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Sermon: Jesus and Siddhartha, the Buddha and the Christ
By Rev. Bob Johansen
First Church of Christ, Unitarian
Lancaster, Mass.
April 28, 2013
Five hundred years and three thousand miles separate Siddhartha Gautama, called the
Buddha, from Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ. And yet, their words, their teachings,
as they have come down to us, bear an eerie similarity.
Listen to the words of these two great spiritual teachers as recorded by their followers
in sacred texts and scripture. (From Marcus Borg’s: Jesus and Buddha, the Parallel
Sayings).
Jesus said:
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
The Buddha said:
Consider others as yourself.
Jesus said:
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who
curse you, pray for those who abuse you. From anyone who takes away your coat do
not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes
away your goods, do not ask for them again.
The Buddha said:
Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this
is an eternal truth … Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good. Overcome the
miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth.
Jesus said: If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.
The Buddha said: If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a
knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words.
Jesus said:
I am telling you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for
those who mistreat you.
The Buddha said:
O, Let us live in joy, free of hatred among the spiteful; among the
spiteful let us live without hatred.
Jesus said: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in
your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take the speck out
of your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You, hypocrite, first
take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of
your neighbor’s eye.
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The Buddha said: The faults of others are easier to see than one’s own; the faults of
others are easily seen, for they are sifted like chaff, but one’s own faults are hard to see.
This is like the cheat who hides his dice and shows the dice of his opponent, calling
attention to the other’s shortcomings, continually thinking of accusing him.
Jesus said: Your father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
The Buddha said: The great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or
inferior. The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who
does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low.
Jesus said: Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for
my sake will save it.
The Buddha said: With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one
is liberated through not clinging
Jesus said:
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you
did not do it to me.
The Buddha said:
If you do not tend one another, then who is there to tend you?
Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick.
Jesus said:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The Buddha said:
Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her
own life, even so cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of
boundless love pervade the whole world.
Jesus said:
Seek after the treasure which does not perish, which endures in the place
where no moth comes near to devour, and no worm ravages.
The Buddha said:
In this world the wise one holds onto confidence and wisdom.
Those are the greatest treasures; all other riches are pushed aside
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Sermon:
Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield recounts this story:
While studying Buddhism, I had the privilege of visiting a monastery in the Mekong
Delta of Vietnam. It was built on an island … 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 us 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 fifty­foot 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.”
Like brothers, expressing compassion and healing for all who would follow their way.
Today, almost 40% of the world’s population considers themselves followers of the way
of either Jesus or the Buddha or both.
Not bad, considering that neither one set out to establish a religion.
In fact their stories, their biographies, as well as their teachings, have a lot in common,
including the overlay of tradition and myth that surround both of them.
Most of us are more familiar with the life of Jesus.
He was born maybe 5 years before the start of the common era, or AD, born into the
family of a carpenter and his wife from Nazareth.
The birth narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke describe his birth as
miraculous, through the Holy Spirit, to his mother Mary, a virgin.
We don’t know much about his early life, but he began his ministry around the age of
30. He first appears as a disciple of the prophet John the Baptist. Later, when John was
executed, Jesus established a ministry of his own.
Jesus was an observant Jew, referred to in scripture as Rabbi or teacher. We wasn’t
trying to start a new religion, or have people worship him. He even took exception when
someone referred to him as “good,” saying “only God is good.” He was interested in a
renewal and purification of Judaism, which he thought had lost its way.
His active ministry lasted only a couple of years.
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Around the year 33 AD, he was executed by crucifixion in Jerusalem by order of the
Roman authorities. His followers reported that when they went to his tomb three days
after his death, the tomb was empty. They claimed they saw or experienced him in a
resurrected form, although the gospels describe his appearances in different ways.
His disciples and followers continued to operate within Judaism, proclaiming Jesus’
resurrection as proof that Jesus was the Messiah, the chosen or anointed one, long
anticipated by Jewish prophets. The Greek translation of Messiah is Christos. In the
accounts written in Greek by his followers, he became known as Jesus, the Christ, or
simply, Christ.
Within 40 or 50 years after his death, the tensions between the followers of Jesus and
traditional Jewish believers reached a point of conflict and Christians were expelled
from the synagogues, eventually forming their own gathering places, which in Greek
they called eklesia or churches.
In spite of some fundamental differences, the life of the Buddha bears uncanny
similarities, to the life of Jesus.
Siddhartha Gautama was born into a wealthy, noble family in Northern India or Nepal
approximately 500 years before Jesus and some 3000 miles away.
Tradition says his birth was heralded by devas who told Queen Maya, Rejoice, a mighty
son has been born to you. Siddhartha, like Jesus, was born, not in a house, but while his
mother was on a journey. Heralds were present to sing praises of the newborn child and
prophesying his glorious future.
Siddhartha’s family tried to protect the young prince from all of life’s suffering, but
inevitably, he came face to face with the reality of illness, old age, and death, realities
not even the walls and pleasures of the royal palace could ultimately eliminate.
Around the age of 30, he left the shelter of the palace to find the answer to life’s
sufferings.
Following in the typical path of holy men of his time, he tried denying himself all but the
barest amount of food and water.
But, he found, this only served to weaken him.
Ultimately he discovered what he called the middle path between self–indulgence and
slavery to desire and its opposite, self­denial.
The term Buddha means “the awakened one.” Through extended meditation he awoke
to the reality of how his human mind works, how all our minds fall prey to our desires to
have things be other than the way they really are.
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He taught that inevitably there is suffering in life, that our mind’s desires and grasping
are the cause of suffering, and that by awakening to how we perceive reality, with all
the many layers of perception, of the physical world, perception of our thoughts,
perception of our feelings, we can free ourselves from that suffering. He then goes on to
lay out a path, a practice, for how to do that.
After his awakening to how the mind worked, he then spent 50 years teaching what he
had learned to others. Eventually a community of disciples or monks formed around
him, and over time monasteries developed to spread the teachings.
After his death he was venerated, and came to be seen by some as a heavenly being
who came down to earth to help humanity. Eventually a religion, or at least a religious
tradition, formed around him.
But he himself didn’t see himself as anything but a human being who had awoken to
seeing the world in a new way.
He saw himself as trying to renew the Hindu tradition he was raised in. He told seekers
who came to him, “this is what worked for me. Try it, and if it doesn’t work for you, find
what does.”
Both Jesus and Siddhartha are what scholars of religion call “wisdom teachers.”
They each taught ways of understanding life, how to find true peace and happiness, and
how to live a good life.
But like most wisdom teachers down through the ages, their wisdom undermined and
challenged conventional ways of seeing and being, in their time and in every time.
And both Jesus and the Buddha advocated an alternative, counter­cultural way of living
in the world, a way of transformation that challenged much of what we take for granted
in life.
They both shared an understanding that the way to peace and contentment was not
through possessions, acquisition of riches, having the most toys, or the most power.
The Buddha said: Hard it is to understand: By giving away our food, we get more
strength; by bestowing clothing on others, we gain more beauty; by founding abodes of
purity and truth, we acquire great treasures. The charitable man has found the path of
liberation. He is like the man who plants a sapling securing thereby the shade, the
flowers and the fruit in future years. Even so is the result of charity, even so is the joy of
him who helps those that are in need of assistance. The charitable man has found the
path of liberation.
Jesus said, if you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
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Both taught that the secret to true happiness was within each one of us. Jesus called it
the spirit, the kingdom of God. He said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you
bring forth will save you.
The Buddha taught that Buddha nature, our essential ability to be awakened or truly
aware, is within every person. Through meditation, opening ourselves to the truth, the
reality of the present moment, we are all able to be enlightened or awakened to
understanding life.
And in that understanding of life as it really is in each moment, comes peace and a
realization of our deep connection to all humanity and to all life.
When we see this clearly, we then treat one another as we would wish to be treated,
with love and compassion­­
even love and compassion for our enemies, and for those we so easily turn away from—
the poor, the sick, what Jesus refers to as “the least” of my brothers and sisters.
Both taught that who we are on the inside is more important than what we present to
the world, that before we criticize others we should reflect on our own short­comings.
They used different metaphors, but each taught that in order to achieve peace and
happiness we need to die to or renounce our present lives, let go of all we cling to—
possessions, status, and rigidly held beliers, in order to be reborn or awakened to life as
it really is.
There has been plenty of speculation that Jesus spent his early years in India, or at least
in the East, learning from Buddhist teachers. Or that Buddhist ideas made their way
West along the path of the silk road. There’s little concrete evidence to support either
contention.
But there is another possibility. Perhaps, in exploring the human heart in all its depth
and wonder, both teachers, and countless other teachers down through the ages, have
learned essentially the same lessons­­ that our true happiness as human beings comes
only through giving, and loving, and caring for others.
In that process, we shed our old lives and are reborn in the spirit, awakened to the spirit
in which we live and move and have our very being.
This, they would say, is the pathway to peace
The peace that surpasses human understanding,
The peace that all of our hearts truly desire.
Amen. May it be so. Amen.
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