Buddhism as World Religion
by Rev. Jack Austin
(Excerpt from pg 168~170 of the Maha Bodhi, printed in 1984 Vol. 92)

May I start with a well-known Zen story?

There was once a nun who was dedicated to a particular Buddha. As you all know, there are many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in Mahayana. We do not know which particular image this nun had, but she was very jealous of it, and very anxious to show devotions to it.

When she went away, she took along this image with her. She put in on the altar of the house or temple where she was staying. She offered incense in front of it. She noticed that the smoke of her incense drifted across to other images, and this she did not like. So , she put a metal screen round “her” Buddha to make the incense rise only there. As a result “her” Buddha gained a dirty and black face!

When we try to insist on devotion only to “our” Buddha, when we try to confine our devotion to one aspect of the Dharma, we only blacken our Buddha.

It was the great Indian Buddhist Emperor Asoka who said: “When we denigrate the religion of another we denigrate our own.” In another way of putting, we can say that when we learn to appreciate the religion of another we understand our own much better.

For some time, I was working in London as Development Officer for the World Congress of Faiths. We tried to get people to look at and appreciate the world’s religions. I noticed that there was one snag. Lecturers of one religion would come and may followers of that religion would also come to hear him and support him. That was fine, but the idea was for followers of other religions to hear him, and they were often missing.

On a more limited scale, work for inter-sectarian and inter-traditional understanding in Buddhism suffers from the same problem. When the lama comes, many followers of Tibetan Buddhism appear. When the Theravada monk comes, many Theravada Buddhists also come to hear him. But these people already know their own tradition.

Clearly, what is wanted is for followers of one tradition to attend expressly the talks given by another kind of speaker from another school of Buddhism. We need to know what other countries and other sects believe and practice.

So I appeal to you to attend the gatherings of other sects and schools. Please try to understand different approaches to the Dharma. We are not about pushing our own sect, but about looking for common ground between all sects. We wish, as European Buddhists, or as Buddhists living in Europe, to know how to promote the teachings of the Buddha.

We need to realize that all schools of Buddhism arose from Shakyamuni Buddha’s life in India 2500 years ago. Each and every development and all traditional schools are valid for us all, though we personally can only follow one path at a time. So let us not only profess universality for Buddhism, but let us practice it by supporting each other in our lives and in our efforts. We are brother Buddhists.

Father Spae, the Catholic theologian, pleaded for us all to help those of Buddhist faith who are not being persecuted and killed for our faith. When some Buddhists somewhere are in danger or are being persecuted, all Buddhists everywhere are in danger and are being ill-treated. We are not separate little groups (though it may seem so sometimes.) We are brothers and sisters in one great Buddhist religion. Anything which divides us from one another divides us all from Buddha.

Other Catholics, apart from Father Spae, have been trying to understand and appreciate Buddhism. I would only mention one or two. Father Heinrich Dumoulin has written on Zen, and so has Father Eaomlya Lassalle and Father William Johnston. Father LaMotte translated much from Mahayana writings, and his work was translated from the French into English by Sara Boin (now Sara Webb) in London. Only a week or two ago, Father Alfred Graham died at Ampleforth Abby in England, after a lifetime of studying and writing about Zen.

What these and other Catholic priests have done for understanding between the two world religions, Buddhists need to do for a much clearer and closer understanding between Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism, between Zen and Shin or Pure land, and so on. One glaring example of one-sidedness needs mentioning now.

In the Far East, as in China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, there are two fundamentally distinct but complementary approaches. One is termed Self-Power (Jiriki in Japanese) and the other is termed Other-Power (Tariki in Japanese). The first urges us to all in our power to work for the enlightenment of ourselves and all others. The second urges us to cease relying on our little selves and to depend on the power of Buddhahood, personified as Amitabha, or Amitayus (Amida for short), the Buddha seen respectively as Infinite Light and Eternal Life.

Seemingly contradictory, these schools are seen as identical in the final analysis. In the Dharma we believe that there is no permanent, separate self. This is the anatta doctrine, common to all schools. Enlightenment comes only when we transcend the limits of our small selves. So whether we make the gigantic almost comic effort to overcome the small self, or whether we go to the Enlightened One as refuge, the end result is the same,

In Buddhism we often hear the statement that the Buddha taught self-salvation. If this is taken to mean that He urged that preservation of a separate self, then that is false, that goes against the fundamental teaching of anatta. If, on the other hand, we understand it to mean salvation from the limits of self, then we have the right idea, or a Right Understanding, which is fundamental to the Eightfold Path.

The late Daiseiz Teitaro Suzuki said that the Enlightenment experience would not manifest until we had tried every way to overcome the small ego, or small self, and had finally abandoned it altogether. Then the Other Power of the Buddha would manifest. Buddhahood cannot exist fully until we abandon what separates us from Enlightenment. That barrier is the self. Self-power is really an illusion. When we realize this clearly – as opposed to paying lip-service to it – the seeming contradictions of Zen and Shin are seen to be identities.

In Shin, or “Pure Land” Buddhism, we seek the same ultimate goal as our brothers in Zen. I end with the very famous story of the Zen master and the teacup.

The master offered the pupil a cup of tea. He poured tea into the cup until it flowed over and fell to the floor. The pupil protested about this. The Master replied: “ You are like this cup. You are so full of your own opinions that you are overflowing with them. When you empty your cup it can then be used for tea.’ May we empty our cups, our selfish and egoistic cups and allow the Dharma to be poured into us.

(Given at Turin to the Buddhist Union of Europe Congress, 1984)

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