The non-quote of this non-existent month

The California Catholic Daily reports that Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh will be honored in the near future by a couple of different Catholic schools: Loyola Marymount University and University of San Diego. In books such as the best-selling work, Living Buddha, Living Christ (introduction by Elaine Pagels!), Hanh insists that Christianity and Buddha are really, really, super-duper close to each other in belief and practice.

Nhat Hanh, now in his ‘80s, has written, “do not be bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means, not absolute truth.” ...

Nhat Hanh says “there will not be much difference between Buddhism and Christianity” if Christians pray as Buddhists do, “with mindfulness, concentration and especially insight.” This three lead one to realize, according to Nhat Hanh, that the one to whom he prays – Buddha, Jesus, or one’s grandfather – exist in “new manifestations,” in “new forms.”They are “always in you and around you.”

A small bit of confusion arises, it seems to me, when consider that Hanh is saying, on one hand, that doctrine is not necessary and that there is no truth, and then says: "Follow this doctrine. This is the truth. This is the way to truth." Consider these comparisons:

Despite many external similarities, Buddhist meditation and contemplation is quite different from orthodox Christianity. Buddhist meditation strives to "wake" one from his existential delusions. "Therefore, despite similar aspects, there is a fundamental difference" between Christian and Buddhist mysticism, wrote John Paul II. The Holy Father continued: "Christian mysticism . . . is not born of a purely negative 'enlightenment.' It is not born of an awareness of the evil which exists in man's attachment to the world through the senses, the intellect, and the spirit. Instead, Christian mysticism is born of the Revelation of the living God."
Catholics believe that the Church is the Body and Bride of Christ, the seed of the Kingdom of God, and the conduit of God's grace and mercy in the world. Buddhists believe that Church, or Sangha, is in the end, upaya, nothing more than the expedient means to ultimate extinction. Rather than the Beatific Vision, Buddhist teaching holds that non-existence is the only hope for escaping the pains of life.

The Catholic Church teaches that while suffering is not part of God's perfect plan, it does bring us closer to Christ and unite us more intimately with our Suffering Lord. Buddhism teaches that suffering must be escaped from; indeed, this is a central concern of Buddhism. Christianity is focused on worshipping God, on holiness, and the restoration of right relationships between God and man through the Person and work of Jesus. The Buddhist, however, is not concerned with whether or not God exists, nor does he offer worship. Instead, he seeks after non-self (anatman).

Catholicism believes that truth, and the Author of Truth, can be known rationally (to a significant, yet limited, extent) and through divine revelation. In contrast, Buddhism denies existential reality; nothing, including the "self," can be proven to exist.

That is from an article, "Catholicism and Buddhism," that I co-authored with my good friend, Dr. Anthony Clark, who teaches Asian history at the University of Alabama. Needless to say, we aren't too interested in praying as Buddhists, simply because Christians should pray as Jesus taught them to pray: to a personal God who is Triune in nature—a belief that is of little or no interest to a Buddhist.

Comments

[Stephen Sparrow]

Didn't Hazel Motes in Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood utter the words, "The only truth is that there is no truth." ?

Yes, and Thich Nhat Hanh holds a similar viewpoint.

[LJ]

Father Benedict Groeschel has a favourite saying;

"The wrong prayer to the wrong God done in the right way is better than the right prayer to the right God done in the wrong way."

I'm still thinking about that.

[Meg Q]

Remember, Hanh is NOT to be confused with Hahn.

[Nick Milne]

Chesterton, from Orthodoxy ("VIII: The Romance of Orthodoxy"):

Students of popular science, like Mr. Blatchford, are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. The reasons were of two kinds: resemblances that meant nothing because they were common to all humanity, and resemblances which were not resemblances at all. The author solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things in which all creeds are alike, or else he described them as alike in some point in which they are quite obviously different. Thus, as a case of the first class, he said that both Christ and Buddha were called by the divine voice coming out of the sky, as if you would expect the divine voice to come out of the coal-cellar. Or, again, it was gravely urged that these two Eastern teachers, by a singular coincidence, both had to do with the washing of feet. You might as well say that it was a remarkable coincidence that they both had feet to wash. And the other class of similarities were those which simply were not similar. Thus this reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the fact that at certain religious feasts the robe of the Lama is rent in pieces out of respect, and the remnants highly valued. But this is the reverse of a resemblance, for the garments of Christ were not rent in pieces out of respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were not highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops. It is rather like alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword: when it taps a man's shoulder, and when it cuts off his head. It is not at all similar for the man.

These scraps of puerile pedantry would indeed matter little if it were not also true that the alleged philosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds, either proving too much or not proving anything. That Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to say that it is specially like Christianity; it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say that Buddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things.

==

There was also a good comment from him elswhere about how Leo the Great could stop Attila the Hun, but the thought of a Lama giving pause to Genghis Khan was laughable.

[Matt]

Interestingly enough, the story of the Buddha ended up in the Canon of Saints as St. Jehoshaphat, I believe.

That aside, the best distinction between Buddhism and Christianity I can think of this late at night would be to say "Christianity is a religion of self-denial and Buddhism one of self-negation."

The best illustration of the difference would be to look at Siddartha Gotma under the Bodhi tree for days and days while the world tempted him and Jesus and the Disciples picking grain on the Sabbath. The Buddha, like some kind of gnostic, seeks to leave the world behind, while Christ actually lives in it. The Buddha started out as a prince, given every pleasure and sensory delight imaginable; Christ and the Apostles never ceased to live by the work of their own hands.

[Rick]

IMO, Thich Nhat Hanh has some wonderful insights into violence, human nature and humanity as a whole. But, the buck stops there! Those insights are worth reading as long as one eye is kept on the Cross. One, he denies the divinity of Christ and His role as the unique and sole mediator between God and humanity. For Hanh, ontological language and speculation is meaningless and futile. Ontologically speaking, suffering (and I guess reality as a whole) for a Buddhist is an illusion, for a Catholic it is both efficacious and redemptive not only for himself but all of humanity when one's individual sufferings are united to the Paschal Mystery. Thus, Christian suffering is far from an illusion because it unites one to others and the fullness of reality, the Triune God.