Unmasking Parallels: Jesus and Buddha's Mirrored Lives

In this podcast episode, host Michael Papa Newton delves into the remarkable parallels between the lives and teachings of Jesus Christ and Buddha. Despite cultural and historical differences, these two spiritual figures shared profound insights and similar experiences. The episode examines parallels in their narratives, like their divine births and resistance to temptation, raising questions about a universal intelligence guiding their teachings. While some historical theories have been debunked, the spiritual truths conveyed by Jesus and Buddha continue to inspire, fostering a modern understanding of global interconnectedness and shared values across different cultures and religions.

Transcript

Flip the Coin onto Its Edge

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Hello, and welcome to Flip the Coin onto Its Edge. I'm your host, Michael Papa Newton. We work, we raise families, we may engage in marriage. We must have times of having our own fun and excitement. All these pull to us psychologically like four strong horses of responsibility tethered to our limbs and pulling in four different directions. No wonder we don't have the opportunities to study the classics of philosophy, spirituality, religion, and the holy books of other religions not dominant in our culture and regions. Fortunately, since college, I find these topics, plus science and mythology, fun and entertaining for my mind. For over 20 years, I have studied these topics and the various holy books of the major religions to make myself a better person, not a better Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim. In this episode, I conclude season two by sharing my reasons and hopes for how this season could inspire others. We'll explore the balances in the lives of Jesus and Buddha and delve into the theories of past authors who study these divine figures, uncovering their perspectives.

A Journey Through The Life of Religion, Season 2

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Now let's begin our journey. They shared an understanding that seemed to come from an otherworldly source. This knowledge was communicated to disciples and others seeking a better path in life. The aim is to show that the core teachings of these enlightened individuals originate from the same universal intelligence discussed in season one, which imparts its understanding to everyone on earth, regardless of sect or group. No religion is exclusive. No single sect holds a monopoly on truth. This universal intelligence appreciates diversity. Observing the world, people, plants, animals, rocks, reveals of variety in all groups and subgroups. It stands to reason that this intelligence would not create only one way for a reasoning species to receive its message. It has provided guidance for living a good, fulfilling life, dressed in forms suited to different cultures and peoples. If any of the leaders mentioned resonate with you, study their teachings. You are not required to agree with everything. You can even draw from multiple leaders. Follow the path they describe rather than rigid dogma. The journey may be challenging initially or seem demanding, but persistence leads to greater ease and clarity over time.

Jesus Birth and Buddhas

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Now moving on to the lives of Jesus and Buddha. The correspondences in their life stories begin before they are born. In the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel acts as God's messenger, proclaiming that Mary will bear a child who will be called the son of the Most High. Buddha's birth, according to second century Digu Nikaya, is attributed to by is attended by divas who say to Queen Maya, rejoice, a mighty son has been born to you. Here are two cultures as diametrically opposed as the Orient and the Occident, and yet as we delve deeper into the traditional biographies of Jesus and Buddha, the birth parallels, rather than appearing quaintly coincidental, become increasingly specific. Each is born while the mother is on a journey, and neither birth occurs in a house. Heralds are present on both occasions, and they do very similar things, sing praises and announcing that a great event has occurred, identifying the parents and prophesying the child's glorious future. The correlation among these ancient texts are almost eerie, as will become immediately evident in the collections of parallel sayings that follow. Jesus' and Buddha's later teachings are as alike as their Carly biographies, whether speaking of love, material wealth, temptation, or salvation, they were two masters with one message. It shouldn't be surprising then that the philosophies they developed threw them into parallel experiences during their adult years. Neither began his spiritual quests until he was about thirty years old, but both soon encountered trouble with the ruling aristocracy. Buddha, a fifth century BC prince, who was heir to a throne in northern India, flouted social convention by consorting with thieves and murderers. Though he was a peasant in first century Palestine, an obscure province of the Roman Empire, Jesus was fiercely attacked for eating with sinners and whores. They taught that what is inside a person mattered, not his or her outward appearance, and they punctuated their beliefs with action, revolutionizing the religions of their day, while Tama helped to perform Brahmanical rituals harmful to people in it. Jesus attacked many temple traditions. Both created religions that minimalized, minimize class distinctions and eliminated animal sacrifice. The irony in this seems overwhelming when you realize that the new religions they initiated became the defining points for the greatest cultural schism in world history. East is east and west is west, Rudyard Kipling explained. And never the twain shall meet. Buddha created a religion that had no God. Jesus was the very son of God. To Christians, Buddhism was a pagan religion. And for Buddhists, Christianity was a web of false hopes and dangerous myths. In fact, it wasn't until around Kipling's time that anyone noticed how similar Jesus and Buddha really were. For over eighteen hundred years, from the birth of Christianity until just over a century and a half ago, the mere like nature of their images remained buried in the ancient texts of each religion. Then in the eighteen eighties, with the escalation of European rule in Asia and growing interest in Buddhism, scholars comparing these holy books began to notice remarkable patterns. One of the first of these spiritual explorers was a Dutch writer named Ernest de Bunstein. He equated the Asian concept of an angel messiah with Christ. In his fanciful 1880 book, The Angel Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians, he told of exiled Jews from the East reentering Palestine, carrying in their caravans not only rare spices, but a revolutionary idea as well. That the angel myth was picked up by the Essenes, a Jewish sect living in the desert during the first century, who applied it to Jesus. But Jesus, de Bunsen claimed, refuted the Essenes and tried to hide the fact that he was the Messiah. De Bunsen's theory, difficult to believe in any era, was completely discredited with the 1947 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are attributed to the Essenes. To date, the remains of about 870 scrolls have been discovered. Not one mentions either Jesus or an angel Messiah. Soon afterward, a German writer named R. Seidel began uncovering strong resemblances between the infancy stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and the Lutli U Vistaru biography of Buddha. But it was a British civil servant assigned to duty in India who fully revealed these parallels. During his off hours, Arthur Lilly developed a fascination with Indian religion and began probing the ancient text. Around 1909, he published Buddhism in Christianity and India in Primitive Christianity. Unfortunately, Lilly drew upon Buddhist texts from such divergent places as Sri Lanka and China, and from canical and apocryphal gospels alike, failing to take into consideration where or when the texts were written. It was difficult for historians to take the civil servant seriously when he cited as evidence for Buddhist influences on Christianity texts written several centuries after Jesus. An American scholar named Albert J. Edmonds, working around the same time, elevated the study to an objective and professional level. Unlike Lily and his predecessors, who often placed personal religious beliefs before historical accuracy, Edmonds was rigorous and systematic. His two-volume Buddhist and Christian Gospels went through numerous editions over a thirty-year period, beginning in 1902. Even today, his writings represent an invaluable source for the parallel text. Later scholars further developed Edmund's ideas that Buddhism might have influenced the four Gospels. Many drew on the Essene connection, which became a key element in most of their theories. Dwight Goodard, author of Was Jesus Influenced by Buddha, actually claimed that Christ followed the Eightfold Path of Buddhism and preached the Four Noble Truths. Another writer suggested that the four evangelists were introduced to Buddhist ideas, which, when writing their gospels, they later confused with Jesus' words and deeds. Some mainstream scholars still believe that Eastern thought, particularly Zoroastrian ideas, carried from Persia to Palestine by Jews returning after the Babylonian exile, influenced Jewish writing in the centuries before Jesus. But Persia, modern day Iran, is still a long way from India, and so Roastrianism bears little resemblance to Buddhism. Others are more adventurous with their ideas, envisioning Buddhism traveling along the ancient Sukra as it led through Central Asia to Iraq, Mesopotamia to Syria and Syria, arriving eventually in Palestine. They also point to the monsoon winds, which by Jesus' day were carrying trading boats from India to Egypt. After all, they argue, didn't Alexander the Great conquer part of India in the fourth century BC, exposing the Greeks to eastern waves? And didn't Jesus grow up in a Greek-speaking world just a few miles from a large Hellenistic city? Roy C. Amore discussed this possibility at length in his 1978 book, Two Masters, One Message. Some scholars are still more imaginative, referring to Jesus' adolescence and early manhood as the lost years, and insisting that the New Testament fails to describe this period because Jesus was traveling in India, receiving spiritual instruction from Buddhist monks and yogun. These theories do not stand up to the rigors of historical scrutiny. For example, not one of these researchers bothers to explain why the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus, all of whom discuss Jesus, fail in their voluminous writings to once mention Buddhism. To many people, these questions are relevant anyway. It is spiritual truth, not historical fact that matters. As the most recent writings on the parallels indicate, their value may be more in the eternal lessons they contain than in information about who was traveling the Silk Route. Toward that end, two of the world's most venerated Buddhists recently resurrected the parallels, gazing upon them in a religious light. In nineteen ninety-five, the Buddhist author and monk Tik Nak Khan published Living Buddha, Living Christ, in which he acknowledges that I touched both of them as my spiritual ancestors. The next year, the Dalai Lama himself drew heavily upon the equivalent text in writing The Good Heart, a Buddhist perspective on the teachings of Jesus. To this great Buddhist leader, the parallels are more vital today than ever before, because as he points out, we live in a world in which cultures are moving ever closer, drawn together not only by economic necessity, but by spiritual realization as well. Both of these men, looking into the many questions surrounding the parallels, hint that the puzzle to which we are seeking an answer is actually a mystery within a mystery. The first is the historical mystery. How can Jesus living three thousand miles away and five centuries later espouse that the same espouse the same teachings as Buddha? If historians have no explanation, we are led to the larger mystery, the eternal one, where Jesus and Buddha, spiritual masters, inspired by a single cosmic source, avatars who appeared at different periods in human history bearing the same truth. Perhaps their wisdom was so measureless that each was simultaneously laying the foundation for one of the world's predominant religions, and communicating the eternal truths upon which both religions are based. Today Asian culture overlaps with that of Europe and North America. The world is a pinpoint sphere in space, and continents are drifting together in ways no geologist could ever imagine. Had we read the sacred texts of Buddhism and Christianity a little more closely, we might have realized long ago how similar are both the religions and the cultures. Or maybe we simply have gone back to Kipling's famous poem and continued reading, continued past the passage in which he proclaims that East is East and West is West, past the line where he predicts that the two will never meet, to a stanza that the 21st century seems to have forgotten, a passage in which the poet ultimately observes that there is neither east nor west, border nor breed, nor birth when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.

Jesus and Buddha on Temptation

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Let's examine their words on temptation. The similarity in the lives of Jesus and Buddha are as compelling as the parallels in their thought. Each is tempted by the devil while fasting during a lengthy retreat near a river. The devil challenges each of them to use his supernatural powers for worldly ends. Each refuses. In one Buddhist text, the devil promises to make Watama a world ruler, just as he does with Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. The devils too are alike. They are lords of death who control an earthly domain and attempt to lure everyone into their web. After defeating the devil, Jesus and Buddha give up their seclusion and defy social convention by teaching among people who have fallen to the devil's wild. Watama dines in the house of a courtesan, angering the noblemen of the city, and Jesus is attacked for eating with sinners and whores. Jesus says, The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread. Jesus answered him, It is written, one does not live by bread alone. Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, To you I will give. Of their glory and all this authority, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you then will worship me, it will be all yours. Jesus answered him, It is written worship the Lord your God and serve only him. Luke four three eight. Buddha says, Then Mara, the evil one, drew near him and said, Let the exalted one exercise governance, let the blessed one rule. Now what, O evil one, do you have in view that he speak this way to me? If the exalted one were to wish the Himalayas, king of the mountains to be gold, he might determine it to be so, and the mountains would become a mass of gold. The exalted one responded, Were the mountains all of shimmering gold, it would still not be enough for one man's wants. He that has seen suffering, how should that man succumb to desires? Then Mara, the Evil One thought, The exalted one knows me, and blessed the blessed one knows me, and sad and sorrowful he banished them, and there Psalm two Nikaiah four thro ten. Jesus expresses he fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Buddha expresses I thought, suppose I practice entirely cutting off food. Then the deities came to me and said, Good sir, do not practice entirely cutting off food. If you do so, we shall infuse heavenly food into the pores of your skin, and you will live on that. Muji Mu Nikaiah thirty six twenty seven. Jesus exclaims, one of the criminals who was crucified there kept deriding him and saying, Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He replied, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Luke twenty three, thirty nine forty three. Buddha exclaims, The Buddha performed a feat of such supernormal power that the bandit addressed him thus I will indeed renounce evil forever. So saying, the bandit took his swords and weapons and flung them into a gaping pit. Then the bandit worshiped at his feet and uttered this exclamation, who once did live in negligence and then is negligent no more. He illuminates the world like the moon free from a cloud. Mushimu Nekia eighty six five through six and eighteen. Jesus said, As he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard this he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, for I have come to call not on the righteous, but sinners. Matthew nine, ten through thirteen. Buddha said, The Bodhisattva made his appearance at the fields of sports and in the casinos, but his aim was always to mature those people who were attached to games and gambling. To train living beings, he would appear at crossroads and on street corners. To demonstrate the evils of desire, he even entered the brothels. To establish drunkards in correct mindfulness, he entered all the taverns.

Jesus and Buddha

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Bimala Kiti Ner Densha Sutra two. Their words on salvation. For Jesus it is a narrow gate, for Buddha a lofty mountain. But the message is the same. To become pure is the ultimate challenge, and there are few to meet it. Both speak of separating the spiritual from the physical, and of following the former while relinquishing the latter. To do so is simple, but not easy. It is by adhering to truth and overcoming the lure of the world that we can achieve freedom. Be pure in heart, Jesus says, do good and purify the heart, says Buddha. The end that each has in mind is a heaven in which we are free from earthly sin or worldly reincarnation. Simply follow the way I have taught and have faith, both say, and each believes not only that his words point the way to freedom, but that by flouting his message you are condemned to spiritual servitude. Jesus admonishes, No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you you must be born from above. Buddha admonishes there are these two gifts, the carnal and the spiritual. He who has made that the spiritual offering, such a one, the best of mankind, is honored by all beings as one who has gone beyond. IT Wutu Ku four verse one. Jesus exclaims, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matthew thirteen forty four. Buddha exclaimed, If by giving up limited pleasure one sees far reaching happiness, the wise one leaves aside limited pleasures looking to far reaching happiness. Damu Padu twenty one. Jesus says Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Buddha says those who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me are all headed for heaven or beyond. Mushimu Nikaya twenty four verse seven. That's all we have time for today, my friend. I appreciate you tuning in to this episode. Today we finish season two by looking at the lives of Jesus and Buddha and examine some of the exploring their similarities. Remember, I advise you not to accept everything you hear in this podcast without testing it yourself. It has to resonate with you personally. Believing often carries doubt. The real secret to success is to know the laws of life, not just believe in them. When you take the time to test these laws and principles, you'll come to understand. For your own good, keep an open mind for new ideas. This will help you better understand and evaluate what you're learning. Now we'll have a teaser for season three. Psychology bursts into the realm of science in 1879 when Wilhelm Wandt established the very first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany. This monumental shift transformed psychology from ancient philosophy into an electrifying, empirical pursuit of understanding conscious experience, mental processes, and behaviors.

From Now: The Human Psyche

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The human psyche and mythology have long been my deepest secret fascination. While the scientific study of it began in the eighteen eighties, humans have been probing the mysteries of what it means to be a man, a woman, a couple, and every stage of the human journey for millennia. Their explorations weren't confined to labs. No, they were woven into mythological stories passed down through ages. These tales, filled with gods, titans, and fantastical creatures that sparked the imagination, carried characters embodying the very traits we see in ourselves. These mythic heroes faced challenges, overcame weaknesses, and navigated life's dilemmas, stories that ignited our deepest emotions and offered solutions through their struggles, inspiring us to confront our own in the process. Get ready for an adrenaline pumping adventure. If you think season three will thrill you, hit that follow button now. Launching August 7th, this season promises jaw-dropping moments and deep self discovery. Don't miss out. Remember, God woke you up this morning for a reason. Now go out and find out why.