The Christ and the Bodhisattva

by Donald S. Lopez Jr., Steven C. Rockefeller

In this book, the authors explore and reconsider the contemporary significance of the Christ and the Bodhisattva. The volume includes essays by three eminent Christian theologians, Langdon Gilkey, Brother David Steindl-Rast, and Ann Belford Ulanov, that explore the significance of the Christ from the perspectives of the Roman Catholic contemplative tradition, modern depth psychology, and liberal Protestantism. Drawing on information previously unavailable in English, three distinguished scholars of Buddhism, Robert Thurman, Luis Gomez, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, investigate the significance of the Bodhisattva in India, East Asian, and Tibet.A substantive introduction sets the historical background for the Christ in Christianity and the Bodhisattva in Buddhism. Contributors' essays enhance our understanding of current presuppositions, problems, and prospects for the Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

Genres: Buddhism

274 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1987

About the author

Donald Sewell Lopez, Jr. (born 1952) is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.

Son of the deputy director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Donald S. Lopez.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good series of essays that compare visions of human potential, and how we grow to spiritual maturity. Concerning "The Buddhist Messiahs" (the bodhisattvas), contributor Robert F. Thurman raises the question of what we are becoming:

"Ego definition takes us long conditioning in infancy. Soldiers, athletes, citizens of nations and believers in religions and ideologies can easily be reconditioned to identify more powerfully with the group than with the individual self, as is proven by their willingness to die in battles, games, for national goals, or as martyrs to the faith and so forth. Cultural reconditioning can even override the supposedly all-powerful survival instinct. Why then cannot the 'Bodhisattva re-conditioning,' the Dharma of the Universal Vehicle, cause one to expand one's sense of identity to include all beings as the other limbs on the single body of life?"

[Jason Comely · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays that explore similarities and differences between Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism, Christ and Bodhisattvas, and with a psychoanalytic slant. There is some really heavy stuff here. Ann Belford Ulanov's "The God You Touch" is my favorite, but they are all excellent essays.