Priya: I've always admired you for that, O venerable one!
Buddha: I didn't do it to be admired. I did it because I was in search of answers.
My first path was the way of the ascetic. I labored at that for six long years. I ate hardly anything, starving my body in search of the self. I followed the teachings of the Hindu sages because, as you said, I was born a Hindu and had studied under two great Brahman teachers. But it brought me no peace. Hinduism didn't have the answers. Among other doctrines, I disagreed with the authority of the Vedas, to which Hindus ascribe. I know that didn't sit comfortably with my Hindu friends, but so it was. In fact, anytime my followers are uncomfortable with some of my teachings, they blame it on some Hindu influence I hadn't completely shaken off. I find that a trifle humorous!
Anyhow, I resolved that I was not going to give up my personal pursuit. I had lived a life of intense sacrifice and was reduced to a shell of a body. My spine stood out like a corded rope, my ribs projected like the jutting rafters of an old, roofless cowshed, and the light of my eyes, sunk down in their sockets, looked like the gleam of water in a deep well. I didn't realize what lay ahead of me. I was asleep to my own destiny.
Then in one stretch of several days I sat motionless under a fig tree in a place called Bodhgaya. As I was meditating, something strange and wonderful happened. There came upon me a transcending memory of all my thousands-indeed, infinite number-of previous lives, and everything past, present, and future opened up like a book before me. I was in a state of unparalleled tranquillity. I would call it a life of perfect balance. It was as if light and its absence commingled. I saw as I had never seen before. I saw the illusion with which humanity lives. At the same time, something was extinguished as it had never been extinguished before. Every passion, every craving, every desire was gone. I was unmoved by either joy or sorrow. I became unshackled from desire. I was at peace with reality and needed nothing in any way, shape, or form. I was now the Buddha-the Enlightened One.
Jesus: You determined not to give up your personal pursuit, did you say?
Buddha: Now, now, before you say anything to confuse this, may I add something here? I was concerned with one fundamental matter-Truth. I have since told my disciples never to follow anything or anyone just because somebody else says so. You must taste and see for yourself whether something is true or false. To that I am firmly committed.
Jesus: "Unshackled from desire." What a statement, Gautama! "Extinguishing all hungers." An incredible ideal. Just think about it. How can it be possible that all desires are wrong? That issue alone could dominate our discussion, couldn't it?
There's so much to say, yet one cannot bear it all at once. But let me say that you remind me of another I once saw under a fig tree. His story is told in the Gospels. His name was Nathanael, which means "gift of God"-now there's another great name, Priya!
Well, the first time I saw him, to his utter surprise I called him by name. He wondered how I even knew him. Then, to add to his shock, I revealed to him the innermost inclinations of his heart. He was dumbfounded. He had come with his prejudices, thinking there was no new truth that someone from Nazareth could give to him because Nazareth was the lowliest of all towns. (That, by the way, is my home city, Gautama.)
Yet when Nathanael and I had finished talking, he had had a glimpse of heaven itself Few experiences are as jolting as really knowing yourself for the first time through meeting someone else. That's the power and unpretentiousness of truth.
Priya: I've never heard of any of these stories, Jesus.
Jesus: You'll hear a few more before we're finished.
Anyhow, Gautama, whatever happened as you meditated under the tree is the story of your life. Your heart of compassion is proverbial. You were willing to give up all the comforts this world affords. In fact, even as I observe your followers, they work hard at being compassionate and selfless. Some of my followers can learn much from their simplicity.
But something else quickly stands out: rules, scores of rules, like a noose tauntingly swaying above the head, ready at the hint of one wrong move to be tightened around the neck. I see all the laws of conduct written in various centers of your teaching.
Take a look at this catalog of rules by which one builds his merit: 4 sets of rules for 4 great offenses, 13 rules required for formal participation in the brotherhood, 30 rules to curb greed and possessions, 92 rules of offenses under yet another category, 75 rules for proper behavior of novices who seek admission to the order, and 7 ways of settling disputes.
The list goes on-227 rules for the male monk and 311 for the female-plus scores of fine-print contingencies. This is the Rule Book of rule books!
I see the wandering monks with their bowls in their hands, beginning each day with the hope of bringing themselves under these precepts, none ever quite sure if they've made it. It's quite a life they lead, set apart from the mainstream.
Boat Driver: May I dare to add something funny here? Yesterday's paper had a picture of one of the monks in the monastery on his cell phone! I thought that was
Buddha: Please! Let's stay on course and not get into all that.
Boat Driver: I'm sorry.
Jesus: The fact is that countless numbers have sought the way of renunciation. Some have sat in caves for a lifetime in meditative silence. I see them even now. I hear them in their wordless cries-but Gautama, you've not seen their hearts as I have.
Priya: I've heard about them in other lands. Are you talking about some of those in the caves of Tibet who've been alone in meditation for ten, fifteen years, and ...I mean, how can they do that? If that's what it takes-scores of rules for some, silence for decades for others-what chance do I have?
Jesus: A better chance than you realize, Priya, but I don't want to interrupt Buddha's train of thought. It's important that you hear what he has to offer you.
We haven't yet reached the core of your thinking, Gautama. Mere renunciation isn't enough, and you know that well. You discovered that asceticism didn't bring the answer. Abraham, too, left everything he had in search of a city that would be eternal. My choice servant, Moses, considered the pleasures of a palace not something to be possessed and left it to suffer along with his people. One of the most powerful shapers of the New Testament church was the apostle Paul. He was willing to treat as dirt every credential that his people considered worth possessing. In fact, I myself did not consider my equality with God something to be grasped but stripped myself of any reputation and came to earth in the form of a servant.
You're offering nothing unique. Many other religions boast notable martyrs for their causes. Hindus, Muslims, and, yes, even atheists. So the mere fact of renunciation isn't enough, is it?
Buddha: No. But I came to a different conclusion than they did.
Jesus: You most certainly did. But let's examine it.
You said that when you were enlightened you came to a realization you had never experienced before, including the awareness of an infinite number of previous lives. Tell us more about this since that defines the ultimate destiny you beckon everyone to. There's so much talk about nirvana and yet so little understanding of it.
Buddha: Unfortunately, that is true. Just read the books about it. Talk about confusion! One of the reasons is that people don't understand death.
Jesus: I must agree with you on that!
Buddha: But I might also add that your life, Jesus, has shown the most exemplary qualities one could want to see. In fact, many of my followers have written about how close your teachings are to mine. Some of them have even called us brothers, and may be surprised to envision a conversation between us that would draw out any differences.
Jesus: But, sad to say, those very scholars have taken the lighter matters of what I taught and have neglected the weightier matters at the heart of my teaching.
When you mix falsehood with truth, you create a more destructive lie. In fact, many of those very scholars have even distorted what you have taught. You know, Gautama, morality as a badge of attainment breeds the deadliest state of mind-a delusion of absolute autonomy.
young ruler, also very rich, once came to me and told me that he had kept all the moral precepts, yet was still looking for life. It had eluded him, even though he had circumspectly kept the moral law.
By contrast, one who sees his or her spiritual poverty and comes to God for help is far closer to God's kingdom. It's a bit like standing on a mountain and looking down at a city below. If the only path down the mountain winds around it, at times you may actually find yourself farther from the city, sometimes even losing sight of it, in order to get closer to the city
The morally confident person demeans the distance and loses the path. The impoverished in spirit, humbled by the distance, keeps to the path and reaches the goal. That's why, Priya, you may be closer to the kingdom than you think, and I will show you the way.
Priya: Your illustrations are compelling, Jesus. You read my heart well. I'm listening.
Jesus: I would like you to continue, Gautama.
Buddha: Yes, yes, and I hope we get back to those issues, too. I was saying that I saw life as I'd never seen it before. First and foremost, life is suffering. I call this Dukkha, a word incorporating the breadth of human agony. This isn't just the simple idea of pain. This is an all-encompassing sense of life lived with perpetual loss. All of life's aches, hurts, and longings. This is suffering.
Then I saw the cause of suffering. All suffering is caused by longing, by desire, by attachment. That was so plain to see.
Next came the answer to end suffering. And for that I conceived the eightfold path that leads to nirvana.
These four stages-suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the eightfold path-I called the four noble truths.
But here again I have to be careful to explain every stage. For example, when I say "cause of suffering," I struggle for words, because suffering doesn't have a singular cause. No one cause stands alone. There are a number of causes woven into this tangled web, which we cannot unravel thread by thread.
If I were to take two words to summarize the dilemma of being human, they would be ignorance and craving. Take Priya, for example. I pity her very much, but her life-destroying error lay in her ignorance of who she really is, not just in her existence but in her essence. In that ignorance, thinking she was pleasing herself, she went hungering after money, comfort, and success, and now she lies here shattered and dying ... and she has taken others with her. Had she been devoid of her "self" and her victims devoid of their "selves," this would never have happened.
Jesus: Fascinating! Here we approach the first major point of surface similarity but substantive difference. When you say that she needs to free herself from the idea of self, there's a world of difference between what you're meaning and what I mean when I say that one must deny himself before following me.
