Comparative Religious Ethics Quotes

“Every act, says Thich Nhat Hanh, should be a ritual of mindfulness awakening us to our true identity of interbeing. “True mind is our real self, is the Buddha: the pure one-ness which cannot be cut up by the illusory divisions of separate selves, created by concepts and language” (Naht Hanh, 1975, p. 42).”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“Thich Nhat Hanh shares this Mahayana philosophy of non-dualism. This is clearly demonstrated in one of his most famous poems, “Call Me By My True Names:”1 Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow– even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I am still arriving, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of every living creature. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird, that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people, dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm that it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast that it fills up all four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and open the door of my heart, the door of compassion. (Nhat Hanh, [1993] 1999, pp. 72–3) We”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“at mid-life the process Jung called “individuation” begins in earnest. It is the process of making those choices that will express one’s own unique answer to the problem of death. “If I must die someday, and I cannot do everything, then I must choose what I will do, what matters most, who I will be in the time allotted to me.” Figure”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“As John Dunne has suggested in The Way of All the Earth, we can in fact imagine the biological curve of our life metaphorically as a journey we all make between birth to death (see Figure 6.1). The journey, as the root meaning of the word suggests, is the distance we can walk in one day, from sunrise to sunset. If so, then the journey begins with birth in the early light of dawn and as the sun rises in the sky we make our way up the mountain, through the changing landscape of childhood and adolescence, and into adulthood and mid-life as we reach the top of the mountain at high noon. As we make this journey, more and more light is shed on our life; that is, our consciousness or self-awareness has grown and expanded with the tasks and stages of life. However, once we have reached the top of the mountain, we can see what lies on the other side for the first time.”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“The depth psychologist C.G. Jung, himself deeply influenced by Augustine, divided life into two halves (see Figure 6.2, Jung’s Stages of Life). He argued that we live the first half of life on the sheer energy of being youthful biological organisms. The tasks of this stage of life are dominated by the biological need for the reproduction of the species and the social need to reproduce the collective wisdom of one’s culture through education. Then, somewhere around the middle of life,it finally hits you one day that half your life is over, that your youth is past and that time is slipping away from you. In your youth it seemed as if you had all the time in the world and as if you could do anything. Now you come to face the fact that time is running out and there are some things you will never accomplish. Mid-life is the point at which we reach the apex of the biological curve of life, that turning point where youth gives way to the inevitable processes of aging, sickness, and death. This is the life cycle of all living things, plant, animal or human.Inthe case of humans, however, we are conscious of our mortality, an awareness that sends us on a quest, seeking for a personal answer to the problem of death as a loss of self as the second half of our life looms before us. As”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“In 1976 he was part of a rescue operation in the Gulf of Siam to save the “boat people” fleeing persecution in Vietnam. The governments of Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore were refusing to allow them to land and sending them back into the sea and almost certain death.Many died, but Nhat Hanh and others rescued around 800 people. In one case a group of Vietnamese landed in Malaysia and destroyed their boat so that they could not be forced back to the sea. Nhat Hanh and his companions manned rescue boats, struggled with government bureaucrats, and alerted the international press. They struggled mightily to do everything in their power to save lives. At one point the authorities in Singapore arrested them and refused to allow them to give the boat people any further aid.”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“In Japan during the Meiji period that led to World War II, for example, Mahayana Buddhism blended into Japanese neo-Confucianism and Shintoism in support of state imperialism, colonialism, and aggression against other Asian nations, as well as aggression against the West. Nor did it prove itself to be the champion of the poor and oppressed in the feudal societies of China and Japan. The ethical failure of the goal of compassion in the Bodhisattva ideal was largely due to an almost totally spiritualized interpretation of the meaning of compassion. That is, the way one showed compassion was to provide spiritual help and guidance that would lead others to enlightenment rather than through actions that sought to correct social injustice. This failure was not unique to Buddhism. It can be found in the premodern ethics and spirituality of other religions as well.”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“A religious tradition must provide a comprehensive set of stories, rituals and spiritual practices that will meet the needs of each individual at each of his or her stages in the process of spiritual growth. And of course, at any given time, different individuals will be at different stages in their life. Consequently, the seemingly contradictory advice offered by a religious community is really contradictory only if all of it is meant to be applied to every individual at all stages of life. But of course that is not the case, for the stories of punishment and reward are meant for beginners in the moral and spiritual life while the stories of selfless love and compassion are meant for those more advanced in holiness. It”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“Following the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, he suggests that (1) prudential, (2) moral, and (3) religious reason mark the three stages of a journey on life’s way – a spiritual and moral journey. On this journey we move from selfish motivations to selfless ones as we grow spiritually. We begin in a pre-moral state of consciousness, move through the moral, and finally into the spiritual or religious. This third level enables one to live the ethical life with selfless compassion. A”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“Thich Nhat Hanh says that he was inspired to write the poem in 1976 when he first heard about the rape and suicide of the twelve-year-old girl spoken of in the poem. “I learned,” he says, “after meditating for several hours that I could not just take sides against the pirate. I saw that if I had been born in his village and brought up under the same conditions, I would be exactly like him. Taking sides is too easy” (Nhat Hanh, 1993, p. 107).”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“as a Buddhist he insists that sharing one’s tradition with another “does not mean wanting others to abandon their own spiritual roots and embrace your faith. . . .We must help them return to their tradition,” whether it be Christian, Jewish, etc. (Nhat Hanh, 1995, p. 196). Thich”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“11). And so we discover ourselves in the lives and stories of others. “Dialogue must be practiced on the basis of ‘non-self.’ We have to allow what is good, beautiful, and meaningful in the other’s tradition to transform us” (Nhat Hanh, 1995, p. 9). In his own way, Thich Nhat Hanh has embraced the postmodern spirituality of passing over and coming back, for as”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“Buddhism is made only of non-Buddhist elements, including Christian ones, and Christianity is made of non-Christian elements, including Buddhist ones” (Nhat Hanh, 1995, p. 11).”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“when, for example, he met Martin Luther King, Jr., he was startled to discover a very different kind of Christianity. “I knew,” he says, “I was in the presence of a holy person. Not just his good work but his very being was a source of great inspiration for me. And others, less well known, have made me feel that Lord Jesus is still here with us” (Nhat Hanh, 1995, pp. 5, 6). Through”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“Before the modern period, Mahayana was a socially and politically conservative force. In Japan during the Meiji period that led to World War II, for example, Mahayana Buddhism blended into Japanese neo-Confucianism and Shintoism in support of state imperialism, colonialism, and aggression against other Asian nations, as well as aggression against the West. Nor did it prove itself to be the champion of the poor and oppressed in the feudal societies of China and Japan. The ethical failure of the goal of compassion in the Bodhisattva ideal was largely due to an almost totally spiritualized interpretation of the meaning of compassion. That is, the way one showed compassion was to provide spiritual help and guidance that would lead others to enlightenment rather than through actions that sought to correct social injustice. This failure was not unique to Buddhism. It can be found in the premodern ethics and spirituality of other religions as well.”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics

“According to the Bodhicharyavatara of Santideva: All have the same sorrows, the same joys as I, and I must guard them like myself. The body, manifold of parts in its division of members, must be preserved as a whole; and so likewise this manifold universe has its sorrow and its joy in common. . . .By constant use the idea of an “I” attaches itself to foreign drops of seed and blood, although the thing exists not. Then why should I not conceive my fellow’s body as my own self?. . .I will cease to live as self, and will take as myself my fellow-creatures. We love our hands and other limbs, as members of the body; then why not love other living beings, as members of the universe? By constant use man comes to imagine that his body, which has no self-being, is a “self”; why then should he not conceive his “self” to lie in his fellows also?. . .Then, as thou wouldst guard thyself against suffering and sorrow, so exercise the spirit of helpfulness and tenderness towards the world (Burtt, 1955, pp. 139–140) The”
― Darrell J. Fasching, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics