Read Buddha and Jesus: Could Solomon Be the Missing Link? Online
Authors: R. E. Sherman
Who is this other “Holy One who will come and save the world” that Buddha told the old Brahman to seek? Cioccolanti retold the story of this amazing conversation in this way:
The old Brahman asked, “This Holy One who will come and rescue the world in the near future, what does he look like?” Buddha replied, “The Holy One who will rescue the world in the near future will have scars in his hands and scars in his feet like the shape of a gongjak [defined below]. In His side, there is a stab wound. His forehead is full of blemish and scars. The Holy Person will be like a golden vessel, a very large one, that will carry you across the cycle of suffering until you pass over to Heaven Nippan.”
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A
gongjak,
noted Cioccolanti, is a “sharp cutting wheel with jagged edges, an ancient weapon.” The sacred text Cioccolanti quoted was found by former monk Tongsuk Siriruk in Kampee Khom, the Cambodian or Khmer Canon, in 1954. This version does not appear in most other Buddhist texts. That would leave us to wonder whether it was removed from those texts or inserted uniquely in that text. We shall never know. If it was formerly in other sacred Buddhist texts, however, it would not be surprising for it to have been extracted at some point during the Christian era, because the
person Buddha described may have looked too much like the crucified Jesus for the comfort of those charged with preserving the Buddhist manuscripts.
Regardless of whether or not Buddha said something like this, the reality is that making progress spiritually through Buddhism is painfully slow. Consider these comments from a popular guide to Buddhism:
One major branch of Buddhism, Vajrayana, claims that its practices can greatly accelerate progress toward enlightenment. Whether or not this is true, the intensity of its practices is truly inhuman. Vajrayana monks undergo extremely grueling training in meditative practices.
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As Richard A. Gard, lecturer in Buddhist studies at Yale University, noted, training in the meditation house “lasts three years, three months, and three days. Anyone who enters the Meditation House must be prepared to be a ‘voluntary prisoner,’ observing silence most of the time, and meditating continuously for 16 hours a day—for three years, three months, and three days—without a single day’s leave! He is permitted to doze, but not to sleep lying down, for only three or four hours a day.”
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The Dalai Lama has been practicing techniques to greatly hasten progress toward enlightenment, and yet he is quite uncertain what his fate will be after he dies. “The rehearsal of the processes of death, and those of the intermediate state, and the emergence into a
future existence,” he wrote, “lies at the very heart of the path in Highest Yoga Tantra. These practices are part of my daily practice also and because of this I somehow feel a sense of excitement when I think about the experience of death. At the same time, though, sometimes I do wonder whether or not I will really be able to fully utilize my own preparatory practices when the actual moment of death comes!”
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In other words, he is spending a great deal of time training for the big swim, but he doesn’t know if he will be able to make it across the channel when the time comes. And this from a man who thinks he has made that journey before—since he and his followers believe him to be the reincarnation of a bodhisattva.
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In reality, unlike practicing for an actual swim, practicing for death is impossible.
If the Dalai Lama is uncertain about what his next life will be, he is not enlightened, for the enlightened Buddhist is supposed to know that he will enter nirvana when he dies and that he will not reincarnate as another sentient being. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama’s words highlight his uncertainty, even though he describes the state of enlightenment as including: (1) omniscience, with “full comprehension of all that can be known,” and (2) victory, since “you have overcome all problems and have achieved realization of all knowables.”
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Should we believe the Dalai Lama, who has written a book entitled
Becoming Enlightened,
when he himself has not become enlightened?
If the Dalai Lama has not been liberated, what hope is there for the hundreds of millions of Buddhists whose practice has been less devoted? They are mired in the swamp of karma created by past actions, most of which they had little choice about, given that those actions were largely the result of actions even more distant in the past, most likely during several past lives.
In contrast, receiving salvation from Jesus can occur very quickly. This is well illustrated by the liberation received by the thief on the cross next to Jesus.
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other
criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
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It was the faith of the thief on the cross, which Jesus perceived and honored, that motivated Jesus to give him salvation. There is no mention, in this account, of the thief’s good deeds possibly outweighing his bad deeds. The thief simply confessed that he was being justly put to death and that Jesus would advance to head a kingdom after he died.
In an earlier scene, Jesus had said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
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What Jesus requires is sincere admission of our unworthiness and our inability to save ourselves by good works, and submission to the indwelling and leading of the Holy Spirit. Liberation, to the Christian, should be entirely a matter of faith, while to the Buddhist, it is entirely a matter of works.
Given these major differences in the feasibility of becoming liberated, practically speaking, Buddhism is a much narrower way than Christianity. Even the best of people commit a few bad deeds interspersed among their good deeds. So with each lifetime, there is much risk that they will step backward in their progress toward enlightenment and nirvana. Furthermore, if you are reincarnated as a rat, or a snake, what opportunity is there for you to “earn” the opportunity to be a human again in some future life?
Prolonged, intense meditation is not only difficult but sometimes hazardous. In recent years, much has come to light regarding these hazards. As noted in “Invitation to the Reader” at the beginning of this book, “the Dalai Lama has said that Eastern forms of meditation have to be handled carefully. ‘Westerners who proceed too quickly to deep meditation should learn more about Eastern traditions and get better training than they usually do. Otherwise, certain physical or mental difficulties appear.’”
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As mentioned in
Chapter Ten
, Lorin Roche, Ph.D., a meditation instructor who has
specialized over the past three-plus decades in counseling people who have engaged in prolonged, intensive meditation, has also remarked on these difficulties. In addition to describing the effects that very intense meditation can have on “one’s ability to be intimate with another human being,” Dr. Roche noted hazards such as: (1) depression, (2) a feeling of being lost, (3) trouble adapting to life in the city, (4) weird health problems, (5) bipolar disorders, (6) panic attacks, (7) psychosis, and (8) suicide.
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Dr. Roche also observed that “we have a huge literature on ‘meditation techniques to suit the needs of monks living in monasteries, if they are Hindu or Buddhist,’ but not much at all about how to meditate if you live in the modern West and have a family and job that you really don’t want to abandon.” Further, “Monks and nuns are called renunciates, because they take vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience,” Dr. Roche wrote, and although these vows can “be very liberating” to the monks and nuns, who seem to “glow with an inner luminosity,” they can be “radioactive” to the average person.
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Dr. Roche also pointed out that “monks and nuns tend to see everyday life as a disease.” Their “medicine” is to tell their charges to “slow down, kill out your passion, become submissive, cultivate disgust instead of attraction, and dissolve your identity.” But all these measures, Dr. Roche said, can be harmful to most of us. They not only play havoc with relationships but also can create “long term depression.” Many people become alienated from their families and even become contemptuous of their own culture. When they discover that the meditative practices are ultimately not for them, as 95 percent of Western Buddhist seekers do, they end up feeling like failures. “Almost universally,” Dr. Roche wrote, “they feel that there is something wrong with them, that they can’t meditate. Most feel bad that they can’t make their minds blank.”
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All of these observations come from a highly educated
advocate
of meditation. Dr. Roche teaches a form of meditation that he believes circumvents these problems. What distinguishes his approach from Buddhism is that he urges people who want to meditate to “keep it simple”: “You don’t need to know very much
in order to begin meditating,” he wrote. “Just come on in. Keep it
personal.
Do it
your
way. You can’t imitate someone else’s meditation. You know what you love. Be brief. A few minutes of meditation is powerful. Do that then call it a day. Dive in. Ask for help when you need it. Stay in touch.”
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Dr. Roche’s big concern is that “there is almost no information about the dangers of meditation. It is taboo to even think about it. Meditation is presented as an omni-beneficial activity. We are in the odd situation that the field that is supposed to be about truth, is presented in a deceptive way. Discussion of the real obstacles and hazards of meditation is met with denial.”
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Dr. Roche advises people to practice simple meditation within the religion they are already familiar with. He does not see any need to convert to Buddhism or Hinduism to meditate more effectively. “There is a saying,” he noted: “Prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening to God.”
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As we saw in
Chapter Eight
, meditation was a vital practice in the Judaism of Solomon’s day, and it remains so to many Jews today. It also has a long tradition within Christianity, where it is sometimes called “contemplative prayer,” “infused contemplation,” or “mystical union.”
How Narrow Is Each Way?
Christianity has the reputation of being a narrow way, largely because of its reputed intolerance of doctrinal differences. In contrast, Buddhism is regarded as a very tolerant religion whose meditation techniques can be quite beneficial to people of almost any faith, or even to atheists. Its initial practices may calm the troubled soul. However, the reality is that in practice Buddhism is much narrower in some ways than Christianity. The percentage of people capable of seriously practicing it is very small—and the percentage of people capable of approaching or realizing enlightenment even smaller. We are talking about something like one in 10 million people.
Buddhism’s demands are quite daunting. Serious practice involves:
And yet, for all of this, the best result is imperceptibly slow progress toward deeper spirituality. At its core Buddhism is all about each person withdrawing internally to tap into wisdom and truth that can only be found deep within, and to thereby improve themselves. From a Christian perspective, this is inherently impossible. Man’s inner nature is corrupted. How can weak, seriously flawed people bootstrap themselves into noticeably better people? Mankind needs a savior. We all need the power of God to be truly transformed. Buddha never claimed to be a savior or to be divine, though Mahayana Buddhists typically make him both. Nor did Buddha give God any audible recognition.
When it comes to what Buddhism is really about, reality conflicts with common Western perceptions. As Steve Cioccolanti noted:
True Buddhism is much harder than Westerners make it out to be. To some Westerners who don’t really understand, Buddhism may seem like an easy alternative to Christianity. For them to say, “I’m more interested in Buddhism,” is often their way of rejecting Christianity. But the fact is Buddhism is not the all-accepting path for anyone to follow. It prescribes a definite set of strict rules and conditions, much like the Biblical Old Testament. It proscribes a long list of immoral behavior.
Buddhism shares much in common with the Old Testament and there are many bridges one can build between the two.
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In Buddhism, the negative effects of bad karma follow a person in this and future lives until they suffer enough to work it off and/or perform a long series of good deeds to generate good karma. Bad karma is like an implacable bulldog that is temporarily penned up but is sure to get out at some time in the future and sink his teeth into you. The only consolation is that his attack will only be about as damaging as the harm you have done to others. That may or may not be a comforting thought.