Treligon Essay, Research Paper

Is there One Way?

?Buddhism has been described as a very pragmatic religion. It does not indulge in metaphysical speculation about first causes; there is no theology, no worship of a deity or deification of the Buddha. Buddhism takes a very straightforward look at our human condition; nothing is based on wishful thinking, at all. Everything that the Buddha taught was based on his own observations of the way things are. Everything that he taught could be verified by our own observation of the way things is.

If we look at our life, very simply, in a straightforward way, we see that it is marked with frustration and pain. This is because we attempt to secure our relationship with the “world out there”, by solidifying our experiences in some concrete way. The problem is that the “world out there” is constantly changing, everything is impermanent and it is impossible to make a permanent relationship with anything, at all.?

The previous teaching is a teaching and a perspective of a Buddhist, from the book Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh. In his writings he spends much of his concentration on helping ?westerners? as he put its, understand Buddhism, to achieve this he compares the many teachings of Buddha to the way of Christ. Through out the book he teaches of the way of Buddha while comparing and noting small similarities to the teachings of Jesus Christ. The basic of Ideas of love, kindness, compassion and a genuine love for all livings things are present in Buddhism and Christianity and Nhah allows us to see this clearly with his insights on both religions. Through out his book Hanh points out that Buddhism and Christianity have some similarities, no one person can say that either of them is for sure the ?right? way to salvation. All one can do is believe that theirs is the right way. Many may feel that these two religions have nothing in common, which may be true if you simplify concentrate on the smaller details, but when focusing on the larger idea of both religions you see, as Hanh shows us, there can been many similarities. In both religions you can find teaching on how to living and how to be spirituality and how to treat others.

In this book discussion on the Truths of Buddhism are one of the ways Hanh allows us to see a connection between Buddhism and Christianity, he notes that the Four Noble Truths can in many different ways be liked with Christian beliefs including the Ten commandments and many of the Parable teachings of Jesus Christ Himself. The Truths ob Buddhism are that life is frustrating and painful. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves, there are times when it is downright miserable. Things may be fine with us, at the moment, but, if we look around, we see other people in the most appalling condition, children starving, terrorism, hatred, wars, intolerance, people being tortured and we get a sort of queasy feeling whenever we think about the world situation in even the most casual way. We, ourselves, will someday grow old, get sick and eventually die. No matter how we try to avoid it someday we are going to die. Even though we try to avoid thinking about it, there are constant reminders that it is true.

The second noble truth is that suffering has a cause. Just as Jesus? suffering had a cause. We suffer because we are constantly struggling to survive. We are defined by our humility. The harder we struggle to establish our relationships, and ourselves the more painful our experience becomes. The third noble truth is that the cause of suffering can be ended. Our struggle to survive, our effort to prove ourselves and solidify our relationships is unnecessary. We, and the world, can get along quite comfortably without all our unnecessary posturing. We could just be a simple, direct and straightforward person. We do this by abandoning our expectations about how we think things should be.

This is the fourth noble truth: the way, or path to end the cause of suffering. The central theme of this way is meditation. Meditation, here, means the practice of mindfulness/awareness. We practice being mindful of all the things that we use to

Torture us with. We become mindful by abandoning our expectations about the way we think things should be and, out of our mindfulness, we begin to develop awareness about the way things really are. We begin to develop the insight that things are really quite simple, that we can handle ourselves, and our relationships, very well as soon as we stop being so manipulative and complex.

These truths and teachings can be linked to Christianity in many different ways. Humility is a theme is these truths, as it was in the life of Christ. Also, the many references to the way in these truths are used the same context as the reference to Jesus Christ?s path of humility and giving being ?the way? for christens to live, in fact Jesus Christ is often referred to as ?The Way?

Ultimately Hanh feels living Buddha is living Christ because both teachings call for us as humans to reach out to others. Both men Buddha and Christ spent their lives reaching out to others and so shall we. Jesus and Buddha made their lives revolve around others, the poor and oppressed and by helping these people you are in fact living as Christ and Living as Buddha. One can?t be done with doing the other because both call for the same mindset.

Personally I found the writings of Hanh quite enlighten and in my Catholic mindset one could both be a catholic and at least live by many of the rules of Buddha. There is no actually worship of any deity in the way of Buddhism so therefore you can be at least mindful of the fact you are doing the work of Buddha at the same time you are attempting to live as Jesus would like us all to.

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