Buddhism and the New Church

Ian gives a brief but insightful comparison between Buddhist and New Church ideas. For a consideration of what to make of differences in religion turn to Isaac's article Even as We are One.

All true religion is founded on the idea that love is the heart of human life. Both the New Church and Buddhism hold religious visions in which humanity's higher reality is one of love. More interesting are the perspectives Swedenborgians and Buddhists share on why, if love is our highest reality, we do not feel love all the time—or even at all. They also share common themes on how we can become a part of this higher reality. Buddhist teachings stress the idea of non-attachment to our desires; whether they are for material possessions, physical pleasures, thoughts or emotional states. The teaching of non-attachment is compared easily to Swedenborg's view of love of self and of the world: love of self being an obsession and preoccupation with our self and our desires and love of the world being an imbalanced craving for possessions, wealth and pleasure. It is our attachments to these things that lead us into the negative states we feel during our life.

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Even as We are One

Isaac tells of making friends on an airplane and traveling in China and East-Africa. He questions some General Church assumptions about who is actually the heart and lungs of the Lord's church on earth. In the same vein, he wonders whether we are confused in making assumptions about who is in or out of the New Church. These types of questions are addressed further in the context of relationships by Garrett Smith and Meryl Mochado.

Last week I walked our family dog up Guinea Road and visited some dear old friends nestled in their vineyard spread on a hill not too far from my family's new home. I've been away in China and Africa for some time and it was gift of sweet mercy to near their home and enter the door into their smiles and share the Lord's love together. I was again awed by the peaceful view of the mountains from their spacious windows, mountains I knew, mountains I was used to seeing from a different angle. There was the Pinnacle, which I hiked as a boy and a young man, and another mountain, the Sharp, on whose face sat the beloved cabin my family called home.

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