Jesus and Buddha and Example

I’m reading about 50 books right now but one of them is Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk exiled in France. The book is basically a comparison between Buddhism and Christianity. I’ve been doing this comparison for a while, ever since P’George gave me a book called The Art of Living or something like that. If I had to sum the religions up now, I’d say that Christianity (at it’s core) is a relationship with a living God and Buddhism is a lifestyle. Thich Nhat Hanh spends a few sentences urging Christians to also see their religion as a lifestyle–urging us to follow Jesus’ example and live as He did.

When the WWJD bracelets came out, I heard lots of criticism about trying to imitate Jesus, mostly, that what was appropriate for Jesus is not always appropriate for us. On one level, I agree–God doesn’t call all of us to be single (there goes the human race), to give rock star teaching tours, or to die at the age of 33. But if we do pay attention to Jesus’ teachings, we see that there are things that Jesus did and carried out that he expects of us. You know, the things he constantly repeats, like forgiveness, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, etc.

Since I’ve started to read about Buddhism and carry on with Buddhist friends, I have been very interested in my social conduct. I probably was interested in it before I lived in Thailand but my friendships there often alerted me to questions of behavior. As most people who know me know, I was/am astounded by the generous, selfless, and positive attitudes of my Thai friends. And it’s contagious. Once I’ve spent a weekend with people who don’t complain, it’s easy to see why Christians are constantly urged not to complain. It makes a huge difference.

I have observed that I am very aware of how to behave but I don’t really work hard to obtain good behavior. Or, I have confused good behavior with stuff like avoiding certain movies or music. Maybe it’s our puritan heritage, but I spent some time assuming that “Good” must start with “No.” No drinking, no dancing, no other scandalous stuff. It seems like the good Jesus requires is more about allowing than shutting out. We allow ourselves to forgive, we allow ourselves to take the time to help heal or feed someone, we allow God to do the judging, etc. And it seems that obedience to God, in Jesus’ terms, almost always involves another person.

Though certainly, every aspect of Buddhism doesn’t ring true with me, a great deal of it does and I see that the core teaching is something that should be considered by anyone in search of the Way the Truth and the Life. And by core, I mean this quote I pulled from the book:

It is not words or concepts that are important. What is important is our insight into the nature of reality and our way of responding to reality.

The resurrection of Jesus is reality to me–once I experienced resurrection in my own life, the reality of His resurrection has permeated every aspect of my life. Now that I know this freedom, I am free to consider how I will respond to it.