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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Y2K" data-source="post: 12340260" data-attributes="member: 35049">Personhood and sinThe other significant aspect in Jesus’ teaching which is grounded on viewing personhood as the core value in human nature is his teaching on sin. Sin is a problem of relationship, of how we relate to God and to each other. To sin means to err in a relationship, while to live in righteousness means to love God, be obedient to him, and have right relationships with other humans. Since perfection and failure, righteousness and sin, are defined only in the context of relationships, personhood is a necessary aspect of our being. The most frequently used term in the New Testament for sin is the Greek word hamartia, which can literally be translated as “to miss the mark.” It suggests that we have missed the mark that God intends for us – that of having a right relationship with him and with each other. The emphasis Jesus put on the significance of sin is paramount. While the Buddha taught that suffering is caused by ignorance, Jesus taught that our major problem is sin defined in terms of relationships. If we are to identify the equivalent to sin in the Buddha’s teaching, it wouldbe ignorance (avijja), which is consistent with his teaching on Ultimate Reality.Where a personal God is the Ultimate Reality, the central problem of mankindis sin, whereas where there is no such permanent God but a truth on how thingsexist (the truth of impermanence and emptiness), the central problem is ignorance,not to recognize that truth. In Buddhism there is no room for sin as defined by the Christ, because the system denies the existence of a supreme God against whom one can sin. Therefore for a Buddhist the closest equivalent for sin would be ignorance. The “sinful” person is an ignorant person. What is needed is proper information and instruction. A “sinner” needs help to reason the right way, defeat ignorance, and realize the ultimate truth of emptiness.we all possess the Buddha nature as an unrealized spiritual potential; that is, we all have the potential to become a Buddha. But according to the Christ’s teaching we have no such unrealized potential in our nature, no hidden treasure to be discovered inside us. On the contrary, the “heart” – which in the Judaic tradition stands for the core of an individual human being, as the headquarters of mental, emotional and volitional life – is not reliable for ensuring spiritual development, as it is thoroughly affected by sin. He said:For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexualimmorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness,envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from insideand make a man “unclean” (Mark 7,21–23).His view on human nature contradicts all optimism on so-called “inner capabilities” for attaining spiritual progress. It contradicts the Buddhist confidence in our hidden Buddha nature, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s “statement of faith” which says: “I believe in the nature of enlightenment that is inherent within myself”</blockquote>

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