Papers presented at the International Buddhist Conference, March ...

emphasized contemplation on the Dhamma.
He valued life, respected people's dignity, declared
amnesties twenty five times, and administered justice
based on equality.
He was not biased to any particular Buddhist sect.
He respected all religions, allowed their followers to
practice their religions anywhere in his kingdom, gave
charity to them, and appointed ministers to look after
their affairs.
With these brief remarks I would now like to discuss the nature and
conditions of interfaith or intercultural dialogue, which are
required to be kept in mind for any successful creative cultural
encounters between the two neighbours.
Now our task is to explore the ability of Buddhism to contribute to
and strengthen the interfaith or intercultural dialogue in order to
overcome the actual or possible interfaith or intercultural conflicts
in various parts of the world so that creative harmony and peace
can be established. Interfaith or intercultural dialogue in general
values interdependence over independence, pluralism over
absolutism, mutual respect and adjustment over hegemony, and
difference over identity. The Buddha's Dhamma has all these
things. The entire Buddhism has developed along these lines. This
is amply clear from the study of the Buddhist manner of thinking
toward human issues and problems, along with its basic structures
and tenets, the Buddhist response to interfaith dialogue and its
ability to strengthen it, its dealing with the contemporary social
and political issues like equality, justice, liberty, and human rights,
and its attitude toward other religions and cultures and engagement
with conflict resolution.
Interfaith or intercultural dialogue between two religious or
cultural groups, despite being external to each other but never
totally incommensurable, presupposes that each one is committed
to positive socio-political action and has the basic understanding of
the internal structure of other's religious and cultural truth claims
and tenets in proper contexts, and then try to judge them both
internally and externally in such a way that its positive and suitable
aspects are projected for the present purpose. Remember that the
motive is always social harmony and peace, which are the
foundational values. What is important about interfaith or
intercultural dialogue is to see how different religious and cultural
claims promote these values. This involves both transcendence
and development of certain doctrinal beliefs within the internal
structure in order to join hands with the external religion or culture
to address common concern. Every religion or culture has divine
sanction for such attempts, although they may be required to be
explored and emphasized. Without this there cannot be a true
religion, or culture, or civilization. With this plan at hand, a
religion or culture is then subjected to objective evaluation.
The real test of an interfaith/intercultural dialogue is in a concrete
conflict situation. In such a situation, it is of utmost importance that
the participants properly understand the internal structures of both
one's own and other's religion/culture and identify their
hierarchical leadership structures as well. The practical tool for
further action is to approach the leadership of both the parties to
realize the necessity of addressing the issues of common concern
for the sake of peaceful coexistence which necessarily requires
interdependence
Since interfaith/intercultural dialogue is a very sensitive normative
issue, the proper and sympathetic understanding of the other's
religious/cultural claims and its rational application to the dialogue
demand utmost care. The whole exercise includes openness and
mutual respect, a passionate humanitarian religious spirit to work
together without any prejudice and without invoking other
differences, and a recognition of the limitation of one's own
religion/culture and so the need to involve other religions/cultures.
With this background, now we can say that the stage is ready to
identify the universal common humanitarian concern and to
prepare a common action plan. Note that this is a continuous
process through which interfaith/intercultural dialogue matures
and becomes more and more effective at every level of its
development. A serious participation in an interfaith/intercultural
dialogue is an act of transformed consciousness, a higher level of
consciousness, which deconstructs one's narrow sectarian
selfhood and sees the entire humanity as the field of action. This is
the true worldly goal of every religion/culture linked with its
eschatological goal as well. This realization gives rise to a sense of
religious/cultural responsibility toward humanity without fear of
the loss of religious/cultural identity. This fear has so far not only
created violent conflicts but also prevented the people from
developing their innermost nature, a state of being oneself, which
appropriates the “others” for its own sake. This radical
transformation takes care of the troubled humanity and sets a
highly normative agenda.
Buddhism is extremely cautious about the above sensitive issues
and so it emphasizes ethicization and humanization of the world. It
believes that these are the two processes which can be carried out
only by human effort irrespective of the fact whether one is a theist
or not. The central or pivotal doctrine of Buddhism is called the
doctrine of interdependence or dependent arising
(pratityasamutpada) which defines the very manner of any
existence, functioning, or organization, be it epistemological,
ontological, conceptual, ethical, social, or political. This is also
called the middle path which avoids any extreme position. Despite
its denial of the existence of God and soul, it is a religion and
culture because of its emphasis on ethicization and humanization
of the world and its attempt to equate it with eschatological and
soteriological goals.
What is Interfaith Dialogue?
Interfaith intercultural dialogue is today's necessity for creative
peace, harmony, tolerance, and prosperity in the world.
Religious/cultural pluralism is a historical fact and
interfaith/cultural dialogue not only presupposes this fact but also
recognizes it as an opportunity for the development of a religion or
culture. A religion/culture is a great living force, a powerful
worldview with faith and praxis, a set of doctrines, myths, rituals,
and customs. Besides, it has varied dimensions – anthropological,
historical, geographical, sociological, cultural, political, and
soteriological – which have given birth to innumerable
religions/culture. Needless to say, these religions/cultures have
tremendously affected the human life throughout the world at all
times. In their history, they have been instrumental in organizing
the humanity in the realms of their influence for the benefits of
their followers, but it is also a truth that inter- and intrareligious/cultural
clashes have killed millions of people and
proved to be ghastly atrocious in many other ways. In the name of
religion/culture we have seen throughout the world in the past, and
even today, people have suffered from superstition, selfmortification,
intolerance, violence, hatred, bigotry, slavery,
exploitation, and so on and so forth. It is an irony that even the nonreligious
and anti-religious worldviews like scientism and
Marxism have not been less atrocious. According to Buddhism,
any ideology, whether religious, cultural, political, national, or
racial, is an intoxicant (ditthiraga), which is a serious hindrance in
the process of ethicization and humanization of the world. That is
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