A Buddhist interpretation of Christianity

A Buddhist interpretation of Christianity is not without its problems when one takes into account the expansion of different sects of Christianity each with a different interpretation. 

Under a Buddhist interpretation, which is only a rough sketch on my part, the context is all important.  Christianity begins and ends with spirit (pneûma) or more properly, ends with the realization of spirit.  Spirit is absolute unlike the world of flesh (sárx). 

In light of this, we are to understand that God is spirit (Jn 4:24) or more accurately, God is the same as spirit and should be always understood in this sense.  There is no God outside of spirit.

Jesus Christ, who is generated from spirit (i.e., God), is the mediator (1 Tm 2:5-7) between spirit and man, man being a slave to what the flesh desires and all this implies (e.g., death). 

In order to save man, spirit’s son, Jesus Christ, comes in the guise of flesh, but is really self-knowing spirit, the purpose of which is to ultimately liberate man from the sinful flesh through crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24).  Only in this way do beings belong to Jesus Christ and gain eternal life which is also their eternal inheritance.

Flesh is only the shape of spirit or its form.  As such, flesh can never become spirit which is formless.  To reach spirit, the flesh must be crucified not the spirit.  Thus, to crucify oneself means complete transcendence of flesh such that one even appears forsaken by spirit (God).  Flesh, in the ninth hour calls out, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (Mt 27:46), but spirit does not cry out.  This is a mystery being very close to Zen's "great doubt"大疑.

 But the clue to spirit and the true Christ rather than one in the guise of flesh or our imagination, is found in these words:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).

This is hardly different than Zen master Niutou Farong’s spiritual words:

“The Ultimate Essence of things is what is most important. But in the realm of illusion it becomes different from what it is. The nature of Reality is invisible and cannot be understood by our conscious mind.”

Here we must assume that Buddhism and Christianity arrive at the very same fountainhead which is absolute spirit which is certainly beyond the world of flesh, the six senses, and the five grasping aggregates.  Both the Buddha and Jesus Christ are mediators between spirit and the finite human world that is filled with sin and suffering.

Comments

[Buddha]

Stoner logic is better than no logic

[dave b]

"The Buddha never denied the atta/atman"

I agree but am tired of having to argue the point. Or of having to defend it against every boneheaded stoner logic saying or mistranslated saying in an infinitely long canon. What the West needs is a school of Buddhism that makes its own ahort canon and does not make the mistake of putting any stoner logic in it. Until then, the name "Buddhism" is pretty much conceded to the Mara worshipers.

[TheZennist]

The Buddha never denied the atta/atman, especially, in Mahayana Buddhism. Here is one example which is from the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana-sutra:

"The atman is the Tathagatagarbha. All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the atman is. This atman, from the start, is always covered by innumerable passions (klesha): this is why beings are unable to see it" (Etienne Lamotte, The Teaching of Vimalakirti, Eng. trans. by Sara Boin, London: The Pali Text Society, 1976, Introduction, p. lxxvii).

In the Pali canon we find examples like this:

“He beholds the self purified (visuddhamattānam) of all these evil unskilled states, he beholds the self freed (vimuttamattānam)” (MN I.283)

"He [thus] dwelling contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating dispassion, contemplating cessation, contemplating renunciation, does not grasp at anything in the world, and not grasping he is not perturbed, not being perturbed he attains utter nibbana in his very self (paccattamyeva parinibbāyati). He knows ‘Destroyed is birth, lived is the holy life, done is what was to be done, there will be no more of thus-conditioned existence" (MN I.255-256).

[dave b]

The only Buddhist interpretation I ever heard from Buddhists of Christianity is "that's Hinduism." Anything that has a soul is "Hinduism" to Buddhists. Meaning Mahayanans and Theravadans. Not around any real Jodoshu believers since I ain't in Japan.

[n. yeti]

Much of what you are saying is also referenced in 1 John 4.4.