= = = = = =uan wrote:That's one way to look at Christianity. Another valid way is that the focus is really on Jesus's teachings, not just Jesus. Re Buddhism, some traditions have him as a human being who became Buddha, other traditions have him as already being a Buddha who just went through the motions. In Pure Land Buddhism, the focus is on Amitābha, less so the Dharma, as the practitioner, once reborn in Amitābha's Pure Land, will be taught the Dharma. Then there is Guru Yoga where "The Guru is Buddha, the Guru is Dharma, the Guru is also Sangha" (quote taken from Wikipedia).steveb1 wrote:
Of all religions, Christianity is focused on the life of a human being. While Buddhism is essentially indebted to Gotama, its adherents do not see him as God/Son of God/Revealer of Heaven's will and Heaven's secrets. The Dharma, not any particular Buddha, is Buddhism's core focus.
There is a large devotional tradition around Jesus, but it's his teaching that is most important. Sutras are the teachings of Buddha, and often start out with Buddha and the assembly of 1250 monks and disciples etc and then Buddha goes into his teachings. The new testament of the Bible is very similar, with Jesus giving sermons to his disciples and/or to a group of people (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount).
If you go into the house of a Tibetan, you'll find a shrine with a picture of the HHDL. Go into the house of a Catholic and you'll find a shrine with the picture of the Pope. Are these people worshipping the man, or the what the man represents? It probably boils down to the individual practitioner.
I think it's too easy to say Christians follow a man, but Buddhist follow the Dharma. We're not even talking about the more esoteric/mystical sects within Christianity (or Judaism and Islam).
Points well taken - there are many who do strive to follow Jesus' teachings, but the intervening, subsequent outcome of his career was, fortunately or not, his resurrection, his ascension into Heaven, his attaining the throne of authority "at God's right hand", his position as Messiah-Designate who on his return will finally be the full Messiah, fulfill the Hebrew prophecies, and judge all humanity. Addtionally, he is considered to be - both during his life and in his apotheosis - divine, the Son of God.
None of these mystical/transcendental traits can be omitted without simultaneously misrepresenting "the fulness of Christ" which Christianity claims to have inherited and constantly guards from misinterpretation. Christ's fulness by definition includes his unique Sonship (whether bestowed during his baptism by John, conferred on him via the resurrection, or eternally belonging to him ontologically); his unique status as Messiah-Designate; his own statement of identity with the Adam Kadmon or Heavenly Christ/Son of Man; his unique status as broker for the Kingdom of Heaven which was no longer only in the future, but was in-breaking even as he spoke, and this as a result of his mission, etc.
Deletion of all or most of these factors really destroys the Christian Jesus - much like Thomas Jefferson's irrational "rationalism" drove him to physically cut out from the New Testament all of those miraculous accounts that so affronted his Enlightenment biases. The Jefferson Bible is simpy a mutilation - as would be Jesus without the nonrational factors - and many significant christological titles and affirmations - that normative Christianity ascribes to him.
Yes, it is possible to practice Jesus' ethic of compassion, but according to Jesus himself, this cannot be done without the nourishment that living, active union with the Sacred provides. Moreover, while Jesus had the Gospel, Buddha had the Dharma, and while in some ways these may be roughly equivalent and compatible (both have an ethic of compassion and a path of dying to the egoic self), still there are differences, the main one being a clear means of spiritual transformation.
Jesus never gave (at least it's never been recorded) a simple diagnosis of the human condition and various means to transcend that condition. Jesus, unlike Buddha, left no system of thinking and meditation by which the practitioner could enter the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Jesus did say a few things about entering the Kingdom through loving self-sacrifice, selling property and giving the proceeds to the poor, loving much/forgiving much ... but, unlike Buddha, Jesus had no specific program for spiritual transformation. As far as we can tell, early Christian prayer was just that - mostly petitionary, Jewish-type prayer, with the only addition being that Christians now prayed to the Jewish God "through" or "in" Jesus' name.
But I know of no NT prayer, or prayer of the early church period, that was meditative or contemplative. There was a prayer of "stilling the heart before God" practiced in the East, but it was never widely practiced or taught to the masses - and still, the object of that prayer was not clear-mindedness or Bodhi, but rather at most union with the Hebrew God and/or the Spirit of Jesus himself. And there is no evidence that this kind of contemplative prayer went back to Jesus' own practice.
So other than following Jesus' instructions to make your prayer simple, silent, non-wordy and humble; practicing Torah piety with no hope of reward from those you have helped; and attempting to view God through Jesus' own "lens" ... Christianity seems relatively clumsy in contrast to the precise and manifold methods of Buddhism.
You write: "it's his teaching that is most important"
Unfortunately, it is not his teaching that is commonly "pushed" in churches. It's more "Are you saved, Brother? ... If you died right now, do you know where you'd be going? .... Follow the rules now, for Heavenly reward later" ... etc. Be that as it may, I can't really agree that his teaching is most important, first - because his teaching points beyond itself to the operations of the specifically Jewish-sectarian community he founded - so it has a social-pragmatic dynamic less universal than Buddhism's more universal teaching (although Buddha surely spent a huge amount of time in ordering the Sangha); second - because, even in his lifetime, Jesus' teaching was inseparable from the mystical claims he was making about himself as a messianic laborer, Kingdom-agent, divine union mystic/mystical "friend" of and/or embodiment of the Heavenly Son of Man (to whom he testified before Caiaphas), his apparently-related special knowledge of what the future coming of the Son of Man will mean for final disposition of the Earth at the last judgment, his unique familiarity with "the things of God", his related claim to have not only descended from Heaven, but having ascended to Heaven and come down again, his authority to heal, exorcise, and forgive sin in God's name/with God's authority ... A long winded list, I know - but the NT Jesus - the Christian Jesus - is inextricably bound to his teachings - and vice-versa.
So I would say that Jesus is as important as his teachings, because every normative Christian abides by the living source of the teachings, the source that dwells, through the Spirit, in the believer's heart: namely Jesus himself. For most orthodox Christians, the teachings only derive their power from the risen living Christ with whom they have "a personal relationship".
I would venture to guess that if one practices Jesus' teachings, adopts the Sermon on the Mount/Plain as one's ethical center, if one sees God and Spirit and spiritual transformation/entry into the Kingdom through Jesus' eyes or his spiritual perception/"lens" ... then spiritual transformation will occur. ... But is Jesus' "Way", and its successful practice, equivalent to Bodhi, Nirvana, the Unconditioned, the Tathatgatha? Maybe, maybe not. ...