The Similarities Between Buddhism And Christianity

Christianity and Buddhism, as one of the world’s three major religions, occupy very important position in the society, influence most of people. Maybe they have different religious doctrines and faiths, but they also share the similarities.

First of all, I think that both Buddhism and Christianity can help people relieve their pressure through repenting the mistakes they did. Christians think if they embrace Jesus, repent and mend your ways, live as what God tells you, then you can have Jesus assumes your fault for you. In the Buddhism, there is the same sense. Chinese has a common saying which evolve from religious doctrine of Buddhism: nothing can be brought with when birth and die. More generally, you are bare when you born, you have nothing except yourself. As time goes by, the things you got don’t really belong to you. All the things you have are only your desire, these try to fetter you, and bury yourself. And when you die those things you had cannot go with you, just you. Correspond with this sentence is from The Heart Sutra, it says: form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form. Which means there are only the most primitive things in the world, like mountain, water, humans. Other things like money, shoes or computers are only your desire. You want it, then you might have it, but it does not belong to you, what you have is only yourself.

Now I want to take myself experience as an example to tell you how much influence religious brings to people. I went to both church and temple one time, although I don’t really have that kind of faith. Church is a sacred place for most people who believe in Christ. The experience I had in church really shocked me. When the priest said if there is anything you want to say, want to regret, want to thanks, it is the time now. Then so many people stood up and told everyone in that room, they shared things. When someone said something bad happened, others always said God bless you. Don’t you think that just make you feel warm, make you know there is always someone stand by you, listen to you, and support you. Another thing is called confession or something else I don’t know, I only remember when that part started, many people went to front and knelt down, I sat very back of the room, I saw almost everyone went, I heard them cry, I saw their shoulders shake, I could also see their face, how sad they were. At that time, it made me introspect, if there is anything I shouldn’t of done. Next I would like to talk about the experience I have in temple. When I walked into the temple, I felt nothing could bother me at all. I knelt down on the mat, listened to monk, even though I can barely understand, but I felt the peace, maybe that is the magic of it. People also can confess to Buddha.

Both Buddhism and Christianity play an essential role in culture. Buddhism has an impact on spread culture and promote the communication of culture between different countries. Christianity has a far-reaching impact of the field of politics. In the past thousands years, Buddhism further spread to many countries, like Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and other east Asia and southeast Asia countries. As we know, 1200 years ago, in the Tang Dynasty, Monk Jianzhen who overcame all kind of difficulties voyages to Japan to spread Buddhist Scriptures and essence of Tang Dynasty’s culture, including painting, calligraphy, sculpture, medicine, craftwork, printing, architecture etc. This significant trip promotes the cultural communication between China and Japan in history. In many western countries, they promote respect contract, law and human rights. And in some constitutions mentioned nature right. All of these are inseparable with the Bible in Christianity.

From all above I said, I believe that although Buddhism and Christianity are two different religions they still have some similarities. One is both them have impact on culture, another is people can be forgiven through repenting.