Did Jesus and Buddha Read the Same Script?

Two Wisdom Teachers of Past Centuries had Parallel Sayings

Nov 13, 2009

Marcus Borg in his book Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings, examines the similar wisdom teaching that both Jesus and Buddha espoused during their lifetime.

Marcus Borg states that Jesus and Buddha were wisdom teachers that embraced more than just ethics; rather, "fundamental ways of seeing and being. Wisdom is not just about moral behavior, but about the 'center,' the place from which moral perception and moral behavior flow."

Jesus and the Buddha Taught a New Way of Seeing

Sayings about seeing, sight, and light are central to Jesus' teaching. Also, His aphorisms and parables functioned to invite a new way of seeing.

Borg points out, "The familiar line from a Christian hymn expresses an emphasis common to both: 'I once was blind, but now I see'."

Both Ways Involve Similar Psychological and Spiritual Transformation

Buddha's Way involves the letting go of life and not grasping for things. This is considered the path of liberation from suffering.

Jesus' teachings point to the same path. Those who empty themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be emptied; those who make themselves last will be first, and the first last. To become like a child means to relinquish one's worldly importance.

Borg further demonstrates that Buddhist, letting go, and Christian,dying, are similar processes. Dying is the ultimate letting go of the world and oneself. This "letting go" is liberation from an old way of being and a lifting into a new way of being.

The Result of this Transformation is the Same for Both Teachings

Becoming a more compassionate being is the end result. The Buddha is often called "the Compassionate One", states Marcus Borg. Jesus emphasized the importance of compassion, "Be compassionate, as God is compassionate."

Borg concludes in his book that despite the differences in language that "the way" ,taught by the Buddha and Jesus, strongly resemble each other.

Commonality of Religious Experience is Likely the Reason for Similarities

Both Jesus and the Buddha had similar life transforming experiences. Borg acknowledges that the Buddha rejected the notion of a personal god, that is, God as a supernatural being separate from the universe.

But there is another notion of God, Borg emphasizes, as the unborn and uncreated source of all that is, present right here as well as more than right here. In this sense, one may speak of the sacred as central to the Buddha.

Borg concludes, that both Jesus and the Buddha had formative enlightenment experiences of this type. From this new way of seeing flowed their wisdom teaching about the way: a perception of the way we typically live, a perception of the alternative way of being, and the path leading from one to the other. The similarities of their wisdom teaching flow out of the similarities of their religious experience, not from any cultural borrowing.

The Parallels of the Wisdom Teachings Gives Credibility

Borg believes the acceptance of religious pluralism can provide a grounds for realizing the importance of what these wisdom teachers said.

The path of which both Jesus and the Buddha spoke was a path of liberation from anxious grasping and transformation into a compassionate life.

Sources

The copyright of the article Did Jesus and Buddha Read the Same Script? in Great Thinkers is owned by John A. Marinchek. Permission to republish Did Jesus and Buddha Read the Same Script? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.