On Easter Saturday my church, Canyon Creek Presbyterian, in partnership with the Gateway of Grace organization, played host to a large group of refugee families. This was the third year we have done so and, judging from the turnout and response, it will not be the last. Our unofficial count put the number of refugee families in attendance at around 100 and the total number or participants (refugees and church members) at around 850.
The refugee families are fleeing violence, war, political upheaval, and economic hardship in places like Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, and Tibet. They come from all walks of life. They speak different languages. They are of different races. They practice different religions. Yet they all share the same need, to raise their families in safety and security with a chance at a better life for their children. In coming to the U.S. they left everything they knew behind, family, friends, language, and culture. And for two hours on Easter Saturday, the children were free to be just children and parents were free from concern for their immediate safety. It was truly a pleasure to see the smiles on the faces of family members, the cacophony of voices speaking in different languages, and the uninhibited joy of the children as they ran from place to plce.
I’ve often wondered where best to look for the message of Jesus. I’ve seen many who proclaim faith in Jesus but fall woefully short of living by Christ’s example, including myself. Is proclaiming our faith sufficient or is more required of us?
In chapter 4 TNH takes on this question from both the Christian and Buddhist perspectives. He starts by making the distinction between the historical Jesus and historical Buddha and the living Christ and The Buddha. Jesus first was a man born in Bethlehem during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His father was a carpenter. He became a teacher and was executed at the age of 33. Buddha’s named was Siddhartha Gautama (which means "he who achieves his aim") in the city of Kapilavatsu near the Indian/Tibetan border. He married and had one child before becoming “enlightened”. He spent the remainder of his life teaching before dying at the age of 80. Both men were born, they lived their lives, and they died. Was that the end?
Buddhists believe in The Buddha that resides within them, who transcends both space and time. TNH calls this the “living Buddha”, the Buddha of “the ultimate reality” who transcends all human knowing and is available to them at any time. When Buddhists say they believe in The Buddha, they are expressing their faith in the universal Buddhas, not in the life and teachings of the historical Siddhartha Gautama. The historical Siddhartha Gautama was human, but he became an expression of the highest spirit of humanity. Similarly, TNH points to the “living Christ” who lives within us, who transcends all human understanding, and is available to us at any time. When we say we believe in Jesus Christ we are expressing our faith in the Christ universal and not the historical Jesus.
What both traditions have in common, according to TNH, is that the path to enlightenment (Buddhist) or God (Christian) is an internal one. Both Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus were inherently in touch with the eternal that was within them. That is what made them special and their lives worthy of emulation. By emulating the lives of the Buddha and Christ we too can touch the eternal.
It is important for adherents of both faiths to read the words spoken by these men. Since we cannot see or hear either directly their words serve as the best secondary source. But their words are only important in so far as they speak to and clarify the lives they lived. To emulate the lives of either man we need to understand the times in which they lived, to whom the words were spoken, and the context in which they were spoken. Only then can the words provide guidance in a contemporary context. We see and interpret the lives of Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus through the lens of what they said. And through interpretation we gain an understand of how to live our lives in the present. Jesus the man is dead. Siddhartha Gautama the man is dead. But The Buddha and Christ are eternal.
So that brings us back to the present and one of many egg hunts held on the Saturday before Easter. In Matthew chapter 22 Jesus says: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is not passive. Love does not stand on the sidelines. To show love is to take action without expectation or condition.
According to TNH, it is acts like this that bring both the living Buddha and the living Christ into the world for all to see.
What do you think?
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