Latest / Centrally Speaking / Living with Buddhism

Transcript

Living with Buddhism · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the central strength of the church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middlewomen, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org in Western society, we are finding evermore increase of other religions in our midst.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is taking place in Europe, but also taking place in America, and from where we are talking today, also taking place uh in Southeast Pennsylvania.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're going to be continuing on in our series on living with world religions, and we're going to talk about uh living with Buddhism.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: And we're fortunate again to have uh Dr.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Rob Arner with us.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: He's been a teacher of theology, ethics, biblical studies at seminaries and universities uh here in the Philadelphia area for over 15 years, and especially at uh St.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Joseph's University on City Line in uh Philadelphia in their theology and philosophy departments.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: He's also a pastor and preacher at Doylestown Mennonite, and he's been involved with us at the Congregational Institute for four years now.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And some of you who have just uh listened to some of our podcasts uh recently will know that he also participated in our Living with Hinduism podcast.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Rob, welcome back.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're glad to uh talk to you today about living with Buddhism.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Happy to be here.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm always glad to have you here.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about Buddhism and uh number of followers in the Philadelphia area.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you can tell us uh what you found about uh number of followers as well as how many Buddhist uh temples are here in this area.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to I wanted to give out a uh a shout out to the source of my data here.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: This this wonderful database that I just found.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's called uh the Association of Religion Data Archives.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: The website is thearda.com.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was plugged in a search for Philadelphia and the surrounding counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: According to the the ARDA database, there are 25 Buddhist congregations with a total of 23,991 practitioners in in those temples.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And those figures come from 2020.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the relatively new nearby says somebody could drive to one within um within a half hour or so as they're scattered throughout this this area.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's uh perhaps put Buddhism into perspective uh of uh ancient religions.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we I spoke to you with you recently about Hinduism.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: How about uh Buddhism?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is Buddhism as old as uh as Hinduism?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when we talked about Hinduism, I mentioned that we can't really set a date for its founding, but with Buddhism, we are able to pinpoint much with much more precision the actual date of its founding.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because it goes back to the life of an Indian prince named uh Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in 563 BC and lived until 483 BC.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Siddhartha, he was the one who later became known as the Buddha, and the Buddha means the enlightened one, kind of like the title, kind of like how in Christianity Christ is the Greek translation for the Hebrew Messiah, the the anointed one.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I should probably tell Buddha's story here.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's instrumental in understanding what Buddhists believe and why.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Siddhartha was born as a prince in the city-state of Lumbini, which is in uh northeastern India or maybe uh Nepal, and his dad was the king.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Prince Siddhartha was in line to inherit the throne.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: His dad, though, wanted Siddhartha to be a great ruler who was not dragged down by the bad things of the world.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So he decided when his son was still an infant that he was going to raise Siddhartha in such a way that he would be shielded from all the suffering and pain in the world to the greatest degree possible.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So his father spared no expense using all of his palace riches to keep up what was basically an elaborate charade for the prince.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody who was sad or sick or in pain was allowed to be in the presence of Siddhartha.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was shielded from the existence of suffering, as hard as that may be to imagine.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: According to his dad's wishes, he didn't experience anything unpleasant at all up until around the age of 29.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So he was sheltered behind the walls of the palace for the first 29 years of his life.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then, when he was 29, the prince's curiosity got the best of him, and he managed to leave the palace with the help of his faithful servant and the palace's chief charioteer named Chana.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they go for a series of chariot rides outside the palace, taking the prince outside to the outside world for the first time.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the prince saw a number of sights on these chariot rides that totally rocked his world, things he had never seen before or even imagined that they existed.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: On the first chariot ride, Siddhartha saw a decrepit old man who was bent and broken by many years of old age.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he was shocked.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So he asked Chana about what's wrong with this guy?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Chana replied that this was the destiny of all human beings.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're all gonna face decline as we get old.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Siddhartha had never seen an old man before.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he even even though his dad was a good year old, he was his dad was not encumbered by the ravages of old age.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Siddhartha was shocked.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: He had Chana do a U-turn immediately and run back to the palace, and he brooded about what he had just seen.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: He goes out again a few days later, and this time on his chariot ride, the prince saw his first diseased person who was suffering from the effects of sickness.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this caused Siddhartha to ponder how foolish we are to smile and celebrate when there is so much illness and suffering in the world.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: He thought, how can we rejoice and be happy when there are people out there who are suffering from illness like that?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: But then his third chariot ride was the most devastating because for the first time in his life, he saw a dead person who was being carried away by the villagers toward the funeral pyre.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: He asked Chana what was wrong with this guy, and Chana said that he's dead, that his body will never return to life again.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And dismayed, Siddhartha marveled that we can go about our daily lives not constantly thinking about the eventual certainty of death that awaits us all.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I was first learning about Siddhartha's story, it reminded me a lot about some of the things that King Solomon meditates on in the book of Ecclesiastes.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Solomon's astounded at the suffering that he knows fills the world.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And just like Siddhartha was trying very hard, but without success, to find any meaning or purpose to all the suffering.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So then Siddhartha takes one final chariot ride, and this time he saw something that gave him a spark of hope.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: He saw a wandering, ascetic holy man who had renounced all his worldly possessions in order to seek happiness and enlightenment.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that day Siddhartha vowed to be like this wandering holy man to see if he could do something about the world's suffering.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when he gets back to the palace after that last chariot ride, Siddhartha the prince removes all of his rich royal robes and jewelry and renounces everything he owns in his life, including his wife and young son.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he dedicated his life to a path of asceticism, like simplicity, uh going, you know, going without stuff in order to seek enlightenment and understand the causes of why we suffer in this world.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: In a lot of ways, his renunciation kind of reminds me of that of uh Saint Francis of Assisi, if you're familiar with the story of his calling and how he divested himself of his riches to seek a life of Christian poverty.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But Siddhartha lived for a time in what we would call extreme asceticism.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's like a penniless, wandering beggar nearly starving to death, because he thought that giving up all the comforts and luxuries of the world would help him in his search for enlightenment.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then when he he had gathered about five disciples around him who were interested in what he had to say, but when they realized that this extreme asceticism wasn't getting anywhere, his disciples up and ditched him and went to look for somebody else.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so Siddhartha is despondent.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: He goes over to a nearby fig tree and he vows to sit down and meditate and not move again until he had achieved enlightenment.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And under that tree, which became known as the Bodhi tree or the tree of enlightenment, Siddhartha sat there meditating and thinking, going deep into himself until finally he got it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: He achieved enlightenment, as they say, and was henceforth known as the Buddha, the enlightened one.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: The Buddha gathers some followers, and for the remaining 45 years of his life, he travels the countryside, teaching the path of enlightenment to everybody who would listen.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, very much like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Buddha had tried a lot of different things and found them all wanting.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Neither the extreme hedonism of living in the sumptuous palace life as a prince, or the extreme asceticism of his years as a penniless beggar had yielded the insights that he wanted.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So his path became known as the middle way, the path between the two extremes.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'll talk more about what it was that he discovered in his enlightenment and later on.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's and that's good.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's uh the the opening story, I think, uh, provides a lot of basis of what this religion is about.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, an ascetic who's dealing with suffering and trying to find uh trying to make away with it.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: But he does it without finding gods like Hinduism, or let's say the god of Christianity or Judaism, correct?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: With Hinduism, we had talked about how there were millions of gods, but they're all manifestations of this one ultimate reality, Brahman.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But in Buddhism, we kind of have a non-religious religion in that the gods are really of no consequence, it's really all about meditating and going deep within yourself.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Buddhists, uh, some Buddhists might use the word atheist to describe themselves, others might not.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The existence of God is completely irrelevant to them.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter whether there is a god or not in Buddhism.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Buddha himself once said that he didn't really care whether there was a god or not.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he called.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a very different religion than Hinduism.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, for those of us who are listening in the Western world, uh, sometimes we group these things together.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's very different, and very different from uh the Judeo-Christian faith.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are some really important worldview carryovers, though, that Buddhism shares with Hinduism.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: They both have that cyclical view of time we talked about last time.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Karma and the cycle of reincarnation is so essential in Buddhism as it is in Hinduism.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Same it because Buddhism grew out of the worldview of Hinduism.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: So there is the similarity with Hinduism, but of course, reincarnation is not a parallel to Judeo-Christian faith uh at all.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, would it be fair to say that the Buddhist is trying to overcome the problem of suffering and that that's their main their main focus?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: How do we get past suffering?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that is that's what it's all about.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: That that was what the Buddha was trying to do with his quest, and that is what modern Buddhists say their faith is about.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: They want to get rid of suffering.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for them, though, kind of similar to to Hinduism, the reincarnation cycle itself is a source of suffering because to exist, like life is filled with suffering.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the first uh of the Buddhism's noble truths that to basically to exist is to suffer.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And enlightenment in in Buddhism is when you strip away the illusions of the world to see nothing but what is real and rid yourself of thoughts and desires that bind you to this world, really.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's an eightfold path to uh Buddhism.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, might you say uh something about that uh and how that uh plays into um uh sorting out uh suffering?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I should describe the four noble truths because this is the content of Buddha's revelation of what Buddha discovered meditating under the tree.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: These four assertions about reality that build off of each other, and they're called the Four Noble Truths.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: The first noble truth is that all of life is filled with suffering, that every moment of existence is filled with pain, illness, death.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we can forget about the suffering sometimes when we distract ourselves and think about pleasant things, but those distractions are impermanent.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we fool ourselves into thinking we can get rid of suffering through our lives because suffering is the essence of existence.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: The second noble truth is what Buddha described as the cause of suffering, and he named the the cause of all of human suffering as attachment or desire for things or people or ideas.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: When we are attached to something and that thing gets lost or destroyed, that's when we suffer, because everything that exists in this world is impermanent, you know, will inevitably die or be destroyed or change.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if we pitch our wagons to it, as you could say, only suffering is going to result eventually.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Third noble truth is that since you know the root of suffering, you can stop, you can stop suffering.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because suffering has a cause, we can stop it if we address that cause.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the cure for suffering is to rid ourselves of attachments.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So a Buddhist's goal is to become dispassionate, unattached to anything, things, people, or ideas.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: The fourth noble truth is that the way to become unattached to everything is by following what the Buddhists call the Eightfold Noble Path, which directs a person how to live a life without attachment and therefore without suffering.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, the eightfold noble path is like the ethics of Buddhism.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's it involves like how to understand reality, how to speak, how to act, how to make a living, how to be mindful of things.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that uh their right understanding part is really key here because it it leads us to the Buddhist metaphysics or or how Buddhists understand the nature of reality.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that desire and attachment are the root cause of all suffering for Buddha.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason that the things we are attached to and desire, they are actually illusions in Buddhist thought.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, reality is an illusion, not real.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's nothing lasts forever.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like a movie playing in your mind.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And until we realize that reality is an illusion, we can't be free from our desires and attachments.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're really attached to something, and that thing truly at its essence doesn't actually exist, the only thing that you're going to reap from that is pain and suffering.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm interested in how this pathway developed.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Is the Buddhist faith working with, let's say, sacred texts that uh lead in this pathway?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Can you say something about them?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Buddhism does have sacred scriptures, although different streams of Buddhism, like Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism, do not agree on what those texts are.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the Buddha himself left no writings, kind of like Jesus never wrote anything personally.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And different Buddhist traditions revered different collections of Buddha's sayings as scripture.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: They were passed down orally for several hundred years before they were finally written down.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: In Theravada Buddhism, for example, they have uh two collections of Buddhist teachings called the Pali Canon and the Sanskrit Canon.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the Pali Canon was written down around 25 BC, while the Sanskrit canon was written down in the first century AD.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So both of them at least 400 to 500 years after the Buddha died, unlike the Gospels, which were written within a couple of decades after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a there's a there's a much broader historical gap between the writing of the Buddhist scriptures and the writing down of the Christian gospels and the apostolic writings.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really significant point.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this those uh writings uh for the gospels happen in the living memory of eyewitnesses or uh or or those who listen to eyewitnesses.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's an entirely different approach to writing down things that are you know sacred or valuable.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Much closer to the to the original events, that's right.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: What are the sacred texts and what language are they written in?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sanskrit is the language of the majority of them, although some of them are written in uh in a couple of other uh Asian languages, which I am not as familiar with, nor can I read them.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: What's the quality of these these texts?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, are they are they reliable or do they have textual errors in them, or are they significantly different from each other?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of copying.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: That that's a good question.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't I don't know the uh degree textual criticism is practiced on these ancient Sanskrit writings, and if they're trying to reconstruct the original readings in in the same way we've got this cottage industry of textual criticism of the New Testament, for example.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: For our listeners, uh, I mean, there are in uh Judeo-Christian uh tradition, there there are those who work in the academic uh environment who are looking at differences in letters and uh perhaps differences in a uh in word order in a few places.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: But those who are listening on may not know that many pastors are also trained, as Dr.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Arnor has said, to be able to do some cottage industry text criticism and say this is this is a reliable text uh and one that is less so.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, that's that's an important point on this.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Let's move to trying to interact with someone who is uh a Buddhist, at least from you know, starting from a Christian perspective.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you were to try and start a conversation with someone who is Buddhist uh about spiritual things, uh, where would you begin?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is a Buddhist even open to talking about spiritual things?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or are they they closed in keeping everything internalized?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Buddhists, they are a very compassionate people.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: They because their their faith is about addressing suffering, they want to understand.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because of that, I I think that a good place to start for a Christian opening up a dialogue with a Buddhist believer would not be from a pointing out the places where there are black and white disjunctures with biblical truths.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: You could start by exploring the places where Buddhism and Christianity could converge or at least complement each other, see where some commonalities are, because I think leading with positivity and affirmation of the good that you do see will always open up a person to being more ready to hear the honest critiques that you have, better than if you start off by drawing lines in the sand.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: By way of example of one of those dovetail places, Buddhist teaching that's part of the Eightfold Noble Path has a lot to commend it in terms of the ethics and the characteristic Buddhist teaching on mindfulness.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're driving around and maybe you see a there's a bumper sticker that I see on occasion.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: It says something like, be here now slogan.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: That slogan, be here now, means to be fully present and attending to what is going on in front of you and what your senses are experiencing right now at the present.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Buddhists in their meditations pay attention to their breathing a lot.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want your mind to be daydreaming or mulling over things in the past that you can't change anymore, or worrying about the future events, but keep your attention on the present moment.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: To me, that that mindfulness reminds me of what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, where he urges us not to worry about tomorrow because today has enough worry of its own.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, that's an interesting uh parallel, maybe a way in uh to Uh speak with someone who's Buddhist.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: As you were talking about, uh let's say um divesting yourself of uh uh of things and and being ascetic.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there is a part of the Christian faith that is about uh dying to self to a portion of our lives that isn't so good.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh perhaps that's also uh uh an entry point.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, would you agree?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that the Bible stresses is that when we attach, to use the Buddhist word, when we attach ourselves to the things of this world, it means that we are not being attached to God.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think of um the gospel passage about the rich young man who goes to Jesus and asks him what he has to do to inherit eternal life.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells him, keep the commandments, and he says, I've done that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, you still lack one thing.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Then come follow me.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus knew that this guy had attachment problems to his great wealth and the security he thought that wealth would bring him.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he tells the guy to get rid of his stuff before he comes to follow.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise, in another place, Jesus says that no man can serve two masters.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: He can't serve both God and money.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or, like Paul puts it in in Romans 1, the universal condition of sin and the various kinds of suffering and depravity that come on us when we, in Paul's words, worship and serve created things rather than the creator.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the very definition of what idolatry is.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: A difference, I guess, is what you're saying, though, is that the Buddhist is all about uh withdrawing from the world, but uh in comparison to let's say the Christian faith, uh it's uh yes, withdraw from the world, but also then attach yourself to Jesus, correct?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the place this is this is really where the rubber meets the road when it comes to Christianity and Buddhism.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: That Buddhism wants you to detach yourself completely from everything, because in their view, everything is temporary or illusion.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: But Christianity, its most ardent proclamation is that there are some things that are eternal, that will endure God.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: God is the only person, thing in existence that had no beginning, will have no end.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: And even us who are made in his image, God didn't make us to die.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: We die because of our sin and rebellion, but that wasn't God's plan for the world.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And even the creation, uh, the Bible promises in so many places that the world, God didn't make it to decay and die.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think of Romans 8, 19 to 22, or Revelation's promise that heaven and earth will be made new again.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that they're going to be destroyed and replaced with something new, it's that the currently existing creation that is infected with sin will be transformed into a new and incorruptible reality, like Jesus was when God raised him from the dead.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: When we are grateful to God for the things that he's given us, and the created world, as Paul says, reflects God's image, or Psalm 19 says that all creation declares the glory of God or reflects back his goodness like a mirror.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the church has always affirmed that we can know about God's nature and character indirectly by studying the things that God has made, because his fingerprints are all over creation.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we have a healthy respect and love for the creation that doesn't confuse the creation with the creator, we can be attached and we can be attached to something that will never let us down, that that will never disappear and vanish and is real in Jesus.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no disappointment in that.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and there is no disappointment in that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And while the Buddhist is trying to extract himself or herself from the world, this is uh an attachment to something that uh Christians are saying, This is the way to go.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Come to me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Jesus is asking for that attraction, and uh, we receive his peace in coming to him.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you one last question for today.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if a Buddhist invites you to their home, how is a Christian supposed to behave?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: You have any uh guidelines for us?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh any things that uh one should or should not eat?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe you could say a word about them.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: The answer might vary, because while Buddhist teaching is, you might say, functionally atheistic in that the gods don't really play a part in it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some forms of popular Buddhism actually do tend to deify the Buddha somewhat.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you walk into some Buddhist temples, but not all of them, you'll find giant statues of the Buddha there.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them even make like offerings of food and flowers and incense to the statue of the Buddha that in a way that is really curiously a lot like some of the religious devotion forms that you find in Hindu temples.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: There can be something of a disparity between the official Buddhist teaching and the rituals that average Buddhist adherent may do.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you go to eat in a Buddhist neighbor's house, the same considerations that we talked about with Hinduism may or may not apply, depending on whether they have a Buddha shrine in their home or not, and practice that form of popular Buddhist devotion of making an offering to them.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or uh Buddhists uh largely vegetarian?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, in at least a good majority of Buddhists in the world are vegetarian.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're bringing food to a Buddhist's house, don't bring a ham or burgers and hot dogs.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: That would not go over well.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, but uh do go and just be aware that uh there might be some Buddhist statues uh around and uh try and uh speak about attachment to Jesus, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Would be your recommendation.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Dr.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Rob Arnold, we're so glad to have you uh uh on this uh podcast today.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: We wish you very uh the very best uh with uh your teaching work and also your pastoral work.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a lot of fun, Drake.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Always good to have you.