His Holiness the Dalai Lama was once asked about Jesus. “You should study historical works if you are asking about history,” the Dalai Lama replied. His Holiness’ personal opinion was that Jesus was either a buddha or an advanced being. (Tibetan Buddhists believe buddhas and bodhisattvas emanate in holy manifestations to help humans and other sentient beings.) At the request of a Christian meditation group, His Holiness read selected passages from the Gospels to a gathering at a university in Europe. As the Dalai Lama read from John’s Gospel about Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection, many were in tears, feeling as if they were hearing the passage for the first time, even though they had been reading it all their lives.

In pursuance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s extraordinary recognition, I would like to do a brief comparative study of the Gospels and the Lamrim system in Tibetan Buddhism. Lamrim, which refers to “the stages of the path to enlightenment,” is one of the richest traditions in Tibetan Buddhism. Its instructions were complied in the eleventh century of the common era by the great Buddhist master Atisha.

Faith, Hope, and Charity and dad pa, nges jung, and nying je
I believe that Christianity’s faith, hope, and charity are somewhat similar and comparable to the teaching about dad pa (faith), nges jung (aspiring for nirvana), and nying je (compassion) that is found in the Lamrim. Faith for Christians is the faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Buddhists also have faith in a trinity: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The general Buddhist tradition would equate the Buddha with the Father, the Dharma with the Holy Spirit, and the Sangha with the Son. In the Mahayana tradition, the Trinity could be compared also to the three aspects of Buddha/Buddhas—Dharmakaya (Reality and Wisdom Body) for the Holy Spirit, Sambhogakaya (Joyous Body) for the Father, and Nirmanakaya (Emanation Body) for the Son.

Hope aspires to eternal life, and nges jung aspires to nirvana, which is sometimes referred to as amrita (deathless, or eternal, in Sanskrit). The Buddha left his palace and kingdom and taught his disciples to renounce their attachment to the world to fully realize the Dharma. Similarly, Jesus demanded that his disciples leave behind all their worldly possessions and remove attachment to family to gain the Kingdom of Heaven.

All compounded phenomena are impermanent; all contaminated phenomena are suffering; all phenomena are empty and selfless. Through the four characteristics of worldly phenomena—impermanent, suffering, empty, and selfless—Buddhists meditate in order to cultivate the mind of renunciation. In the Biblical tradition, the mundane world’s unreliability, impermanence, and unsatisfactory nature is well expressed in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities … All things are vanity! … A good name is better than good ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.”

A great follower of the Buddha, Acharya Nagarjuna, writes in his letter to King Ratnavali (Gautamiputra Satkarni of the Satavahana dynasty?), “Compassion [karuna] achieves all.” And a great follower of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Charity [agape] never fails.” It is Jesus’ profound teaching about charity—agape love–that reminds the Tibetan Buddhists of the bodhisattva’s infinite and great loving compassion.

According to the Lamrim tradition, this great loving compassion is extremely rare. There are more disciples who have nges jung (hope) than have great compassion (charity), and there are more with dad pa (faith) than with nges jung. In order to have great compassion, one must have the other two spiritual virtues, for great compassion is generated after generating faith and renunciation. Therefore, the 13th chapter of First Corinthians is absolutely inspiring to the Tibetan Buddhists. Indeed this chapter is, I believe, a teaching of great scope on the bodhisattva’s path.

The Mustard Seed and the Lamrim
In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” This fits perfectly with the Lamrim system, which speaks about spiritual development from small faith to hope, and then to great compassion, and finally towards perfection. As Jesus says in the Gospel according to Matthew, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Lamrim outlines the essential spiritual qualities, which are cultivated on the stages of the way. The whole path is brought under three schemas based on three developmental stages: small scope, middle scope, and great scope. There are beings in the Buddhist faith who are not that ready for nirvana but who do not want to be in hell or undergo other bad rebirths. In order to have good rebirths they live a basically virtuous life, refraining from ten non-virtuous acts (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and so forth). These Buddhists are of small scope. Then there are beings who are not content with mere good rebirths and who aspire to nirvana. They are of middle scope.

People of faith generally hope for eternal life. Since there are no repeated rebirths in Christianity, as in Buddhist system, the first two scopes of the Lamrim system may not have an exact equivalent in Christianity. Yet, for the purpose of comparative study, let me juxtapose faith and hope to the Lamrim paths of small and middle scope respectively. Moreover, I expect there are some faithful Christians who do not have a good understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven.

There are also beings who are not even concerned with attaining nirvana. They are more concerned about others. They want others to be free from suffering. These are the ones of great scope, of great loving compassion. As Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel, “I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Indeed, compassion, or charity, is “a still more excellent way.”

The Essential Teachings of Gospel and Lamrim
A scribe once asked Jesus, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied that the first is this: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no greater commandment than these.” Thus these relationships of agape with God and with others are the essential teachings of Bible.

The fundamental practice of Lamrim is bodhicitta, the mind of altruistic aspiration for complete enlightenment for the benefit of other sentient beings. Tibetan Buddhists would also assert that within this aspiration—along with the aspiration to perfect Buddhahood—all the essentials of the Buddha’s teachings are included. Atisha, the father of the Lamrim system, a proponent of Prasangika Madhyamika, which is considered the highest philosophy by the Tibetans, honored Lama Serlingpa of Cittamatra as the most important lama, even though they had major philosophical differences, since Atisha obtained the precious mind of bodhicitta through him.

Bodhicitta is generated through seven spiritual steps, in which the key virtue is great compassion. Prior to generating this compassion, we have to cultivate the step of feeling close and dear toward all sentient beings. This feeling of attractive love, the great Fifth Dalai Lama writes in the Great Lamrim, “should not be mixed with even the slightest sense of attachment.” The resultant compassion would certainly have the virtues that the Apostle Paul attributed to agape: “Charity is patient, charity is kind. It is not jealous … It bears all things … Charity never fails.”

These two spiritual aspirations—yearning for perfect Buddhahood and for the wellbeing of all sentient beings—certainly reflect and remind us of the two great commandments of the Gospel. Those holy beings who live in accordance with these two principles “are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Compassion: the Great Tranquilizer
For many decades, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been speaking and emphasizing everywhere the virtue of compassion. At a dialogue with scientists on the destructive emotions, His Holiness observed with humility, “From my own small experience, I find that as soon as some kind of sense of caring or concern increases in my heart, this brings me more inner strength. The result: I feel less fear, more happiness… If there is shocking news, sad news, I may be uncomfortable for a few seconds, but then I recover very swiftly and there is peace again.” His Holiness concluded, “I think the practice of compassion is like a medication that restores serenity when one is very agitated. The great tranquilizer is compassion.”

An unusual kind of research was conducted by neuroscientist Richard Davidson on an experienced Buddhist meditator using MRI and EEG—one with 128 sensors and another with 256 sensors—at the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin. The subject monk had practiced Tibetan meditation for many years in the Himalayan region. The monk “feels compassion” when he sees a person suffering. Psychologist Paul Ekman reported, “His thoughts were about human suffering and how to relieve it; his feelings were a sense of caring and concern, mixed with a not unpleasant strong, poignant sadness… When he spontaneously felt compassion during the burn film, his physiological signs reflected relaxation even more strongly than they had when the signs had been measured during a resting state.”

Compassion Achieves All
All people of faith (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and others), even if they are not at the level of great scope or of charity, honor the golden rule of the holy scriptures: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.” We all believe in future life and do not want to be faced with a condemnatory judgment in future lives.

Unfortunately there are many people who have no spiritual faith. They have no moral and ethical laws to uphold, and consider themselves wiser for having freed themselves from “superstitious beliefs.” Yet they have no joy in the present and certainly no hope for the future whatsoever. They do not believe in the next life and have no faith in eternal life or enlightenment. They see their lives as a meaningless and “futile passion.” Some of them are so sad in their world that they believe that “hell is other people” and that free will is “condemnation.” I hope that the non-believers and non-practicing believers may learn from the personal experience of the Dalai Lama that compassion is indeed good for oneself, here and now as well as in the future.

Compassion achieves all. Charity never fails. The text of the Great Lamrim quotes a Mahayana sutra, “What is that single virtue that will bring all spiritual qualities of a bodhisattva? That virtue is great compassion.”

Charity never fails. Compassion achieves all. May we all abide in dad pa (faith), nges jung (hope), and nying je (agape)!