In concentrating on Jesus’ assurance that “then things will be better,” we miss his assurance that “now things can be better.”

What the makers of peace end up making depends on what they are.

In picturing or approaching the Divine as a “you,” I somehow feel I’m being inappropriate, or disrespectful, or offensive – something like talking loudly in the midst of the hushed beauty of a New Zealand forest.

With this understanding of Jesus’ divinity, his admonition to all of us to “go and do likewise” is a mighty challenging task, but it’s not an impossible task. We can’t make excuses for ourselves by putting Jesus in a totally different league. What Jesus was, we are called to be. What he attained is what we are all called to strive for.

we have to do a substantial amount of spiritual training and develop a basic store of the inner resources of wisdom, compassion, and mindfulness before we enter the fray and take up the exhausting and the always dangerous work of peacemaking and Kindom-building.

For Buddhists selfishness is not so much sinful as it is stupid.

Enlightenment will naturally lead you to be concerned about and love others. You will, in Christian terms, love your neighbor as yourself. If Christians call this a “commandment,” for Buddhists it’s something that comes naturally, as part of the Enlightened experience of Nirvana or InterBeing.

We act not to gain the fruits of our actions but because this is how the Christ-Spirit or our Buddha-nature acts, though we rejoice when our actions do bear fruit.

Christian dualism has so exaggerated the difference between God and the world that it cannot really show how the two form a unity.