Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
While Lee's teaching may have been influenced by Taoism, he, of course, didn't endorse it. Quite the contrary what he said about it was usually either merely factual or derogatory.
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Actually Lee was derogatory toward everything and everyone. So he's being pretty mild with Taoism, actually.
I once noted the gospel's similarities with the religions of the east, while reading a book on spirituality by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was influenced by Oriental philosophy and did much to import it to the American continent in the early 19th century. Emerson was a Harvard Divinity School graduate who more or less renounced formal religion, and embraced the cosmos. I found his writings to be quite good, but none of it either nullified Christ, nor replaced it, but just sort of presented it in a fresh way. But of course Emerson's orientally-tinged cosmos missed the death and resurrection of Christ. In that it was certainly not Christian.
I've several times here boiled down the philosophy of Christ to "do unto others as you would have God do to you" or some variant. That "what you do is what you get" philosophy is rather oriental, actually, and it Christian as well. Much hay has been made of the connection between Plato's philosophy and that of the NT, and I wonder why less is made of the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. They both seem to me to say, "What you do is what you get."
Of course the crucial difference in Christianity is that we believe that Christ fulfilled the Divine Mandate, not only for God but for us the fallen. Christ is the One whose death redeemed mankind, we who fell from grace. Now it is faith that begins the process of restoration.
Yet, marching right behind that faith, is the irrevocable philosophy of, "What you do is what you get." Believe, yes; but believe and obey. Don't be a hearer of the word but a doer as well. Faith without works is dead. If you do not forgive you will not be forgiven. Etc.
The main advantage of Christianity to Buddhism as I see it is twofold. First of course we have Christ to lead the way. Jesus the Nazarene is the irreplaceable Shepherd, Guide, and Friend, Teacher, Master, and Captain of the army of the Lord. Second, as Paul said, "I die daily"; we don't need to wait for the end of this life to see if we'll become a frog or a bat or a rajah. We can die today, and move "to the next level" so to speak. I find this preferable.