Conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew by Olivier Clement
Everything, the patriarch adds, centers on the concept of the “person.” According to Buddhism, the person does not exist. The Christian, however, affirms the existence of the person. But Orthodoxy does not identify the person with the individual, with the “individual substance of a rational nature,” as Boethius awkwardly stated in the Latin world. This would mean that the person is nothing more than a mask, which is indeed the original meaning of the Latin word persona, or the Greek prosopon. The person is revealed only at the conclusion of a negative anthropology, and the efforts of Hinduism and Buddhism can be helpful for us. The absolute is not beyond the person (for then, in effect, there would be no one!). Rather, the absolute is the very depth, the “bottomless depth,” of the person, or rather, of communion. And if the person, and therefore the possibility of encounter, do exist, then history exists. Yet neither Hinduism nor Buddhism is interested in history, because for them time, with its endless cycles, consists of nothing but terror. If the person, and therefore communion, exists, then man’s attraction toward God transfigures desire: eros is transformed into agape. It is particularly the miracle of grace and forgiveness that destroys the fatality of karma–-that automatic link between the act and its consequences––and the fear “that we will need to repay everything,” as say some Christians who fail to comprehend the infinite grace of the cross and the resurrection.
From Buddha to Gandhi
We must, however, be aware that Hinduism and Buddhism have never ceased to develop. This is certainly true in our own era, when values of Christian origin have been spread throughout the world. But it has also been the case for centuries, either because of a Christian impulse we can only guess at, or through the influence of the long “Nestorian” evangelization in the heart of Asia.
Within Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, for example, there has been an evolution, on the one hand, toward ascesis and an esthetic of cosmic beauty, and, on the other, toward a religion of mercy. In the Zen movement––Ch’an in China-the keen ascetic, during and after a moment of illumination, sharply experiences the birth of a tree, of a flower, of light. He knows things as they are. He hears “the ah! of things.” This is not far from the Christian “contemplation of nature,” which is a necessary stage of hesychasm. In Amidism, monotheism asserts itself. Amida (Omito in Chinese), the mediator, was a monk who voluntarily halted his ascent on the path of illumination, putting the achievement of perfection on hold, until all humanity and all creation down to the last blade of grass are saved through his intercession. The faithful practice the nembutsu, the humble invocation of the formula, “Buddha Amida, save me.” One group that came from Amidism has even called itself the Yuzu Nembutsu, “Invocation in communion”! All this makes any Christian pause who is familiar with the Jesus Prayer.
A monotheism of love has gradually spread throughout Hinduism. Even yoga, a methodical human exercise, has come to focus more and more on attraction to the divinity. The Vishnic Vedanta confesses and adores a personal God who was present at creation as the soul is present in the body––an image that St Gregory of Nyssa liked to use! The Vishnic God, out of his free Will, has created a real world which expresses his beauty and which therefore merits positive consideration by man. He has provided each person with an identity, thus making possible not fusion, but communion. As one mystic from this school has said, “if I love sugar, that does not mean that I wish to become sugar!” The Shakti movement celebrates the divine energy, which it perceives as a feminine presence: here again, we are reminded of Wisdom! And this religion has promoted respect toward woman, toward the wife.
In our own century, an encounter between this kind of Hinduism and the Gospel has already begun, particularly in the person, deeds, and martyrdom of Gandhi and his followers. Disciples of Gandhi remain in the United States and in South Africa.
We Christians have a great deal to do to prepare for this encounter. And it is far more interesting than arguing among ourselves.
~Orthodox Way of Life: Walking the Path to Theosis, http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.com/2009/11/on-india-and-buddhism-ecumenical.html.
