Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian

Like the wind in the sails of a skilled captain’s boat, the Spirit interacts; she does not control. Or as the process theologians put it, if we want to describe God as “all-powerful,” it is the power of persistent persuasion, not that of controlling coercion.

Words are like telescopes with which we gaze into the mysterious heavens: only when we bring them to a focus do we see anything; without a focus, by trying to see too much, we don’t see anything at all.

being a grown-up means taking responsibility and thinking for oneself. That requires finding reasons in one’s own experience for affirming, or rejecting, what one took from Mom and Dad with a child’s trusting, but often blind, faith.

a good teacher, as Buddha makes clear, does not do the work that the students must do for themselves. Rather, he makes that work possible.

God’s will is being worked out through the interaction of the ever-present, ever-active Spirit on the one hand, and the free choices of humans and random happenings of nature on the other.

Buddha makes clear what’s going on. Christ shows how it goes on.

we exist through relationships of knowing and loving and giving because that’s how God exists.

If our religious language is primarily symbolic, not literal, that means that its content, its meaning, is deeper,more powerful, more personally engaging than it could ever be if taken “only” as literal.

symbols are indispensable for both the experience and the expression of the Divine Mystery.