The Lotus Sutra and Christian Wisdom: Mutual illumination in interreligious dialogue

Abstract

While the worldview of the Lotus Sutra is profoundly different from the bible and the Christian tradition, much of the Buddha's analysis of the human predicament and many of the virtues that he recommends resonate strongly with Christian values as expressed in the traditional three stages on the spiritual path: via purgativa (purgative way), via illuminativa (illuminative way), and via unitiva (unitive way). Buddhist descriptions of the three poisons offer many points of contact and convergence with Christian analyses of sin in condemning ignorance, greed, and anger. Both Buddhist and Christian traditions describe breakthrough moments of illumination when persons come to see what they had not seen before.