For our IIP contact, we e-mailed Arthur Hansen, a Buddhist layperson and teacher from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis/mindful practice group which is affiliated with the Universalist Buddhist Fellowship. Arthur answered all of our questions in great detail and in a manner we were able to understand easily.
Summary of Interview: From the first question we asked Arthur, "What are some of the basic beliefs of Buddhism," we received a rather unique answer. Arthur said, "We all suffer or have stress, and the cause of this is our own desires and our need to preserve our own ego and not from external sources." Arthur then explained that the way to escape that stress was to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. He emphasized that Buddhists do not take teachings as true until they have experienced the teaching personally. He then mentioned that their teachings are a psychology and philosophy of life and are not theistic, meaning there is no supreme creator god. We were interested in discovering whether there was a conscience effort to spread Buddhism, and Arthur explained that unlike Roman Catholicism, there were no missionaries or persons attempting to convert others. Buddhists will simply teach anyone who wants to be taught and lead meditation sessions. Their religious services consist of a beginner's session of meditation, dharma talk for one hour on Sundays, and a more advanced session on Thursdays. Monthly they have a Day of Mindfulness where they practice sitting and walking meditation for a whole day. Interestingly enough, Arthur began as a Pentecostal Christian, but could not accept the dogma of the church, and that is why for forty years he searched for the truth until he learned the Buddhist teachings which made sense to him. He was able to show us the differences between the Theravada and Mahayana. Arthur referred to Theravada Buddhism as the "old school," primarily supporting monks. While Mahayana Buddhism is for the multitudes, and those which are part of this group take a vow to remain un-enlightened, yet want rebirth to help others reach enlightenment. We learned there is no religious hierarchy, but a lineage of monks teaching monks. Arthur considers his group of laypeople as a sangha, but strictly speaking, the sangha is the community of monks and nuns who practice together. According to Arthur, enlightenment takes place in four steps, if one is not enlightened to the fourth step in a lifetime, the person will experience rebirth and can reach full enlightenment later. Arthur feels that outside of their sangha, monasteries, etc. there is no support for their practice, thus it is difficult to stay on the path. And he thinks that Christians believe Buddhists will go to hell and there is little in common between the religions. The final question we asked Arthur was "How would you say that Christianity and Buddhism relate?" Arthur gave us specific examples including an occurrence from the Gospel of Thomas, wh ich was hidden in a cave at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Arthur describes that in the gospel Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is here now, inside of ud and all around us. This teaching is similar to Buddhism. Arthur also said that some early followers of Jesus and some Eastern Christian religons include meditation that is in some ways similar to Buddhist meditation. Our comments: Arthur is a very interesting man, with a passion for Buddhism. He was more than willing to help us out, and even sent us an extra email full of information on buddhism, aside from the interview. He commented that he had "personally experienced many of the teachings so I can accept them as truth" and that helped him to decide to remain a buddhist. This comment makes you think about how many times we have experienced our own religion, and if that is a key factor in our faith. Arthur's comments on the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism also sparked some thought. It was interesting to think about Jesus' teachings in comparison with Buddha's. It was also good that we spoke to a layperson that is greatly devoted, it gave us a different perspective, one more like our own. Whereas if we had contacted a monk, we would be on different levels in our own relgions which could hinder our understandings. All in all the interview was extremeley informative and also very interesting to participate in. Our synthesis: Throughout this project/class we have concluded that the status of dialogue and understanding between the Roman Catholic tradition and the Buddhist tradition had much room for improvement. For the most part, when people here Buddha or Buddhism they think of a jolly fat man or a bunch of bald monks wearing robes that live in Tibet. Many Roman Catholics haven’t the slightest idea that Siddhartha Gautama was Buddha, or that Buddhists aren’t just in Tibet, but are all over Asia. If we were able to improve our dialogue with Buddhists we would be able to see how great a philosophy on life it is and that we can learn so much from their tradition. This lack of dialogue isn’t entirely from close-mindedness though. There are very few Buddhists in the U.S. With the improvement of technology enhancing travel and communication, maybe we can start having a more frequent dialogue with the Buddhists. Distinctly different beliefs in cosmology and anthropology can leave a lot of room for misunderstanding between believers in these two traditions. Buddhists believe that humans do not have an inner self like a "soul" that Catholics believe in. Also the Buddhist tradition focuses around the inner person, while the Catholic tradition is built on the belief in a transcendent God. Another key differing belief is that Buddhists feel that you have not only this life to be "awakened", you have many, while the Catholics have one life to be "saved" or not, which leaves need for a belief in an afterlife. These may seem like minor details on paper, but in actuality they affect a persons whole outlook on life. There can be a lot of misunderstandings when you don't even agree on whether a person has an afterlife or reincarnates. Luckily, we can draw upon our similarities for help. Both traditions have strong opinions about leading moral lives, and the notion of purity and temptation. Often times another way to make up for the misunderstandings between the religions is to equate ideas from one to ideas from the other. A prime example of this would be the way that many Catholics see Buddha as the Buddhist Christ. Although this comparison is valid in some aspects, we must realize that it is not completely accurate. Throughout this class and project we have learned about a variety of traditions. Buddhism being one of the most difficult to comprehend because it is so abstract compared to the western monotheistic religions that we relate to. Learning about these religions is an important tool in being able to begin to understand the ways of the world and ourselves. THE END!