Reflections on Buddhism and Christianity

Charles Day

Years of practicing meditation and studying various religions, especially Buddhism, have resulted in a much greater understanding and appreciation of my root-religion, Christianity. Increasingly, the differences in religious ideologies, doctrines, rites, rituals, and practices, while respectable and inevitable, seem ultimately and utterly irrelevant.

All religions share the same basic ethics, virtues, and values and advocate living in peace and harmony with each other, with all of creation, and within oneself.  And all religions, according to their mystics, aspire to the same transcendent experience of unity, realization, enlightenment, union with God, and the awareness that everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent.  These essential commonalties clearly outweigh the doctrinal differences between religions, and it is from this perspective that I offer the following reflections on Christianity and Buddhism. Unless otherwise sited, my Christian reflections are based on the King James Version of the Bible, and my Buddhist reflections come from multiple sources, including The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998.

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