Buddhist and Christians—walk the path in unity

A talk by Elaine Siegel given at the 1999 joint Buddhist-Christian interfaith service in Evanston, IL.

Good morning. It is with joy that I join you this morning. I grew up in the American Baptist church and I thank you all very profoundly for the graciousness with which you reached out to people from so many other different faiths and welcomed them into your celebration. I thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning.

It was many, many years ago that I left the church. In fact, I renounced the Christian faith of my upbringing before I entered high school. It was a bitterly disillusioning experience for me and it left a great void in my life. Now we Buddhists love a good void. Shortly after that happened, a friend came back from college with the marvelous news of meditation, what we called at the time a mystical experience. She told me this was a real experience and if you practice meditation that this reality can be a part of your life.

It made intuitive sense to me. I was thrilled with the idea and I began then, many, many years ago, the study of the great Eastern and Western contemplative writers. I began my own meditation practice, clumsy as it was then, clumsy as it is now. When I got to college I had the opportunity to spend about 10 years studying the traditions of the early church and the church in the middle ages. I learned a number of very fascinating things.

One of the things that I discovered was the great tradition of Christian mysticism and contemplation. I reveled in the great Christian mystics. I discovered a tradition reaching all the way back to the early church fathers and yet before.

I recognized that Jesus himself was a contemplative. And as I read through for example, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonneventure, and St. Berna Clairvou, I recognized a profound unity between my own Christian background and what has come down to us as the Christian church and what at the time was my emerging and evolving and involving meditation practice.

I learned some other things that were very interesting some things that I know many members of this congregation have had a great deal of interest in. That is that as the early church developed, there were many, many borrowings from imperial Rome, which at that time was the great power of the world. So much of what we take for Christianity today are in fact borrowings from roman imperial ideology, imagery, ceremony.

As I discovered this I have learned to separate in my mind some of differences between Jesus the historical figure, the person, the teacher, the profit, (what I might call Dharma Jesus from a Buddhist perspective) and the imperial Christ.

The more that I have learned to listen to the early words, the original words of Dharma Jesus, the more I have come to recognize the profound unities that join us as Buddhists and as Christians .

Let me take a couple of examples.

“I am the way” Jesus proclaims, in what is perhaps not an authentic teaching, perhaps rather the words of St. John. “I am the door.” I think as Buddhists and as Christians we can recognize both in the Buddha and in Jesus, doors, portals to the Dharma, to the great understanding; to the transcending understanding that unites us all.

“I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Words that we often hear criticized for separating us, and yet as Buddhists and as Christians we can be united by these very words. We Buddhists too, we walk the way. We typically call it the eightfold path but is it really so different? As Buddhists and as Christians, we seek the truth, we seek to lead the life.

“Well,” someone might say, “that way, that path, they are going different places, it can't be the same one. It doesn't have the same destination.” Is that the case? We all have different thoughts about that. But let us listen to the words, some of the early words of Dharma Jesus, Jesus the great teacher in one of his rare authentic teachings.

“The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds. But when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”

Jesus thus points to what we Buddhists call the “Suchness” of everyday life. The kingdom of heaven is flourishing out in the garden. It's no more yet no less than a tiny weed seed.

Putting this parable in Buddhist terms the great monk Vishnahana explains it means that a seed of the kingdom of heaven is within us, if we know how to plant that in the moist soil of our daily lives it will grow and become a large bush on which many birds can take refuge. We do not have to die to arrive at the gates of heaven. In fact, we have to be truly alive, it is a matter of practice. The kingdom of God is available here and now to each of us, among us, together.

So, as Buddhists on the one hand and as Christians on the other let me suggest that we join hands in oneness and walk that path together in unity.

May it be so.

Here are some other articles on Buddha & Christ:
"Christian" Buddha
Parallel Sayings of Buddha & Christ

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