The unique format of Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings makes it an easy read, though in underlying meaning it is anything but a light read. The book is simply designed so that anywhere it is opened, the left page has a quotation from Jesus or an account of an event in his life, and the right page features the same type of excerpt by or about the Buddha.
By Joel Brown,
Staff Writer
The unique format of Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings makes it an easy read, though in underlying meaning it is anything but a light read. The book is simply designed so that anywhere it is opened, the left page has a quotation from Jesus or an account of an event in his life, and the right page features the same type of excerpt by or about the Buddha.
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Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings has a list price of $17.95, but Amazon.com and buy.com offer it for around $12.
Commentaries are limited to brief introductions at the beginnings of the chapters which are just groupings of sayings based on themes such as Attributes, Materialism, and Salvation.
Twenty-five hundred years, or 2,000 in the case of Christianity, is a lot of time for religious cultures to evolve into distinct and sometimes opposing ideologies. However, this book cuts directly to the sources, going as far back as we can with what written stories exist about these two history – revolutionizing people.
Most interestingly, not only did they preach “parallel sayings,” but their lives unfolded with parallels as well. Neither of them directly tried to start the belief systems associated with them today, but were trying to re-establish the essential meaning of what had begun to be preached in corrupt and superficial systems of Hinduism and Judaism. Both of them had supernatural status attributed to them through the people who associated with them and both had extraordinary events occur around the age of 30 that were quickly translated into teaching publicly to those who felt compelled by their messages.
This collection of quotations is a wonderful resource to show how different sources of wisdom can illumine one another, and how a narrow attachment to one way of explaining things can hold one back from the actual meaning that was intended in the first place
As part of the introduction, the authors point out how some of the content of Jesus and Buddha is so identical that some scholars even argue that Jesus must have traveled to places where he studied Buddhism. Though perhaps physically possible, these speculations are not necessary if one is willing to see the sacred equally acting through people in different times in places, as one heart and message through many people.