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Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism

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Setting the Scene<br />

Buddhist monks together in dialogue in July, 1996, in Gethsemani,<br />

Kentucky. While urging all participants to avoid the temptation to<br />

engage in ‘advertisement’ for one’s own tradition, <strong>and</strong> to guard<br />

against a certain kind of unhealthy competition, he maintains nonetheless,<br />

‘But I think we should have one kind of constructive competition.<br />

The Buddhists should implement what we believe in daily<br />

life; <strong>and</strong> our Christian brothers <strong>and</strong> sisters should also implement<br />

their teachings in daily life.’ Implementation of belief is central to<br />

the Dalai Lama’s vision of the transformative power of ‘practice’; it<br />

is insofar as ‘each side would like to be better practitioners’ that the<br />

competition between them is constructive <strong>and</strong> not destructive. 30<br />

For the Dalai Lama, the very process by which one deepens<br />

the practice of one’s own tradition illuminates the truth <strong>and</strong> wisdom<br />

of other traditions. For the ‘spiritual experience’ consequent upon<br />

deeper practice enables one ‘to see the value of other traditions.<br />

Therefore, to promote religious harmony, one should look into one’s<br />

own tradition seriously, <strong>and</strong> implement it as much as possible.’ 31<br />

If, by contrast, one restricts oneself to the purely theoretical aspects<br />

of one’s tradition, then the values which bring human beings<br />

together in goodness will be eclipsed by dogmatic coagulations:<br />

All religions teach a message of love, compassion, sincerity<br />

<strong>and</strong> honesty. Each system seeks in its own way to improve<br />

life for us all. Yet if we put too much emphasis on our own<br />

philosophy, religion or theory, becoming too attached to<br />

it, <strong>and</strong> try to impose it on other people, the result will be<br />

trouble. Basically, all the great teachers, including Gautama<br />

Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad <strong>and</strong> Moses, were motivated<br />

by a desire to help their fellow beings. They did not<br />

seek to gain anything for themselves, nor to create more<br />

trouble in the world. 32<br />

The Dalai Lama’s message on dialogue—on the spiritual dynamics<br />

underlying true dialogue—is at once ethically simple <strong>and</strong> spiritually<br />

profound, eminently practicable <strong>and</strong> philosophically irrefut-<br />

30. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, ‘Harmony, Dialogue <strong>and</strong> Meditation’, in D.W.<br />

Mitchell, J.Wiseman (eds.) The Gethsemani Encounter (New York: Continuum,<br />

1999), p. 49.<br />

31. The Many Ways to Nirvana, op. cit., p. 83.<br />

32. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Widening the Circle of Love, tr. Jeffrey Hopkins<br />

(London, Sydney, etc: Rider, 2002), p. 4.<br />

25

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