On the 30th Anniversary of 'Living Buddha, Living Christ'
A Few Thoughts on a Book That Has Become an Instant Interspiritual Classic
In September of 1995, Bill Clinton was president of the United States, a gallon of gas cost just over a dollar in the USA, a movie about drag queens was number one at the box office (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar) and the Windows 95 operating system was brand new, having just been released the month prior. And on September 12 of that year, Riverhead Books in New York published Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Born in 1926, the unassuming Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and anti-war activist had been on the world stage since at least 1967 when Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. He had written a number of books, all of which dealt with either Buddhist wisdom or the call to live peacefully and nonviolently. By the time of his death at the age of 95 in early 2022, Thầy (meaning “teacher,” as he was affectionately known to his students) was one of the two most well-known Buddhists in the west, the other being the Dalai Lama. Books like The Miracle of Mindfulness, Peace is Every Step and Being Peace were bestsellers upon publication and are now contemporary spiritual classics. Thích Nhất Hạnh has been called “the father of mindfulness” and certainly his advocacy for a simple, gentle, and non-aggressive life grounded in meditation and mindfulness has become a spiritual light for many.
But thanks to friendships with Christian writers and activists like King, Thomas Merton and Jim Forest, Thầy also had a long-standing interest in interfaith dialogue. For this reason, Living Buddha Living Christ served as both a deeply personal book and also as an invitation to an entirely new dimension of spirituality — or should I say interspirituality, to use the word coined by Wayne Teasdale in his 1999 book The Mystic Heart.
Living Buddha, Living Christ is the type of book that many people love and some people find frustrating. It is written completely from the heart. The author was an accomplished teacher of Buddhism, but clearly only had an intelligent layperson’s knowledge of Christian doctrine and teaching — so he makes no attempt to address the many dogmatic and doctrinal challenges that could get in the way of anyone trying to appreciate the common ground between two major religions (Buddhism and Christianity). As a result, critics have accused the book of being “light” and blithely ignoring or downplaying the serious philosophical or theological conflicts that would arise for anyone seriously trying to integrate devotion to both Jesus and Gautama.
But as I wrote the above paragraph, I’m reminded of a story I wrote about in my book Unteachable Lessons:
The story goes that a gathering of Buddhist and Christian authors and monastics took place. The authors—an assortment of theologians and dharma teachers representing a variety of lineages and traditions—held a conference where they delivered papers and engaged in various conversations concerning interreligious dialogue. In a separate but nearby building, the monks and nuns also came together, where they devoted most of their time to meditation and contemplation.
By the end of the week, both groups gathered for a closing interfaith ceremony. It became obvious to all who were present that the various authors, while polite and civil toward each other, had not really formed any kind of relationships, at least beyond their professional collegiality. On the other hand, the various monastics were all hugging one another, filled with warmth, smiles, and a clear sense of bonded charity—as if they had been friends for ages.
This story may very well be an urban legend, or perhaps it was inspired by one of the significant interfaith gatherings between Christians and Buddhists, like the Gethsemani Encounters that took place several times at the monastery where Thomas Merton lived. In any event, it does seem to illustrate the spirit of Living Buddha, Living Christ. If we want to argue about the merits of this or that article of faith (such as the belief in reincarnation, or the belief in the necessity of repentance and sorrow for sin), then we are guaranteed to get caught up in our differences to such an extent that the most we can hope for is to grudgingly respect one another. But if we are capable of focussing our attention on our common humanity and our shared desire for a peaceful, happy and compassionate world, then we have a geniune opportunity to build bridges of understanding instead of the walls of separation that too often make the boundaries between religions.
Speaking in 1968, just a few weeks before his untimely death, Thomas Merton is recorded to have said this in a conversation with the Benedictine monk Br. David Steindl-Rast:
I see no contradiction whatsoever between Buddhism and Christianity. I think you can at the same time be a Christian and a Buddhist. There’s no problem, because Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a religion… I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can. In Asia, I intend to learn as much of it as I can; perhaps that will be useful.
No contradiction, whatsoever! Bold words indeed, especially for a writer whose word tended to be theologically nuanced and philosophically informed. Merton is not just casually blowing off differences that were too high for his pay grade. He’s doing something much more radical: he’s insisting that, ultimately, theological and doctrinal differences simply do not matter as much as our common ground. Merton ducks behind the idea that Buddhism is not a religion, at least not in the sense that Christianity is, and that works well enough as a kind of intellectual shorthand. Buddhists and Christians understand concepts like truth and obedience in very different ways, so it’s a fool’s errand to try to make one faith play by the others’ rules.
Even if it dodged the kinds of questions that form the bread and butter of theologians and religious scholars, Living Buddha Living Christ became a national bestseller, spawning a companion volume or “sequel” (Going Home, Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, published in 1999) as well as an 20th anniversary edition. It certainly cemented Thầy’s reputation as a leader in interspirituality, and today it ranks with books like Paul Knitter’s Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian or the Dalai Lama’s and Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Joy as leading titles in the field of popular Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialog.
But what, exactly, does this book say? The author begins by acknowledging that we human beings tend to erect firewalls between our faiths, usually in the interest of “protecting” ourselves and our loved ones from “foreign influences.” But speaking prophetically (remember, this was published six years almost to the day before the tragedy of 9/11), Thầy warns, “When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result” (p 2), but he also sees that the alternative to this is mutual dialogue and a practice to listening to each other. He points out that interfaith encounters must begin within, for each of us contains “conflicting feelings and ideas within us” and that if we do not address the “wars within” we are at risk of creating conflict with others.
What, then, is the antidote to the conflicts that rage in each of our hearts? For Thích Nhất Hạnh, what is needed is nothing less than an encounter with either (or both) the Buddha and/or the Christ.
When we understand and practice deeply the life and teachings of Buddha or the life and teachings of Jesus, we penetrate the door and enter the abode of the living Buddha and the living Christ, and life eternal presents itself to us. (p. 56)
A subtle but significant message here: Thầy is calling his readers not only to understand but perhaps even more importantly, to practice the life and teachings of Buddha and Christ. Spirituality is not a spectator sport. Let me interject here that this touches on my own personal issue with the Nicene Creed: it completely ignores Jesus’s teachings, focusing exclusively on what Christians believe about his life. I don’t want to suggest that the death or resurrection or hoped-for second coming of Christ are not important to Christians — of course they are — but there is so much more to a full and rich spiritual life than merely assenting to a set of propositional doctrines. Surely, when St. Paul argues that we are “justified by faith,” he meant far more than just that the ticket to heaven is agreeing to a set of doctrines.
What does it mean, then, to practice the wisdom of the living Buddha or the living Christ? For Christians, this could mean putting our energy into shaping our lives according to the wisdom of the Beatitudes or the sermon on the Mount. It could mean taking seriously Jesus’s call to radical forgiveness, to treating people with kindness and compassion and to work hard to bring healing and the alleviation of suffering to others.
For Buddhists, the question of practice begins with the Noble Eightfold Path, where the Buddha and his followers identified eight key areas for personal transformation and spiritual growth, involving matters of ethical conduct, clear understanding, and the practice of meditation. This seems to parallel the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount that provide the foundation of the season of Lent: in Matthew 6, Jesus promotes fasting, almsgiving, and prayer as three essential keys to spiritual practice. Fasting and almsgiving are both types of ethical conduct, beginning with personal transformation (fasting) and extending to care of others (almsgiving); but Jesus links both of these earthly practices with the importance of prayer. If we can see prayer and meditation as roughly parallel practices (in intent if not in execution), then we can begin to see that there’s more in common between the practices of Buddha and Christ than there are distinctions.
In Living Buddha, Living Christ Thầy combines his lyrical appreciation that both Buddha and Christ serve similar functions in the lives of their followers — as great teachers, icons of wisdom and compassion, and objects of heartfelt devotion — with an appreciation of how qualities of spiritual growth that might seem unfamiliar to Christian readers can help us all to appreciate the unity between the way of Jesus and the way of Gautama. These qualities include mindfulness, interbeing and enlightenment. They may seem unfamiliar to Christians for the simple reason that these are concepts much more native to the dharma (Buddhism), and only seems to make sense, since the author is himself a Buddhist monk. Some people may chafe at how a book on supposedly the unity between Christ and Buddha actually has more of a Buddhist flavor than a Christian one, but I think that Christians who read this book should rejoice that a Buddhist as wise and since as Thích Nhất Hạnh is willing to take the time to explain how he understands interspirituality.
Let’s be real: if I wrote my own version of Living Buddha, Living Christ, any Buddhist who read it would immediately notice that the book had much more of a “Christian” feel to it than a Buddhist sensibility. Even though I have been a casual student of Buddhism for many years now, and have gone so far as to join a sangha here in Atlanta, it’s clear to me that I will always interpret Buddhism through a Christian lens, simply because Christianity has been the faith I was raised in, and the faith I have practiced for many years. Even though I, like many Christians, have a fraught relationship with institutional Christianity, I nevertheless have been spiritually shaped and formed by the history, culture, and spirituality of Christianity: it’s in my blood. Many years ago I wrote a book (now out of print) called The Aspiring Mystic, in which I tried to articulate a kind of universal mysticism that was not dependent on the rituals or culture of any one religious tradition. One critic, who was a high priestess in a Wiccan coven, noted (in an overall friendly review) that my book was “permeated by Christian assumptions about theology and mysticism.” I was so humbled by this observation, as I thought I had tried really hard to steer clear of such religious biases! But my Wiccan reviewer helped me to see that we so often put unconscious values and perspectives in our writing, even when we are trying to be objective.
So just like any “interspiritual” book that I might try to write would be permeated by Christian assumptions and perspectives, we need to acknowledge that Living Buddha, Living Christ carries plenty of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Buddhist perspectives, assumptions, and values. But this does not detract from the book at all; on the contrary, it gives the book value for all readers, Buddhist, Christian, or otherwise, as it reveals how a gentle and perceptive Buddhist monk approaches this critical issue of how we find common ground between religions in our day.
We’ve already touched on mindfulness — in many ways it is simply a synonym for meditation or for the way of seeing and thinking that is shaped by a stable and consistent meditation practice. To live mindfully is to live fully aware and fully engaged with the present moment: it’s the classic words of Ram Dass: be here now. For many Christians, meditation may not seem to be a priority for their daily spiritual practice, but the tradition certainly has appreciated and endorsed meditation and contemplation consistently over the centuries. Jewish rabbi Aryeh Kaplan wrote Meditation and the Bible, an amazing book that shows how meditation practices were integral to the spirituality of the Old Testament; and Christian spirituality has celebrated meditative and contemplative forms of prayer from the days of the desert mothers and fathers, through the many centuries of monastic spirituality, all the way to the Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation movements in our time. Mindfulness may be a Buddhist concept, but it has a clear corollary within Christian spirituality.
Interbeing is a concept first articulated by Thích Nhất Hạnh, who created an Order of Interbeing in the 1960s while still living in war-torn Vietnam. But this is far more than just a Buddhist organization: it is a philosophical concept that is related to other core Buddhist ideas, like emptiness, impermanence, and dependent arising. In short, interbeing is the recognition that all things are interconnected, and therefore to interact with any one thing is to interact with the entire ecosystem of which it is a part.
Here’s an illustration of interbeing that Thầy provides in Living Buddha Living Christ:
When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It “inter-is” with everything else in the universe. (p. 11)
When you read a book, you are interacting not only with the wisdom and ideas of the author, but also the skill of the editors and designers, the trees that provided the pulp for the paper, the water and sunlight and soil that nurtured the trees, and on we could go. Everything is interconnected. “No man is an island,” according to the poet John Donne: we are all intimately related and existentially linked to each other.
How this topic relates to interspirituality and interfaith dialogue should be pretty obvious. Christianity and Buddhism are part of the same spiritual ecosystem that links together snow leopards and mountain lions, or olive trees and banyan trees. All is connected, all is interlinked. Our wisdom traditions are far more alike than they are separate, and when we can train our eyes to see the commonalities and unities before we get caught up in our differences, this could alleviate much suffering in the world.
Finally comes the topic of enlightenment — which we often associate with the Buddha and his moment of life-changing insight while meditating beneath the bodhi tree. Enlightenment in the west has become associated with the scientific revolution and the emergence of modern philosophy, but most people recognize the spiritual sense of the word, at least for eastern mysticism. But in the west, we tend to focus on righteousness or salvation as the blossoming of our spiritual lives, rather than enlightenment.
But I believe when we dive into the contemplative and mystical traditions of Christianity (and other western faiths), then we tend to see things that look and sound a lot like the eastern concept of enlightenment. In Christian tradition, we have concepts such as theosis or deification which imply that the culmination of the spiritual life is a literal embodying of union with God. The New Testament speaks of being “partakers of the divine nature” and Jesus, who said that he and (God the) father are “one,” also encouraged his followers to understand themselves as “abiding” in him. Many of the mystics, from Meister Eckhart to Teresa of Ávila to John of the Cross, speak of this sense of union with God as not only the goal of the spiritual life, but a supreme experience of joy, peace, bliss, and a sense of being empowered to serve and care for others, especially those particularly in need.
For Thích Nhất Hạnh, enlightenment implies the experience of an indwelling presence, which could be interpreted as the Buddha or the dharma (the wisdom), but also could be seen as the Holy Spirit, who for Christians is both the indwelling presence of God and the divine guidance operating from within. Once again, it is eye-opening to consider how spiritual concepts we may associate exclusively with eastern philosophy actually seems to have a meaningful corollary in western spirituality. All the more reason for us to look for the ways in which our two separate faiths can be experienced as one.
Almost twenty years ago, when I was a novice Lay Cistercian, a teacher who spoke to our novitiate once remarked that not everyone is called to interfaith work — but some people are. She also cautioned us not to judge those who have a different approach to interspirituality than we do! As the years go by, I remain convinced of the wisdom in her words. Not every Christian (or every Buddhist) may feel called to the hospitality that is at the heart of Living Buddha, Living Christ — but for those of us who do sense such a call, this book is both an enduring contemporary classic and an invitation into an emerging spirituality for our time: a spirituality that draws us together, celebrates our oneness, and proclaims hope for the future.
