Maria Reis Habito
with Ruben L.F. Habito
In a crucial scriptural passage that I[1] will take up later in this paper, the Buddha told his chief attendant, Ananda that spiritual friendship is not half, but the whole of the spiritual life. In my own case, nothing could serve as a better argument for the validity of the Buddha’s affirmation of the importance of religious friendship than my own life-experience of it. In this paper I make the case that spiritual friendship within one’s own religious community is certainly of the utmost importance in deepening one’s understanding of the ultimate purpose of life and putting that understanding into practice. That being said, I also would like to argue that friendship outside of one’s tradition serves in an even more powerful way in this regard, because it sheds clearer light on the understanding of oneself and one’s own religious tradition, as it does the same on one’s understanding of the Religious Other.
Friendship with the Religious Other starts from an encounter, and as introduction to my paper I would like to share some vignettes of my own encounter with religious others, which were transformative in ways that were different from encounters and friendships with persons from the Catholic tradition in which I was raised.
My self-understanding and outlook on life derive both from my upbringing in the Catholic religious tradition that I continue to embrace, as well as from my encounter with a Buddhist Master at age twenty, with whom I took refuge in 1983. My subsequent immersion in the study of Buddhist scriptures on the one hand and the practice of Zen meditation on the other, including my becoming appointed assistant Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage in 2009, have confirmed me on the Buddhist path through the years. This is so even as I continued to value and uphold my Christian practice and regular attendance at Catholic liturgy.
My first encounter with Buddhism happened in 1978, when I was fresh out of High school on a 3 week trip through Taiwan, guided by Father Joseph Wang, a Catholic priest and family friend, and in the company of my mother and aunt. One of the abiding impressions of my first trip to Taiwan was a meeting with a Buddhist nun, a friend of Father Joseph. She had made a vow to stay in her room for 12 years to meditate, and to only eat what people would bring her during that time. Her retreat had recently ended, and as we walked up the hill towards her small house, my mother and I talked about the strangeness of that kind of vow and life, and of the religion behind it that we knew very little about. We also wondered how a Buddhist nun would receive us as Christians. We were greeted with a most radiant smile and with the question “Are you Christians?” When we nodded with a bit of apprehension, her smile grew even larger, and she said: “Christians – or Buddhists – it does not make the slightest difference. We are all human beings.” I was so deeply impressed by the nun’s completely free, open and welcoming attitude – as compared with our own hesitation and apprehensiveness, that I decided right there that I wanted to study Buddhism in Taiwan in order to develop some of this open-mindedness myself. In other words, this first encounter with a person from a different religious tradition taught me a clear and enduring lesson about my own ignorance and judgmental attitude that none of the encounters with the Chinese Christians throughout those three weeks had ever produced. Also, it was the encounter with the Buddhist nun, not with my fellow Catholics, that motivated me to embark on a two-year study of Chinese language and religions in a far-away land.
One could argue that this first encounter did not yet constitute friendship, but I see it as the initial karmic condition that subsequently allowed me to form deep personal friendships with Buddhists, with Master Hsin Tao as the foremost example, and to become a practitioner and eventually teacher in the Zen Buddhist tradition. These encounters subsequently also led me to a deeper questioning and renewed appreciation of the Catholic faith of my upbringing. In this vein, I took up studies in philosophy and theology at the University of Munich after my return from Taiwan in 1981, and came to better appreciate and learn more about my own Western and Christian cultural heritage, while also gaining a comparative perspective in my studies of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, earning a doctorate at the same university in 1990.
As I continue to deepen my understanding and practice of the Buddhist tradition, I have also been especially blessed and challenged by my friendships with persons from the Jewish tradition, which, with the theological significance it attaches to covenant, peoplehood and the land of Israel, seems radically different from the Buddhist emphasis on the realization of Emptiness and absolute Non-duality as the essence of the Buddha’s teaching.
My first Welcoming of the Shabbat meal at the house of Alon Goshen-Gottstein in Jerusalem, during which I could follow the songs, psalms and prayers in English, but not in Hebrew, impressed me so deeply that I took up the study of Hebrew to get a better sense and understanding of the Jewish tradition. During my stay in Israel, I recognized in new and experiential ways how this tradition is foundational to the Christian Faith. I would like to argue here that friendship across traditions, in order to be deeply transformative, requires a grasp of or feeling, to some extent, for the liturgical language of the other. Many things get lost in translation, which can never convey the sense of spiritual intimacy and beauty as the original language does. So attempting to become more familiar with the language of the Religious Other is for me a sign of the depth of engagement one is willing to undertake for the sake of friendship across traditions. This is obviously different from friendship within one’s own tradition, where one normally shares the same liturgical language.
With these initial personal reflections, we will now address the question of the role of spiritual friendship in Buddhist scriptures, first as presented in Pāli texts, and then in a well-known Mahāyāna text. We will then examine the question of Buddhist attitudes to the religious Other, and in the final section, offer some Buddhist perspectives on interreligious friendship.
Spiritual friendship in Pāli Buddhist scriptures
To say that spiritual friendship is of utmost importance in Buddhism may come as a surprise to some. Buddhism is associated with a monastic tradition that involves an individual follower’s renunciation of family and friends. The spiritual heroes of this tradition are those who practice their solitary meditation hidden in far-away caves in the Himalayas, monks and nuns who strive to overcome all attachments to worldly belongings and particularized human relationships. In the Western hemisphere, Buddhism is generally regarded as an individual pursuit, whether it be meditative or devotional practice.
Given all of this, a question arises: does spiritual friendship have a role in the pursuit of the Buddhist spiritual path? And if so, what kind of role? What does “spiritual friendship” entail in the first place? If we are to take “spiritual friend” as referring to someone who can be a guide to another on the Buddhist path, is this only applicable to the relationship between teacher and student, or does it encompass more than that? Can a teacher be considered as friend – since the relationship usually involves a hierarchy and vertical authority, which would normally be seen as a barrier to a mutually enriching two-way kind of personal intimacy? Is it thereby used in a metaphorical sense? And if the notion includes more than the friendship between teacher and student, what else is part of it? And if we were to grant that friendship is important in the context of Buddhist practice, should it be sought intentionally, or should we allow it to develop naturally? These are some of the questions that one might want to ask for further clarification.
As a starting point in addressing these questions, let us turn to the scriptural passage about the exchange between Ānanda and the Buddha, which is found in the Upaddha Sutta[2]:
“Thus I have heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling among the Sakyans where there was a town of the Sakyans named Sakkara. There Ven. Ānanda approached the Blessed One. Having approached, he paid homage to the Blessed One, sat down to one side and said to him: “Venerable sir, this is half of the holy life: good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”Not so, Ānanda! Not so, Ānanda! This is the entire holy life, that is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”
The Sanskrit expression for good friendship, translated as “spiritual friendship” by Subhuti,[3] on whose work I rely as one important source in this paper, is kalyāņa mitratā (Pāli: kalyāņa mittatā). Mitratā is an abstract noun derived from the word mitra meaning “friend” or “kin,” and thus is rendered as friendship or kinship. From mitra is derived the noun maitrī (metta in Pāli), usually translated as loving-kindness. A mitra is an embodiment of this attitude of lovingkindness. In the Metta Sutta, this is exemplified in the attitude of a mother who would risk her life to protect her only child. This is the attitude that a friend is to cultivate towards her friend and towards all sentient beings. Metta or loving kindness is one of the “Four Sublime Attitudes,” the states of mind or attitudes taught by the Buddha as conducive to as well as issuing from enlightenment. The other three are compassion (karunā), equanimity (uppekhā) and joy (muditā) at the fortune of others. A true spiritual friend is one who manifests these spiritual states or attitudes. Kalyāņa has various translations, such as “beautiful, charming, auspicious, helpful, good.” It can also be rendered as “noble” or “lovely” in Buddhist scriptures. The dharma or Buddhist teaching itself is described in several passages as kalyāņa in the beginning, kalyāņa in its middle and kalyāņa in its end.”[4]
As Subhuti writes, “a friendship that is kalyāņa therefore is lovely, not just because it is pleasant or warm, but because it is based on a shared orientation to what is ultimately beautiful: the transcendental reality known to the enlightened mind.”[5] The expression “spiritual friendship” distinguishes it from all other sorts of friendships by highlighting the basis and essence of this friendship as a shared spiritual aspiration, path and experience.
Turning to the Pāli Text Society`s Pāli-English dictionary, two definitions of the kalyāņa mitta can be found. The first one is “a good companion, a virtuous friend, a honest, pure friend,” said to “have faith, be virtuous, learned, liberal and wise.” The second definition, however, describes the kalyāņa mitta as “a spiritual guide, a spiritual advisor.” There is no inequality implied in the first part of the definition, while the second one involves a hierarchy between the guide and the one who is guided, the advisor and the advisee, in short, between teacher and student.
With this as the background, we may now want to ask what the Buddha understood by the spiritual life if the whole of it depends on spiritual friendship. This question is answered in the same text, in which the Buddha continues to tell Ānanda:
“When a bhikkhu (monk) as a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, it is to be expected that he will develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.”
This means that a monk or nun, with the help of a spiritual friend, will develop all of the aspects of the Path to Enlightenment which were taught in great detail by the Buddha. The eight aspects or disciplines of the path are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right meditation, and right awareness. As to the question of how the monk will develop and cultivate the noble Eightfold Path, the Buddha explains that the monk “develops right view, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion and cessation, maturing in release” and so on for each of the eight disciplines, concluding that “it is in this way, Ānanda, that a bhikkhu who has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path.”
We note here that “seclusion,” not companionship, and “dispassion and cessation,” not passion and clinging, are regarded as the attitudes that lead to “maturing in release,” namely to abandoning all forms of suffering and achieving liberation. Explaining “seclusion” as the first condition for maturing on the spiritual path seems to contradict the emphasis on the importance of a spiritual friend and companion. But as will become apparent from the tale of the Buddha’s disciple Meghiya described below, seclusion in this context is not understood as cutting oneself off from others, but precisely as practicing together with a spiritual friend. Solitary meditation is only encouraged periodically if the practitioner is mature enough to engage in it, but it is not a goal of the practice.[6]
In the second half of the text, the Buddha gives a second explanation of the dictum that spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual life, explaining that he, the Buddha himself is the Good Friend:
“By the following method too, Ānanda, it may be understood how the entire holy life is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship: by relying upon me as a good friend, Ānanda, beings subject to birth and death are freed from death; beings subject to sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair are freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair. By this method, Ānanda, it may be understood how the entire holy life is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”[7]
This notion of the Buddha himself as a good friend, the Good Friend par excellence if you will, in the sense of a Teacher who guides one on the path to liberation, is basic to Buddhist understanding. The Buddha is a Benefactor who showers one with blessings on the path of awakening, as well as Refuge upon which beings can rely for liberation from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The Buddha is also known as “the Teacher of gods and men” or as “Supreme Teacher.” Therefore, it is not surprising to affirm that relying on the Buddha as a spiritual friend and teacher per se is the whole of the spiritual life. Ānanda would have known that much. What he underestimated was the importance of spiritual friendship among equals.
The conversation with Ānanda on the topic of spiritual friendship was followed up by conversations with other disciples. When Śāriputra, the leading disciple, told the Buddha about his own insight, namely that spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual life, the Buddha approved of him by saying: “Good, good, Śāriputra” and gave the same explanation as to Ānanda. Later commentaries on the passage note that Śāriputra had correctly understood the importance of spiritual friendship, whereas Ānanda had not. On still another occasion, the Buddha also gave a full account of his conversation with Ānanda to King Pasenadi of Kosala who was his lay disciple, adding: “Therefore, great king, you should train yourself thus: “I will be one who has good friends, good companions, good comrades.” Having spiritual companions on the path is foundational teaching that transcends the monastic-lay divide. While the teaching is certainly important in a monastic context in which practitioners are expected to live together harmoniously and be examples for others to follow, the Buddha makes it clear in his teaching to the King of Kosala that the importance of spiritual companionship equally applies to lay life.
The Meghiya Sutta further elucidates that the company of a spiritual friend is especially crucial for those who have not yet reached maturity on the spiritual path. The occasion of the teaching is the following incident: Meghiya, a young attendant of the Buddha, insists on meditating alone in a Mango grove, not heeding the Buddha’s advice that he should wait for another monk to join him in this endeavor. After an afternoon spent alone meditating in the grove, Meghiya returns to the Buddha, chastened, and admits that instead of achieving spiritual insight, he was overcome by negative thoughts – greed, lust, jealousy, false thoughts, daydreaming. The Buddha does not rebuke Meghiya, but uses the experience as occasion for another teaching:
When liberation of the heart is not fully mature, Meghiya, five things conduce to full maturity. What five? In this connection, Meghiya, a monk is one with a good friend, one with a good companion, one with a good comrade. When liberation of the heart is not fully mature, Meghiya, this is the first thing that conduces to full maturity.” [8]
Rather than saying that it is important to seek out a teacher when we realize that our practice is rather immature, the Buddha here again highlights the importance of the spiritual friend. Spiritual friendship, according to this text, is the first condition that leads to the liberation of the heart. The second condition is virtuous or ethical living and action in accordance with the precepts; and the third is easy access to Dharma talk and discussions which are conducive to the spiritual life in all of its aspects. The fourth condition is the constant rousing of energy for the spiritual life; namely eliminating negative mental states and developing positive ones. The fifth condition is wisdom or insight, in the sense of a deep understanding of impermanence. These progressive stages on the spiritual path, setting out from moral discipline, maturing through spiritual effort and arriving at liberating wisdom, correspond to the stages of the Eightfold Path. Spiritual friendship is not a first stage that is left behind when the next stage is arrived at, but the continuous condition which makes progression on the path possible. Another text declares spiritual friendship as “the forerunner and precursor” of the arising of the Noble Eightfold Path, just as the dawn is the forerunner for the rising of the sun.[9]
There are many other Suttas in the Pāli canon that praise the value of spiritual friendship. Let us turn to one, the Sigālaka Sutta, in which the Buddha advises the young Brahmin Sigālaka on the social duties of ordinary life. This text is important in that it offers concrete guidance on the practice of friendship. In the central part of the discourse, the Buddha explains to Sigālaka the obligation and duties involved in the six fundamental human relationships, namely those between husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend, employer and employee, teacher and student as well as between the spiritual guide and student. Of these six the Buddha devotes much detail on the relationship between friends, introducing the topic by carefully pointing out to Sigālaka which four kinds of false or bad friends are to be avoided, and which four kinds of good friends are to be chosen and cultivated. The four kinds of good friends are: 1) ‘the friend who is a helper’, 2) ‘the friend who is the same in happy and unhappy times,’ 3) the friend who points out what is good for you”, and 4) the friend who is sympathetic.’ The Buddha then describes the qualities associated with each of the four types of friends. The friend ‘who points out what is good for you’ is clearly seen as a moral and spiritual guide, since he is described as someone who “keeps you from wrong-doing, supports you in doing good, informs you of what you did not know (i.e. his understanding of moral and spiritual matters)…and points out the way to heaven.”[10] Other qualities described in the four types of good friend are loyalty, trustworthiness, intimacy (keeping and sharing each other’s secrets), love, selfless service, and willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the other.
In contrast to this, the four kinds of bad or false friends to be avoided are 1) ‘One who takes (instead of gives),’ 2) ‘One who is a great talker,’ 3) ‘One who flatters (or only says pleasant things),’ and 4) ‘One who is a fellow-spendthrift or debauched companion.’ Again, four detailed characteristics are given of each type. The Buddha’s advice to Sigālaka to avoid contacts with those who are not devoted to practicing good is common-sense, and underscores the teaching of the importance of true spiritual friends on the path.[11]
While one task of this paper is to examine the notion of friendship in Buddhism, the question of course is whether the lessons learned about friendship between practitioners of the same tradition can be applied to friendship with adherents of others traditions. In our view, the Buddhist teachings about friendship contained in these basic Pāli texts on the topic discussed above lend themselves very well to the task. The characteristics of the good friend, one whose friendship is conducive to and beneficial for one’s own deepening in the path of awakening, could as well refer to those who may not necessarily be Buddhist, but who manifest a character of uprightness and conscientiousness, as well as openness to others from a heart of compassion.[12] Conversely, the description of the characteristics of those to be avoided as “false friends” gives no indication that such persons are not Buddhist, at least in the nominal sense. In short, the kind of friendship advocated by this sutta has little to do with institutional affiliation, and everything to do with the spiritual qualities of the friend.[13]
Further, we would like to argue that a spiritual friend who exhibits the qualities outlined by the Buddha in the passage from the Sigālaka Sutta cited above but who may happen to be from outside of the tradition can help and inspire us to lead a more authentic and ethical life, to deepen our understanding on spiritual matters, to bring energy and determination to our practice, and to develop wisdom —the five conditions to reach spiritual maturity mentioned in the Meghiya Sutta. This is just as much and perhaps more so than a friend from within the same (Buddhist) tradition. We venture to say this for the following reason: mutual rapport and spiritual friendship with non-Buddhists who are of admirable character and who exhibit exemplary spiritual qualities may inspire and challenge a Buddhist all the more to live in an authentic way as befitting one’s own (Buddhist) tradition that professes to be a path of awakening grounded in wisdom and compassion.
Spiritual Friendship in the Gandavyūha Sutra
Let us now turn to a Mahāyāna scriptural text wherein spiritual friendship is upheld and celebrated as a central feature of the Buddhist path. The Gandavyūha Sūtra (World Array Sutra) was incorporated as the culminating chapter into the vast corpus of the Avatamsaka Sūtra (Flower Garland Sutra), the foundational text of the Chinese Hua-yen school, and one of the most influential Mahāyāna texts in East Asian Buddhism. This (Gandavyūha) Sutra, which is widely circulated and read as an independent text, describes the pilgrimage of the young Sudhana, son of a merchant who aspires to become a Bodhisattva in order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. Encouraged by his teacher, the Bodhisattva Manjuśri (who symbolizes wisdom), to seek out “good friends” who could help him realize his aspiration, Sudhana sets out on his pilgrimage that will lead him to fifty-three such good friends, spiritual teachers who help him along the path. The text describes his departure in a moving scene:
“Then Sudhana, pleased, enraptured, transported with joy, delighted, happy, and cheerful, laid his head at the feet of Manjuśri in respect, circled Manjuśri hundreds of times, and looked at him hundreds and thousands of times, with a mind full of love for the spiritual friend, unable to bear not seeing the spiritual friend, with tears streaming down his face as he wept, and left Manjusri.”[14]
Starting from the first friend, the monk Meghaśri, each of the good friends that Sudhana visits demonstrates one aspect of enlightened practice and then sends him to visit the next good friend to further help him deepen his insight. Along the way, the pilgrim Sudhana receives many teachings on the value of spiritual friendship, such as the following:
O son of a Noble family, you must be unwearied in your search for friends in the good life, you must never feel contented with (merely) seeing friends in the good life; you must never feel satisfied with (merely) conversing with friends in the good life; you must never abandon your intention of being in the company of friends in the good life……O son of a noble family, kept back by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not fall into the pits of woeful existences; surrounded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not turn away from the great career (Mahāyāna); exhorted by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not forsake the teachings of the Bodhsiattva, guarded by friends in the good life the Bodhisattvas do not come under the power of bad friends.[15]
The ensuing eulogy in praise of friendship in this text in many ways is reminiscent of the Buddha’s saying about spiritual friendship as the whole of the spiritual life:
Furthermore, O son of a noble family, friends in the good life are a mother, because they give birth (to Bodhisattvas in the Buddha families), friends in the good life are a father, because they bring immense good;…friends in the good life are a physician, because they free (the Bodhisattvas) from the disease of self-centered passion; friends in the good life are the Himalaya mountains, because they make the herb of knowledge grow; friends in the good life are heroes, because they protect the Bodhisattvas against all dangers.”[16]
In the Gandavyūha the expression “good friend” is used both in a vertical sense, as a spiritual teacher, implying a teacher-student relationship, as well as in the horizontal sense of equals who rely on mutual support and help in a community of spiritual seekers.
Sudhana finally reaches the abode of the Bodhisattva Maitreya (whose name, derived from maîtrī, means the “friendly one”), from where he is given a penetrating vision of the universe from the point of view of enlightenment. The text powerfully describes an interconnected, infinite universe through the image of Indra’s net – a net in which each of the countless jewels that adorns its knots reflects the totality of all the other jewels. To his amazement, the pilgrim Sudhana “saw the whole supernal manifestation, was perfectly aware of it, understood it, contemplated it, used it as a means, beheld it, and saw himself there.”[17] With this vision, Sudhana returns to the Bodhisattva Manjusri, who had sent him out on his journey, and makes a final visit to the Bodhisattva Samanthabhadra (who symbolizes enlightened practice), who enjoins him to take on the ten Bodhisattva vows to embody his wisdom in compassion that benefits all sentient beings.
The importance of this text in East Asian Buddhism cannot be overestimated. For example, the bas reliefs of the Borobodur temple (8-9th century) complex in Java depict the scenes of Sudhana`s pilgrimage to the fifty-three good friends, and the number of the fifty-three stations of the old Tokaido road from Tokyo to Kyoto is also based on this text. The symbolism would have come home to anyone who may have traversed this old Tokaido road on bullock carts or on foot in the olden days before motor vehicles. A journey through this road would have taken days, weeks, or months, and finding good companions along the way, sharing stories, as well as meals and lodging with them not only would make the trip itself more pleasant and enjoyable, but would also enable one to establish friendships that can also enrich the traveler’s entire life.
A more recent example of the influence of the story of Sudhana is embodied in the Museum of World Religions founded by Dharma Master Hsin Tao. This Museum, which opened in Taipei in the year 2000, is inspired by the vision of the universe of mutual interconnectedness and interpenetration symbolized by Indra`s net as depicted in the Avatamsakautra. In Master Hsin Tao’s view, the various religions and their adherents relate to each other as the shining jewels in Indra’s net.[18] Here we see one concrete example in which the teaching on friendship contained in the Gandavyūha Sūtra is taken beyond its strictly Buddhist context to include the religious other as a “good friend.” We will refer to this again in the concluding section detailing Dharma Master’s experience of interreligious friendship.
Buddhists and Religious Others
At this point, we ask: are there specific passages in Buddhist texts that address how to relate with non-Buddhists? What attitudes have Buddhists taken vis-à-vis Religious Others over the course of history?[19]
One example is the puthujjana, which has been noted by Richard Hayes in his paper for the Elijah Conference on Hostility and Hospitality and the Hope of Human Flourishing.[20] Hayes points out that in some of the post-canonical Pāli texts, the expression puthujjana refers to either 1) the masses, majority of people or 2) outsiders– those who have not chosen to become Buddhists for various reasons. Hayes further notes that the expression puthujjana is most often found in connection with the adjective bala, which means childish, adolescent, immature or not fully developed. The Buddha’s advice is to avoid too much contact with such people because, as noted above, association with like-minded people on the path is more helpful than the association of those whose life-style is not directed towards the Eightfold Noble Path.
In Hayesexplanation, the “outsider” here is not to be regarded as other “in the sense of belonging to an alien species or perhaps another race or social group, but rather as other in the sense that an adult is other than a child of the same species. The Other, then just a being much like oneself in an earlier stage of development, therefore is someone to be nourished and protected and helped along until maturity sets in.”[21]
A problem with viewing the Other as someone in a still less mature stage of development is that it manifests a condescending attitude vis-à-vis the religious Other, rather than regarding the latter as someone from whom one can learn and whose friendship can be a help on one’s own path of awakening. This condescending attitude is certainly to be found within the tradition in many forms – not only with regard to the outsider, but even with regard to people belonging to different schools within Buddhism or adherents other Buddhist teachers. For example, as Victor Hori has pointed out,[22] and as it has been my own experience too, some Zen Teachers in the West claim and tell their students that they alone have preserved the true tradition and heart of the teaching, whereas Zen in Japan, or even in China, has lost its essence, or the “clear eye.” This kind of attitude, needless to say, creates the unwarranted illusion of spiritual superiority, one that would preclude spiritual friendship with the other as a mutual learning process. No wine can be poured into a cup that is already full to the brim.
There are scriptural and commentarial texts throughout the history of the tradition that deal with disputations between Buddhists and non-Buddhists, “those outside the Way,” meant to show how Buddhist teaching is superior to that of others. Due to space limitations we will not go into detail here, beyond mentioning that such condescending attitudes can be found in the tradition in its various stages throughout history.
The Buddhist attitude towards the Other, specifically the religious Other, is generally said to have been more benign and less hostile and confrontational as compared with attitudes found in fundamentalist-leaning forms of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism, wherein the religious Other is regarded not only with condescension, but also in many cases with contempt, and even hostility. Hostility vis-a-vis the religious Other, needless to say, is the factor behind much of the conflict and religiously motivated violence, including organized warfare, that we find in so many instances in our human history.[23] Before extolling Buddhism in a one-sided way, however, there are noted historical instances that call our attention, and caution us from regarding the Buddhist tradition as exceptional and laudable in comparison with others. [24]
Even against the background of an attitude of condescension, there is nevertheless in Buddhism some kind of recognition that the Other, following the law of cause and effect, is eventually going to change and find his or her way on the path to awakening at some point in the cycle of numerous rebirths. Buddhists acknowledge that religious belonging, like everything else, is based on karmic causes. Through auspicious karma, such as an encounter with someone already awakened or well on the path to awakening, a person of another religious tradition may come to realize the Way.
An example of an encounter with a non-Buddhist is given in the Wumen-kuan (Mumonkan in Japanese) or “Gateless Gate,” a collection of Zen Koans compiled in the thirteenth century.
A non-Buddhist in all earnestness asked the World Honoured One. “I do not ask about words, I do not ask about no-words.” The World Honoured One sat still. The non-Buddhist praised him, saying, “The World Honoured One in his great benevolence and great mercy has opened the clouds of my delusion and has enabled me to enter the Way. Then bowing, he took his leave. Ānanda asked Buddha, “What did the non-Buddhist realize that made him praise you so much?” The World Honoured One replied, “He is just like a fine horse that runs even at the shadow of the whip.
Wumen’s Commentary: Ānanda is Buddha’s disciple, but his realization is less than the non-Buddhist. Now tell me, how far is the distance between the non-Buddhist and Buddha’s disciple?[25]
Here the non-Buddhist who, upon encountering the Buddha and thereby realized the True Way, is extolled and highly regarded, even more than the Buddhist follower Ānanda. This reveals somewhat of a different attitude toward the Religious Other than those texts meant to prove the superiority of Buddhists above those in rival traditions, though admittedly even in this case it is a given that the Buddha, the World Honoured One, is the Teacher who reveals the True Way to all, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.
While there is no denying that a condescending attitude exists among Buddhists in no way different from among adherents of other traditions convinced of the superiority of their own vis-à-vis others, we fortunately also have examples to the contrary. We will examine more of these in our next, and concluding section, coming back to the question of the significance of interreligious friendships for leading an authentic religious life within one’s own tradition.
Stepping Forward: Spiritual Friendship in Interreligious Context
Spiritual friendship is upheld as a vital aspect on the path of awakening, as we have demonstrated in our examination of and reflection on Buddhist scriptural texts. However, we will be at a loss to find specific and explicit passages dealing with interreligious friendship in traditional Buddhist scriptural or commentarial texts that come down to us in history. For this we will have to turn to the living testimony of contemporary Buddhist practitioners and teachers.
The example of Dharma Master Hsin Tao and the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan has been mentioned above, as deeply influenced by the Buddhist vision of ultimate reality as expounded in the Avatamsaka Sūtra. In the course of actualizing this vision through the lengthy, intricate and multidimensional process of establishing, maintaining, and sustaining the Museum of World Religions, the Dharma Master and his associates have come to new levels of awareness of the significance of this Jewel Net of Indra, in and through their repeated encounters and visits with adherents, scholars and leaders of various religious traditions from different parts of the world. [26] In short, as the manifold jewels of this Net of Indra came to be seen not just as referring to “all peoples of the world” in a generic way, but also concretely as representing the adherents of the variety of religious traditions throughout the world, the task of engaging adherents of other religions in cooperative ventures precisely as a way of embodying the Buddhist dharma in this multifaith world came to be manifest.
The interreligious gatherings, symposia, dialogue events and other forms of encounters sponsored and promoted by the Dharma Master and the Museum through its International Programs office have all been inspired by the interreligious friendships forged in the process, and in turn have become the occasion for new and renewed interreligious friendships that enrich all the participants concerned. This enrichment refers both to the enhanced appreciation of one’s own religious heritage, as well as to the deepened and broadened way of understanding Religious Others that one comes to meet and befriend in the process.[27]
Another example of how interreligious friendship enhances and deepens appreciation of Buddhist praxis as well as understanding of reality is conveyed by the person and work of John Makransky, an American-born Lama and respected Teacher in the Nying-ma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In the process of practicing and teaching the Dharma, Lama Makransky has become a living embodiment of how interreligious friendship enriches and fulfills this very Dharma. He recounts his friendships with Christians and Jews, among whom are his academic colleagues, as well as students in the practice of Dharma.[28] From these interreligious friendships, he describes an enriched and enhanced understanding and appreciation of his own Buddhist tradition. Concretely, he delineates how new light is shed a) on Buddhist praxis by the Christian notion of atonement, b) on the Buddhist understanding of refuge, through the notion of absolute surrender and faith to God, c) the notion of the unity of wisdom and love on the bodhisattva path through a reflective consideration of the Two Great Commandments (to love God, and love one’s neighbor as oneself), d) the intrinsically communal nature of the bodhisattva path and its fruition, through comparative reflections with Christian notions of the ecclesial body as knit together in Christ by the Spirit, and e) the Bodhisattva practice of compassion, through the Christian notion of justice. [29]
In reflecting on these facets of Buddhist doctrine and praxis set in relief vis-à-vis Christian themes, Makransky is exploring new avenues for Buddhists in understanding and appreciating their own tradition, and forging new paths in the organic development of Buddhism in the context of a globalized society.
We may cite other well-known Buddhist leaders like Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhadhasa Bhikku, and other prominent Buddhists in Asia as well as the Western hemisphere who arguably may well have been influenced in their dharmic teaching and praxis by notions from other religions, notably by the emphasis on social engagement and social justice found in the Judeo-Christian tradition.[30]
It would be difficult to find a more prominent representative and spokesperson on behalf of the virtue of interreligious friendship from the Buddhist tradition than H. H. the Dalai Lama, who is renowned all over the world as a spiritual leader and revered by his followers as the 14th incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion. H.H. the Dalai Lama has written about his personal friendships with adherents of other traditions. In his book Toward A True Kinship of Faiths: How the World`s Religions Can Come Together[31] he recounts his encounters with representatives of the major world religions during his journey, and describes his resulting insights into these religions.
The book also presents his carefully developed theory that all religions are grounded on the principle of compassion. The book is an appeal to the urgency of wholesome relations between the religions of the world, since: “The line between exclusivism – which takes one’s own religion to be the only legitimate faith – and fundamentalism is a dangerously narrow one; the line between fundamentalism and extremism is even narrower. The time has come for every individual adherent of a major world religion to ask: ‘What, in my heart of hearts, is my attitude to the followers of other faiths?’”[32] As a response to this question the Dalai Lama then proceeds to give the example of his own encounter with and followers of other faiths, which is based on the premise that there can indeed be a true kinship of faiths, which reveals itself to him in the experience of meeting the religious other and subsequent reflections.
As Alon Goshen-Gottstein writes in his review of the book, “The first lesson that can be learned from a close reading of how the Dalai Lama describes his various encounters with other religious leaders is that the Dalai Lama does not meet ideas, institutions or even leaders. He meets people, with whom he forms friendships, who impress and inspire him, and who provide him with the living testimonies of the power of faith in their lives, the power in light of which his recognitions and theories are formulated. Interreligious friendship is the foundation of the Dalai Lama’s journey. The Dalai Lama is always appreciative of his various meetings and prepared to learn something meaningful from the representative of another religion. However, some people touch his heart, and those seem to provide the true foundation for his reflections. Not surprisingly, the people that touch him most are the practitioners whose lives and teachings offer testimony to the depth of the power of spirit in their lives. Again, not surprisingly, the figures that seem to touch him in the deepest way are those that have an openness to the spirit that extends beyond the boundaries of their own religion.”[33]
One such person was the Cistercian monk, Thomas Merton, whom the Dalai Lama calls “a friend, an important ally in the promotion of inter-religious dialogue and a mentor,”[34] with whom he was able “to explore deeply, in a series of conversations, some personal spiritual experiences on my part.” The Dalai Lama writes that he found “deep resonances with the Christian symbol of the cross and the person of Jesus,” as he sees in Jesus’ taking on himself the suffering of all beings and sacrificing his life out of love the perfect embodiment of the Bodhisattva ideal. While the cross is the symbol of compassion, the image of Mary holding the child Jesus is for him a powerful symbol of love, creating deep resonances with his own Buddhist tradition, “which compares loving-kindness and compassion with the unconditional affection of a mother for her children and then extends that affection until it encompasses all beings.[35] What the Dalai Lama found deeply inspiring in Merton was “his engagement with Buddhism, in that it reflected great courage on his part to explore traditions beyond his own.” [36] In this remark we find something that is not yet present in the Buddhist scriptures that I have cited so far: the encouragement to explore a tradition beyond one’s own, and the praise for the courage of doing so. On the other hand, the basic injunction of the Buddha’s teaching that the student should not rely on his words “because of hearsay or tradition, but to test them out for himself”[37] would lend itself precisely to this more daring attitude to apply the teachings in a new context, such as a spiritual friendship that goes beyond the tradition. The Dalai Lama’s comment also highlights the transformative effect that a deep and personal engagement with the tradition of the religious other has on oneself, in that it opens the door to mutual trust, friendship and reciprocity. The key insight and deeply shared conviction that the Dalai Lama received from Merton was the clear recognition that it is possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to one’s own tradition and practice while learning in depth from the discipline and experience of another tradition. The Dalai Lama has come to see this conviction as the foundation of genuine interreligious dialogue, and accordingly encourages his listeners not to abandon their own religious traditions in favor of Buddhism.
In his friendship and conversations with Thomas Merton and other Catholic contemplatives named in the book, the shared background and ideal of a monastic and celibate life provided the basis for more intimate explorations into practice and spirituality, based on shared experience. Thus Merton familiarized H. H. with the writings of John Cassian, who introduced monasticism from Egypt to the West in the 5th century, with the rules of St. Benedict, and explained the vows that are taken up by a Cistercian monk. Being introduced to the writings of St. John of the Cross in a conference on contemplative prayer, in which the Dalai Lama listened to Father Eugene McCaffrey’s presentation “almost in a manner of guided meditation,” the Dalai Lama came to feel “a deep connection between St. John of the Cross’s (1542-1591) vision of the journey of the soul in its search for the Divine within and the Buddhism meditation on the dissolution of the Self. In both these cases, the individual is led through stages of increasing loss of self identity beyond the utterly radical vision of existence beyond the bounds of individual selfhood. Even John of the Cross’s description of the terror, the sense of loss, in what he calls “the dark night” echoes the phenomenological descriptions of the no-self experience in the Buddhist contemplative tradition, where the meditator who dissolves a sense of the solidity of self comes to confront what is called “terror in the face of emptiness.”[38]
Through his friendship and discussion with Father Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine Monk who spent most of his life in India and was an expert in Hindu and Buddhist thought, the Dalai Lama came to a deeper appreciation of the reason why Christians emphasize the particularity of one’s life as created by God, and do not accept the Buddhist theory of rebirth: “I realize how meaningful it must be to understand that one’s life is created directly by God. This naturally affords a powerful sense of connection with God – in fact a sense of intimacy almost in the fashion of a child’s love toward its mother.”[39] However, after devoting much thought and conversation to the notion of Divinity, as expressed in the Trinity in the Christian tradition and comparing it to a structurally parallel notion of the Trikāya or three bodies of the Buddha in Buddhism, the Dalai Lama comes to the very honest and frank conclusion that, while “the full nature of Divinity must remain beyond the boundaries of language and thought,”[40] nevertheless, “in the final analysis, despite the striking parallels between Buddhist and Christian doctrines, the two traditions have to part company when it comes to the notion of an absolute Transcendent Being. For Buddhism, given the centrality of an understanding of the universality of the law of causality and interdependence, from the philosophical point of view, any notion of the absolute is problematic.”[41]
In my focus on the Dalai Lama’s part in the book that is devoted to his encounter with “good friends” from within the Roman Catholic Tradition, I am selective, which I need to be, given the limitations of space. One of the reasons for this focus is the fact that, as the Dalai Lama tells us, among all of his contacts with religions outside of Buddhism, the one with Christianity, in particular, with Roman Catholicism, has been the closest. This has to do, as he says, with his friendship with Thomas Merton, and subsequent friendships with other Catholic teachers like John Main, Bede Griffiths, Thomas Keating and Laurence Freeman, who were all actively involved in interreligious dialogue. In other words, the openness to interreligious dialogue in the Catholic Tradition since the Second Vatican Council and the eagerness of Catholics such as Thomas Merton and other pioneers to reach out and open themselves to other religions in dialogue, their eagerness to learn from Buddhist teachings and practices, as well as the shared tradition of monasticism, prepared the ground for the seeds of interreligious friendship to grow and blossom.
Another point may be said here as well. Perhaps the fact that friendship also has to be reciprocal to really have the power to shape and transform us, needs to be restated here. The openness the Dalai Lama experienced in interreligious dialogue with Catholics from the Catholic side of things provided more room for him to be shaped by those relationships, to feel connected to Catholicism in ways that he may not have experienced with other traditions. There is only so far we can go in a friendship on our own, but eventually we have to be met by the other or the friendship dies.[42]
It is clear from the above that the Dalai Lama, through his friendships with Catholics, came to understand and appreciate Christianity, specifically Catholicism, the religious tradition of his friends, in a much deeper and enhanced way. But the question to be asked is this: did he become a “better” Buddhist in the process of cultivating these friendships, or as an outcome of these? We venture to say that if being Buddhist means to walk on the path of awakening, we will be well grounded in affirming that the Dalai Lama arrived at a deeply enhanced and enriched way of being awakened, precisely in being able to better understand and appreciate the perspectives and religious practices of his friends. In short, in coming to understand and appreciate the religious Other and find spiritual resonances with them, his own way of “being Buddhist” has undoubtedly been enhanced and enriched.
The Dalai Lama, as the most visible representative of the Buddhist community and tradition in our contemporary world, is embodying a way of “being Buddhist” that now irreversibly includes the feature of “being in interreligious friendships” with persons from other traditions: he has incorporated this feature into his very being as a Buddhist. And in being so, he is taking his own tradition forward to a new stage of its development in history.
In spite of the deep commonalities of and resonances between the teachings of the two traditions described above, the Dalai Lama holds his Buddhist ground when he says that the notion of a loving and compassionate God – the basis for understanding between Buddhist and Christians, is at the same time what ultimately divides them. At least, this is how I read his statement about “parting ways” quoted above. But is this Christian notion of God, of the Trinity, a hindrance to spiritual friendship with Buddhists? The answer is obvious – not at all! While commonalities and shared experiences are the stuff that spiritual friendship is made of, it is in truth that which is different in the other, and that which we respect, or more importantly, love as being different, which makes a true spiritual friendship possible. This is a paradox, but an important one. Ultimate truth, the wisdom arrived at in Buddhism by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, is no other than a paradox. How could the realization of absolute Non-duality, also called Emptiness, one that recognizes each and every thing in itself as full expression of the very fact of Non-duality, be anything other than a paradox?
Buddhism developed in the past through its encounter with new cultures, as it was transplanted from India to other Asian countries, and more recently, to the Western hemisphere, in manifold ways that led to the immense enrichment of its doctrinal content, ritual form as well as modes of spiritual praxis.[43] In our globalized and multireligious society, where interaction between people of different religious traditions on many levels is a daily reality, spiritual friendships between Buddhists (as embodied and exemplified in the person of the Dalai Lama) and adherents of other religious traditions are no longer rare occurrences. Such interreligious friendships naturally come to bear fruit in the personal lives of those so involved, and will inspire new “ways of being Buddhist,” not to mention new “ways of being religious” in those from the different traditions engaged in such friendships. We venture to say that new horizons in world religious history are being forged, as interreligious friendships bear fruit in the lives of individuals and communities of adherents of the different religious traditions of the world.
A Buddhist Christian Epilogue
We conclude with a self-disclosure. We the co-authors of this paper, both nourished in the Catholic Christian tradition since childhood, through auspicious encounters with certain good friends, began our Buddhist practice (specifically, the practice of Zen meditation) in our twenties. We are grateful to have been nourished and sustained in the Buddhist path through the years, as we also continue to find spiritual nourishment in our Christian faith tradition.
Now at the heart of the Christian religious tradition is that ubiquitous figure on the Cross. Christian churches throughout the world exhibit this religious icon as a centerpiece, and this fact indicates its centrality in the Christian vision of ultimate reality. We will not go in detail into the theology of the Cross here, but only cite a passage in John 15:3, as a clue to its significance and import for our theme. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
This willingness to give one’s life and die for one’s friends, which is what sums up the life and teaching, the Spirit, of Jesus the Christ, confronts and challenges anyone of us considering the meaning of friendship, interreligious or otherwise. This Spirit of Jesus Christ conveyed in the passage above, incidentally, coincides perfectly with the heart of the Bodhisattva, one who is no less willing to give oneself and one’s entire life, and even die so that others may live, and have the fullness of wellbeing.
As we enter into realm where the Spirit of Christ, the heart of the Bodhisattva reigns, we open our eyes and find ourselves in a sacred space where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male or female…” (Galatians 3:28), and for that matter, no Buddhist nor Christian,
[1] The initial draft of this paper was written by Maria, and subsequently revised and supplemented by Ruben, with Maria’s concurrence. The singular first person is Maria’s voice, and the “we” statements reflect our voices in unison.
[2] Samyutta Nikāya 45.2, translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi in “The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: a new translation of the Samyutta Nikāya, Wisdom Publications, Boston 2000, p.1524
[3] Subuthi, Buddhism and Friendship, Windhorse Publications, Birmingham 2004
[4] For example, see Maurice Walsh, (transl.) The long discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya, Wisdom Publications, Boston 1995, p. 99.
[5] Subhuti 2004, p. 12.
[6] Subhuti 2004, chapter 3, p. 39-43
[7] Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2000 (transl.), p. 1524-55.
[8] Peter Masefield (transl), The Udāna, Pāli Text Society, Oxford 1994, p. 63.
[9] Bikkhu Bodhi, 2000, (trans), p. 1543
[10] Maurice Walsh 1995 (transl.), p. p.461-9, verse 24, Subhuti, 2004, p. 44.
[11] Ibid, …
[12] This is the kind of character that His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to as “the Good Heart,” applicable to Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.
[13] Here we are indebted to our good friend Vanessa Sasson, who read an earlier version of this paper, for her insightful suggestion on this point.
[14] Thomas Cleary (trans), The Flower Ornament Scripture, A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra, ShambalaPublications, Boston 1993, p. 1174.
[15] H.V. Guenther (transl.), Excerpts from the Gandavyūha Sutra, in Tibetan Buddhism in Western perspective, Dharma Publishing, California 1977, p. 11; 13-14.
[16] Guenther, p. 15
[17] Thomas Cleary (transl.), The Flower Ornament Scripture 3, Entry into the Realm of Reality. Shambhala, 1987, p. 369.
[18] Maria Reis Habito, “Master Hsin Tao`s vision: The Museum of World Religions” in Arvind Sharma, ed. The World Religions after Sep.11, Praeger Perspectives 2009, Vol 3, pp. 3-13.
[19] For more comprehensive treatments of Buddhist attitudes toward the Religious Other, cf. John Makransky, Buddhist Perspectives on Truth in Other Religions, Past and Present,” in Theological Studies 64 (No.2), 2003, pp. 334-361, and Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Buddhist Attitudes to Other Religions, St. Ottilien, Germany: EOS Editions, 2008.
[20] Forthcoming, Fordham University Press.
[21] Richard Hayes, Chapter 6, p. 12- 13 (in manuscript) check.
[22] Source (Tricyle essay)
[23] See for example Karen Armstrong, Holy War: The Crusades and their impact on Today’s World. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.
[24] See Tessa J. Bartolomeuz, In Defense of Dharma: Just War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka, New York and London: Routledge/Curzon, 2002, and Brian Victoria, Zen at War, Second Edition, Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
[25] Koun Yamada, The Gateless Gate, No. 32, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004, p. 157.
[26] This Jewel Net of Indra, which represents this multifaceted universe, is comprised of an infinite number of eyes of the net, with each eye containing a marvelous and unique jewel. As one looks closely, lo and behold, each single jewel shines and reflects every other jewel contained in the entire net, and conversely, each jewel is contained and reflected in all the others. This no less than a breathtaking and stunning image of the world of interconnectedness.
[27] During the time of this writing, the Museum celebrated the tenth anniversary of its opening, with international symposia with speakers and guests from different countries representing many religious traditions, special exhibits, and celebratory events at the Museum site in Taipei, Taiwan as well as in Ling Jiou Shan Monastery, the home monastery of Dharma Master Hsin Tao.
[28] In particular, he cites his own longterm friendship with S. Mark Heim, a noted Christian theologian and theological educator.
[29] John Makransky, “Thoughts on Why, How, and What Buddhists can learn from Christian Theologians,” in Buddhist Christian Studies 31 (2011), pp. 119-133.
[30] Western Buddhists who identify with Socially (and Ecologically) Engaged forms of Buddhist praxis turn to the very wellsprings of the Buddhist tradition and its emphasis on compassion and compassionate action, and may or may not explicitly connect their socio-ecological engagement with extraneous influences. However, the fact that the Jewish notion of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), and the Christian notion of social justice are part of the intellectual and cultural landscape in Western societies influenced by the Judaeo-Christian heritage, and the fact that Buddhists in these societies inevitably are drawn to cooperative ventures, and conceivably, friendships with other socio-ecologically engaged persons from the Jewish and Christian traditions, provides us with an area for further study and reflection on various ways interreligious friendship impact our contemporary multifaith society.
[31] Published by Doubleday, NY, 2010.
[32] H.H. The Dalai Lama, 2010, p, IX
[33] Wisdom Newsletter of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, June 2010
[34] H.H. Dalai Lama 2010, p.59
[35] Ibid, p.58
[36] Ibid, pp. 9, 10.
[37] Anguttara Nikāya 3.65, Kalama Sutta, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikku 1994, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html.
[38] Ibid, p.73, 74
[39] Ibid, p. 67
[40] Ibid, p.69
[41] Ibid, p.71.
[42] Again, we are grateful to our good and dear friend Vanessa Sasson, for articulating this and noting this in her comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
[43] See Ruben L.F. Habito, Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion, Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2005, for an account of the organic development of the Buddhist tradition the major forms of Buddhist religious life and praxis in our contemporary world.
