Living Buddha Living Christ
by Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddha and Jesus are two of the most influential spiritual teachers the world has known. Today centuries after their deaths both continue to shape the lives of many millions of followers. Despite the fact that the teachings at the heart of both faiths emphasise love, compassion and tolerance we often find many examples of bigotry, narrowness and unthinking fundamentalism that cause division. In this book ‘Living Buddha Living Christ,’ Thich Nhat Hanh takes us eloquently beyond this narrowness and asks us to let go of views and to meditate on our essential humanity and oneness. Through scriptural reference and teachings from Buddhism and Christianity he underlines the unity of vision that lies at the heart of both faiths.
Elaine Pagels in her introduction directs us to the loving compassion that was so central to the early Christians. Later in its history this emphasis was to some degree masked by new trends and politics within the young church. The Gnostic Gospels that the discoveries at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945 revealed emphasised the role of rigorous self-searching to find ‘gnosis’ or self-understanding. The Gospel of Thomas states;
‘let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds he shall be troubled. When he becomes troubled he will be amazed and shall come to transcend all things.’
Thich Nhat Hanh does not avoid describing the youthful difficulties that prevented him having a close understanding and tolerance of Christianity. In Vietnam at that time Buddhists were often discriminated against in favour of Christianity. It was only through his later meetings with Martin Luther King and other inspirational Christians that he came to understand and recognise the power of love that is its essence.
‘We have different roots, traditions and ways of seeing but we share the common qualities of love, understanding and acceptance.’

Living Buddha Living Christ
Thich Nhat Hanh
Riverhead Books
ISBN 1-57322-568-1

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