Tolerance for other religions

[tlee]

I don't know how well Western ideas of tolerance are mirrored by Buddhism. I don't recall seeing the word used in English translations.

It's not necessary to have a Buddhist reason to do a civic duty.

[Urgyen Dorje]

I don't know how well Western ideas of tolerance are mirrored by Buddhism. I don't recall seeing the word used in English translations.

It's not necessary to have a Buddhist reason to do a civic duty.

This whole thread is interesting that way. "Toleranace" cuts two ways. It's simply putting up withing something, as in the tolerance of pain. It's also a willingness to accept beliefs or people different from oneself, which itself cuts two ways. There's just giving people air and space, and then there's embracing a diversity of views and ways of being.

Somehow the endpoint of this conversation has been the implication that some of us either endorse or approve of ritual animal sacrifice, or that we endorse the view that Islam is a path leading to enlightenment.

Some of the side-bar conversations I've been having are utterly bizarro. It seems to be impossible for me to escape the perception that I endorse the ritual slaughter of animals and that I believe Islam and Christianity are dharma paths.

[DGA]

I don't know how well Western ideas of tolerance are mirrored by Buddhism. I don't recall seeing the word used in English translations.

It's not necessary to have a Buddhist reason to do a civic duty.

I'd be interested to know if anyone's done a comprehensive study of how Buddha Shakyamuni interacted with advocates of other doctrines, adherents of other communities, &c. I've read only a little in this area--not enough to draw any conclusions.

[Wayfarer]

One book that I found useful was Richard Gombrich What the Buddha Thought. He goes into some detail on how he thinks the Buddha viewed and debated against the Brahmins and the Jains, who were the two predominant other groups in the Buddha's day.

However over a longer period of time, Buddhism was disseminated along the Silk Road, encountering various other traditions both Eastern and Western. One interesting variant that I encountered was the Chinese Nestorian Christians, who were expelled from their homeland and made their way along the Silk Road to China, for which see The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks

In 635 C.E. a small band of Christian monks traveled along the Silk Road from Persia to the imperial capital of China. Welcomed by the Tang Dynasty emperor, the missionaries set about translating into Chinese the sacred texts they had carried for 3000 miles across the deserts and mountains of Asia.

Influenced by Buddhists and Taoists they encountered along the way, the Persians translated their manuscripts into a collection of unique teachings, part Christianity and part Eastern wisdom, that combined the teachings of Jesus with the principles of Eastern thought. Recorded on a set of delicate scrolls, these new scriptures became known as the Jesus Sutras.

During the next few centuries, the political climate in China turned menacing towards Christians and Buddhists alike and sometime around 1000 C.E., the Jesus Sutras, together with thousands of Buddhist manuscripts, were hidden in a desert cave.

They were not seen again until 1900, when a Taoist monk restoring cave paintings in western China accidentally discovered the sealed cavern housing these priceless religious documents. Within a few years, European archaeologists and private collectors had removed the sacred texts from China, relegating them to academic obscurity for the next hundred years. Now, the new translation presented in this book offers a unique opportunity to delve into their unparalleled wisdom and tells the story of the discovery in 1998 of one of the monk's original monasteries.

[Kaccāni]

I'd be interested to know if anyone's done a comprehensive study of how Buddha Shakyamuni interacted with advocates of other doctrines, adherents of other communities, &c. I've read only a little in this area--not enough to draw any conclusions.

There's the Lohicca Sutta, the Payasi Sutta, and there are probably some more Sutras where Budhha argues with Brahmans.

Best wishes
Kc

[Harimoo]

How you can be tolerant for religions which sacrifice animals to God/gods?

It's very easy !
You look at your own community (i-e "the buddhists") and you realize that the meat consumption per capita in "buddhist" countries are, most of the time, higher than in "non-buddhist" countries, "islamic" ou "jewish" countries included (big up to Mongolia, close to the US and Tibet seems to be not far away).
And then you ask yourself if it's better that you have to sacrifice animals to God/gods in order to eat them or if it's better to make them dead before the meal (which is seen as carrions by jewish and I think by muslims also).

And then you try to stop to be a

[dreambow]

'Study the way is just a figure of speech....In fact the way is not something that can be studied. You must not allow this name (the way) to lead you into forming a mental concept of a road"
Huangbo

furthermore

Huangbo was adamant that any form of 'seeking' was not only useless, but obstructed clarity........ but learn how to avoid seeking for and attaching yourself to anything"
'All who reach this gate fear to enter (to overcome this fear, one) must enter this with a suddenness of a knife thrust"

These wonderful quotes made me think that all organized religion is a detour, a no through road. So its not a question of being tolerant or unbiased, the whole package is a cul-de-sac.

[Wayfarer]

yet here we are, posting on a Buddhist forum.......

[catmoon]

How you can be tolerant for religions which sacrifice animals to God/gods?

Be kind to their practitioners.

[dreambow]

Wayfarer, "Yet here we are, posting on a Buddhist forum......." Huangbo is the ideal, completeness itself. So we say ripeness is everything, until then we remain unprepared and immature.

[pael]

May buddhist eat prasada?

[Simon E.]

May buddhist eat prasada?

Vegetarian prasadam certainly. You don't have to buy into the whole narrative around it.
Eating the flesh of a goat from a Kali Temple would be a no-no.
Eating the flesh of a goat in your local Caribbean restaurant is ok if meat eating is not proscribed by your specific Buddhist tradition.

We can be and should be tolerant of all religions.
We can only actually practice one to completion however...and THAT takes all we have.

[amanitamusc]

May buddhist eat prasada?

With a glass of prosecco.

[nilakantha]

I think the Emperor Ashoka struck a good balance:

Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, desires that all religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart.

Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, has caused this Dhamma edict to be written. Here in my domain no living beings are to be slaughtered or offered in sacrifice.

[Caoimhghín]

Since Judaism, Islam,and Christianity stem from the same soarce,Abraham.
They worship the same being dominated by anger and jealousy.
We can see the fruit of this.

And yet in Catholicism at any rate, their worship has more in common with the Roman religion than with Abraham. The rituals, vestments and incenses are a legacy of Jupiterian worship. Not to mention the Isis worship that was repackaged as the Virgin Mary.

Islam on the other hand worships Ba'al. It's not really all the same being as one can sense from the very different energies of their places of worship.

This is very false. Just so you know.

[Wayfarer]

Father Bede Griffith, who was a wonderful multi-faith pioneer, a Catholic monk who lived for years in an Indian ashram, and whom I was fortunate enough to have seen speak not long before his death, said this: he said, religions ought to stop quarelling between themselves as to which one is the correct one, as they have one common enemy, modern scientific materialism, which believes all religions are superstitions that should be abolished.

[DGA]

Father Bede Griffith, who was a wonderful multi-faith pioneer, a Catholic monk who lived for years in an Indian ashram, and whom I was fortunate enough to have seen speak not long before his death, said this: he said, religions ought to stop quarelling between themselves as to which one is the correct one, as they have one common enemy, modern scientific materialism, which believes all religions are superstitions that should be abolished.

I would argue that all religions and other modes of inquiry such as science have a common enemy--ignorance--and its consequences, aggression, aversion, attachment, &c.

[Wayfarer]

One can be scientifically educated and spiritually ignorant - many are.

[DGA]

One can be scientifically educated and spiritually ignorant - many are.

That's true. The same can be said for Buddhists and adherents of any religion. One precondition for learning is ignorance acknowledged.

[Yavana]

One can be scientifically educated and spiritually ignorant - many are.

Ignorance certainly isn't a problem for the scientifically educated. The other two poisons of anger and greed, on the other hand...