Today I just asked my friend a very “philosophical” question about the distinctions between Christian and Buddhism. Then she asked me if I ever heard of there is a such site called “Buddhist Church”. That was very surprised me actually because I don’t think Buddhism and Christianity can be harmony in American society especially in New York. This kind of church leads me a lot of thoughts floating in my head.
Backing to my childhood memories, there was always a big conflict between Christianity and Buddhism. The most impressive thing was that people who believe in God didn’t like those people who believe in Buddha. All of the old generation people taught me Christian is like a monster who would bring my life down. I trust them with my soul even though they didn’t tell me why. When I got older, I started changing my mind somehow because I was curious. Because of my curiosity I went to church with my schoolmates for the Christmas party without my parents’ permission one day. That day was definitely impressing me: I saw Santa Clause giving his present to everyone (we all love receiving gift), I saw many people dancing on the stage, and also lots little kids were singing on the side of the stage. They all seemed so happy and satisfy including me. I was thinking at that time: “how could these people be evil?” However, I didn’t get any chances to know more about Christian in China until I met two devotional Christian old couple who help my family a lot in American. (long story, I don't want to talk about it here.)
Through these two couples’ recommendation, I attended St. Johns University, obviously, it is a catholic school. There is a very interesting sight fell into my eyes---there is a huge beautiful church sitting by the dorms, and when you walked few more minutes, you can also see a classical Chinese temple which was for Asian study offices and now is a Asian library with all Chinese famous masterpieces and Buddhist scriptures. Now I am more like to talk about the likeness between Roman Catholic and Buddhism, I have my humble opinion.
I read a book called “the Essential Moral Handbook: a guild to catholic living”, which is my theology course requirement. There is a paragraph talks about that the moral theology is about finding the way home to our true selves as believers in the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. “Being home” is marked by right relationship with God, with others, with ourselves, and with Creation. When I read these sentences, I found these are parallel to Buddhist goal “明心见性“which means “find one’s true self.” The main purpose of Buddhism is that they try to tell people that everything in our life is not real or another words “our universe is empty”, people are fool to pursue everything which is not real. There is a famous poem was written by “六祖慧能大师”says that “
There is no Buddhist tree at all, And there is bright mirror nor. Now there is nothing at all, How could be dust any more? (菩提本无树，明镜亦非台，本来无一物，何处惹尘埃). This poem is trying to teach us a word called “emptiness”. No desire no suffer is all Buddhism trying to teach us. As a normal human being, I don’t think anyone can do it, otherwise, they would be the same as Buddha because everyone has desire. But for Christian, it is all about receiving and giving love which is everyone’s life about. That’s why Christianity doesn’t agree with Buddhism.
There is another idea which I think is pretty the same---Christian’s original sin(原罪) and Buddhist scoundrelism（劣根性）. When Adam and Eva chose to eat the fruit that God told them not to eat, they had original sin even though they had no concept of good and evil. The original sin is disobedience. This has negative effected our human nature. This original sin is not committed by us, rather it is passed on to us. It is a state which we inherit rather than an act that we do. And for Buddhism’s Scoundrelism, is not like from dictionary: the practice or conduct of a scoundrel, baseness; rascality. When Chinese talks about this word, it is more like human being which originally adopt some bad habit or unhealthy desire such as selfish and lying. Therefore, these two ideas are parallel.
I knew many of people who believe in Buddhism are suspicions about Christian. They always say to me that those Christian are so superficial, the Holy Bible which they treat as a treasure is like a children’s fairy-tale especially Genesis. But I will say that people who think Bible is like a fairy-tale are superficial. I don’t think people can be educated if they just read words by words. They have to think about the meaning behind the words. (even in Buddhism, there are lots of mythes, but many people believe them, that's why lot of Chinese are superstitious). Therefore, no matter it is fairy-tales or myth, it has to come from something which could effect people. A famous Chinese professor named Yu Dan ever said that:” knowledge is very important, but experience is more important than knowledge. However, one’s savvy is lot more important than experience.”
No matter Christian or Buddhism, they are all trying to make people's life better. Therefore, my summation is that no matter what religion you believe right now, just don’t refuse to accept the “gift” that “GOD” or “Buddha” give to us as human being. It is good to hear that there is such community as Buddhist Church. I will definitely go visit it someday.
