Summary Of The Dalai Lama Studying Religion
The path to religion
Church, mosque, gurdwara, and monastery are all distinct places of religion for worship. Imagine a world where neither names of religious places were different and neither was the practice. It’s hard to imagine for some but others would have no problem in doing so. The Dalai Lama presents a simple question with a complicated answer, “. . . how does a follower of a particular religious tradition deal with the question of the legitimacy of other religions” (The Dalai Lama) the Dalai Lama tries to answer this question using a broad answer. The Dalai Lama’s answers are varied upon three ideas that are exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. In Studying Religion, Gary E. Kessler defines the three approaches to religion, that …show more content…
That child is the current the Dalai Lama. As a child the Dalai Lama held exclusivist views that is, “I used to feel that my own Buddhist religion was the best” (1) which changed as he acknowledged other faiths such as Christianity. Even though the Dalai Lama had exclusivist views that changed overtime, it indicates that Dalai Lama cannot be presented as an exclusivist as he continues his journey to recognize other salvation paths based upon what he admires about them. His representation as an exclusivist could be seen as a phase of his life as well as an ongoing ideal. An exclusivist view present during his discovery of other religions is the connection he makes with the Crucifixion of Jesus to a Buddhism idea, “such self-sacrifice, born out of altruism and universal love for all beings, is a perfect example of what Buddhists might term the Bodhisattva ideal” ( The Dalai Lama 57), this idea of connection does not portray any connection to me. The connection that the Dalai Lama makes is more to his convenient that actually understanding it more deeply. I see crucifixion as more internal as well as physical pain taken for individuals while meditation is not only for other it is also to calm oneself which is not same as the physical pain gone through
Church, mosque, gurdwara, and monastery are all distinct places of religion for worship. Imagine a world where neither names of religious places were different and neither was the practice. It’s hard to imagine for some but others would have no problem in doing so. The Dalai Lama presents a simple question with a complicated answer, “. . . how does a follower of a particular religious tradition deal with the question of the legitimacy of other religions” (The Dalai Lama) the Dalai Lama tries to answer this question using a broad answer. The Dalai Lama’s answers are varied upon three ideas that are exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. In Studying Religion, Gary E. Kessler defines the three approaches to religion, that …show more content…
That child is the current the Dalai Lama. As a child the Dalai Lama held exclusivist views that is, “I used to feel that my own Buddhist religion was the best” (1) which changed as he acknowledged other faiths such as Christianity. Even though the Dalai Lama had exclusivist views that changed overtime, it indicates that Dalai Lama cannot be presented as an exclusivist as he continues his journey to recognize other salvation paths based upon what he admires about them. His representation as an exclusivist could be seen as a phase of his life as well as an ongoing ideal. An exclusivist view present during his discovery of other religions is the connection he makes with the Crucifixion of Jesus to a Buddhism idea, “such self-sacrifice, born out of altruism and universal love for all beings, is a perfect example of what Buddhists might term the Bodhisattva ideal” ( The Dalai Lama 57), this idea of connection does not portray any connection to me. The connection that the Dalai Lama makes is more to his convenient that actually understanding it more deeply. I see crucifixion as more internal as well as physical pain taken for individuals while meditation is not only for other it is also to calm oneself which is not same as the physical pain gone through