Converted by FileMerlin

A BRIDGE TO

BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Seiichi Yagi

and

Leonard Swidler

CONTENTS

PREFACE I

by Seiichi Yagi

PREFACE II

by Leonard Swidler

A JERUSALEM-TOKYO BRIDGE

by Leonard Swidler

I. WHAT IS DIALOGUE?

1. A Description of Dialogue

2. Guidelines for Interreligious Dialogue

II. BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

1. Organization of the Dialogue

2. Areas of the Dialogue

3. Topics in the Dialogue

a) Gautama the Buddha’s Basic Teaching

b) Theism, A-Theism, Non-Theism

c) Relational Process Thinking

d) Ultimate Reality

e) Imago Dei and Anatta

f) Yeshua and Gautama: “Action-oriented,”

Soteriocentric

g) The Christ-The Buddha

h) Prophet-Monk

i) Faith-Works: Tariki-Jiriki

j) Creed-Code-Cult

k) Ethics: Individual-Social

III. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN

1. Buddhism in Japan

a) The Nara and Heian Periods

b) The Kamakura Period

c) Nichiren Buddhism

d) Pure Land Buddhism

e) Zen Buddhism

2. Christianity in Japan

IV. SEIICHI YAGI’S THEOLOGY

1. Dialogue, Relationality, Integration

2. Ultimate Reality

3. Paul and Shinran, Yeshua and Dogen

4. Yagi’s Place in Japanese Christianity

5. Two “Conversions”

V. THIS BOOK AS BRIDGE

A BRIDGE FROM BUDDHIST TO CHRISTIAN THINKING:

THE “FRONT-STRUCTURE”

by Seiichi Yagi

I. FRONT-STRUCTURE AND BUDDHIST THINKING

1. Front-Structure

2. Front-Expansion

106

3. Important Examples of Front-Structure

111

4. The Individual Existing Being as a Pole

122

5. The Distinction Between the Existing Being

and the Individual

127

6. Sunyata and Pratitya Samutpada

132

II. THE EGO AND ITS DIFFERENTIATING INTELLECT

148

III. TRANSCENDENCE AND THE HUMAN BEING

158

1. The Vow of Life

158

2. The Front of Transcendence and the Self:

The Relationship Between Transcendence

and the Human Being

166

IV. INTEGRATION

176

1. The Body of Christ and Integration

176

2. Realization of the Body of Christ

184

V. EXCURSUS: CONCERNING THE ABSOLUTE

CLAIM OF CHRISTIANITY

197

PREFACE I

The world is becoming ever smaller, the contacts between peoples ever closer, and the consciousness of the relativity of traditions ever clearer. Thus, it is not surprising that in Europe, the U.S.A. and Japan an encounter between Christians and Buddhists is taking place, and now not so much as if Christians saw in Buddhism a hindrance to their mission, but rather that they find in it a dialogue partner.

For the Christians of Japan this concerns their very destiny. For in this land Christians do not encounter Buddhism as a doctrine, but they encounter it in their fellow contemporaries, Buddhists who live it. When in the encounter with them a Christian recognizes the profound relatedness, which shakes the absolute claim of Christianity, s/he is forced to ask wherein the relatedness consists, whence it comes, and what it means for Christianity.

My essay is an attempt to respond to these questions with the help of the concept of the “Front-structure.” Naturally in this brief form the presentation cannot be fully completed. Rather, the present work is more a study in the shape of an outline of a systematics. The systematics has developed out of the dialogue with Buddhism and the effort to form an adequate conceptualization within this dialogue (Front-structure, integration, etc.).

I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude first of all to the co-editor of the German series within which my essay originally appeared (“Ökumenische Existenz heute,” under the title, Die Front-Struktur als Brücke vom buddhistischen zum christlichen Denken, Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1988), Professor Theo Sunderneier, who encouraged me to write it.

I am also very happy to address American readers through the English translation of my small book which was written for those who are aware of the necessity of inter-faith dialogue and the transformation of religion through the dialogue. For religion must be always interpreted anew according to the needs of the new cultural-religious situations. Now more than ever a radical change in religion is needed for the mutual understanding of us human beings who must live together on our increasingly small planet.

I am very pleased that this book is being published in the U.S.A. because in the U.S.A. there are those who are most open and ready to encounter non-Western traditions and ways of thinking, which are proving themselves to be really constitutive of our common cultural-religious future.

So I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the translator of my book, Professor Leonard Swidler, who quite unexpectedly undertook the translation, thus encouraging and prompting the international dialogue.

Tokyo, January, 1989

Seiichi Yagi

PREFACE II

In the latter half of 1988 Seiichi Yagi’s small book on the Front-Structure as a Bridge from Buddhist to Christian Thinking appeared in German. That Fall I was on sabbatical leave, living in Tübingen, Germany, which lies peacefully between the Swabian Alb and the Black Forest. And so, initially I began to read Yagi’s little book out of general curiosity, but I soon found myself having an “aha!” experience. In a sense I already “knew” everything Yagi was writing about, but I had never before had it laid out so clearly and understandably in concepts and language that I felt completely at home with.

So I immediately sat down and wrote him to ask about translating the book into English-fortunately for me he had written it originally in German rather than Japanese. He responded that he would be pleased to have it translated and so, I undertook the translation.

In thinking about writing an introduction for the American edition, I began to reflect that although I took to the book “like a duck to water,” not all Western readers would have a background similar to mine in interrreligious dialogue, particularly with Buddhism. Hence, I thought it would be helpful to prepare the ground for Seiichi Yagi’s bridge. That is what I try to do in my introductory essay.

After some brief reflections on interreligious dialogue in general, I discuss in some detail eleven major topics that have so far been at the center of the ongoing Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Then I turn to Japan, where Seiichi Yagi is from, and speak a little about the development of Buddhism there, and to a lesser extent Christianity in Japan. Finally, I discuss at some length Yagi himself, his place in Japanese religious life, the development of his thought, and lastly specifically the point of this book. Those who are already familiar with the present-day Buddhist-Christian dialogue can immediately turn to my chapters IV and V for a discussion of Yagi and his thought.

This is the first English-language book that Seiichi Yagi appears in something more than a contributory chapter. It clearly will not be his last. His books in Japanese have sold hundreds of thousands of copies-mostly to non-Christians, even though he is a Protestant Christian New Testament scholar. His first books were in fact solely about Christianity and the New Testament, but in recent years he has shifted to a profound dialogue between Buddhist and Christian thought, and life. Here Seiichi Yagi has been at his most creative-as often happens with intellectual, spiritual cross-pollination.

Yagi’s knowledge of the New Testament and its contemporary scholarship is profound and subtle. Astoundingly, the same is also true of his knowledge of Buddhist teaching and thought. We have here in this book the fruit of a deep dialogue between Buddhist and Christian thought that takes place within the mind of the author. What is most valuable is his sharing the results of that dialogue in such clear, articulate language.

The subject of this dialogue is not simple or superficial, but complex and profound, and so close reading is required. But it is richly rewarded by having language that had been confusing and conceptualizations that had been obscure made clear and understandable.

Philadelphia, January, 1989

Leonard Swidler

A JERUSALEM-TOKYO BRIDGE

Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and the Thought of Seiichi Yagi

Leonard Swidler

It is a long way from Jerusalem to Tokyo, spiritually as well as physically. Spiritually here I mean from the religion of Jesus the Jew and his followers to the religion of Gautama the Indian, and in particular to Japanese Zen Buddhism. In the past there have been physical encounters, but on the spiritual level we Christians and Buddhists have tended either simply to ignore each other, or shout, or even throw things, at the other (the latter two have been almost exclusively “Christian” activities). The other spiritual possibility, to “visit” each other, had been avoided-if it ever had even been thought about. But, to make the journey in either direction a reliable bridge would have to be erected, a bridge of dialogue.

In fact, a kind of foot-bridge has already been set up and a number of venturesome individuals have gone forth over it-and come back with stirring, stimulating news of the Other. As a result more have set about to expand the narrow foot-bridge to something broader that will bear heavier traffic, for more and more travelers are being attracted by what they hear of the Other, and, even more fundamentally, by the ever-pressing human search for Truth. What is this bridge, dialogue?

I. WHAT IS DIALOGUE?

1. A Description of Dialogue

When we talk of dialogue today we mean an intellectual, spiritual encounter between two or more persons or groups that is different from what these encounters usually have been in the past. In the past they were confrontation, argument, debate, subjection, convert-making, or the like. In brief, each of us came to the encounter from a position of assumed superiority; we came not to learn but to teach-because we had the truth, and to the extent the others differed from us they were in error: Such, in large measure, has been the history of the past encounters between religions and ideologies ¹. That, however, is not what is meant today by dialogue. Rather, dialogue is an encounter between two or more persons or groups of differing views with the primary purpose of learning, not teaching. I come to dialogue with my partner not from a position of assumed superiority in the matter under discussion, but rather I come as one who hopes to learn from my partner, and change, reorder my life accordingly. Precisely here is the essential difference between dialogue and all other types of intellectual, spiritual encounters.

Of course, if I am to learn, my partner has to teach, has to explain as clearly as possible her/his understanding of the matter at hand. When that is done effectively, at the very least I will have learned accurately what my partner thinks on a subject, which will replace the ignorance, or distortion, I had earlier. It is also possible that some of the things I hear from my partner will be new to me, and I will have learned thereby. It is even possible that my partner’s explanation of a matter will be so cogent that I will be led to modify, or even reject, an earlier held position of my own-because I am convinced that I thereby have a greater grasp of reality, of truth. The latter result is, from all experience, very rare, but I must be open to the possibility if I enter into dialogue, for that is precisely the purpose of dialogue, to learn, to attain a fuller, clearer grasp of reality, of truth, and change and live my life accordingly.

There is, then, a risk in dialogue: We might have to change, and to change demands psychic energy. For the law of inertia operates in the spiritual sphere as well as in the physical: “A body at rest tends to remain at rest and a body in motion tends to remain in motion.” Just as a physical body at rest or moving in a certain direction and speed can be brought into motion or deflected onto another course only by the expenditure of physical energy in some form, so too a firmly held intellectual notion can be moved or modified only with the expenditure of spiritual energy. We will not simply be able to assert, but will have to think anew. And thinking takes energy, a great deal of energy! We will have to remove ourselves from our comfortable resting place and move in a new direction. We will have to fight against the psychic law of inertia: “A body at rest tends...”

Put in other terms: It appears clear to me that the Capital Sin of human beings is not pride, as has often been claimed in the past, but sloth, laziness. It is easier to remain at rest where we are intellectually, spiritually. A decision not to exert the energy needed to gain a better insight into reality, probably very early in a chain of events and decisions, is, in my judgment, the fundamental essence of that old-fashioned notion of “sin.” Socrates and Hinduism were moving in this same direction when the former maintained that the essence of moral evil is ignorance, and the latter the fundamental human evil as the lack of knowledge vidya, that is, a-vidya. I would rather say that the root of moral evil is the decision at a critical point not to exert the energy needed to come to a better knowledge on which to base ones moral decisions-laziness, inertia.

If I am at all near the mark, perhaps this is one reason why it has taken humankind so many thousands of years to begin to accept the risk of dialogue. It demands so much energy to think our way through the new, to overcome the fear of the unknown.

But now that some have seen how great the rewards of dialogue are, how much more surely, quickly and deeply one comes to an ever fuller grasp of reality, of truth, through dialogue, more and more individuals and even whole groups and communities are attracted to it.

2. Guidelines for Interreligious Dialogue

Elsewhere I have written about the rules that have to be observed if full authentic dialogue is in fact to occur.² In fact, the most critical ones are implicit in the very definition of dialogue, but they are too important to leave unarticulated here, as least briefly:

1. Clearly in the first encounters between individuals or communities, the most difficult points of differences should not be tackled. Rather, those subjects which give promise of highlighting commonalities should be treated first so mutual trust between the partners can be established and developed. For without mutual trust there will be no dialogue.

2. Essential to the development of this needed mutual trust is that each partner come to the dialogue with total sincerity and honesty. In dialogue my partner wishes to learn to know me and my tradition as we truly are; this is impossible, however, if I am not totally sincere and honest. The same is true for my partner, of course; I cannot learn to know her/him and his/her traditions truly if s/he is not completely sincere and honest. Note also, that we must simultaneously presume total sincerity and honesty in our partner as well as practice them ourselves, otherwise there will be no trust-and without trust there will be no dialogue.

3. In dialogue care must also be taken to compare our ideals with our partner’s ideals and our practices with our partner’s practices. If we compare our ideals with our partner’s practices we will always “win,” but of course we will learn nothing-a total defeat of the purpose of dialogue.

4. Each partner in the dialogue must define her or himself; only a Muslim, for example, can know from the inside what is means to be a Muslim, and this self-understanding will change, grow, expand, deepen as the dialogue develops, and hence perforce can be accurately described only by the one experiencing the living, growing religious reality.

5. Each partner should come to the dialogue with no fixed assumptions as to where the authentic differences between the traditions are, but only after following the partner with sympathy and agreement as far as one can without violating one’s own integrity will the true point of difference be determined.

6. Only equals can engage in full authentic dialogue; the degree of inequality will determine the degree of two-way communication, that is, the degree of dialogue experienced.

7. A major means of dialogue is a self-critical attitude toward ourself and our tradition. If we are not willing to take a self-critical look at our own, and our tradition’s, position on a subject, the implication clearly is that we have nothing to learn from our partner-but if that is the case we are not interested in dialogue, whose whole purpose is to learn from our partner. To be sure, we come to the dialogue as a Buddhist, as a Christian, as a Marxist, etc., with sincerity, honesty and integrity. However, self-criticism does not mean a lack of sincerity, honesty, integrity. In fact, a lack of self-criticism will mean there is no valid sincerity, no true honesty, no authentic integrity.

8. In the end, the most fundamental means to dialogue is, having a correct understanding of dialogue, which is a two-way communication so that both partners can learn from each other, and change accordingly. If this basic goal is kept firmly in view and acted on with imagination, then creative, fruitful dialogue, and a growing transformation of each participant’s life and that of their communities will follow.

We are here talking about a quite specific kind of dialogue, an interreligious/interideological dialogue. This is a dialogue between two or more persons who understand themselves to be members of differing religious or ideological traditions. It is obvious that persons not adherents of any religion or ideology can enter into very authentic and fruitful dialogues on religious or ideological matters; they would be called religious/ideological dialogues, but they would not be called inter-religious/inter-ideological dialogues.

Who then counts as a Catholic, a Jew, a Buddhist, etc.? If we are speaking of official dialogues, then of course the appropriate official will have to designate the community’s representatives, but in the vast majority of cases the dialogues will not be official. Then each person must decide for her/ himself whether s/he is an adherent of a particular tradition. Moreover, if the dialogue indeed is to be interreligious/interideological, then it must also be a two-sided dialogue-on the one side with the partner across the faith line, and on the other with one’s confrères/consoeurs. Only thus will the larger community share in the fruits of the dialogue, gain in knowledge and be able to change accordingly.

If the dialogue with one’s own co-religionists does not continue apace, the dialogist runs the danger of eventually becoming a tertium quid-a Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu... who no longer feels at home in any kind of Buddhism, Islam or Hinduism ...-so that rather than building a bridge between two isolated groups, the dialogist will form a third isolated group-hardly one of the goals of dialogue!

The Japanese Christian theologian Seiichi Yagi has in fact meticulously been building a bridge of dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity, but of course he has not been alone in this project.

II. BUDDHIST-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

From the very beginning of Christianity there has been a range of fascinating historical encounters between Buddhism and Christianity in a variety of ways. Some contemporary Christian scholars see definite Buddhist influences in the New Testament ³. Even more stunning in a way is the fact that later Gautama Buddha even turns up in Christian tradition as a Christian saint, St. Jehosaphat, although of course the Christians were not, and still for the most part are not, aware of the fact.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith carefully traces the fantastic journey of the story of the Great Renunciation by the Indian Prince, who in fact was Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, into becoming the Christian saint Josaphat. Shortly before the beginning of this century Leon Tolstoy was moved to a religious conversion of life by the story of Ss. Josaphat and Barlaam, the former being the Great Renouncer and the latter his converter. The story came into Western European languages from a Christian Greek version, which was based on a prior eleventh-century Christian Georgian one. That in turn, however, was based on an Arabic Muslim version, which itself was taken from a still prior Manichee version. But the trail did not end there, for the original came from a second to fourth-century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist original.

Among other things, Smith noted that in the story Gautama (or “Josaphat”) was not yet a Buddha, but rather a future Buddha, that is, a Bodhisattva. In the Manichee versions that term appears as “Bodisaf,” in the Arabic version as “Yudasaf,” in the Georgian as “lodasaph,” in the Greek as “loasaph,” and in the Latin as “Josaphat.” Thus Gautama the Buddha arrived at Manichee, Muslim and Christian sainthood. As we said when I was a boy: “Jumping Jehosaphat!”⁴

Although Buddhism in general tends to be quite tolerant (one must be careful, however, not to romanticize its tolerance, for Buddhists too can also exhibit varieties of arrogance), Christianity in general, until recent decades, has tended to be very polemic and imperial in its attitude other religions, including, of course, Buddhism. However, that imperious Christian attitude has been changing dramatically in the last two or three decades. This is specifically also quite true of the Christian attitude toward Buddhism. Since the end of World War II, and more especially since the end of Vatican Council II (1962-65), more and more Christians have reached out in dialogue and cooperation toward Buddhists.

1. Organization of the Dialogue

These dialogues are taking place on many levels and in many places, so much so that it would be an impossible task to chronicle them all, either here or elsewhere. Nevertheless, it should be noted that they have reached an increasing level of organized form, and that some of the salient events are as follows (perceived somewhat from a myopic North American view):

The University of Hawaii Religion Department organized a “East-West Religions Project,” out of which flowed the first International Buddhist-Christian Conference, held in 1980; the following year a journal, Buddhist-Christian Studies, was begun by David Chappell; in 1982 a “Japan Chapter of the East-West Religions Project” was launched by Masotoshi Doi; in 1983 a North American Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter Group (in many ways a misnomer since the invited participants include not only North Americans, but also Europeans and Asians) was started by John Cobb and Masao Abe-although only about twenty-five invited theologians are active participants, at its 1986 meeting, for example, over 200 additional auditors attended as well;⁵ in 1984 a Second International Buddhist-Christian Conference was held; in 1987 a Third International Buddhist-Christian Conference was held-it, for example, had over 700 registered participants and 200 presenters (who produced over 3,000 pages of scholarly papers!) and at times 1500 listeners attended the lectures;⁶ also in 1987 a new “Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies” was formed (and in “sympathetic vibration” the “Japan Chapter of the East-West Religions Project” changed its name too the “Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies”). This new society obviously has an initial American base, but is international in its orientation and scope, and even membership, and hopes also to become even more so in membership and affiliation.⁷

2. Areas of the Dialogue

There are three main areas of contact and dialogue occurring between Buddhists and Christians: 1) the intellectual, theological sphere; 2) cross stimulus and cooperation in social justice issues; 3) Buddhist and Christian monastic and spiritual life.

There is a growing flood of articles and books dealing with various aspects of Buddhist-Christian dialogue appearing in a number of languages. Probably the most comprehensive, though of course not total, coverage is to be found in the Book Review and Ecumenical Abstracts sections of the quarterly, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Besides the printed materials, there is an increasing number of dialogic meetings of all kinds between Buddhist and Christian scholars and leaders. Sometimes these take place within the context of formal organizations, like some of those already mentioned, or the “Sunyata and Kenosis Group” or the “Religion and Healing Group,” sometimes within the context of permanent interreligious dialogue centers, like the Nanzan Institute in Nagoya, Japan, and sometimes on an ad hoc basis.

Christian and Buddhist agencies around the world committed to social justice issues increasingly find themselves cooperating for the sake of greater effectiveness. This area too has been fruitful in spawning specific groups which are either activist or reflective on activism, such as the “Liberation Theology and Buddhism Group,” the “Women in Buddhism and Christianity Group,” and the “Korean Minjung Theology and Buddhism Group.”

There has been a great deal of exchange between monks, and some nuns, from both the Buddhist and Christian sides, with individuals or groups from one side living in the monasteries of the other side and participating in their life as fully as possible. These efforts have now also been organized on an international level into a “Monastic and Contemplative Group.” In addition, institutions like the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado have for years been holding annual “Christian and Buddhist Meditation Conferences,” which also draw hundreds of participants.⁸

3. Topics in the Dialogue

Simply from some of the major aspects of Buddhism and Christianity themselves, a wide range of potential topics for dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity become apparent, many of which have in fact already consciously been more or less pursued by Buddhists and Christians in dialogic fashion. Here I wish to take up ever so briefly several which I believe offer some of the most creative possibilities for dialogue.

a) Gautama the Buddha’s Basic Teaching

For Christians there are a number of critical topics for dialogue with Buddhism in the fundamental teachings of Buddhism itself. Buddhism, which takes its name from a title given to its founder- Buddha, the Enlightened One-stems from the fifth-century B.C.E. Siddhartha Gautama. His teaching and life’s example lie at the foundation of what has come to be called Buddhism. As a young man he was led to seek a deeper meaning of life than that of luxury, and started by several years of severe asceticism. This did not bring him to the goal he desired, and so he tried the route of meditation, and thereby found Enlightenment, existential insight into the meaning of life. Since his way to Enlightenment was neither that of luxury nor severe asceticism, he often referred to it as the Middle Way-perhaps not unlike that ethical saying of that Western philosopher Aristotle: In medio stat virtus.

At the heart of Gautama’s teaching are his so-called Four Noble Truths. It is important for Christians, and Westerners in general, to note carefully that this teaching is not world-fleeing or pessimistic, but rather “realistic”:

1. At the core of life there lies dukkha (in Sanskrit), suffering; even in the midst of joy and ecstasy there is the fact that “this too shall pass.” Death lies at the end of the road of every human life, and the awareness of that sooner or later forces it way through; that is dukkha. All joy, and sorrow, like earthly life in general, is impermanent, and to lead an authentic life this fact must be faced and accepted.

2. The fundamental cause of dukkha is tanha (in Sanskrit), clinging, sometimes translated as “desire.” The latter translation, however, is not only not accurate, but misleading. It is not the existence of desire as such that causes dukkha, for then life and dukkha would be synonymous, since life by definition includes movement and there would be no movement if there were no energy or force to bring it about. As our very language tells us, if there is a lack of a “motivating force” there will be no movement, and a total lack of movement means death, the lack of life. But “desire” is just another name for “motivating force.” Rather, it is the “clinging,” which more accurately expresses the meaning of tanha, to the desired goal, the not wanting to “let go” that is the cause of the dukkha, the suffering (note, the “goal” might also be negative, that is, the desire to avoid something).

3. The third Noble Truth is arrived at by simple deductive reasoning, that is, the elimination of a cause eliminates its effect. Therefore, the elimination of tanha will lead to the elimination of dukkha.

4. Tanha can in fact be eliminated, namely, by following Gautama’s Eightfold Path, a series of methodological cognitive/ ethical rules of right thinking and acting. They are: I, Right Understanding; II, Right Thought; III, Right Speech; IV, Right Action; V, Right Livelihood; VI, Right Effort; VII, Right Mindfulness; VIII, Right Concentration.

Note, these are not “doctrines” but rather, as said, methodological rules of how to think and act. Hinduism, out of which Buddhism sprang, already had a plethora of doctrines, myths, scriptures and the like. Gautama did not condemn them, nor did he particularly embrace them. He saw himself, rather, as a kind of very practical physician of the soul-quite like Jesus in that-who, as such, was disinterested in what he understood as speculative questions. Hence, there is the famous parable of his wherein he tells of a person who while walking through the woods was struck by a poisoned arrow. Rather than insisting first on learning whence the arrow came, who shot it, to what end, etc.-all very interesting speculative questions-the person, according to Gautama, should remove the arrow [i.e., tanha] as quickly as possible; waiting for the answers to the speculative questions [“God” and other metaphysical issues] might well prove fatal [i.e., dukkha].

Gautama used the term Nirvana to designate the goal of human life. Nirvana literally means “blown out,” basically meaning that tanha and the false self (Atman, self, in Sanskrit and Atta in Pali) has been “blown out” from the person-thus leading to the Buddhist doctrine of An-atta, no-self. Although there is the tradition in Buddhism of understanding Anatta ontologically, that is, that there is “no-soul” in the human being, there is also a more psychological understanding, that is, the self that appears on the surface, such as that of the senses, desire for power, pride, etc., or even the successive “layers” underneath, is not the authentic self; in fact, the authentic self is a never-ending project, an open-ended movement toward an ever-receding horizon, toward a fullness that is never completed-a constant growth toward that which Christians and others call the in-finite God.

b) Theism, A-Theism, Non-Theism

Hence, for Gautama the question of gods or God was fundamentally a speculative question which did not draw his interest, probably, as mentioned before, because there was already a myriad of divinities and speculations in the Hinduism of his time and he experienced them as distractions rather than directions on the path to Enlightenment. As a consequence, his teaching can most accurately be described as non-theist rather than a-theist, and certainly not anti-theist.

But even after Gautama “had pulled the arrow out” there was still a basic reason why he and his first followers tended not to speak of gods or God; it was a matter of thought categories. God-talk in the beginning human history naturally tended to be anthropomorphic, more precisely speaking, gynamorphic, and then only later, andromorphic. This was true in most cultures.

When, however, humankind began to move beyond this kind of concrete “picture” thought and language to a more abstract pattern, the philosophical categories developed tended to be substance categories, as for example, preeminently Platonist and Aristotelian god-speculation first in Hellenism and then in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The situation had been similar in Gautama’s India, but his thought categories were different; instead of substantive they were relational. However, not to use substance thought categories also incurred not speaking of gods or God, who had been thought and spoken of only in substance categories.

c) Relational Process Thinking

Here we come to the key Buddhist concept of “Dependent Co-origination” (Pratitya Samutpada in Sanskrit), meaning that all things are causally interrelated. No thing exists isolated, by itself, but rather all things exist as networks of interrelated connections and causes ⁹. Recalling that a classical definition of substance is “a being whose ‘to be’ is not to be in another,” Gautama’s “relational” way of thinking clearly was other than the substance way of thinking.

There is in it, however, a certain resemblance to some philosophical strands in the Western tradition, starting with some of the Pre-socratic Greek thinkers, particularly Heraclitus, a near-contemporary of Gautama who saw all reality ultimately as “becoming,” and then much later in the nineteenth century to the “dynamic” philosophers like Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, but most of all to twentieth-century process thinkers: Maurice Blondel, Henri Bergson, Franz Rosenzweig, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and especially Alfred North Whithead, and the Christian theologians who have been influenced by them.

Thinking in relational, process philosophical categories, however, does not necessarily mean the thinker must be non-theist. Whitehead and many of the above-named relational process thinkers clearly were theists, though in many ways of a quite different sort than many of their Western predecessors. Nevertheless, thinking in relational process categories makes it more possible to operate in a non-theistic mode. For example, in such a thought world the notion of a Supreme Being could never occur. Coupling this potentiality with the already mentioned “distracting” quality of the “god-talk” of Gautama’s day, provides the basic reasons, I believe, for early Buddhist avoidance of theism.

Thus we have two major models or paradigms of thought categories: one, the substance paradigm which stresses permanence, being and separateness; and two, the relational paradigm which stresses transiency, becoming and relatedness. The first has tended to be dominant in traditional Christian thought, although the relational strand also was present to a minor degree stemming from biblical thought and some Pre-socratic thought, and recently much more strongly flowing from the “dynamic” philosophers and theologians. The second has tended to be dominant throughout Buddhist thought, although the first is very much in evidence on the popular in Buddhist-influenced cultures level and also surfaces in a number of ways among their thinkers, often not well integrated into their relational thought patterns, but nevertheless there.

Must one make a choice? Yes, and no, I believe. In our everyday life we inevitably think and act within the substance paradigm. But at the level of philosophical reflection the modern Western “dynamic” thinkers have disclosed insights into how to perceive reality that more and more Western thinkers are finding compelling-and this is true in the physical sciences as well as in the more abstract philosophical disciplines. Newtonian physics is certainly the paradigm within which all of our ordinary physics thought and action occurs, but beyond the level of building bridges, buildings and the like, what physicist can today dispense with Einsteinian relativity thinking? Physicists today, however, are still forced to think in alternating patterns, perceiving matter on the one hand as corpuscular and on the other as wave-like. As they strive for an integrated model, so too present-day philosophical thinkers, while being forced more and more to think in alternating patterns, substance and relational, must strive for an integrated model. It is precisely here that typical Christian and Buddhist thought patterns can help each other.

Paul Ingram makes a similar point:

Both may be true reflections of reality... both paradigms express differing yet valid interpretations of the bipolar structure of the experience of self-identity though time.... The Buddhist non-self paradigm overstresses the experience of becoming at the expense of ignoring the experience of stability and permanency by explaining it away as a delusion, and the Christian self paradigm over-stresses the experience of permanence and stability while ignoring the experience of becoming.... A more integrative interpretation of the relationship than either the traditional Buddhist non-self paradigm or the traditional Christian self-paradigm seems capable of developing separately.¹⁰

d) Ultimate Reality

This of course in no way means that Gautama or early Buddhism had no notion of Ultimate Reality or of the Transcendent. They did, but it was conceived in their relational process categories. Ultimate Reality was thought of something like the fundamental relational, processive structure of all reality. (I say “something like” because the very form of our language almost unconsciously leads us in the direction of substance thinking, as when I spoke of the “structure of all reality.” We must be extremely cautious with our use of language, especially in such abstract matters, and not unwittingly let it lead us into affirming something we do not really intend.) I also used the term Transcendent in connection with Gautama and early Buddhism. This is meant literally, namely, that which “goes beyond” the everyday experience of life, of reality-but of course not understood in substance categories but in relational process ones.

This understanding of Ultimate Reality, of the Transcendent, is obviously a non-personal understanding, whereas the term theism means precisely belief in a god who is personal. But of course not all the great Hellenistic, Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers have always thought and spoke of Ultimate Reality, the Transcendent, only in personal terms. Notions like Thomas Aquinas’s Uncaused Cause or Unmoved Mover, as only one example, are cast in non-personal philosophical categories. Hence, speaking of Ultimate Reality, the Transcendent, in non-personal categories at least some of the time does not exclude the possibility of also utilizing personal categories in speaking of Ultimate Reality, the Transcendent.

Nevertheless, it was in the non-theistic, non-personal, relational process mode of thought that Gautama and early Buddhism thought and taught, with the result that in speaking of Ultimate Reality, the Transcendent, they developed the key concept of Ultimate Reality being “Emptiness,” Sunyata.

Exactly what is understood by Sunyata needs to be probed. It can be said that Emptiness is another name for the Buddhist doctrine of Pratitya Samutpada, Dependent Co-origination, which, as noted above, in short means that nothing exists as a self-subsisting, isolated thing; rather, everything is ultimately a net of relationships, and consequently is always in flux, is “becoming.” It was the second century C.E. Nagarjuna, the second patriarch of Mahayana Buddhism-more about that below-who developed the doctrine of Sunyata. He clearly denied that there are any self-subsisting substances, but insisted that whatever “is” at any moment of space-time consists of conditions or relationships, and these too are dependently co-originated: “The ‘originating dependently’ we call ‘emptiness.’” “Emptiness is dependent co-origination.”¹¹ Thus, Sunyata does not mean simply the lack of everything, but rather has the quite positive meaning of being the Ultimate Source of all reality, and its, Sunyata’s, very “nature” is that of unspecified relatedness in process.

The Zen Buddhist of the Kyoto school, Masao Abe, in recently attempting to build a bridge between the theistic notion of “God” and Buddhist notion of “Sunyata,”¹² made use of the Mahayana doctrine of the threefold body, the Trikaya, of the Buddha, that is, of Ultimate Reality. In this doctrine the three bodies are named, first, the manifestation body, Nirmana-kaya, second, the heavenly body, Sambhoga-kaya, and third, Dharma-kaya, in ascending order, as it were. According to Abe, the Nirmana-kaya is like the various human manifestations of Ultimate Reality, e.g., Moses, Jesus, Gautama, Mohammed. The Sambhoga-kaya is like the several personal Gods affirmed by the various traditions, e.g., Yahweh, the Holy Trinity, Allah, Ishvara (of Hinduism), Amida (of Pure Land Buddhism), who have various virtues, characteristics, names, etc. At the highest point is Ultimate Reality itself, Dharma-kaya, which Abe describes as “formless Emptiness or boundless Openness.”

In many ways this suggestion is reminiscent of comparisons that have been made between the Semitic and Hindu notions of the ultimate. On the Hindu side there is the distinction between Brahman without attributes (Nirguna Brahman) and Brahman with attributes (Saguna Brahman, later identified with Ishvara), and on the Semitic side there are the various expressions of the distinction between God in se (e.g., Yahweh, Elohim, Hebrew names for God as such) and God ad extra (e.g., Ruach or Spirit, and Hohmah or Wisdom). Thus, it would seem that the Semitic, Hindu and Buddhist notions of Ultimate Reality are similar at least in that they all affirm that the Ultimate is bound-less, in-finite, un-utterable in itself, and that various aspects of it are encountered, perceived by humans. The Christian John Hick, in commenting favorably on Abe’s suggestion, likens this distinction to that of Kant’s distinction between the noumenon, the thing in itself, which we do not perceive, and the phenomena, which we do.¹³

It is not difficult for thinkers of the Semitic religious traditions and the theistic strand of the Hindu traditions to accept a theologia negativa, an apophatic theology that acknowledges that the grandest proclamations about God are like whispers in the face of the Infinite Hurricane. It is true that the theistic traditions would tend to speak of God more in terms of Pure Act, Pleroma, Fullness, rather than Pure Potency, Sunyata, Emptiness. However, there might not be the contradiction involved here which appears to exist on the surface, for just as the theistic notion of God as Pure Being (Actus Purus) is conceived as the very opposite of stasis, namely, as dynamis, so also the non-theist notion of the Ultimate, namely, Nothingness, das Nichts, Emptiness, Sunyata, is also thought of not in static but dynamic terms:

This Emptiness is not a static state of emptiness, but rather a dynamic activity constantly emptying everything including itself. It is formless formlessness, takes various forms deeply by negating its own formlessness. This is the reason that “Formless Emptiness” or “Boundless Openness” is here regarded as the ultimate ground which dynamically reveals itself both in terms of personal “Gods” and in terms of “Lords” that are historical religious figures.¹⁴

Where a more serious difficulty does arise, however, is in the fact that the theist tradition is reluctant to give up the affirmation that Ultimate Reality is ultimately personal and accept that it is “Formless Emptiness” in the sense that negates, or even “goes beyond,” the personal in a way that obviates it. The Hindu Sengupta probably speaks for the theistic tradition in general when he writes: “In the upanishadic view there is no negation of the personality of the ultimate. There is no need for the transcendence of personality, for the personality, which the ultimate is, is free from the limitations of human personality.”¹⁵

Perhaps a resolution of the apparent contradiction lies in an analysis of how the human mind and language works. When theists state that the Ultimate is personal they mean to affirm something positive about it. But by the very fact of making an affirmation, the theist necessarily asserts certain limitations, even when s/he immediately rushes in with a: Not this, not that, “neti, neti,” disclaimer, asserting that all limitations are automatically to be rejected. For example, when asserting the positive characteristic of Personality the theist will necessarily, if not reject, at least temporarily ignore, the possible characteristic of the Ultimate as Energy, Force, etc. The theist might then hurry to assert: Of course, all the positive characteristics of Energy, Force, etc., are also to be attributed to God. But this task goes on endlessly, or as Abe might say, with “boundless Openness.” This the theist would gladly grant, but would want to add that this “boundless Openness,” far from eliminating or negating the positive affirmations of Personality, Energy, etc., in fact gives them a boundless depth, dynamism, Openness-with which perhaps Masao Abe and much of Buddhism might also agree, and perhaps Taoism as well with its notion of “dynamic vacuity,” kung ling.¹⁶

It should also be noted that how one describes Ultimate Reality is, among other things, dependent upon not only one’s philosophical thought categories, but also upon one’s culture more generally. What is thought to be of greatest value in a culture will be attributed to Ultimate Reality; the fact that Ultimate Reality is so described will, of course, in turn dialectically reinforce that value in the culture.

For example, when females were thought to be the sole source of life, and hence, power, divinities were described in female terms-which in fact is how divinities first turn up in human cultures-but when it was discovered that males also played a role in producing new life, male divinities came into existence. As cultures became patriarchal, it became less and less acceptable to refer to the divinity as female. Hence, for example, God became almost exclusively a male, father God in the Semitic traditions; it would have seemed denigrating and blasphemous to refer to God in female terms, because woman was of lesser value in the culture.¹⁷

So it was also for a long time in Western culture concerning the notions of “being,” “substance,” “stability,” and the like. These were high values in the culture, so naturally they were attributed to the Ultimate Reality. But now in the West immutability, substance, status quo, etc., are increasingly less exclusively valued as compared with change, relationality, evolution. Hence, earlier in the West where it would have been difficult to speak of Ultimate Reality as being in constant change, in complete relationship, etc., for it would have seemed to be saying that the Ultimate Reality was less than ultimate-with the recent cultural shift, to speak thus seems to be more and more appropriate. Consequently, a Methodist theologian, for example, could publish an article entitled, “Can God Be Change Itself?” and conclude in the affirmative, insisting that this was more in keeping with the original genius of the Hebrew God, whose very name, Yahweh, means “I will be who I will be”-always changing.¹⁸

But what about the apparently opposite trend in the modern Judeo-Christian tradition, namely, the emphasis not on the Emptiness of Ultimate Reality, of God, but on God’s passion, commitment, involvement, in history, and particularly on the side of the oppressed-the talk of God as the “God of the Oppressed”? This tradition grew out of the line of the Hebrew prophets, continued in Judeo-Christian history, and was expanded in the nineteenth century as the Western awareness of the influence in human life of social structures grew, and that religion had to be concerned about changing them for the better if the individuals were to be changed for the better. This led in the last hundred years to, e.g., the Jewish passion for social justice, the Jüdischer Bund, Christian Socialism, the Social Gospel, and the several contemporary “liberation” theologies. One Christian answer has been that,

Liberation theologies can themselves learn from Buddhism that the “God of the Oppressed” to whom they point is also a “God who is empty.”... in a Buddhist sense, referring to that absence of self-subsistence and, hence, that radical relationality of which all beings are exemplifications. To say that God is “empty” is to say that God, too, is relational. It is to affirm (1) that the efficacy of God’s action in the world depends partly on worldly response, and (2) that the world’s sufferings are God’s own.¹⁹

e) Imago Dei and Anatta

Gautama’s understanding of authentic human life is expressed in his teaching of Anatta, discussed briefly above. Jesus’ (or, as he was known in his lifetime, Yeshua) understanding can be expressed in the teaching of the human being as the Image of God, Imago Dei, stemming from the first book of the Hebrew Bible. In its beginning the Bible tells of one God who is the Source of all reality through creation. The crowning point of creation was humankind, who was made in God’s image, that is, someone who could know and could freely decide, could love. Modern critics of religion would say that instead of Homo being an Imago Dei, Deus is really an Imago hominis-to which the modern theistic adherent of religion would respond that both are doubtless true in different but analogous ways.

In this tradition everything that exists is good simply because it has being and this being springs from God, who is all good. Then whence evil-for to the Hebrews, as to everyone else, it was obvious that there was evil in the world, indeed, in every human being? Their answer was that human beings themselves are the source of evil, for by their free will they can refuse to choose the good, and their choice then is called evil. This understanding is embedded in the story of the “Fall” at the beginning of the book of Genesis: Because humanity did not follow the right order of their nature, their “self,” as created by God, in God’s image, it became “disordered” in its relationship to its own self and its creator, and hence in turn to all the rest of creation. Here was the first “domino theory.”

Though the way to live an authentic human life is to live according to one’s authentic “self,” one’s Imago Dei, perceiving that true self, that Imago Dei, became difficult after the “Fall” and so, according to the Hebrews, God arranged for special help to be made available, at least to a “Chosen People,” the Hebrews, who in turn were to be “a light unto the nations.” This special help were God’s Instructions, God’s Torah, on how to live a true human life, one in accordance with one’s true self, the Imago Dei.

Thus, the Hebrew religion was basically optimistic, for the source of all reality was the one God, who was goodness itself, and God’s creation was, as it says in Genesis, “good,” Tov, and in the end even “very good,” Mod Tov. But it also took account of the presence of evil in humans and prescribed its elimination by the human returning to its original authentic self, the Imago Dei, the clear path to which was indicated by God’s Torah. And the heart of the Torah was justice and love, or even simply love, for, as Pope Paul VI said, “justice is love’s minimum.”²⁰

The summary of the Torah was the two-fold commandment of love of God and love of neighbor, and the former could be carried out really through the fulfillment of the latter, the love of neighbor. Who, then, is the neighbor who is to be loved? The Hebrew prophets appeared in the history of the Hebrew people to make it abundantly clear that what God desired was not “burnt offerings” but rather a just life, and more, which meant not only treating everybody fairly, but preeminently loving the oppressed, the powerless, of society-and they specifically spoke of the poor, the widow, the orphan, the most powerless of society. Every human being, even the least in society, was an Imago Dei, and was to be treated as such.

f) Yeshua and Gautama: “Action-oriented,” Soteriocentric

Yeshua-from a theist, Jewish culture-was, like Gautama-from a non-theist, Indian culture-oriented toward action, was concerned not with speculation but with the “cure of souls,” with the full health, the Salus, of humanity. In this concern he drew from his Hebraic, Judaic roots.

Around 167 B.C.E., the Pharisees, who have had such unwarrantedly bad press in the Christian tradition, appeared on the scene. Among other things, they showed the “way” (Halachah in Hebrew) to lead a just, a Jewishly human life, by laboring to make concrete the more general obligations found in the “written Torah,” the Bible, and eventually their specifying commentary came to be understood as the “oral Torah.” In all these reflections, for the Pharisees, as for Jews in general, the big question was not, “What must I think?” as it was for the Greeks and later also too much so for most Christians, but rather “What must I do?”

The Pharisees, of course, were not the only Jews at the beginning of the Common Era who laid claim to have the right teaching on how to live an authentic human, Jewish, life. There were others, and among those “others” was the Galilean Jew Yeshua of Nazareth, who in many ways was close to the Pharisees, but also critical of them. Yeshua of course was a Jew, religiously as well as ethnically. He studied the Jewish Scriptures, carefully kept the Torah, or “Law,” indeed declared that he “had not come to abolish the Law but to carry it out” (plerosai, literally, to “implement”-Matthew 5:17). Like the Pharisees, Yeshua also specified the general great two-fold commandment of love of God and neighbor; all his teaching and all his stories were aimed at making God’s instructions, God’s Torah, concrete. And like the other prophets-his followers also called him a prophet-he epitomized the love of neighbor in reaching out to the powerless: When asked, Who is leading an authentic human life, who will “enter into the kingdom of heaven”? he answered, “Those who give drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothing to the naked...” (Matthew 25:31-46). For Yeshua also then, because he was a good Jew, the big question was not, “What must I think?” but “What must I do?”-not unlike Gautama’s soteriocentric approach.

This then, in brief, was the “Good News,” the “God-spel,” Yeshua taught, that the Reign of God was near, indeed, “within you” (entos hymon-an interior and inter-relational reality), and that letting “God reign” in their lives would lead them to joy now (again, like Gautama’s focus on the “now”), and “in the world to come.” Thus the first followers of Yeshua, who of course were all Jews, found in him a special “way” (Halachah) to “salvation” (the term comes from the Latin Salus, meaning primarily a full, healthful, whole, and therefore [w]holy, life, not being “saved” by something or someone from the outside) by what he “thought, taught and wrought.”

g) The Christ-The Buddha

The development of the meaning of Yeshua the Christ obviously provides many points of fruitful dialogue with Buddhism.Yeshua clearly was an extraordinary charismatic healer, teacher and prophet. But at least some of his first followers saw something else very special, very Jewish, in him; they saw him as the Messiah (Christos in Greek), the Anointed One, who, as promised in the Scriptures, would among other things free Judea from the hated Roman military occupation. But he did not. Rather, the Romans crucified him. At first Yeshua’s followers were crushed. Two of them were reported to have said, “But we had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free” (Luke 24:21). But the power of Yeshua was too great for it all to run out in the cracks of the rock of Golgotha. For his followers, Yeshua rose bodily from the dead and further empowered them to go forth to preach his “Good News.”

But what about the messianic claims of Yeshua’s followers for him? He did not become the new political king of Israel. They, or at least some of them, did not drop the messianic claims, they simply transformed, spiritualized, the understanding of Messiah. However, as the “Way” of Yeshua moved from the Jewish to the Greek world the Greek term Christ grew in usage and importance, and in a way that it became fused with another Jewish title given to Yeshua, namely, “son of God.” The latter was a term used to refer to kings and holy men, obviously meant in a metaphorical way. In that Greek “field of force,” as Yagi might put it, however, the metaphorical title “son of God” moved in a few centuries to the ontological title “God the Son,” as reflected in the trinitarian formula of the Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.).

Many modern critical-thinking Christians, being aware of what occurred in the paradigm shift from the Jewish metaphorical thought world to the Greek substance-ontological thought world, ask themselves what the intended meaning was at the beginning of the process. One way some have of putting it is that the followers of Yeshua saw in him a transparency of the divine. He appeared to them to be so radically open to all being, including the Root of being, that he was completely filled with Being. Thus, he was a human meeting point of the human and the divine, an enfleshment, incarnation, of the divine, as all humans ought to be, and in principle can be-as Yeshua himself urged: “Be you perfect as my heavenly Father!” Thus, some modern Christians see this original Jewish perception of Yeshua as more “ortho-dox,” “right-teaching,” than some of the later Greek ontological/substance formulas.²¹

In this way Yeshua becomes for Christians a model of how to live an authentic human life. In him they meet Ultimate Reality, the divine, so that in a preeminent way he is for them The door to the divine, to be sure, not the only possible point of entree, but for them the one that informs all others, just as they see that Gautama does for the Buddhists, Mohammed for the Muslims, etc.

At the same time it is also clear from the New Testament, especially from the Pauline writings and John’s Gospel, that there was a tendency early in the history of the followers of Yeshua to become “Christocentric” rather than “Theocentric,” that is, a tendency to “foreshorten” the follower’s gaze from where or whom the mediator was pointing to (Theos) to the mediator himself (Christos). This did not mean that Paul and John forgot about God and concentrated solely on Christ. It does mean, however, that in their writings there is a great emphasis on getting to God through Christ, whereas in the Synoptic Gospels, which mainly portray Yeshua’s teaching and actions (complicated, to be sure, by being seen through the lenses of the early faith communities) the strong stress is on God.

Moreover, it is important to note that Paul overwhelmingly talks about, not Yeshua, not Jesus, but about Christ, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus. Most often Christ for Paul was not a concrete human person, but much more a spiritual “force” or “life,” so that he could write things like, “I live now not I, but Christ lives in me.” This notion of a “spiritual life” entering into one’s own interior life fit quite well wit