This panel presents three exercises in Buddhist-Christian Comparative Theology. The first is on the theme of humility and its relationship to liberation vis-à-vis certain Christian feminist strategies to reclaim humility as a gendered strategy. The second explores Kierkegaard’s truth as subjectivity vis-à-vis the Tibetan Buddhist claim of truth as non-duality through a comparative method based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory in cognitive linguistics. The third argues that Paul’s understanding of pneuma and pneumatic life is fittingly compared with Tibetan understandings of the “subtle body” and associated phenomena; parallels between the two helpfully transform our understanding of early Christianity.
The proposed paper responds to Michelle Voss’ 2009 invitation to test the wider applicability of her mapping of humility in the writings of Mechthild de Magdeburg onto a nine-level organizational schema. Using a comparative methodology, this paper will expand theological understanding of the trope of humility in the autobiographies of 8th century Tibetan Buddhist visionary, Yeshé Tsogyal. In doing so, it claims that an embrace of humility can further our own journey on the path to liberation.
This paper is a philosophical examination of Kierkegaard’s approach to truth and existence in relation to Tibetan Buddhist thought represented by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). A problem that seems to surface for the close reader with some familiarity with both thinkers is whether Kierkegaard’s truth as subjectivity is similar to truth as non-duality in Tibetan Buddhism as lacking a subject and object distinction between the knower and what is to know (the referent). Adopting a comparative method based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory in cognitive linguistics, my study embraces an investigation that is in effect an argument favoring a similarity between truth as subjectivity and truth as non-duality. This research implies that Tibetan Buddhism offers the resources for our contemporary inquiry into the relevant issue in Kierkegaard’s thought. It contributes to work in inter-religious dialogue and comparative theology, deepening the dialogue between the two faith traditions or cultures.
I argue here that Paul’s understanding of pneuma and pneumatic life is fittingly compared with Tibetan understandings of the “subtle body” and associated phenomena. Late-ancient Mediterraneans commonly understood pneuma as rarified embodiment. Central for Paul is to be metamorphosed from our present mode of embodiment—psychē-animated, material embodiment—into the mode Jesus accomplished in the resurrection: pneuma embodiment. This metamorphosis is indistinguishably physiological and “mentalistic:” It is a change in “hidden” physiology (in kardia, the seat of nous, where pneuma enters and circulates the body) which causes changes in nous and phronēma (mindset). It occurs through intensive embodied experiences and is accompanied by paranormal manifestations. I point to two Tibetan parallels: (1) theoretical discussions, where subtle embodiment is the order at which mind-becomes-physiology and physiology-becomes-mind; and (2) hagiographic and practice-manual references to paranormal phenomena associated with subtle body changes. These parallels helpfully transform our understanding of early Christianity.
| Anne C. Klein, Rice University | ack@rice.edu | View |