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    Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings
    Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings
    Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings

    By Jack Kornfield

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Jesus and Buddha were separated by five hundred years, three thousand miles, and two drastically different cultures. Yet this trade paper edition of the highly acclaimed hardback juxtaposes passages from the New Testament and ancient Buddhist scriptures to illuminate the striking similarity between their lives, deeds, and teachings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUlysses Press
    Release dateJan 12, 1999
    ISBN9781569757710
    Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings
    Author

    Jack Kornfield

    Jack Kornfield, PhD, is one of the best known, most respected meditation teachers in the world. A psychologist and founder of two of the largest Buddhist centers and communities in America, he is one of the key teachers to introduce mindfulness to the West. His books, which include A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; and The Wise Heart, are classics, selling well over a million copies, and translated into twenty-one languages. Jack has taught at major universities and centers worldwide, including Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and Berkeley; he teaches regular classes to four hundred at Spirit Rock in Marin County and to large crowds nationwide at retreats, conferences, and events. To learn more, please visit: JackKornfield.com or SpiritRock.org.

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    Reviews for Jesus and Buddha

    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Three thousand miles from where Jesus was born, another miraculous birth occurred: the Buddha. As the Buddha walked on water, passed through walls, and raised the dead, so did Jesus in his day. As the Buddha fed 500 with a few small cakes, so did Jesus work with loaves and fishes. Five hundred years after a terrible earthquake marked the death of the Buddha, the earth shook again when Jesus breathed his last.Given the eerie parallels between these two lives, one naturally wonders if their teachings were also similar. In a book that is probably best read as a daily devotional, Borg provides a “Jesus” saying on the left side of each page, and a parallel “Buddha” saying on the right side. Here are some of my favorites:Jesus: “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” Buddha: “Stealing, deceiving, adultery; this is defilement. Not the eating of meat.”Jesus: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in a steal.” Buddha: “Let the wise man do righteousness: A treasure that others cannot share, which no thief can steal; a treasure which does not pass away.”Jesus: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Buddha: “Do not let there be a schism in the order, for this is a serious matter. Whoever splits an order that is united will be boiled in hell for an aeon.”What is going on, here? Were Jesus and Buddha spiritual masters inspired by a single cosmic source? Is the Christian “very God of very God” one with the Buddhist “God of gods?” You can’t help but be inspired as you contemplate the similarities of these two great religious leaders.
    • 5/5
      I intend to keep this in my personal collection because it is an inspiring book that I love and can dip into again & again.
    • 5/5
      Jesus and Buddha is a wonderful, enlightening book that compares the similarities in the lives of Jesus Christ and Buddha.Both were of virgin birth, both healed the sick, were tempted by the devil, ate with prostitutes and taught the way of life, leading their disciples and followers down a path of better living.I was given this book as a gift by my mother and will forever treasure it. As someone who was raised as a Christian, but came to believe in the teachings of Buddha, this is a wonderful way for someone to see that they are following the right path, no matter if they see themselves as Buddhist or Christian. It also makes a wonderful book for new believers of either faith. Highly recommended and very easy to read-I don't think it is possible to be disappointed.
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable, potentially quick read.
      Several of the compared passages seemed to be stretching overly far to find common ground.

    Book preview

    Jesus and Buddha - Jack Kornfield

    001

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Introduction

    EDITOR’S PREFACE

    The Parallel Sayings

    PARALLEL SAYINGS, PARALLEL LIVES

    COMPASSION

    WISDOM

    MATERIALISM

    INNER LIFE

    TEMPTATION

    SALVATION

    THE FUTURE

    MIRACLES

    DISCIPLESHIP

    ATTRIBUTES

    LIFE STORIES

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Copyright page continued

    OTHER ULYSSES PRESS TITLES

    Copyright Page

    This compilation reveals a remarkable synchronicity in early teaching from East to West.

    —NEW AGE JOURNAL

    Beautifully laid out . . . a popular book designed to foster reflection.

    —RELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW

    Enlightening and beautifully printed.

    —THE LIVING CHURCH

    An eloquent overview of the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism.

    —DETROIT FREE PRESS

    001

    INTRODUCTION

    By Jack Kornfield

    You hold in your hand a remarkable and beautiful book. In our modern times we have had translated for us the teachings of all the world’s major religions, the wisdom of the ages. Jesus and Buddha, two of the greatest holy beings ever to walk the earth, inspiration to billions, are now meeting in an encounter of the spirit in the West. When we listen deeply to their words, we find that in many ways, they speak with one heart.

    The brotherhood of these sacred physicians, healers of the sorrows of humanity, was portrayed to me in a faraway land long ago. While studying Buddhism I had the privilege of visiting a monastery in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. It was built on an island by a master of peace known as the Coconut Monk and filled with monks during the war years. Passing along the waterways in the midst of active fighting, our boat arrived at the dock where Buddhist monks greeted and escorted us around. They explained to us the teaching of nonviolence and forgiveness on which they had staked their lives. We ate together.

    Then they took us to the end of the island where, on top of a hill, there was an enormous fifty-foot tall statue of a standing Buddha. Next to Buddha stood an equally tall statue of Jesus. They had their arms around each others’ shoulders, smiling. While helicopter gunships flew by overhead and the war raged around us, Buddha and Jesus stood there like brothers, expressing compassion and healing for all who would follow their way.

    The bond of love depicted by these statues rests on the universal wisdom that they share. They both taught the Laws of the heart, the eternal fragrance of virtue, the path of generosity, the power of faith, contentment and compassion. They both inspired their disciples to turn from the materialism of the world and live a life of the spirit, to come to know the timeless truth, to awaken to the undying. There is one truth, not many, say the Buddhist texts. It is open to all. See and know this for yourself, said the Buddha. Jesus pointed in the same openhanded fashion when he said, The Kingdom of God is within you.

    That this is universal wisdom there can be no doubt. When holy men and women—revered elders, Christian monastics and Buddhist masters—have met in recent years, they know one another like family, as living the same life of purity and holy renunciation. The meeting of Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama was said to be filled with profound connection and delicious laughter. Then there is the story of the old Zen master who met a famous Christian abbot in an airport in the United States. It was a chance encounter and there was no translator present, so they sat together for an hour, holding hands and smiling broadly.

    What matters is not the scholarly or theological differences between Buddhism and Christianity, but that both offer us direct teachings, instructions, practices, ways to conduct our lives and free our hearts. Jesus and Buddha say to us, even today, Follow me. Do we dare?

    If we could read, listen to, take to heart and enact even one verse from these teachings, it would have the power to illuminate our hearts, free us from confusion and transform our lives.

    Read these passages slowly, savor them. Take them as medicine, as dispellers of doubt, as poetry of the soul, as clarity for the mind, as words that pierce the veil of the heart, that show us the Way, that bring to us sacred blessings.

    May it be so.

    EDITOR’S PREFACE

    by Marcus Borg

    As the world reckons things, I am an expert in the study of Jesus. In my understanding and appreciation of the Buddha, however, I am an amateur. I do not know scholarship surrounding the Buddha as I do about Jesus.

    As a Christian, I have lived with Jesus all of my life. I have not lived with the Buddha. In adulthood, I have become a non-exclusivist Christian. It seems clear that the sacred has been known in all of the major religious traditions, and I do not think that Christianity is the only adequate religion, even though it is my home.

    Thus I write as a Jesus scholar and a devoted but non-exclusivist Christian. Buddhists might see matters differently, and I know that some Christians would. But the cumulative product of my thinking and experience is the conclusion that Jesus and the Buddha are the two

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