Speech by Ven. Freeman Trebilcok on Interfaith and Buddhism
at Federation Square on 13 July 2008.
Having had a chance to get to know one another within our own spiritual tradition, and set a positive motivation towards kindness and peace, we must now look beyond our own religion, to embrace people from all backgrounds and spiritual followings.
So I’d like to talk to you a little about the idea of interfaith, who is involved, and what the word ‘interfaith’ even means. For some of you, this may all be old-hat, but for others this may be the first time you have been involved in an interfaith event, coming together with others from different spiritual traditions, to build friendships and develop mutual understanding.
Interfaith is not breaking down divisions of identity, it is about building bridges between them. It is about recognizing those things we share, but also celebrating the unique differences of each religious perspective.
Philosophically that’s all well and good, but why should we as Buddhists be concerned about Interfaith??? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often spoken about his three main personal commitments.
Fostering basic Human Values;
Advocating for the Rights of the Tibetan People;
and Promoting Inter-religious Harmony.
As one of his major commitments His Holiness is highlighting the value of peaceful inter-religious relationships, and the important role of interfaith action in creating peace between religions. It is also a call to us as Buddhists to work with people of any religion, of all religions, to promote the values of compassion and wisdom. Events like the Pilgrimage today not only allow us to come together with other religions to meet one another and have a conversation, they are a symbolic gesture of our desire for peace.
Religion in a modern world is often seen as more of negative than positive influence. Religious Extremisim, wars and endless conflicts over culture and faith. These things take the focus in our media, and can have effect of putting many people off the idea of religion altogether. But is this the real essence of what religious traditions are all about? Clearly not. Each religion has the same essential values of Kindness and Peacefulness. So it’s our responsibility as religious people to re-position religion as a potentially healthy, positive influence for todays world. And of vital importance is to come together with our “spiritual friends” – both from within Buddhism and from different faiths, to actually create this world of peace.
From a Buddhist point of view the concept of many religious traditions is particularly significant. It is explained that, a range of religious understandings is important for promoting compassion and wisdom in different contexts and conditions, for different individuals - depending on their own mental disposition. On an individual level, one truth and one path is important, but on a social and global level the value of many truths and many paths becomes clear.
Yet while each religion has different understanding, they share the common goal of promoting the values of kindness, contentment, generosity and so on.
My own personal involvement in Interfaith is relatively new and quite limited. In June last year I was invited to be part of the “Multi-faith Forum for Schools” Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. In helping organize that event I gradually began to learn a little more about the ideas of Religious Pluralism, and actually got to interview the other religious youth to make a short film introducing each of them. These were young people from completely different religions – from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, but each of their answers was surprisingly similar. Following on from that I got the opportunity to take this film and share my experiences at the Interfaith Youth Corps conference “Crossing the Faith Line” in Chicago.
There I met people who’s whole life was committed to spreading the message of interfaith peace. The conference was an opportunity to explore ideas about faith and peace and truth, and listen to the stories of religious followers, academics and spiritual leaders about what their perspective has to offer.
But most moving for me was to hear the teaching of the Islamic scholar Sheikh Hamzah Yusef. He gave a teaching on the inherent goodness of all people and spoke particularly about Ultimate Reality. He discussed the ideas of emptiness and (although he did not use this word, Buddahnature). Sheikh Hamza Yusef gave a teaching that could have been given by any Buddhist guru. He borrowed ideas from the Heart Sutra, and used analogies and metaphors that could very well have been plucked from the Dharmapada. Yet the Sheikh was only drawing on those truths from his own spiritual tradition. From the teachings of Mohammad and the Quran. Yet what he was saying was exactly the same. His truths were the same as our truths.
So interfaith is about those things we share, about the universal, it’s also about the value of diversity. It is our responsibility as Buddhists to engage in interfaith, to engage with others, basesd upon our common humanity.
It doesn’t matter what religion you belong to, just that you are fostering a good heart, and coming to recognize your own true nature. Recognizing that different people from different religions are coming to know themselves in their own different way leaves it open for people to find truth for themselves.
For everybody to have an opportunity to explore their own buddahnature, whether they are Buddhist or not is something we all want to see. Many paths leading to the same place – to our clear light nature.
So settle your mind and connect with the compassion within you – that reality which is beyond concepts.
AND now we gather flags, and get ready to head off on our Pilgrimage towards each other. I hope you all learn a lot.
