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Foreword: My trip through Orthodoxy.
Glory
to Jesus Christ. George Harrison, one of my favourite popular musicians and a
follower of the Hare Krishna offshoot of Hinduism, wrote in his 1970s song ‘Awaiting
On You All’, ‘chant to the names of the Lord and you’ll be free’, referring to
Krishna. (I also like ‘My Sweet Lord’, in which he actually chants some of Krishna’s many names.) It seems other Western converts to Asian religions have found that
once they have known God the Son, Jesus, the Messiah, only one Lord whose name
they chanted made them free.
Subject: Re:
Buddhist Converts
From: strannik@strannik.com
I am one of
at least 8 people that I know who have become Orthodox Christians after having
been Tibetan (usually Nyingmapa) or Zen Buddhists. There is a good possibility
that there will soon be a book with the stories of such people, and how their
conversion took place. I can offer you a few sample perceptions that I have
developed on the way as to why Orthodox Christianity makes sense to Buddhists:
• Buddhism
has always been primarily monastic and ascetic in nature, with an emphasis on
spiritual practice and development more than just mental assent to a list of
truths. There is an organic unity between understanding of precepts and the
quality of practice in Buddhism that serves well when learning about Orthodoxy.
• Buddhism
has always had some form of ‘iconography’.
• Buddhists
venerate the lives of ascetics, relics and ‘saints’.
• Buddhists
(at least the Tibetans) have highly complex and developed forms of liturgical
practice, including chanting, incense, etc. (e.g. they aren't intimidated by the typicon :-))
• Buddhists
understand that it is wise not to live for the present life, but to struggle
for the future one.
• Buddhists
understand the value of dispassion and mental stillness.
• Americans
who become Buddhists usually are fervent spiritual seekers, who get used to
struggling with foreign languages and cultures, and pushing themselves outside
of their ‘comfort zone’ in order to imbibe a deeper spiritual life.
• Buddhists are already used to the idea that fervently seeking spiritual growth
will cause pain in the legs :-) :-).
Now as to
why someone moves from Buddhism to Orthodoxy - everyone's story is different -
some are miraculous - some are frightening - some are fairly ordinary. But a
common denominator seems to be that; if a person has even the smallest history
of knowledge of Christ before becoming a Buddhist, then even the smallest of
such impressions, even from early childhood, will cause a Buddhist to reach a
point beyond which they cannot grow as a Buddhist. There are Buddhist practices
that serve to ‘open the heart’. Such a practice will often not work for one
whose heart has been visited even briefly by Christ - their heart will open
only for Him. More than one Buddhist has caught himself chanting a mantra that
he or she had previously chanted over 100,000 times, that somehow, one day
turns into ‘Lord have mercy’. And He does have mercy!
Fr Seraphim
(Rose), also a convert from Buddhism to Orthodox Christianity, said of Buddhism, ‘It’s
fine as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough’.
In Christ, John
Group,
I am in charge of the convert/chrismation-preparation/information
class for our parish. I have noticed that it seems easier to dialogue with
people from Buddhist backgrounds about the meaning of Orthodoxy than it is to
talk with Americans who are from Catholic or Protestant backgrounds. I wonder
if others have had experiences like mine, or contrary experiences, and would
care to comment on those experiences.
Thank you.
John
Up is always harder than down.
Subject: Re:
Buddhist Converts
From: dtd@world.std.com
Date: 4/9/2001 10:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:
In article,
On 26 Mar 2001, John Heilman wrote:
>> it seems easier to dialogue
with people from Buddhist backgrounds about the meaning of Orthodoxy
John Simmons
> why Orthodox Christianity makes sense to Buddhists...
three important comparisons for me were:
• The Buddhist notion of attachment, i.e., that desire is the obstacle to enlightenment, is basically identical to the
Orthodox interpretation of original sin: we’re born to be fascinated by the
world’s temptations, but this fascination turns our faces away from God;
• Buddhists, like the Orthodox, emphasize the dangers of spiritual pride;
• Buddhists, like the Orthodox, emphasize ‘loving kindness’ as the moral righteousness that’s necessary
for sound spiritual practice.
FWIW, it might interest you that Kuan-yin’s (Avalokisvara’s) femininity was
syncretistically borrowed from Christianity in the 6th century AD or so (IIRC).
Apparently, Avalokitesvara was originally the male god of mercy, but after Buddhists
were exposed to Christian statues of the blessed virgin mother, Buddhist
sculptors started producing the now-familiar images of female goddess of mercy,
standing with a baby in her arms.
Fr Seraphim (Rose): ... ‘It’s fine as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough’.
It was a
good while after my conversion and baptism, before I realized just how big a
difference it is that Buddhism lacks anything analogous to the Christian
Passion and Eucharist. The lotus sutra’s treatment of the Buddha’s death was
very moving to me, but it doesn’t carry the same point at all, and indeed, the Buddha’s
death is not the central event in the Buddhist faith.
My spiritual
father insisted that ‘Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion’. I didn’t
understand what he meant, until he pointed out that in Buddhism, salvation is
available only to a spiritual elite, because only Buddhist monks have a serious
prospect of enlightenment in this lifetime. He said that Christianity is ‘more
democratic’, in that every Christian can realistically hope for salvation.
— don (seraphim) davis
I was a
Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist for ten years. My childhood was devoid of any religious
training, but I could never rid myself of the notion of a Creator God, or of an
eternal soul. Ultimately those issues took me away from Buddhism. A couple of
other similarities between Orthodoxy and Buddhism are:
• The
importance of finding a spiritual father in Orthodoxy and the concept of Guru
Yoga in Buddhism.
• Use of the
prayer rope in Orthodoxy and mala (prayer) beads in Buddhism.
There are
more areas of convergence between the writings of the Desert Fathers and those
of Tibetan Buddhist saints than I could possibly enumerate. Both faiths contain
powerful anti-caste/class messages that divert significantly from their spiritual
forerunners (Hinduism and Judaism).
— Dave (Seraphim) Golden
Did you know... that the legend of SS. Barlaam and Joasaph is a Christian retelling of the story of the Buddha?