The Challenge of Buddhism

ONE of the greatest chal­lenges that faces the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the gigantic task of presenting the gospel of Christ to the teeming millions of non-Christians in all parts of the world. While we are grateful to God for the progress of the Advent message during ninety years of mission endeavor, we are also sobered by the fact that little impact has been made on the adherents of the main non-Christian religions of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

The Birth of Buddhism

Buddhism had its beginning in India in the sixth century B.C. and is therefore a very old religion. The founder, Gotam Buddha, who was born about 563 B.c., was the son of the king of Kapilavastu. He married at an early age, according to Hindu custom, and had a son called Rahnla.'

At the age of twenty-nine Buddha re­nounced his succession to the throne and became a hermit. The factors that led to this decision have been expressed as fol­lows:

Having taken serious thought of life, a revulsion set in against the fleshly passions; he had no wish to be a ruling chieftain. He would renounce his fam­ily and his kingdom—scarcely realizing he was bound to institute a world religion. There is no evidence that before he was married he questioned the propriety of marriage. Was it an indication of a change of mind that he gave his son the name of Rahula or "fetter," a tie binding one unduly to the world? Something positive, also may have moved him. His eyes were opened to the misery in the world about him, and his heart assumed some obligation to dispel it. The Digha Nikaya [Buddhist Scriptures] compresses into the brief space of a pleasure-ride four experiences immediately respon­sible for Gotam's great Renunciation. As he rode in his sumptuous chariot drawn by four blooded steeds "as white as the petals of the white lotus," he be­held four "Signs" at intervals along the way: (1) "a decrepit old man, broken-toothed, gray-haired, crooked and bent of body, leaning on a staff and trembling"; (2) "a diseased man whom the gods had fashioned so," "repulsive with running sores"; (3) "a dead man, whose condition the gods had ordained"; and (4) "a monk, carefully and decently clad, in the form the gods had fashioned."

Thinking of the old man, Gotam was distressed that every man must face the question of old age and weakness. He saw, also, that men were subject to disease and death, baffled by disaster and de­crepitude, from which even death would not re­lease them—Gotam held the doctrine of rebirth and karma. Why disease? Must it be? Is there no cure? Is death inevitable? Can life be extended and death delayed? . . . To what degree are sickness, age, and death compatible with life? ²

Gotam was impressed by the monk, who seemed to him to be a symbol of the true way of living. Gotam determined to fol­low his example. For several years he trav­eled from place to place seeking a way of release from the evils of this life. Finally one day, while sitting under a fig tree at Banares, Gotam received enlightenment. He became the Buddha or the Wise or Enlightened One, and the tree was called the Bo tree, which means the tree of wis­dom.

Greater Than His Teachings

This enlightenment led Buddha to for­mulate his doctrine, the Four Noble Truths, which are listed below:

The life-process involving rebirth and conse­quent old-age and death in all spheres of condi­tioned existence is associated with suffering. . . .

The cause of this painful round of rebirths is Craving. That is, thirst for the enjoyment of the pleasures of the senses, from the lowest animal indulgences up to the most refined mental pleas­ures...

There is a point at which Craving, and the re­birth process arising from it, can be brought to an end. . . . This cessation of the unreal life process is called Nirvana, the extinction of the fires of pas­sion. It is the end of suffering and the sole unchang­ing reality.

The way to that final perfection is the Noble Path of mental or spiritual development; that is, Right View, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mind­fulness and Right Concentration.'

The personal characteristics of Buddha have been aptly described by John C. Archer:

Did Buddha teach new truths? He formulated many things anew; but the newness was essen­tially his person. He was an attractive, forceful personality; herein lay his success and popularity. . . . He became the greatest person of his age. His following was personal, and grew steadily through the loyalty of his followers. . . . He was worthy of a following; during his whole Mission, he was a consistently moral person, preaching and practicing love to mankind with unremitting fer­vor. . . . His own sincerity and moral character were compelling. He was, if anything, greater than his teachings.⁴

The Dynamic Spread of Buddhism

Buddhism has spread to many coun­tries. Although Buddhism had its begin­nings in India, its greatest success has been in other countries. Again Archer says:

Buddhism has affected large sections of human­ity, especially in Asia. Compared with it, Hindu­ism and Confucianism are provincial; they have served men merely when they arose, with only nominal effects beyond. But Buddhism was a mov­ing current whose force was felt not only in India, its place of origin; it imparted its peculiar charac­ter to peoples elsewhere and remolded many of their institutions. . . . Buddha was a son of Mother India. While he could not keep his hold upon his fellow countrymen, his teachings were popular and impressive for many centuries in his own land, and his spiritual descendants flourish today in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, China, and Japan, with Ti­betans representing him afar off. Yet he was not concerned with world-extent! He addressed him­self to men about him. The faith he founded became worldwide, because men of many countries found it valuable.⁵

The Teachings of Buddhism

There are two main schools of Buddhism today; one is the Mahayana and the other Hinayana. The latter still adheres in the main to the original tenets of Buddhism and the type that is found in Burma, Cey­lon, and Thailand.

 The main tenets of the Hinayana school are briefly summarized below:

God. "The Hinayana school of Bud­dhism," says Archer, "has remained con­servative, holding no theory of God, wor­shiping no God, revering but not worship­ing Buddha."

Creator. Buddhists do not believe in a divine Creator. Chan Htoon says:

In the Buddhist System there is no place for a Creator God. There is moral law and moral order, and these principles are supreme. They are the spiritual aspects of the law of cause and effect which prevails in the physical universe."

Idols. The Buddhist temples are filled with images of Buddha, but the people are not supposed to worship these idols. Ac­cording to Archer these images are to re­mind the people of the path that Buddha has outlined for them:

As the monk and the people repeat them [words of Buddha] in the presence of the image, their minds are kept upon the goal. They are not idol-worshipers, least of all the monk. He is perhaps a learned man; probably, of the old or Hinayana school, which takes no stock in idols. Nor does the image represent to him a god. He has no god. The Buddha is merely the pattern of what he, too, would become. As the monk prays, his "prayer" is merely meditation on the "truths" the Buddha taught. As he turns his steps toward the temple, he merely fol­lows still the "path" which brings release from sorrow and from change. He seeks deliverance, but hope lies in himself and in his code .s

Reincarnation. Buddhists believe that the theory of reincarnation is the only an­swer to the problem of human suffering. Chan Htoon explains the Buddhist theory of suffering as follows:

It may perhaps be said that the moral necessity for rebirth is transcendant. It is the only way in which we who believe in moral justice in the uni­verse can account for the seeming injustices we see all about us—thousands of cases of apparently un­merited suffering, of people stricken by incurable diseases, of children born blind, deaf and dumb, deformed or mentally deficient, or doomed to an early death beyond human or divine aid. All these evils are due to past Kamma.⁵

He continues:

Such evils as these can be avoided in the future by generating good Kamma here and now. The individual's present situation may be (but not necessarily is) beyond present remedy, but the na­ture of his response to it is subject to his will. He can make the future a happy one by the perform. ance of good deeds. No man's destiny is fixed, ex­cept by his own intention. It is subject to contin­ual alteration and change of direction. As the remedy for the present evils, the Buddha laid down the principles of noble conduct; the cultivation of harmlessness towards all beings, accompanied by positive thoughts and deeds of loving kindness; the practice of charity, sexual restraint, self-discipline and mutual cultivation. To avoid evil in the future we must shun evil in the present; there is no other way."

Salvation by works. Buddhism has been described as "the most radical system of self deliverance that has ever been conceived in the world." ¹¹ Chan Htoon expresses the same concept when he says:

Suffering or happiness comes about as the result of actions (Kamma), not as the result of having a blind faith in any particular creed. There is no "salvation by faith" in Buddhism. ... Buddhism is not a "divine revelation" which claims absolute faith and unquestioning obedience; it is a system for discovering truth and reality for oneself, and therefore invites reasoned criticism and objective analysis"

Buddhism in Burma

In Burma, Buddhists make up the bulk of the population of more than 20 million; pagodas dot the land, with more than a thousand in Mandalay alone. Pagodas and monasteries are the chief objects of in­terest. Buddhism holds unrivaled sway over the masses and enters deeply into the na­tional life. "Burma is more truly, although conservatively, Buddhist than any other land." "

To the Burman, "Buddhist" and "Bur­mese" are practically interchangeable terms. Buddhism has come into the lives of these people as religion has rarely af­fected the life of another nation. Hla Bu, a Christian leader in Burma, observes:

In the actual encounter between Christian and non-Christian, the Christian in Burma has to live among people for whom the word "Burman" is synonymous with "Buddhist." To a large majority of people in Burma Buddhism is an integral part of social and national life. Buddhism is as much a part of the Burman as his language and customs. In fact, Burmese language and customs are largely infused with Buddhist ideas and ways."

Commenting further on the influence of Buddhism on the social life of the people, Hla Bu says:

As an integral part of social and national life, Burmese social customs and practices are Bud­dhistic. All national festivals except those recently introduced have been of a religious character. The prestige of members, the attraction of social soli­darity and the aesthetic satisfaction of Buddhist practices hallowed by usage, together with the cultural impregnation of Buddhist ideas, have cre­ated a strong bulwark against the Christian mis­sion.'⁵

Buddhism and Christianity

Buddhism denies the fundamentals of Christianity.

Chan Htoon has frankly stated the opin­ion of Buddhists regarding the doctrines that the Christian considers to be the fundamentals of his faith. He says:

Buddhism does not depend upon any of the com­monly-accepted religious dogmas which science has exploded, such as that of a Creator-god, an immor­tal soul, a supernatural scheme of salvation or a particular "revelation" made at one specific point in history and one special geographical location to a select person or group of persons. It does not maintain that man is a special creation marked off from the rest of living beings by having an un­changing, undying element that has been denied to others. It does not require any myths, such as that of "original sin" to explain the presence of evil and suffering in the world.¹⁶

This very brief survey of Buddhism re­veals the fact that none of the Christian concepts of God, creation, sin, nature of man, the plan of salvation, the Bible, et cetera, is accepted by the Buddhist. Before the Buddhist can discern any value in Christianity, his thinking on all of these points has to be completely re-oriented. This emphasizes the problem that faces the Seventh-day Adventist Church in interpret­ing the gospel to these people in an effec­tive way.

Christianity in Burma

Protestant missions began in Burma in 1813 with the arrival of Adoniram Judson. Anglican missionaries entered in 1854, fol­lowing the annexation of Lower Burma by the British in 1852. The American Metho­dists entered in 1877, the British Wesleyans in 1887." H. B. Meyers, who was converted in India, was the first Seventh-day Ad­ventist worker in Burma. He entered that country in 1905 and did pioneer work with books.

No Christian denomination that has car­ried on work in Burma has been successful to any great extent in reaching the Bur­mese Buddhists. On the other hand, the hill tribes have been receptive to Christianity, and this has caused most of the churches to concentrate their efforts on this group. A national Christian leader in Burma states:

The hill tribes and the less developed people were easier to win over, hence the majority of the Chris­tians in Burma are drawn from among the hill tribes. The real presentation of the gospel among those people who form the majority in Burma and many of whom, instead of looking up, rather look down upon the enthusiastic and not necessarily sat­isfying presentations of the Gospel by the average missionary—yes, among this majority of the Bur-mans the real presentation of the gospel has not happened as far as one can see. Therefore, even though we can count up to 138 years of missionary work, . . . the significant phase of the evangeliza­tion of Burma and the Burmese people has hardly begun ¹⁸

J. H. Harwood has expressed a very simi­lar opinion regarding Christian work in Burma. He says:

Christian evangelism to date has not met any large, visible success among the Hinayana Bud­dhists of Burma, Ceylon and Thailand. It is only rarely that any adult Burman Buddhist has yielded his life in personal surrender to Christ. Conditions in the total social and religious pattern undoubtedly contribute to this effect. On the other hand, the tendency of Christian enterprise has been to desert its mission to Burma Buddhists in favor of the more responsive animistic people of Burma.¹⁹

This was largely true of the Seventh-day Adventist mission program in Burma until a few years ago. Nearly all of the direct evangelistic work of this organization has been among the Karens and other hill tribes. Most of the Burmese Buddhists that have been converted have come into the church through the influence of Seventh-day Adventist schools.

(To be continued)