Interesting Film
Jesus & Buddha:
Practicing Across Traditions
Three leading figures in today’s Buddhist-Christian dialogue share their personal journeys in the new documentary "Jesus and Buddha: Practicing Across Traditions."
We learn how following the path of the Buddha has informed and deepened their understanding of who Jesus was and what he taught. Their experience and insight bring these two liberating archetypes alive in a way that can help guide us through our own confusion and struggle toward lives filled with joy and gratitude, compassion, and service.
The film features: Father Robert Kennedy, a Jesuit priest and Zen teacher; Chung Hyun Kyung, Professor of Ecumenical Theology and Interfaith Engagement at Union Theological Seminary and a Buddhist Dharma teacher; and Paul Knitter, Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary.
During the course of the film, we see that the struggles and anxieties that motivate them are our own. What’s more, their reflections throw the light back on us. We can see better the prison of our ceaseless preoccupations, our obsessions, our animosities. Perhaps our own notions of the spiritual path have been limited by our need for answers and our desire for comfort. In the end it becomes clear from these witnesses that this is not a journey that depends on concepts and abstractions—and definitive answers are beyond our grasp. The journey is rather one of practice and insight.
The path these travelers point us to is infinitely spacious and ultimately fulfilling—it can hold all of the contradictions and the questions as it leads further and deeper into the 'incomprehensible mystery' that is this life. Maybe we don’t need to enter a monastery or go to the desert, but some form of discipline may be necessary if we are to move beyond the self as the center of identity and into the liberating vastness of the 'Buddha-field' or the nourishing wholeness of the 'Christ-reality.'
See Film: Jesus & Buddha / Practicing Across Traditions