S HERIGER

You wrote, "This hints at a universal plan, a calling together, that transcends what many Christians insist is an exclusive right of Christian believers. I'm a Christian, but I can't shake the feeling that there's more at work here than meets the eye. It's just not as simple as some want us to believe."

If God's Plan is not for ALL OF HUMANITY to be with Him in the Kingdom, then it is not much of a Plan, notice, I said Kingdom rather than Heaven since the "Kingdom" is the "new heavens and the new earth".

Another thing that some "Christians" seem to miss is that Jesus called us to be "Good Friday" people rather than "Easter" people, He did extend the invitation to "Come follow Me".

Actually it is very simple, but that does not mean that it is easy. One of the very simple and direct things that Jesus said, was on the cross, "Father forgive them", another "universal" statement. Them means just what it says "them", not some of them, not them that repent or any other qualifier added on.

Don't shake the feeling that you have, God is a WINNER not a loser and a tie with satan would be a loss, satan is the loser.

As I have said before: God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable, the captives shall be released [those in hell which they constructed themselves] and the dead shall rise [those that are spiritually dead]. Jesus won the keys to hell and death and He will use them in due time, God's Time.

Jesus asked us to "Proclaim the GOOD NEWS" and that "GOOD NEWS" is for 'everyone' even tho some seem to get very upset about this.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Thanks for the tip Anon - Mo would do well then to get better acquainted with the Sufi traditions of Islam - no one speaks more clearly of the spotlessly pure Absolute than Rumi....

In re-reading your post Mo, your second paragraph is absolutely (pun intended) a perfect description for how life works in the world of desire - and by virtue of the self-existing Buddha nature in all things.

From birth to death: eat, multiply, and die...again, and again, and again - exactly!!

Until you get it right......

Everyone is a Buddhist at heart.

MO: is a Muslim. He writes great poetry and his thoughts are deep. But his pro-Muslim stand comes through very strong when he criticizes other religions.

Mo - judging by your posts, you're a born again Christian fundamentalist, with a literal and child-like belief in all the accompanying fairy tales. Do you suppose that makes sense to a non-believer? My suggestion - read a book (no, not that one).

BTW, Have you ever seen a cuckoo? It's a very unusual bird.....

Dear Mr Michie

While I do agree Buddha and Christ have a lot in common with regard to their teachings, the love and compassion they manifested in their life, and Buddhist practice can be integrated into Christianity without any problem, and can enrich a Christian no end, there are considerable differences in the life of Jesus and Buddha and irreconcilable differences in the religious beliefs.

When you write, "Mythology surrounding the life stories of both are also remarkably similar, including royal lineage, angels heralding an auspicious birth, a precocious interest in religion, temptation by the devil, criticism of the priestly establishment, the gathering of disciples and betrayal by one of them. Both were said to perform the same miracles – walking across the Ganges/Sea of Galilee, producing food at a wedding when it was about to run out, helping the crippled walk, the deaf hear and the blind see. There are a number of specific stories common to both traditions – like that of the widow’s mite.

"Most importantly, both Jesus and Buddha described our life’s most important purpose in a way which, allowing for the different cultures in which they taught, was identical: personal transcendence is to be achieved through heavenly union in the Kingdom of God on the one hand, and experiencing the blissful state of ultimate reality on the other.

"Jesus and Buddha both pointed to the same spiritual objectives, and suggested a very similar set of practices for getting there."

you are writing a wishful similarity than a real one. Buddha never claimed to be Son of God, did not work miracles, was not crucified, did not rise from the dead, did not ask his followers to put faith in him etc etc.

Buddhism and Christianity are two different paths to God, two different world religions, not mutually exclusive but not exactly the same.

I have the greatest respect for His Holiness The Dalai Lama and admire no end his willingness to allow people of other faiths to learn the wisdom of Buddhism without the need to convert. Tibetan Buddhists have studied the mind as probably no other religion has.

I wish you great success with your book!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

" Either He was a liar and a lunatic, or He was telling the truth. And His claim came with another caveat: Salvation is through grace alone, not works."

Buddha, or the historical Siddhattha Gautama, is revered as either a man or a transcendent divine being, not too much like Jesus and our claims that he was either a prophet, or a transcendental savior, depending on the religion referring to him. And as for being crazy, well, would YOU be able to make a unique religion with your own acts and a consistent philsophy defy the social order of your time?

"The problem with religious relativism is how it views Jesus as simply another in a line of prophets and holy men. If this were the case, then pretty much any faith that uses the Golden Rule as a focal point is as good as the next."

Time waits for no one, what was the end all be all of religious faith in one age is an archeologist's curiosity the next. All religions survive by taking part in the social cultures that they are in. Productive morals, festivals, answers to philsophical and impossible questions, and warfare. Any religion that removes itself from the needs of society quickly becomes a cult.

"But when I look at all the world's religions, they all have one thing in common that separates them from following Christ. They all share the notion that our good works are what lead us to salvation. In other words, we are responsible for our salvation through those works."

If your a good man/woman/animal/mineral/vegtable, you will have a good fate when you die and meet your maker, as it were. Nothing wrong with that.

"Only in Christianity do we find something different, the notion that salvation is by an act of grace that we cannot earn."

Your version: a good fate is impossible to attain.

" This single critical fact is what makes following Christ so different from every other faith tradition, as it levels the playing field and welcomes even the most vile sinner, one who have never done a good deed in his life, to open his heart to God and by grace alone receive salvation. "

So in essence, you're saying that the wicked can be saved by submitting(Opening their heart) to God and his will. That regardless of the goodness of people, goodness doesn't mean a thing, while the wicked, who can still be wicked and faithful, will be saved because the goodness of a person means nothing with regards to their fate after death, because it SHOULD be a grisly, nasty fate, because we are all lousy and mean, from the old retired veteran and his career of killing to the kids in the street picking on each other...Something wrong with that.

"I also have a problem with organized Christianity and how contradictory and hypocritical so much of it seems. Many Christians have allowed dogma and doctrine to rule their lives, while ignoring the most important commandment..."

Funnily enough, you mentioned the hypocricy above, and why wouldn't dogma and doctrine rule their lives, from the example above, you mentioned that it was the only way to salvation! No one joins a religion for the bad ending! If our good acts mean nothing, and our faith and belief in the religion is everything, then let's bury our heads in holy books! Of what purpose is the good acts?

"It's interesting that so many of the world's faiths share this critical point, and I know that there are many people of other faiths who live more Christ-like lives than many Christians. But when Jesus said "None come to the Father except by Me," I completely believe it."

So you not only mention the hypocricy, you insist it is right. Let me put to you like this, as a Christian, you are likely in the EASIEST position to make that statement. The Jews had centuries of persecution, the Muslims have the crusades, the Indians have being forced off their lands and almost genocidal/cultural death, and Pagans/Heathens have witch burnings. These weren't merely from the church's existence, but also of people that took faith into their own hands, some in defiance of the church! Now, that'll take a LOT of time for any religon to clear away, though waiting for death to justify it is quite a cop-out, especially since all the acts beforehand bent towards sending so many before your own life.

"How this all shakes out in the end is beyond my comprehension...There's obviously more to the salvation issue than some Christians might care to think about. "

So then your example is mistaken, Salvation is NOT through faith and faith alone, so why continue to believe in that?

"This hints at a universal plan, a calling together, that transcends what many Christians insist is an exclusive right of Christian believers. I'm a Christian, but I can't shake the feeling that there's more at work here than meets the eye. It's just not as simple as some want us to believe. "

It's called the Golden Rule. This idea of Heaven being a mere country club is a rather unvirtuous way of describing it. It is supposed to mean that being good to people, following the Golden Rule, is hard in practice, and many twist it into a myriad of exceptions and prejudice, and revel in their own actual malice, claiming gold, glory, or even God himself as an authority.

Does this mean that all of Humanity deserves eternal hellfire, torment and destruction? No it does not. Life is no picnic, a lot of people make hard choices throughout their lives, many of them dealing with survival, or keeping their lives worth living, many of them without the slightest hint about God, others knowing him or his followers all too well, looking at faith from a perspective completely different from your own. Whether they do right or wrong in their life is independent of their faith.

Now with your religion, your faith: Is doing the right thing, doing good acts, the Christ-like behavior you see in non-Christians, to be rewarded? Or is it the Dogma, the contradiction, the believer that can't wait to hear the screams of the damned?

It is very sad that these two religions -Buddhism and simple humble Christianity- are under constant violent attacks from another one- a religion born out of killing of the innocents and that even now is against equality for women versus men and for nonbelieverts versus believers.

While what this piece states may be true, it leaves out an all-important point. Christ claimed to be the human incarnation of God. Either He was a liar and a lunatic, or He was telling the truth. And His claim came with another caveat: Salvation is through grace alone, not works.

The problem with religious relativism is how it views Jesus as simply another in a line of prophets and holy men. If this were the case, then pretty much any faith that uses the Golden Rule as a focal point is as good as the next.

But when I look at all the world's religions, they all have one thing in common that separates them from following Christ. They all share the notion that our good works are what lead us to salvation. In other words, we are responsible for our salvation through those works. Only in Christianity do we find something different, the notion that salvation is by an act of grace that we cannot earn. This single critical fact is what makes following Christ so different from every other faith tradition, as it levels the playing field and welcomes even the most vile sinner, one who have never done a good deed in his life, to open his heart to God and by grace alone receive salvation.

I also have a problem with organized Christianity and how contradictory and hypocritical so much of it seems. Many Christians have allowed dogma and doctrine to rule their lives, while ignoring the most important commandment, that we love God with all our hearts, and one another as God loves us.

It's interesting that so many of the world's faiths share this critical point, and I know that there are many people of other faiths who live more Christ-like lives than many Christians. But when Jesus said "None come to the Father except by Me," I completely believe it. As an element of God who lived among us as a human being, Christ alone is qualified to judge the hearts of mankind.

How this all shakes out in the end is beyond my comprehension. I know many Christians like to pull out the trump card and say only Christians go to heaven, but I know that's not true. If it is, then David, Moses, Solomon, the prophets and many others are on their way to Hell, and I know that's not true, as Christ died for all mankind, past, present and future. There's obviously more to the salvation issue than some Christians might care to think about.

There's something else at play, and it's hinted at in John 10:16, when Christ says to His disciples, "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd."

This hints at a universal plan, a calling together, that transcends what many Christians insist is an exclusive right of Christian believers. I'm a Christian, but I can't shake the feeling that there's more at work here than meets the eye. It's just not as simple as some want us to believe.

spontaneously self -existing and spotlessly pure absloute!!!

cuckoo,s nest.
deep down in the meadoland of the pure absolute a cuckoo established a huge world wide universe ,where is filled with cows and buffallos ,

cuckoo just let the animal eat,drop,multiply and then die ,none but eat ,drop, multiply and then die ,just eat,drop ,multiply and then die infiniti,spontaneously self existing and spotlessly pure absolute ??????????????????????.

22nd July 2008

Hello David,

Read your article "The Buddha and Christ in all of us.

Maybe you can get others also to think about this message in the Bible to the effect that "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." The so called powerful perosns and nations seem to have lost their "meekness"and try to play God's role. They have come to the point of wasting their resources, actually the resources that are given by God to all of us for ther selfish pursuits. Every bullet every cannon-fire, every bomber take-off and every warship on the seas must be burnig up so much that could be used for the service of billions of people and thus creating real peace.

Some food for thought!

JJ, as usual, you add nothing whatsover by your maniacal rants - nobody cares. You're altogether an objectionable idiot.

A good article David, as long as you don't put too fine a point on it. If we interpret Jesus Christ as both a person and a concept in an allegorical sense, we can see the comparisons hold up pretty well.

Literally applied definitions are another matter, and comparisons fail completely if doctrines from one are compared to doctrines from the other.

For most (but not all) Christians, the historical person of Jesus was both divine and mortal, and was, soteriologically speaking, the savior of all. Without a belief in Christ the Savior, one is lost forever (and you only get one opportunity at that).

The Buddha preached that all sentient life possesses the Tathatagarbha, or Buddha nature, as an inherent pre-requisite for life. This nature is both Absolute and Void and is of One essence with countless forms and appearances - in other words, Buddhism is monism of the highest order. Salvation is based on Perfect Wisdom (prajnaparamita) and is arrived at over countless lifetimes of effort, but cannot ultimately be achieved through the efforts of another.

Christianity of course teaches that man is dependent on a Creator for both his birth and his salvation - the human is ensouled only one time, and has one opportunity to either be saved or consigned to eternal damnation. This is dualism of the first order, and also preaches a wholehearted materialism. Descartes defines this very Western idea for us quite clearly in his portrayal of mind/body dualism.

We would have to return to the Gnostics in order to see a much closer alliance between early Christian thinking and Buddhism. Not such a bad idea, either.

In Buddhism, every living thing throughout all of Creation already dwells in the spontaneously self-existing and spotlessly pure Absolute.

A good friend of mine who happens to be a UU minister once told me, "God is not a noun; God is a verb." Works for me.