Given your comments, you might appreciate Seth Segall's "Can't We All Just Get Along?" at http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2010/10/cant-w...

Thanks for your support and additional comments. It is amazing that we can't take it for granted, but then again just think how many wars have been fought on account of religious differences. The Buddhist concept of confidence or faith is very instructive here. You don't just take what's given in the teachings without healthy questioning and discernment. You have an initial amount of confidence without even having to try, and as you practice more and more and see the benefits, then you can test out the teachings in relation to your direct experience. This is so different from the blind faith that many have grown up with, and some seem to have carried over. Attachment to ideas, opinions, self - according to the Dhamma, that's the last thing to go. Good to be aware of the trappings!

Generally speaking, I do not like to get too much into the business of opining, because I don't think it's of much use to us, but since I provided praise on this and the previous post, I feel obligated to respond to the criticism that this is a simplistic and unwarranted slam at those who may disagree.

First, I agree whole-heartedly that there is the danger of dilution of the Dhamma, and that's just as much the case whether the teachings are being integrated with psychotherapy, Christianity or atheism. However, what seems most important to me here is that we recognize that all of these are systems of thought and not truths in and of themselves. In the absolute sense there is clearly only one truth. And obviously there are different paths to get there. Not all are as efficient, and there is no doubt that most people will derive far greater benefit from following one path as opposed to taking a bit from each (at least until they are already fairly realized). That's the case even within the various schools of Buddhism.

However, we spend so much time focusing on our differences, so much time in reaction to or against, rather than recognizing what we have in common. My interest in better embracing our own cultural conditioning as Dhamma practitioners (note I have a hard time adopting the label Buddhist or Christian), is so that we can engage in dialogue and learn from one another. So that we may be engaged practitioners, who can both give and receive spiritual care and friendship to/from those of other traditions, belief systems, etc, and thereby help to reduce our suffering.

I am grateful to Dennis for bringing this issue to the forefront because it's something we need to contemplate. How Buddhism matures in the West is not so black and white. It can't be. We (in the conventional sense) are our conditioning, we are shaped by our environment and cultural context. We can choose to focus on what makes one way of being in the world, or one path for realizing the absolute, different/better from another, or we can focus on what we share as human beings first, not as Buddhists or Muslims or Westerners or Asians. We spend so much time creating division, feeding our hatred and anger, instead of finding ways to actually communicate with others in a compassionate way. Is that what any of these teachings are about? I don't think so.

I truly believe we can find more common ground between Buddhism and our Judeo-Christian heritage and that it doesn't have to be at the expense of our faith or practice. I respect that others may disagree, but I also don't think this is just a matter of proclamation and, it's certainly not an academic exercise that needs further textual support. It's about how we're living and how we're practicing.

(Please be nice, I'm really going out on a limb here - this is not my comfort zone.)

Amen / Sadhu (with palms together, like both traditions do)...

Thanks Dennis. This is a really important issue, one I've been grappling with philosophically with all the secularizing tendencies of Western Buddhism, as well as more personally as I take on pastoral care and other counseling roles. Particularly in terms of those who are interested in an engaged practice - we need to be able to not only relate to the cultural traditions in which we were raised but also the cultural traditions in which the people we are relating to were raised. Recently, when visiting a dying patient, his Catholic priest came to offer communion. Two weeks in a row I was asked if I would like to take communion with them, and I declined. But after the second time I realized there was no reason I needed to do that. If it was meaningful to them, it could be meaningful to me too. It doesn't have to mean the same thing. Religious doctrines and or belief systems are conventional truths, like different languages, they are just a means of communicating ultimate truths. I see no reason why we can't learn to blend a little better. In fact, I think we have an obligation to encourage more inter-faith dialogue and, recognizing and integrating our own roots is one of the most important ways we can do that.