Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T07:42:46.064Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dalai Lama and the World Religions: a False Friend?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Jane Compson
Jane Compson
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, 36 Tyndall's Park Road, Bristol BS8 IPL
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Dalai Lama is well known for his tolerance of other religious traditions, actively encouraging people to celebrate their own faiths rather than convert to Buddhism. However, far from being a pluralist as this attitude suggests, he believes that ultimate liberation is obtained only through the practice of Buddhist teachings. This apparent contradiction is resolved when one examines some of the teachings that he follows, such as the notions of emptiness (sūnyatā), skilful means (upāya), karma and rebirth. On such examination it becomes apparent that it is precisely through the prioritising of these Buddhist teachings that his tolerance is rendered possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 271 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The term ‘pluralism’ is usually associated with the three-fold typology of exclusivism/inclusivism and pluralism introduced by Alan Race in his book Christians and Religious Pluralism (London, 1983). For a clear example of a pluralist approach, see John, Hick'sAn Interpretation of Religion (Macmillan, 1989).Google Scholar

2 ‘Religious Values and a Human Society’, in Kindness, Clarity and Insight (New York, 1984), p. 13.Google Scholar

3 ‘Eight Verses of Training the Mind’, ibid. p. 101.

4 Extract from The Bodhgaya Interviews (1981), from Christianity Through Non-Christian Eyes, ed. Paul J. Griffiths (Orbis, 1990), p. 167.Google Scholar

5 ‘Religious Harmony’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 49.Google Scholar

6 ‘Religious Harmony’, from Griffiths, p. 164.

7 ‘Religious Harmony’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 49.

8 ‘Religious Values and Human Society’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 14.

9 ‘The Bodhgaya Interviews’, from Griffiths, p. 169.

10 ‘Religious Harmony’, in Griffiths, p. 164.

11 See Gavin D'Costa's unpublished ‘The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions’, which contends that any such amnesty is never complete – pluralism always entails prioritizing some truth claims, and in this sense it is logically incoherent.

12 Bodhgaya interview, from Griffiths, p. 169.

13 ‘Some Dimensions of the Recent Work of Raimundo Panikkar: A Buddhist Perspective’, by Paul, Williams in Religious Studies 27, p. 516.Google Scholar

14 Paul, Williams, ‘The Recent Work of Raimundo Panikkar’, from Religious Studies 27, pp. 511–21.Google Scholar

15 Bodhygaya interview, from Griffiths, p. 169.

16 Cabezon, Jose, Buddhism and Language (SUNY, 1994), p. 47.Google Scholar

17 Williams, , Religious Studies 27, p. 520.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. p. 518.

19 Paul, Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London, 1989), p. 49.Google Scholar

20 ‘Altruism and the Six Perfections’, Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 32.

21 ‘The Path to Enlightenment’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 139.

22 ‘Buddhism East to West’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 86.

23 ‘Karma’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 26.

24 ‘Eight Verses of Training the Mind’, from Kindness, Clarity and Insight, p. 102.