Little Baby Jesus and Our Common Buddha Nature

Details

Category: Wisdom

Published on Monday, 30 January 2012 09:42

Written by Frank Tedesco

The Little Baby Jesus and Our Common Buddha Nature

The renowned American Buddhist translator of the Lotus Sutra Dr. Gene Reeves delivered a Christmas sermon at the Unitarian Universalist in Clearwater, Florida on the morning of Dec. 5th. He called his talk  “Little Baby Jesus and Buddhism”.  Later that day he gave a special lecture for the local Rissho Kosei-kai group housed at the church to commemorate Buddha's Enlightenment Day on December 8th the date celebrated in Japan. I will briefly paraphrase his Unitarian talk and add a few of my own.

Dr. Reeves began his morning homily by asking, “What in the world does baby Jesus of Christmas fame have to do with Buddha's message, so far removed from the “holy night at Bethlehem?” Reeves answered his own rhetorical question by providing  perspectives about the mythical story of the birth of Jesus from modern critical scholarship.

First of all, our earliest knowledge of the traditional Christmas nativity derives from two basic and  well- researched Christian sources, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Their accounts of the allegedly historical event differ considerably from one another, too. (See details at  http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Jesus-Birth.htm). Interestingly, the Gospels of Mark and John do not mention Christ's birth at all). Linguistic analysis suggests that Mary and Joseph were not technically married but only betrothed (similar to being “engaged to marry” “affianced”) so in fact Jesus was born of an unwed mother and was technically an illegitimate child.

There is also the question of the baby's paternity. Who was Jesus' father? Since Joseph did not have sexual contact with Mary to conceive the child,  with whom did she have illicit relations, if you cannot accept Immaculate Conception and “virgin birth”? We don't know, and maybe Mary and Joseph didn't know either! Holy Spirit?God?

The couple, too, were Jews,  an oppressed minority tribe within the Roman Empire, controlled by and taxed by Roman rulers.  They were very poor, itinerant and homeless. The baby entered this difficult world under very unsanitary conditions, in an animal pen with only straw to cushion him. The newborn infant himself was placed in an animal feeding trough (a manger)  immediately after leaving his mother's womb. Many common farm animals were all around the couple and baby at birth. We may say that they were in the lowest of all conditions for civilized humans with dirt and manure all around. Yet the baby Jesus was hailed the “King of Kings!” in Christian history. Remarkably, the birth of this destitute boy received the attention of Magi of the East who traveled great distances to honor him as God on earth, a messiah come to save  us from human suffering!

What does this tale have to do with Buddhism? If even this poor homeless infant  of questionable parentage can be recognized a savior, a “son of man” we, too, of the human substance have similar inherent worth. We are already enlightened and  can become “saviors” of ourselves and all sentient beings.  Mahayana Buddhism teaches that we all have Buddha-nature within us, that we all possess an enlightened compassionate nature. Both Jesus and Buddha, one lowly and oppressed and other an entitled prince born with “a silver spoon in his mouth”, taught and demonstrated universal love  and our intrinsic wisdom and spiritual power. This is what the story of the birth of little baby Jesus and the Buddha have in common. The Christian personal salvation from hell in the next life or liberation from a seemingly endless round of rebirths, as Buddhism teaches, is a universal hope for all of us whatever our status in society. The tales of the infant Jesus and the baby Buddha are miracle stories that both entertain us with wonder and awaken us to our infinite potential to bring peace on earth for ourselves and others.

Gene Reeves published The Lotus Sutra: A Contemporary Translation of a Buddhist Classic: Wisdom Publications, 2008. A companion volume The Stories of the Lotus Sutra just came out (Wisdom Publications, 2010). Dr. Reeves has lived and taught in Japan for twenty years. He is retired from the University of Tsukuba. He earned a Ph.D. at Emory University and has been a Unitarian Universalist minister and interfaith organizer for decades. He was one of the founders of the Council for the Parliament of World Religions and is a member of the Board of the Society for Buddhist Christian Studies. As a Buddhist teacher, he travels frequently to China, Singapore, Taiwan, America, and Europe to give talks at universities and churches, mainly on the Lotus Sutra. Professor Reeves will teach Buddhism at the University of Peking, Beijing, in 2011.