One of the problems with Christianity is that Christians are so exclusivist. Christians think they have the only true way. Why can’t Christians be like the nice inclusivist Buddhists? You would never hear the Dalai Lama make an exclusivist claim!
“Liberation in which ‘a mind that understands the sphere of reality annihilates all defilements in the sphere of reality’ is a state that only Buddhists can accomplish. This kind of moksha or nirvana is only explained in the Buddhist scriptures, and is achieved only through Buddhist practice.” – Dalai Lama
On the one hand he can say Buddhism isn’t inclusive like Christianity. But that could also be because Buddhism is simply a religion that grabbed its thoughts from other religious elites during the time of Gautama Siddhartha and turned it into what is known today as Buddhism (see ‘ Life of the Buddha’ in Youtube). By contrast Judeo-Christianity didn’t grab anything from its neighboring religions and stood out completely as unique throughout history.
That’s not accurate. Though buddhism relies on the vedantic religion of India that preceded it, it has many features of its own. Buddhist is as dependant of Vedantism as Christianity is from Juddaism.
What the Dalai Lama means is that buddhist practice leads to the dissolution of the ego into the universal mind ( ~ God). Christian practice does not aim that, but according to buddhists and vedantists, aims to high heavenly realms but where there is still an identification with an ego. Since they believe in reincarnation, they are more tolerant than most Christians to other beliefs because they don’t think that we are either doomed to perdition or stepping towards salvation. You can be a bad person in one life (and spent a season in hell), and in the next incarnation (s) work your bad karma until you became a good person. As Jesus said, there are many mansions in my Father’s kingdom…
My point was simply that exclusivist elements are not limited to Christianity. His statement makes sense in his worldview and I have no problem with him saying that.
That’s for sure, Stephen. The important thing is that buddhists doesn’t think that people following another faiths are doomed. Though not buddhist, I like to recall the great Indian sage/saint, Sri Ramakrishna. When asked by a disciple why there were so many religions, he replied: “Because God is like a loving mother who has many childs, each one with a different taste, so He prepare different meals for each of them”.
Most impressed by Flavio Lima’s comments. In making religious dialogue into one-upmanship, egalitarian essence of religious thought is completely misunderstood. Dalai Lama is saying that Buddhist idea of liberation is gaining a certain understanding. Contrast that with a different idea of salvation in Christianity. There is no concept of salvation in Buddhism and there is no concept of liberation in Christianity. This is not exclusivism. This is defining what they are. Exclusivism, as Flavio clarified, means that their is the only right way and others are doomed.
You are correct that liberation and salvation are different. However, the Dalai Lama is suggesting an exclusivist way of achieving liberation. It seems that somehow an exclusive liberation is less offensive than an exclusive salvation. I am not criticizing the Dalai Lama. I respect people who think their way is correct and are not afraid to let people know.
Point is that Buddhists do not say that you are doomed if you do not achieve liberation the Buddhist way. I am not entirely sure that Christian eschatology is that kind – I am sure you have heard the outrage against Rob Bell for saying Gandhi may not go to hell. In my viewpoint, that is where Christian Exclusivism arises – if the souls are “not harvested”, they will go to hell; let us save the heathens.
I am not trying to suggest liberation=salvation. I am just demonstrating that Buddhism has an exclusivist aspect to it as well. Exclusivism does not require a threat of hell. Some atheists are exclusivists in that they think they are the only ones who are rational and all religious people are irrational.
Exclusivity of beliefs is not the problem. Holding that those beliefs are absolute truths is the problem. In fact, there would be not be different religions without mutually exclusive beliefs.
Planar (Euclidean) Geometry has axioms which make it exclusive compared to axioms of spherical Geometry. Problem is not exclusivity of axioms. Problem arises if one held that axioms of Planar Geometry are absolute truths hence Spherical Geometry is false.
Buddhists or atheists do not say that their mutually exclusive beliefs are absolutely true. They leave you alone if you do not want to believe it. Christians claim that their dogma (Nicene creed) are not just dogma but truths. They are forced to say that all others are false religions. Muslims are the someway. How does this manifest? In the form of intolerance for other religions and in campaigns of conversions.
Not all atheists believe as you suggest. I have read a number of books that have argued that atheism is absolutely true, that tries to de-convert theists and argues that theism is dangerous to society and must be ended.