As a Japanese student, I have only been familiar with Buddhism. However, now that I am developing a personal creed, I want to include some elements of Christianity in my creed. When I looked at information on Christianity, I found that there are many concepts that the two religions have in common. For example, the Dhammapada teaches to do no evil, to cultivate good, and to purify oneÆs mind. The Buddhist does these things out of obedience. Christianity teaches the same concepts and encourages the same obedience but includes different reasons to explain the purpose of doing them. The Christian does no evil because doing evil allows the devil to become involved in his life, probably harming him in some way, and produces additional evil. The Christian concept for this is ôthe law of sowing and reaping.ö The Christian cultivates good because it produces additional good (also the law of sowing and reaping), and he purifies his mind because this enables him to live a life based on truth, not influenced by deception. These concepts make sense to me, and I am including them in my personal creed.
However, exploring the two religions further shows that they are very different in other areas. The four noble truths of Buddhism do not agree at all with the tenets of Christianity. The four noble truths are:
4. There is a path for accomplishing this.
Anyone who has ever fallen in love and been heartbroken when that love ended knows how it feels to believe that ôLife is suffering.ö If one can avoid becoming attached to another person, one can avoid that suffering. Buddhism provides a philosophy that helps the Buddhist believer to remain detached from others and centered within.
Christianity agrees that there is suffering in life but does not see it as the result of attachment; it suggests that a little suffering happens to eve
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