Nirvana & the Kingdom of God: The Dalai Lama on the Gospels
Geoffrey Hunt
Public Lecture at Roehampton University, Southlands College, on 1st December 2005

Introduction

It is with some apprehension that I give this lecture. I am not a theologian, and I am no expert in comparative religion or textual exegesis. My starting point is the confidence given to me by the fact that Christians were willing to open a dialogue with Buddhism by asking the Dalai Lama to comment on the Gospels, and the Dalai Lama was more than willing to oblige. He did so in his belief that religious 'harmony' requires scholars, and those 'who need not be scholars but are instead genuine practitioners', to come together and 'share insights..' (Dalai Lama, 39). I see myself as making a modest contribution as a 'genuine practitioner' to continue this dialogue, together with many others, and with you today.

I shall take some specific points made by the Dalai Lama, and explore them a little further in a personal and tentative way, to further the kind of dialogue he has opened. I do this as one who accepts both the Buddha and Jesus as my teacher. It is to reflect briefly on some flickering lights that may mutually illuminate two teachers and two teachings. I hold in my mind the thought of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, that perhaps we could consider Jesus and the Buddha as 'brothers'

The Dalai Lama's comments that stimulated me are in the John Main Seminar of 1994 by which he had accepted an invitation from The World Community for Christian Meditation to comment on the Gospels, at a meeting in London. These talks and discussion were published as The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama explores the Heart of Christianity and Humanity, in 1996 and again in 2002. I extend the discussion by speaking mainly about the notion of 'Kingdom of God' and its resonance with the Buddhist notion of 'Nibbana' (in Pali, or 'Nirvana' in Sanskrit).

What the Dalai Lama says

The Dalai Lama makes a selection of eight passages and tells us about his own understanding of these. I will remark on five of those eight.

The passages at Matthew 5:38-48 in which Jesus teaches to turn the other cheek and 'Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors' the Dalai Lama describes in this way: "In fact, one could almost say that these passages could be introduced into a Buddhist text, and they would not even be recognised as traditional Christian scriptures" (TGH, 48). To bear this out, I would like to read for you this section from the Buddhist Dhammapada:

"'He insulted me, he hurt me, he defeated me, he robbed me'. Those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate … For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This an eternal law" (Dh 1:3-5).

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-10), blessing all those who are disadvantaged - the needy, the sorrowful, the gentle, the persecuted, the peacemakers - saying that 'the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs'. The Dalai Lama comments that, "This passage seems to indicate the simple fact that those who are willing to embark on a path and accept the hardships and the pain involved in it will reap the rewards of their commitment" (TGH, 53-54). I will add that the starting point of the Buddha, the First Noble Truth, is the fact of suffering (dukkha). It is in following a path of understanding the root of suffering, and cultivating non-attachment that our suffering may be subdued.

In Mark 3:31-35, when Jesus is told his mother and brothers had arrived he replied that those sitting around him were his mother and brothers, adding "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother". The Dalai Lama says that "This is very close to the Buddhist idea of compassion in which, again, there is an understanding that in compassion there is a certain freedom from attachment" (TGH, 67). He points out that genuine compassion is not that of attachment to one's favoured people, but "springs from a clear recognition of the experience of suffering" on the part of the other, regardless of how that other "reacts against you" (TGH, 68). The Buddha also left his family, and his followers left theirs, but he did not expect everyone to leave their families, understood the value of family life, and in fact (as with Jesus) some of his own family chose to follow him in his wanderings around India in the 5th century BC.

A crucial passage that the Dalai Lama comments on which, I would like to say more about in a moment, is that in which Jesus likens the "Kingdom of God" to growing seed, and in particular to a mustard seed (Mark 4:26-34). This passage also mentions that while Jesus spoke in parables to ordinary people, he explained everything to his disciples.

The Dalai Lama notes that Buddhism also distinguishes between what may be taught to all and what to a "select few". In fact, the Buddha emphasizes that he has no secret teachings and that he has explained all to everyone who is prepared to listen. In the Anguttaranikaya it is recorded that the Buddha said to his followers: "But these three things, monks, shine openly, not in secret. What three? The moon, the sun, and the Dhamma and Discipline proclaimed by me [Tathagata]" (IBW, 88). It is true however that the Buddha, like Jesus and all great spiritual teachers, speaks in different ways to different audiences and different characters. But it does not seem to me that this is the main message of the parables used here, although the Dalai Lama seems to see them that way. Surely, this metaphor for the "Kingdom of God" could also be read as the truth of things as it is realized in us when we adopt a non-self-centred, non-grasping understanding of our place.

Another passage: Jesus said, "To believe in me, is not to believe in me but in him who sent me; to see me, is to see him who sent me …[etc]… I know that his commands are eternal life" (John 12:44-50). Since this comes from the 'more spiritual' gospel of John, this provides the Dalai Lama with an opportunity to return to earlier remarks he had made about the Mahayana doctrine of the the 'three kayas' (Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, and Samboghakaya), and how these resonate with the Christian Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost (TGH, 112). He does warn, however, that "we should be careful not to push these lines of comparison too far" (73). I would prefer not to go in this metaphysical direction. It would seem to me that a more fruitful line of inquiry is that into the theme of losing the self that we find in both Christ's teaching and the Buddha's.

'Kingdom of God' in Christ's teaching

Now, I would like to say more about the notion of 'Kingdom of God' ('Kingdom of Heaven') and then, in a while, place it alongside the Buddha's notion of 'Nibbana'.

When I re-read the Gospels it appears to me, as I believe it has appeared to many others, that the 'Kingdom of God' is the key concept and reality of Jesus' teaching.
In the Lord's Prayer he presents it right at the beginning: 'Thy Kingdom come' (Matt 6:9-10). However, I see that in the history of theology 'Kingdom of God' has been rather problematic. Norman Perrin's book, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus, has traced the theological debate in all its disagreements and subtleties. In Judaism it is the concept of God's intervention to restore Israel, and in the first century it was conceived by radicals as a political reality, a theocracy that would result from the overthrow of the Romans. In the synoptic Gospels 'The Kingdom of God' or 'Kingdom of Heaven' (or 'God's imperial rule' or 'God's domain') has moved beyond the particular reference to the Jewish people. Here Jesus proclaims the Kingdom as a spiritual realm that is already 'at hand', appearing before those willing to see it (Mark 1:15). Jesus' teaching was a pointing out (Matt 6:33; Mark 9:43-47) of the Kingdom of God, and his own harmless and forgiving life was a demonstration of what living in the Kingdom was like. I found that a large part of the debate has been about whether the Kingdom is to be understood as already here or as some future state, or somehow both.

Perrin's conclusions are several (Perrin, 158-60). That one cannot deny the apocalyptic content of Jesus' teaching on the 'Kingdom of God'. That this in turn raises a further question about what 'apocalyptic' means, with theologians like Bultmann giving it an existential rather than temporal/historical sense. That the Kingdom is both present and future. That this in turns raises the question of how to understand that, and again one possibility is an existential reading.

In The Good Heart, Father Laurence Freeman, provides in an appendix 'The Christian Context' for the passages (TGH, 131-163). Here he says:

"The Kingdom of God is better translated as the 'reign' or 'power' of God to capture its dynamic meaning. It is, as John Main said, not a place but an experience… The Kingdom is revealed through the interaction of the teaching of Jesus with his listeners, and this uncovering of truth is the dynamic of the 'Word of God'" ((TGH 139).

I think this is very helpful, for as a follower of the Buddha's teachings. If I may so bold as to take Fr Laurence's words and substitute 'Kingdom' with 'Nibbana', then we have:

"Nibbana is revealed through the interaction of the teaching of Buddha with his listeners, and this uncovering of truth is the dynamic of the 'Dhamma'". (I shall say more about Nibbana and Dhamma in a while.)

Fr Laurence underscores the word 'uncovering' ('this uncovering of truth'), which intrigues me because the Buddha's teachings also always emphasises that the truth cannot be grasped, cannot be given to someone, cannot be described, but can only be uncovered or unveiled in the individual by the efforts of that individual, with the guidance of the teacher.

This certainly opened up for me the possibility of truly understanding 'the Kingdom of God' for the first time, and for me at least this shows the possibility of one faith informing, or even igniting (in a positive) way, another faith. I would like to share with you a little more about this discovery as a personal discovery.

Nibbana in the Buddha's Teaching

So, what about Nibbana (Nirvana) and Dhamma (Dharma) in the Buddha's teaching?

The etymology of the Pali word 'Nibbana' suggests an extinguishing, like the blowing out of a candle. Here it is presented negatively as the absence of greed, hatred and ignorance. The person who enters Nibbana has extinguished all defilements, overcome all hindrances, and reaches the highest attainment of the meditational and ethical practice. Thus we hear that the Buddha's leading disciple Sariputta is one day approached by a wanderer who asks directly: what is this 'Nibbana' that you and other followers of the Buddha speak about? Sariputta answers:

"The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this, friend, is called Nibbana".

He is then asked if there is a way to realize this Nibbana, and answers:

"It is, friend, this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is the path, friend…!" (IWB, 364).

In other teachings it is presented positively as a realm of peace and insight. In the Samyuttanikaya the Buddha himself gives many names to Nibbana, when he says:

"Monks, I will teach you the uninclined … the taintless … the truth … the far shore … the subtle … the very difficult to see … the unaging … the stable … the undisintegrating … the unmanifest … the unproliferated … the peaceful … the deathless … the sublime … the auspicious …the amazing … the unailing … the unailing state … Nibbana … the unafflicted … dispassion … purity … freedom … nonattachment … the island … the shelter … the asylum … the refuge … the destination and the path leading to the destination" (IBW, 365).

Concerning the meaning of 'Dhamma'. It is used both to mean the teaching of the truth and the truth itself. I cannot help but speculate whether in Christian language we would say, in a parallel way, that the 'word of God' (i.e. the teaching of Jesus) and God are one. I can do no better than repeat what the leading American Buddhist monk (and translator of the Nikayas) says of Dhamma:

The Dhamma, in its broadest sense, is the immanent, invariable order of the universe, in which truth, lawful regularity, and virtue are inextricably merged. This cosmic Dhamma is reflected in the human mind as the aspiration for truth, spiritual beauty, and goodness; it is expressed in human conduct as wholesome bodily, verbal and mental action. The Dhamma has institutional embodiments as well as expressions in the lives of individuals…" (IBW, 108)

On some questions the Buddha deliberately remained silent. These are the questions that appear in Christian discourse such as concerning the beginning and end of the world, and 'soul' and life after death, and the nature of 'God'. When the Buddha is asked questions such as whether there is ultimately something eternal or ultimately nothing at all, he refuses to answer. (And, incidentally, the idea that the Buddha teaches a nihilism of 'Nothingness' is completely wrong.) Some teachings of his suggest that he considers these fruitless, and even pernicious, questions.

As far as I can see, there is in the Buddha's teaching nothing that corresponds to an apocalypse or apocalyptic understanding. What there is, however, is an acute awareness of and compassion for the greed, pride, hatred and delusion into which human beings can so easily fall, and which the Buddha sees not just as an ever-present danger but as the general tide and drift of the world. This dimension he calls 'samsara', a Pali word suggesting a directionless wandering (IBW, 24).

Christ and Buddha: Some resonances and questions

It seems to me, then, that there is a certain parallelism, but not a precise one of course, between Christ's teachings and the Buddha's, and I believe it is very fruitful to explore this respectfully and helpfully, without pushing it too far.

To put it in a nutshell I feel a strong resonance between, on the one hand, the faith that through the Word of God one will reach the Kingdom of God, and on the other hand, the confidence that through the Dharma one will reach Nibbana.

For the Dalai Lama and for all Buddhists of every variety, the Dharma/teaching consists, in summary form, of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. One reaches Nibbana not by merely understanding these conceptually, nor by accepting them as a matter of belief, but infinitely more importantly, testing their truth by putting them into practice. Thus the first noble truth is that of human suffering, from the mundane level of daily worries and frustrations to the existential level of anxiety and bewilderment. The second truth is that for the most part this suffering has a cause in our own attitudes and ignorance, primarily a craving to build up the ego and attach all one desires to that ego. The third truth is that this craving can be subdued and, by some, even eliminated; and the fourth that there is a way to actually do this, which is the eightfold path.

That eightfold path consists of right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right view and right intention. In the Buddha's teaching what is crucial is not what one believes, but actually following the path day by day and cultivating what is necessary for one's liberation. So to repeat Fr Laurence's words, with my substitutions,

"Nibbana [Kingdom of God] is revealed through the interaction of the teaching of Buddha [Jesus] with his listeners, and this uncovering of truth is the dynamic of the 'Dhamma' [Word of God]".

Now, the 'Kingdom of God' is, it will be said, after all the kingdom of a supreme being, God. And what does Buddhism have to say about that? The Dalai Lama suggests that here Buddhism and Christianity would part company (TGH, 55). He then notes that within Christianity there are diverse "understandings of the concept of God", and this includes one particular understanding "not so much in terms of a personal deity but rather as a ground of being". He says that this enables us to "draw parallels" with Buddhism (TGH, 73), for it is true that the later form of Buddhism known as Mahayana (in which the Dalai Lama is broadly situated) does generate a theology in that direction.

I have heard it said and seen it written that Buddhism is atheistic or agnostic. It is in fact neither atheistic nor agnostic, and cannot be so. It cannot be so because both those positions depend on a belief: the belief that God does not exist, or an uncertainty about what to believe. But, as I said earlier, the Buddha's teaching does not rest on belief at all. It rests on a practice, and on an initial confidence that it is worth trying this practice to see whether it ameliorates one's human suffering. The Buddha says many times that the only thing he is really teaching, at bottom, is suffering, the nature of suffering, and the end of it. In one memorable, oft-quoted teaching he addresses a group of perplexed and doubting people, who are wondering whose doctrine is the true one. The Buddha declares:

"It is fitting for you to be perplexed … it is fitting for you to be in doubt. Doubt has arisen in you about a perplexing matter. Come … do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker … But when you know for yourselves, 'These things are unwholesome … these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering', then you should abandon them" (IBW, 88).

Well, do Christianity and Buddhism part company on the question of a supreme being? Maybe they do, or, maybe it all depends on how one understands both what Jesus is teaching and what the Buddha is teaching. I am not sure. I do know that even if a follower of the Buddha's teaching (who has understood that teaching) is unlikely to declare 'I believe in God', and equally unlikely to declare 'I do not believe in God', such a follower may well be said to have a profound 'godly sense'.

There is another way to approach this matter, and that is via apophatic theology, the via negativa. This, as I understand it, is a recognition within Christianity of the unknowability, transcendence, ineffability of God and of all experience of God. On this basis it is impossible to conceive a referent for the term 'God' and thus any use for the term at all. Instead one may locate it in a metaphorical or analogical discourse that points us, points our lives, in a new direction. I do not think Buddhists would have any difficulty with that apophatic approach, for as I said earlier, for the most part Buddhists follow a kind of via negativa, for example in talking about Nibbana they are far more comfortable about saying what it is not. It is the extinction of (i.e. it is not) greed, hatred, pride etc.

It is perhaps of great significance that not only are there parallels in the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, there are parallels in the perplexity and questions sometimes posed by those teachings. Just as we saw that there has been considerable theological debate over the meaning of 'Kingdom of God' so there is similar perplexity concerning Nibbana in some Buddhist discussions. Thus Bikkhu Bodhi asks:

"How are we to correlate these two perspectives on Nibbana found in the Nikayas, one treating it as an experiential state of inward purity and sublime bliss, the other as an unconditioned state transcending the empirical world?" (IBW, 318)

I suspect that in Nibbana, as in the Kingdom of God, all duality between 'I/me/mine' and the supposedly 'external world' is transcended, so that inward purity and unconditioned state are, in some sense, one.

Conclusion

To conclude: the Dalai Lama thinks we should not try to remove all distinctions between religions; for religions should maintain their uniqueness. He says: "we should be careful not to push these lines of comparison too far", and adds that he does "not personally advocate seeking a universal religion..". What has been said about diversity of receptivity to the teaching can be extended to religious diversity generally. "However, what is common to all religions" he says, "is the importance of a firm grounding of one's spiritual practice on a single-pointed faith, or confidence, in an object of refuge" (Dalai Lama, 73-74) With this I agree.

I finish with one quote each from the Gospel of Jesus and the Nikayas of the Buddha, without adding comment.

The Buddha said: "Open for them are the doors to the Deathless, Let those with ears now show their faith" (IBW, 71)

And Jesus said: "Search and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you" (Luke 11: 9).

References

TGH Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama explores the Heart of Christianity and Humanity. Rider, London, 2002.
Norman Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus. SCM Press, London, 1963.
Also see:
Laurence Freeman, Jesus the Teacher Within (with a foreword by the Dalai Lama), Continuum, NY/London, 2005.
Thich Nhat Hanh. Living Buddha, Living Christ. Rider & Co., 1996.
Buddhist-Christian Studies. Details on this scholarly journal are at:
http://www.uhpresshawaii.com/journals/bcs/
The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies: http://www.humboldt.edu/~sbcs/

Scripture:

Old Testament:
Ezek 17.22-.23; Psalms 97; Daniel 4.34 2.44.
The Gospels:
Mark 1.15, 4.26-34, 14.25-26, 3.31-35; John 3.3-3.5 ; Matt 6.10-6.13 6.33 13.11 13.31-.32 (NB: The KoG is referred to 36 times in Matthew); Luke 11.20 11. 9, 13.18-.19 13.28 17.21; Rom 14.17.
Pali Canon:
IBW In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Edited & Introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi, foreword by the Dalai Lama, Wisdom Publications, Somerville MA, USA.
Dh: The Dhammapada, translated by Juan Mascaró, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973.

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