Article #90
Subject: Living Buddha and Living Christ
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 10/25/2011 07:43:58 PM

Review of the two Books, 1) The Lotus and the Cross by Ravi Zacharias and 2)
Living Buddha Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh


“Awareness and faith are reflections of two Truths.” Poem by Andrew Harrell
about the One Buddha who is God’s Son Christ Jesus

“If we are only who we are, then who are we? And, If I AM is not who I am,
then who will be?”

I have studied both these books and thought about the arguments in both of
them for several years now. The one gives me reasons, some of which are
based on the Bible, why I should think of my future as superior to those who
don’t believe in the same theology as myself. The other concentrates on
practical techniques to be more aware of both my impermanence, how to look
deeper and be more compassionate to those around me, to be more open to
change (independent of theology)…. But, also my permanent divine inheritance
as a living gift inside of the present moment. I prefer the second.

Many Christians are quick to criticize those who teach the Buddhist and Hindu
Yogic techniques of individual contemplative prayer as being un-Christian.
But, after 40 years of practicing them, I am certain they are very similar to
those which Jesus studied and spent a lot of time practicing when he walked
on earth the for first time about 2000 years ago. One criticism is that this
type of contemplative prayer does not request anything from God, it only
seeks to understand how we can exist better as human beings in this present
moment. Therefore, the argument goes, since we are trying to understand
ourself better instead of God and since human nature is flawed in itself
(something which I totally agree with) we are doomed to suffer repeated
failure in these attempts. This argument does not consider the possibility
that God doesn’t start out as a person outside of us (in the Church or the
Bible for instant) and isn’t already existing inside of us helping us to
overcome these failings. But, we know ourselves from our personal experience
and also the Bible teaches in the book of John and elsewhere that, when we
call upon Him for help (through Jesus Christ), that God does exist as a Holy
Spirit in us. For too long the traditional way to follow Jesus has been to
try and collect a larger group of worshippers than others and help convince
ourselves that we don’t need to go to the trouble of learning more about what
others believe. As individuals we definitely do need groups and higher powers
in order to solve problems that are difficult. The tragedy, is that in the
past this has lead to many religious wars and untold suffering. For our human
nature tends to try convince ourselves that the particular people outside of
these groups are different, or “unsaved”. It is taught that they need to be
looked down on and need to be separated out from us. But, Jesus Christ
himself did not do this, for he taught that we should look up on others this
way. But He taught us we need to understand how others are ourselves. We need
to do this so we can love them as ourselves. And, the United States of
America was founded by our forefathers with a constitution of rules of civil
government and society in order to create a more perfect union of all of us
in order that these tragedies of egotistical religious and societal Church
self-promotion might happen less often.

Article #274
Subject: reply to review on this book at the amazon website
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 2/5/2016 09:27:47 AM

Amazon customer from Belmont, NC writes:

First, thank you for your enlightened perspective. I'm a former Christian,
who was/is at heart a Universalist, and ultimately converted to Thich Nhat
Hanh's (Thay's) version of Buddhism, the order of interbeing. In a recent
mediation, I realized that each religion is a spiritual path, that leads to
Truth, and as Christ taught, it is the Truth that sets us free. Differences
in these paths exist; some are straight and direct, others long and twisted.
From my understanding, Thay's teaching is the straight direct path to the
Truth that sets us free. As Gandhi taught "Truth is God", so we are all
connected through this Truth. We "inter be" :) Thank you again for your
illumination on the heart of the matter.

You just replied with a later post




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Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Feb 5, 2016 6:24:25 AM PST

Andrew Harrell says:

Thanks for the feedback with pleasant and encouraging comments.
I believe that you will find that being a Universalist, at heart, is a very
good thing to be over the long run.

As I mentioned there is much more on this at the website URL:
http://www.yhwhschofchrist.org/discussionboard/index.cgi if you are
interested in discussing it in more detail over a long period of time.I agree
with our Hindu self's Gandhi's teaching that "Truth is God". In fact I
believe there is more of an answer, now looking back on it, that, He (God's
One Son, the Buddha Jesus Christ) would like to the give to the question
Pontius Pilate asked Him, a long time ago "What is Truth"?

@AndrewWHarrell twitter Dec. 22, 2015:
"The way to know Emmanuel [God is with us] is to know God is Truth. If you do
not know God is Truth, then you do not know God or Truth or us."