taking great pains to acquire as good a knowledge of other religions as possible. No major religion has been left out in the process. Nonetheless, the one among them that has succeeded in drawing the greatest attention is doubtless Buddhism. The reason probably lies in the fact that Buddhism is the only major contemporary religion that does not include within it the notion of God, a notion so central to Christianity and Judaism.

Unfortunately, however, for lack of adequate tools, many Christians and Jews are unable to satisfy their desire to explore Buddhism. This is not to say that there are no books on Buddhism. There are very good ones. But very few of them present Buddhism in comparison to Christianity-and certainly not in comparison to Judaism. Hardly any take into account the religious background of Christians and Jews, or the intellectual problems that Jews and Christians are bound to face when they venture upon such a study. Their thought patterns on religion have been molded from birth in such a way that a book on another religion that fails to take that frame of mind into account cannot fully answer their needs. This book represents an effort to fill that gap.

Buddhism, of course, like any other religion, cannot be dealt with comprehensively in one book. Buddhism has numerous aspects-history, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and the like. Buddhism further is a religion that has several denominations or sects. Each sect, be it the Theravada, or the different subsects of the Mahayana, has its own tradition and philosophy. All these sects can be studied both in their authentic forms and in their popular forms. To touch on all these aspects in a book such as this is impossible.

What I have tried to do here is to treat an aspect of Buddhism that any serious student of Buddhism must, sooner or later, examine-namely, the thought of Gautama, the Buddha. This I have tried to do by carefully elaborating the sermon that is accepted by all Buddhist groups as representative of the founder's thought and fundamental to Buddhism in all its forms: the sermon on the Four Noble Truths.

A serious study of this sermon alone is sufficient to give students an insight into all the Buddhist doctrines that they need to be acquainted with, such as dukkha, samsara, nirvana, karma, paticca samuppada, anatta. Some of these notions, being foreign to Christians, Jews, and other Westerners, are not easy to grasp. I have tried to explain them here in simple language, drawing parallels with Judaism and Christianity wherever possible. With the belief that it may be of help to beginners, I have at times used a few sketches by way of illustration.

With regard to the explanation of some of the above doctrines, I must make it clear that, basing myself on the sacred books of the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, I have not followed slavishly and in every detail the interpretations given to these doctrines in contemporary Theravada Buddhist manuals. This is because I feel convinced, as any student of the history of religions would be, that the contemporary interpretation of religious doctrines does not necessarily tally with what is said in the original sources. To be more authentic, one has to go back to the sources. A Christian of today, for example, will not be taken aback at such an approach. Scientific research on the Bible conducted in the last few decades has clearly shown how different the religion of Jesus is from interpretations subsequently dogmatized by different Christian denominations.

In this respect Buddhists, quite regrettably, are much behind Jews and Christians. Buddhist scholars are only beginning to realize, if at all, the importance and the urgency of such a going back to the roots. Nevertheless, scholars such as Venerable Buddhadasa Thera of Thailand, whom I have referred to in the course of this study and from whose writings I have derived much inspiration, could be said to have made a definitive start along this line. The writings of this monk, who is considered by many to be the leading Theravada thinker of our times, have become the object of serious scholarly investigation.' The initiative of Venerable Buddhadasa, if pursued by others, is certain to bring about not only a deep reawakening in Buddhism itself, but also a greater appreciation of it by non-Buddhists. This is because such a return to the roots would help one see Buddhism in a much more coherent way than is permitted by contemporary manuals.

My main preoccupation here has been to show Gautama's doctrine of liberation in as coherent a way as possible and with the maximum fidelity to his original thought. Therefore readers should not be surprised if they discover that some of the interpretations given here are not totally identical with the interpretations found in some contemporary Buddhist manuals.

Judging from its principal aim, this book could have been entitled “Buddhism: A Manual for Christians and Jews,” for that is what it intends to be primarily. Such a title would have been very appropriate had I restricted my exposition to Buddhist liberation, and not gone on to add, in the last four chapters, reflections on the liberational aspects of Christianity and Judaism. I added those chapters because I felt that a Christian-and a Jewish-study of Buddhism had necessarily to end up as a comparative study. And so, anticipating a conclusion that such a study would lead to, I thought it more appropriate to entitle the first editions “Buddhism and Christianity: Their Inner Affinity.” That of course does not mean that I am imposing that conclusion on the reader.

From my side of course I have no reason to hide that it is a conclusion that I had begun to adhere to firmly. Nor have I come to that conclusion arbitrarily or out of a syncretistic view of religions. My conclusion is the outcome of broadly based investigations into the two religions lasting over twenty years.

Without giving in to any feelings of undue self-consciousness, I have here to admit that I have been blessed with opportunities of acquainting myself with the two religions that one could consider a little out of the normal. First, purely from the academic side, I had a rare chance of studying the two religions up to a doctoral degree in each. Then from the