In studying religion it's a good idea to remain open-minded and not be too quick to make up one's mind. In seeking to develop Buddhist wisdom, this guideline has been very useful. It flows from this admonishment (see my literal page):
"To abide in the dharma and not the person":
"To abide in Sutras of Ultimate Truth and not in Sutras of Incomplete Truth"
"To abide in the meaning and not the word"
"To abide in Wisdom and not in Consciousness"
This also works when trying to use scriptures of the various religions out there to try to impart wisdom that gets beyond "discriminative" thinking. One must use discriminative thinking to break down false ideas, but then not get stuck at the level of rejection. At any rate, I'd been seeking to understand how Judaism and Christianity could be reconciled to each other without one conquering the other, and how both traditions could be used as "vessels" and provide language to impart Buddhist wisdom. This led me to explore his idea further:
And one of the arguments I found enticing but not entirely satisfying was one by a "heretical" "Donmei" (Marano) Rabbi named Rabbi Liebe HaKohain; He makes his argument here:
http://www.donmeh-west.com/melchi.shtml
Well that argument wasn't satisfying to me. First of all it assumes that Romans was rewritten by people ignorant of Jewish Oral law, which may or may not be true, but is just asking for a fight if one presents that argument to Christians. But today I found an argument that makes a similar case to Reb Hakohain, but makes it without assuming that the work had been rewritten:
http://users.aristotle.net/~bhuie/melchiz.htm
And that makes much more sense. Basically it continues the same insight that the Reb made, that Paul was a Rabbi trying to reconcile new Christian Converts who weren't Jews with their Jewish Brethren. To do that, he didn't need any knowledge of oral law or of notions such as Melchizedek being the still living Shem, but simply the need to argue that in his new version of the Jewish Religion the priests could be "without pedigree" because they were carrying on the tradition of the Messiah and he had baptized them to be "fishers of men" and thus "save" the nations in the name of Salvation (Jesus).
This was part of the transformation of the "Messiah" from a literal king (a kind of "King Arthur" for Jews) to a universal spiritual king. Once once understands that this is a "spiritual" and thus highly figurative image, one can dump the fear associated with it. Salvation is simply the spiritual turning that occurs when people accept the "divine within." In it's ultimate form it would be the same as "Samadhi" or the awakening to the fact that all spiritual and physical life are ultimately "one"; the awakening to the "deathless." Thus our Buddhist practice can be seen as a way to gain the entry to the "Kingdom of Heaven."
Additionally Jesus was a "rabbi"/teacher. He wasn't literally the Messiah, but figuratively. Therefore Jews can still await the first coming of the Messiah, because their salvation comes from keeping the precepts of Judaism and awakening themselves. There is so much wisdom in the Oral Torah that it pays to study it for Jews -- and Christians. Jews also should relax about their religion and recognize that the reason that the prophesy "the law will be taught out of Jerusalem" can only come true when it is a universal law, meaning two things; one is that it would be for gentiles such as Moslems and Christians as well as Jews. And the second being that it is such an excellent law that Jews should preserve it among themselves and never be ashamed to teach it to others. Gentiles don't have to keep all the Sinaitic laws, only Jews promised to do that. But all have to obey the laws of goodness and Justice that are the foundation of all valid religious traditions.
Salvation for Christians comes from awakening themselves and keeping the principles established by their teacher. Harmonizing these two world views requires that Christians do less "reifying" and "deifying" of their savior/teacher; and that they also relax about efforts to "save" everybody by requiring the same belief. A Buddhist practice might help in that effort to reach enlightenment and to fully understand the message of the sages of the past.
Chris
Posted by cholte at January 3, 2005 05:46 AMShin Yatomi says in an article this past week:
"Do Buddhists say, 'It's true because the Buddha says so'? Or do they say, 'The Buddha says so because it's true'?"
This is the difference between authority and authoritarianism. To generalize further:
"Do the Sages say, 'It's true because the Sages say it's so? Or do they say, "The sages say so because it's true?"
Posted by: Chris at January 10, 2005 10:03 AM