Jesus and Buddha Walk into a Bar

Can you be Christian and Buddhist?

Jesus and Buddha walk into a bar....

The basic structure or syntax of bar jokes is that one or more people walk into a bar and the punchline unfolds.

So let’s try one.

Jesus and Buddha walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What will it be fellas?” Jesus says, “Give us two Whiskey Highballs.” “Coming up,” the bartender says. He brings the drinks and says, “That will be $20.85.” The Buddha pulls out a $20 and hands it to him. The bartender says, “What about the change?” Jesus and Buddha look at each other and say, “Change comes from within.”

Corny, I know. I’ll try to redeem myself later with a good knock-knock joke.

One of the themes I’ve been unpacking lately in my writing is the connection between Christianity and Atheism. Many people are shocked to discover that “Christian Atheism” is a thing. In today’s article, I want to briefly discuss yet another unlikely connection between two seemingly unrelated religions, Christianity and Buddhism.

On the surface, it’s obvious that these are two distinct belief-systems that are based upon the teachings of two different religious leaders - Jesus and Buddha. At first glance it seems one couldn’t be both a Christian and Buddhist simultaneously. However, the more you dig into the core messages of Jesus and Buddha, the more common ground you find.

In my view, a person could make one of three mistakes when discussing Jesus and Buddha:

• Mistake One: Making Jesus Buddhist

  This mistake is claiming that Jesus was essentially a practicing Buddhist in India during the so-called “lost years” (the years of Jesus’ life not mentioned in the New Testament), and later put his spin on Buddhist teachings, which later became Christianity.

• Mistake Two: Making Jesus and Buddha Rivals

  The second mistake is insisting that the message of Jesus and Buddha are irreconcilable, and one cannot ascribe significance to Jesus and embrace Buddhist philosophy. It’s either Jesus OR Buddha, it can’t be both.

• Mistake Three: Making Jesus and Buddha Twins

  A third mistake would be syncretism, which would be fusing the teachings of Christianity and Buddhism together into one new religion, whereby diminishing or obliterating the distinct historical, worldview, cultural and philosophical distinctions of each.

I’ve taught several Comparative Religion courses in my day, which included Buddha and Jesus classes. Historical evidence indicates that Jesus was well acquainted with Buddhism. If Jesus did not go to India, then at least India went to Judea and Jesus through the Silk Road. The real historical question is not if Jesus studied Buddhism, but where and how much.

Historical accounts aside, many textual analyses indicate striking similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha. The comparisons are so striking that, even if no historical evidence existed, we can suspect that there was some connection between Jesus and Buddha.

Buddha: The Less Than CliffsNotes Version

The historical Buddha was named Siddhārtha Gautama. The term “Buddha” means “one who is awake.” I cannot in this piece adequately cover the teachings of the Buddha or the philosophy of Buddhism. I devoted an entire deep-dive article on Buddha and his teachings in my series on philosophy. That article includes additional resources to explore Buddhism further.

In a nutshell, the Buddha’s moment of enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree was the realization that nothing fundamentally needed to change in order to know peace, serenity and liberation. In other words, there is nothing wrong with the nature of reality at its most fundamental level, and therefore there is nothing truly, factually, objectively preventing peace, serenity and liberation. Furthermore, the Buddha saw that the failure to realize this was the source of inner or psychic suffering, which ultimately results in the hurt we inflict upon one another and destruction we cause in the world.

The Four Noble Truths were laid out by the Buddha as the remedy to this self-caused suffering. Our chronic unhappiness and disharmony, the Buddha said, is a result of our ignorance of the way things truly are, and our resulting misguided attachments and expectations of an unstable and impermanent word. The Buddha argued that all greed, violence, injustice, and hatred is a byproduct of this ignorance and our attachments.

Buddha’s profound insight was that the ground of all being is whole and complete, and constitutes our primordial and fundamental nature. The Buddha observed that on the surface of life there is continuous change, and that our inner suffering results from our expectations and attachments upon an unsteady world, which will never be capable of providing the joy, peace and liberation we seek.

The Buddha taught that one can only find deep joy and peace in this life through the knowledge and abidance in the true nature of reality. He said that this frees us to live with a sustaining joy, love, compassion, peace, courage and wisdom. Buddha taught that true happiness is causeless and not circumstance-dependent, but flows from our true nature.

Of course there is normal human pain both physically, emotionally and mentally in this world, but the Buddha taught that the chronic unhappiness and inner suffering that plagues so many people’s lives can be prevented through our awareness of the way things really are and the absence of resistance and attachment.

This does not mean that we accept what we see in the world without action to change it. Many situations and circumstances in life rightfully evoke the desire to bring change. Much of the misery and suffering of this world is the result of the ignorance Buddha identified. Rather than tapping into the deep peace and joy of the fundamental reality of all things which is never disturbed or threatened, we instead attempt to achieve happiness, well-being, and peace through our worldly attachments. We fight and claw to attain and hold onto that which by its very nature is impermanent and fading away.

Lest you think that you’re a failure because you cannot seem to walk through this world with this deep awareness or the absence of resistance and clinging (often referred to as “the middle way”), the Buddha said you must first and foremost learn to have patience and compassion upon yourself. Some truths are not discovered though striving and ceaseless effort, but by gently relaxing into that which is always present.

The Essential Insight

Jesus would not have disagreed with any of these insights from Buddha, but expressed them in different ways. Jesus was primarily concerned with debunking the religious falsehood of separation from God. He believed this falsehood was at the root of the kind of ignorance and suffering that Buddha identified. Whether it was “nirvana” in Buddhist terms, or “kingdom of God” in Christian terms, both Jesus and Buddha taught that the deepest human suffering stems from a catastrophic misunderstanding of our connection to ultimate reality. This was the essential insight they both shared.

Jesus never caused anyone to be saved and the Buddha never caused anyone to be enlightened. They both said they had a solution to a problem and the problem was suffering. They both said this suffering stemmed from separation.

In the case of Jesus, he struck down the false notion of separation from God by claiming to be both divine and human. Jesus insisted, “I am the truth.” What “truth” is that? The truth that God and humankind are one. The “I” Jesus was referring to was not himself exclusively but all of humankind universally. Biblical titles for Jesus such as the “Son of Man” and the “Second Adam” are meant to convey Jesus as representing all humanity.

A common axiom of Eastern philosophy is, “Thou art That.”

“That” is referring to…

• “That”, which is beyond words

• “That”, which cannot be named

• “That”, which is ultimate reality

• “That”, which is the highest truth

• “That”, which is the ground of all being

• “That”, which is whole and complete

• “That”, which is infinite and eternal

And the essential insight is: Thou art “That”!

In my view, when Jesus said, “I and the Father are one”, he was saying in his own words, “Thou art That.” Many people miss this because they confuse Jesus’ metaphor (“Father”) to mean a male supreme being sky-god. In my view, it can’t be any more clear in passages such as John 17:22-23 that Jesus saw God and humankind as one reality.

Both Jesus and the Buddha taught that true liberation occurred as a result of a deep-seated change of perception within oneself. I discuss this in great detail in last week’s article, Seeing is Believing. Neither Jesus nor the Buddha taught that this liberation makes one indifferent toward the world. In fact, once a person connects with true peace, joy and well-being inside and finds that “kingdom of God” or “nirvana” within, one can give themselves fully to the world in love and compassion without greed, hatred or judgement.

Buddha was right - there is suffering and we can liberate ourselves from it.

Jesus was right - there is no separation between God and humankind.

Carrying Jesus and Buddha in my Heart

Jesus was put to death at a very early age. He was crucified as a criminal. The Buddha in later years became frail and fell ill near a remote village near the border of Nepal, and died. Statements made by Jesus and the Buddha before their deaths indicated that they did not want to leave the world behind - a world they had loved so much.

Both Jesus and Buddha told their followers to use even their deaths as an occasion for awakening. They did not deny or gloss over the sorrow, grief and sadness that would be felt among their friends and followers by their passing from the world. All along both Jesus and the Buddha demonstrated that there was both sorrow and joy on the journey of life, but that the underlying truth and ultimate reality never swayed. Knowing their deaths were near, each reminded their followers of the task at hand to live by the same spirit and to walk in truth.

I feel a great love for the Buddha. How he entered the suffering of the world and his resolve to overcome it. When I ponder his moment of enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree I feel a peace in my own heart. I am also grateful to Jesus. I see his revolutionary spirit and relentless love, and how he demonstrated the human and divine together as one.

Jesus said, “I am the truth.” The Buddha said, “He who sees me sees the teaching and he who sees the teaching sees me.” It is not necessary to build a religion around Jesus or Buddha. Embrace the truth they taught, demonstrated and lived.

Jesus said there would come a time when the world would no longer see him. The Buddha said “if you meet Buddha on the street, kill him.” Meaning, there is no Jesus or Buddha except the Jesus and the Buddha that is within ourselves and that each of us are. Each of us must walk our own path of enlightenment and liberation. We must be able to say “I am the truth” and “He who sees me sees the teaching.” Do you understand? The path is within you. The path is you. You must walk it. You must be that path.

One of the reasons I have great respect for Jesus and the Buddha is that they came to their truth through their own journey and experiences of living, and followed the insight they found deep within themselves and applied it to their daily lived human experience.

Jesus had a religious tradition that he could have easily followed but he forged a different path based on the spiritual reality and authority he found within himself. The Buddha poured himself into many religious pathways to find the root cause and solution to human suffering. He had many failed attempts looking for the answer but his resolve kept him going until he discovered it within himself.

Despite the fact that their truths stood in opposition to the prominent beliefs and views of their day, Jesus and Buddha both trusted themselves. In the face of resistance, disapproval, rejection, danger and even death, they did not waver. They both lived their truth - owned it, expressed it, demonstrated it... became it.

The Buddha and Jesus had moxie and did not mince words. The Buddha laid out the entire cause and solution to human suffering in four simple points. Jesus said, "I am the truth." They were often misunderstood, dismissed, ridiculed and treated unkindly. Neither one held back or flinched and I love them for that.

I sometimes wonder what more we would have gained if Jesus and the Buddha had lived many more years. We tend to think that their significance lies in their teachings and truths, but consider the possibility that perhaps the greatest lesson is how they arrived at them.

Like Jesus and Buddha, question everything. Look inside yourself deeply. Don’t blindly follow others. Put everything to the test of your direct experience. Go to the heart of it all. Be willing to walk away from what you’ve been told. Become the heretic. Find the truth within yourself. Don’t just find it or talk about it... become it. Be the truth.

I carry Jesus and Buddha in my heart. Not because I am a Christian or Buddhist, but because I stand in respect and solidarity with their journey, their wisdom, their compassion, and the lives they lived. Jesus wept and Buddha was brokenhearted by the suffering of the world. The way these two so completely identified with the human condition touched my heart and greatly impacted my journey.

This is where we start. We look out and we see suffering, we look inside ourselves and we find suffering. This suffering is a chronic unhappiness, disharmony, anxiety, and emptiness we carry and mask to the world. We feel it deeply. We weep. Our hearts are broken. We care.

We care enough to get at the root of our own suffering because we know we must travel this path of liberation ourselves. We consider how our mindsets and actions are complicit in the suffering of others, and we care enough to face them.

We do not observe with indifference the suffering of the world or turn a blind eye to our own. We vigorously and resolutely do our inner work and seek to aid the liberation of all human beings. We learn to have compassion on others in their suffering, knowing that we all suffer for the same underlying reasons. We hold in our heart a genuine wish for the happiness and liberation of every person. We carry a deep longing for the cessation of all suffering. We are committed to our own liberation not only for ourselves but for all human beings. We address the ignorance, delusions and grasping at the root of our suffering so you can better aid others in their liberation.

The point was never to worship Jesus but to turn ourselves into a Jesus; not to worship Buddha but to turn ourselves into a Buddha. This was the meaning of their lives. To turn yourself into a Jesus or a Buddha is to awaken to the nature of reality, to embody truth, to walk in wisdom, to grasp your true nature, to live with deep peace and joy, to open your heart with compassion to the whole world. The problem is that people substituted turning themselves into a Jesus or Buddha, and instead turned them into a religion.

A few books that further explore the connection between Jesus and Buddha are:

• Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh

• Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings by Marcus Borg

• Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian by Paul F. Knitter

• Secular Buddhism: Eastern Thought for Western Minds by Noah Rasheta

• Christ the Eternal Tao by Hieromonk Damascene

Jesus and Buddha walk into a bar... the change we seek is found inside.

Knock-Knock!

Who’s there?

Jesus and Buddha.

Jesus and Buddha who?

Jesus and Buddha you.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear. When the student is free, the teacher is known within themselves. Alas, there was never a student, there was never a teacher. There was only one.

In Summary

• Christianity and Buddhism may be two different religions, but Jesus and Buddha were unified in teaching and living the most essential truths.

• You haven’t gone far enough in your truth seeking until you can say, “I am the truth.”

• We are committed to our own liberation not only for ourselves but for all human beings.

• Jesus and Buddha aren’t rivals or twins, they were two people who deeply identified with human suffering and wanted all people to be free.

• Thou art that.

“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die.”
- Joseph Campbell