The Buddha and the Christ: Explorations in Buddhist

·期刊原文
The Buddha and the Christ: Explorations in Buddhist
and Christian Dialogue
Reviewed by Roger Corless
TTheological Studies
VVol.55 No.3

SStp. 1994

PP.591

CCopyright by Theological Studies Inc.

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By Leo D. Lefebure. Faith Meets Faith Series. Maryknoll N.Y.: Orbis,
1993. Pp. xxiii + 239. $18.95.

A thoughtful comparison of the traditional accounts of Christ and
Buddha, Japanese Mahayana (Zen and Shin) and Christianity
(Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine), and Buddhist and Christian
responses to modernity (Thich Nhat Hanh and Gustavo Gutierrez).
Lefebure sees similar structures (the simultaneous striving for
self-perfection and altruistic activity) within the context of
different doctrinal presuppositions (creation and interdependent
arising). The strongest features of the book are its emphasis on
practice and experience, the attention to both cataphatic and
apophatic systems and spiritualities, the solid discussion of
Engaged Buddhism and Liberation Theology, and a refusal to make
simplistic identifications between Buddhism and Christianity or to
force closure on the new and complex issue of the dialogue.
However, except for the section on Nhat Han and Gutierrez, only
secondary sources are used. And although L. has read extensively, he
leaves us with the misleading impression that there is an ultimate
reality of some sort (variously identified with emptiness, nirvana,
Buddha, Nature, Dharmakaya, etc.) in Mahayana Buddhism, despite
quoting Nhat Hanh on the Heart Sutra, who correctly equates
emptiness and interdependent arising (which Nhat Hanh calls
"interbeing"). We can certainly say that Christianity has an
ultimate reality (God) but we can at most say that Buddhism leads to
seeing reality as it ultimately is. Christianity goes to a "there,"
but Buddhism dismantles the illusory "here" so that the nonillusory
"here" self-manifests: this is the identity (better, nonduality) of
samsara and nirvana which L. reports was such a problem for Tillich.

L.'s heavy reliance on D. T. Suzuki and Masao Abe leads him to be
overly suspicious of conceptual statements about emptiness. A
discussion of Tendai or Gelugpa would have provided a more effective
foil to Augustine's doctrinal statements.