Buddhist Reflection on Interfaith: In Observance of UN World Interfaith Harmony Week

02/05/2016 03:39 pm ET | Updated 16 hours ago
Doyeon Park
Won Buddhist Teacher, Chaplain at New York University, Religious Life Adviser at Columbia University

With today's rapid pace of technological advancement, the world is getting more and more connected. Using the Internet, we can easily search what's happening out there and who's doing what. We are widely exposed to diversity. This is not limited to the cyber world. Especially living in a big city like New York, whether we like it or not, we encounter people from various cultural, social and religious backgrounds on a daily basis; in our work place, at a store, at a meeting, or on the street. Throughout human history, and today we see how mistrust and misunderstanding, especially among people of different faiths can destroy individual, society and country. So there is an urgent need for people of faith to work together to overcome mistrust and misunderstanding and build a peaceful co-existence. Therefore interfaith harmony is not an option but a necessity in a world of diversity.

The Buddhist approach to religious diversity is very clear: there are different paths to Truth. As such, other faiths are not wrong; they are simply different. But, as human beings, we tend to regard what is different as wrong.

Sotaesan, the founding master of Won Buddhism, has a unique story that shows why Won Buddhism takes an active role in interfaith dialogue and cooperation. After years of searching for truth, Sotaesan reached enlightenment in 1916. When I read his life story for the first time, I was a little skeptical about his enlightenment, because I am reluctant to believe those who claim to be enlightened. But the following story was convincing enough to catch my attention. After his enlightenment, Sotaesan got some of the basic scriptures of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and some other teachings from eastern religions. After reading them he said: "ancient sages had known what I have come to know", which means that his awakened mind allowed him to see what other enlightened masters had already experienced. It made perfect sense to me that Sotaesan confirmed his awakening by understanding other spiritual teachings. Though they used different words to express their awakening according to different times and places, the ultimate reality they experienced was one. From this point of view, Sotaesan guided his students to be respectful and open minded to other religious traditions.

People often ask me if they need to be a Buddhist to practice meditation and Buddha dharma. I tell them, "No, it's not necessary.' Actually, I'm not a big fan of using labels. Once we put a name on something, it is easily stereotyped and we start to draw a line between what is and what is not; between what is right and what is not right. We create a box and start to think that we have to be one way or the other.

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