The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus

Reviewed by Claire Sykes

Parabola
Vol.22 No.2 (Summer 1997)
pp.104-105

COPYRIGHT 1997 Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition

            His Holiness the Dalai Lama was invited by the World Community for 
            Christian Meditation in London to comment on eight passages from the 
            Gospels at their yearly John Main Seminar. Two passages were chosen 
            from each Gospel, to represent the particular style of the writers: 
            Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although these scriptures were 
            unfamiliar to the Dalai Lama, one participant said later, Your 
            intuitive wisdom and sense of truth, trained in Buddhism, enables 
            you to see very deeply and very clearly into many of the truths of 
            our Scriptures and to reveal them to us in a new way." This book is 
            a record of the historic interfaith encounter. 
            The Gospel passages are given at the head of each section, and are 
            followed by the Dalai Lama's commentary. He weaves Buddhist and 
            Christian teachings together in a gentle and compassionate way, 
            never trying to make them the same, never stressing one over the 
            other. His teachings shed an extraordinary light on passages which 
            Christians probably know by heart, and yet have never understood so 
            clearly. Perhaps the most exceptional is the teaching on the 
            Resurrection and Ascension, which he develops into a cosmic 
            dimension. It moved many to tears. As Father Laurence Freeman said, 
            when thanking the Dalai Lama, "You used your strength of wisdom, 
            insight, intelligence, and spiritual power with wonderful 
            delicacy.... I felt you were using language, thought, and imagery 
            that combined our cultures and brought us to the limit of language." 
            

            There is an excellent introduction by Freeman, which outlines the 
            aims of the seminar. Speaking of meditation as a way of faith, he 
            says, "Because we were meditating together three times a day, it was 
            possible for the Dalai Lama's commentaries on the Gospels to be 
            delivered and shared in an atmosphere of a common faith." Freeman 
            adds that these periods of silence were crucial to the success of 
            the experiment. That the Dalai Lama agreed was shown by his 
            attending the early morning meditation each day, after which he had 
            to return to his residence for breakfast, and then make the same 
            long journey back for the first session an hour later. 
            Throughout the book there is insistence on the variety of religious 
            traditions. The Dalai Lama stresses that we should be careful not to 
            reduce everything to a set of common terms, so that there is no 
            longer a distinction between the ways. He says, "I firmly believe 
            that at a very profound level there is value in the distinctness and 
            uniqueness of these different approaches." However, when asked 
            whether he thought it would be beneficial for people from different 
            faiths to go on a pilgrimage together, he replies that this is a 
            project he has been working on, and he believes that this practice 
            would have "tremendous benefit." 
            This is a book of very profound wisdom and tenderness, and should be 
            of interest to all who seek to further their understanding of the 
            spiritual world.