Sensei Merle Kodo Boyd
Jaina Convention
Federation of Jain Associations In North America
A Buddhist Perspective
 Sensei Merle Kodo Boyd Sensei Merle Kodo Boyd represents Buddhism on the Board of the Monmouth Center of World’s Religions and Ethical Thought and leads a small Zen Buddhist Sangha in Lincroft, NJ, recently installed as a Dharma Teacher at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. |
Interreligious conversation calls for honesty and openness. Because the language of religious and spiritual practice is a very intimate language, it requires trust and a willingness to share ones deepest thoughts. In interreligious dialogue we speak the language we use when we carry on the conversation between ourselves and that, which is far greater than ourselves. We must choose our words with care and listen with openness and patience.
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For each of us, even among those who practice the same religion, our religious language is uniquely our own. No one else can know our experience of the meaning of life or our experience of union with the truth of life, whatever name we give it. We have our own words for it, words that change as our experience with our religion changes and deepens, words we often keep private. When we dare to share them, we express a deep trust in each other. It is important that this trust be honored.
In honoring this trust, how do we speak to each other? How do we listen to each other? This is the Buddhist teaching of Right Speech - speaking and listening in a way that honors the trust we are placing in each other. We speak in a way that recognizes our true nature as impermanence, selflessness and interdependent.
We use words of honesty and kindness. We choose< words that fit the time and circumstances. We choose words that nurture our experience of the best in us. Right Speech is a manifestation of absolute life, life that takes many forms moment after moment and at the same time always remains One.
Our effort and intent is to speak to both the sameness and the uniqueness of each being. We make this effort under all circumstances, but nowhere is tt effort more important than in interreligious dialogue. Speaking aero religious boundaries can often seem challenging and sometimes even threatening. Differences can feel like a separation, and give the illusion that we are not connected to each other. They can delude us into thinking that the life of a stranger does not really touch our own, or that we can hurt another while remaining free from pain ourselves.
Buddhism and many other religions teach the opposite: to harm another is harm to ourselves, and harm to ourselves is harm to another. All traditions have some form of this Golden Rule. Living in accord with this truth, it is essential that we respect our differences, especially our religious differences.
Those who are Zen Buddhists take vows to Cease from Evil, Practice Good and Do Good for Others. These vows are called the Three Pure Precepts. We cease from evil by letting go of our habitual notions of separateness, and by acknowledging our oneness and the infinite forms we can take. We let go of all fixed ideas about who we are and who others are, freeing ourselves and others to change and become more and more themselves.
In doing good we are taught to bear witness to the joys and sorrows of all beings and circumstances. That is, we let ourselves completely feel what is happening to us and to the people around us. And this feeling tells us what we need to know in order to truly be of help. We are able to "create from another's suffering, our own usefulness".
We let dissolve the wall of defensiveness and pretense that often characterizes our relationships and allow ourselves a view of life from the other person's perspective. We do not need to agree with another's belief in order to understand the depth and sincerity with which they believe it. Even in strong disagreement we accept the fact of the existence of another point of view.
To cease from Evil is to see and directly experience our oneness as a living fact. Do Good is to see and embrace the myriad differences that make up this Oneness. We see more clearly that no matter how different we are in gender, race, religion, age, and circumstances we are connected. In this way, we prepare ourselves for interreligious conversation. We prepare ourselves for conversation with everyone who is not us, in other words, the entire universe.
From the Buddhist perspective it is essential and unavoidable that there be many religions. In a constantly unfolding world, there is the potential for infinite ways of being. In a universe unfolding according to the laws of cause and effect, the arising of one thing is dependent on the existence of another thing. There is no independently arising existence. We cannot exist apart from each other. Even in conflict, we remain interconnected. Therefore we can cause each other great harm and we can bring each other great happiness. We are able to form the intent and make the effort to act in ways that bring others happiness..
In interreligious conversation we have the opportunity to nurture each other spiritually. The Sixteen Bodhisattva Vows - the vows of one who wishes to awaken themselves in order to assist in the awakening of others - begin with taking refuge in the Oneness of life's true nature, the diversity of life's true nature, and the harmonious interdependence of oneness and diversity. Oneness has no way of manifesting other than through diversity.
The last of these sixteen vows is the vow Not to Speak ill of the Three Treasures - the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In other words the vow not to violate oneness, diversity and the harmony of oneness and diversity. Another way of viewing this vow is to see it as a commitment to the universal community of beings. We are committing ourselves to honor the religious and spiritual practice of each person. In all practices, however diverse, we make an effort to understand and realize our relationship with an absolute that holds all possible differences and is beyond our description.