[Tuy duyen]

From a Faith Perspective: What is the 'best' religion?


By Norval Reece
Correspondent


Many of us may have an answer. But is there a best religion?
My own interest in comparative religion began when I was a student at Yale Divinity School.
How are religions different? What do they have in common? Is one religion “better” than another? Why are some people intolerant of other religions?

What is the best religion?

These questions were part of the theological mix in my mind when I went to India for two years of service with the Quakers right after divinity school. While there, I wanted to try to understand an Eastern point of view of Western culture and Christianity — India being the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism as well as home to many Muslims, Christians and Tibetan Buddhist refugees.

It was 1961. I was driving an old Fiat over dirt roads in the Himalayan foothills north of Delhi, India. I had been in India for about a year – arriving shortly after the Dalai Lama and Tibetan families became refugees by walking out of Tibet under the cover of darkness in 1959. Hearing of their plight, I had recruited University of Delhi students to give up their spring vacations to help repair the children‘s school buildings in the refugee camps in Dharamsala.

After our two-week work camp, the Dalai Lama invited me in for a private audience. We were about the same age, talked through an Indian interpreter, and had Tibetan tea (made with rancid butter). He thanked me for our work, signed a 10 rupee note, gave it to me for good fortune, and blessed me. I said “Thank you” in my best Tibetan. I have no idea what I actually said, but he roared with laughter, clapped me on the back and said in perfect English, “And, thank you very much, Norval.”

That was my introduction to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
My second private audience with the Dalai Lama was with my wife, Ann, in 2008 in Philadelphia. My friend, Sean Tchourumoff, president of The Kalmyk Brotherhood Society of Philadelphia, had asked me to help him bring the Dalai Lama to Philadelphia to meet with his group of 2,000 ethnic Mongolian and Russian Tibetan Buddhists.



At the Dalai Lama’s “teaching” in the packed 2,500-seat Kimmel Center, this “simple Buddhist monk,” as he refers to himself (“God-King” to his followers), sat cross-legged on stage on a large chair, surrounded by dozens of monks sitting on the floor, and talked conversationally for two hours.
He spoke about compassion, forgiveness, inter-relationships, conflict resolution, and living in harmony with nature and other countries and people. In response to a question about how to treat others, he said, “Try to be helpful to people in need. But, if you cannot, at least respect them.”

The next morning, Ann and I joined six others for a private audience in his hotel. The Dalai Lama was greatly amused by old photos I had brought of the Tibetan children and me in the refugee camps in 1961 — laughing, putting his hand on my shoulder and pointing first to the picture of one small girl and then another, saying, “She is now grandmother; she is mother; she is grandmother.…”

The Dalai Lama then hugged my wife, blessed the group, blessed me and placed a blue silk prayer scarf around my neck. I gave the Dalai Lama a copy of "The Peaceable Kingdom" painting by Edward Hicks, co-founder of Newtown Quaker Meeting. I told him I thought I was a little bit Tibetan Buddhist and I thought he was a little bit Quaker. He roared his great belly laugh, clapped me in the back, and said “Yes. Yes!”

I was reminded of these experiences when I recently received a video of a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff.
With what Boff describes as “malicious intent,” he asked the Dalai Lama, “What is the best religion?”
Boff assumed the Dalai Lama would say Tibetan Buddhism. To his surprise, the Dalai Lama said, "The best religion is one that gets you closest to God. It is the one that makes you a better person."

The Dalai Lama continued, "I am not interested, my friend, about your religion or if you are religious or not. What really is important to me is your behavior in front of your peers, family, work, community and in front of the world. Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts…. If we act with goodness, we will receive goodness. If we act with evil, we will get evil."

So, what is the best religion? To the Dalai Lama, the answer is clear.
The best religion is the one that makes you a better person.

As my Quaker mother used to say, “The proof is in the pudding.”

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