Everyday I receive via email from a Tibetan Buddhist organization a “Glimpse” for the day. Today’s “Glimpse” helps me, I think, come to a deeper sense of what it means to be a Christian, or of what it means to call Jesus Christ my savior. Tibetan Buddhism understands the relationship between the disciple and the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘dialogue’
The Miracle of Mindfulness and the Miracle of “Being in Christ Jesus”
Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of “the miracle of mindfulness.” Indeed, as so many people are discovering, the practice of mindfulness does have what seem to be miraculous powers. Something happens when we succeed in really being mindful of the thoughts and feelings and reactions that crowd into and try to take possession of how we [...]
A Buddhist Response to Christian Fanaticism (written on a return flight from Seoul, Korea to New York)
For the past eight days, my wife Cathy and I have been rushing – or better, have been gently rushed – around the peninsula of South Korea as part of a project aimed at promoting a more fruitful dialogue between Buddhists and Christians. The seed of this venture was planted, and then nurtured, by my [...]
The Passing of a Giant: Raimon Panikkar, RIP
Read this beautiful commentary on a man who was one of the greatest influences and inspirations in my life. For me and for my wife Cathy, one of the most telling tributes to the kind of person Panikkar was came from our kids, John and Moira. We visited him in 1991, on the long trip [...]
A Buddhist-Christian Take on the Financial Crisis III
Last night, we brought our “Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on Global Greed” here in Chiang Mai to an end with the formulation of a “Common Word” on the economic mess the world is in and what we might do about it. That’s quite an achievement. Finding a common word about the economy between Buddhists and Christians who [...]
A Buddhist-Christian Take on the Financial Crisis II
“If you want to find the causes of the financial crisis that we are in, and if you want to come up with solutions for it, you’re going to have to deal with GREED.” That was the opening Buddhist contribution to our conference here in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Buddhist-Christian dialogue about the global economic [...]
A Buddhist-Christian Take on the Financial Crisis
I’m here in Chiang-Mai, Thailand, at Payap University for a rather extraordinary – some would say strange – gathering. We are a group of some 30 Buddhist and Christian scholars, leaders, and activists from around the world (mostly Asian; I’m one of two Americans). We’ve come together to talk about the financial tsunami that moved [...]
“We’ve Got a Friend” – Obama and Interfaith
That’s what I felt as I rode the train back from Washington, D.C. the night of June 7, after attending a meeting at the White House on “Advancing Interfaith and Community Service on College and University Campuses.” It was organized by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. It made clear to [...]
Black Theology and Interreligious Dialogue
My colleague here at Union Theological Seminary, James Cone, wrote the following way back in 1992: Although I am a Christian theologian, I contend that a just social order must be accountable to not one but many religious communities. If we are going to create a society that is responsive to the humanity of all, [...]