There is the Jesus who Mitt Romney believes in. And there is the Jesus who American Evangelicals believe in. They will both readily admit that there are differences in these two versions of Jesus. But in the exchange quoted below, Romney didn’t mention anything about these differences, nor did his questioner appear to either know or care:
“Gov. Romney, I’m for you,” his second questioner, Betty Treen of Hilton Head, told him, “But I need to ask you a personal question. Do you believe in the divine saving grace of Jesus Christ?”
"Yes I do,” Romney replied…“I happen to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and my savior…”
:UNQUOTE: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/14/news/la-pn-romney-talks-religion-in-south-carolina-20120114
Let’s imagine an encounter in the Afterlife between Betty Treen, Mitt Romney, and their two Jesuses. [Don’t worry, I’ll get to that third Jesus fairly soon.]
Betty and Mitt are (presumably) in Heaven when two Jesuses appear before them, each claiming to be The Jesus. One embraces Mitt and acknowledges Himself as the Jesus described by the Mormons. The other, as the Jesus as described by the Evangelicals. They look exactly alike, but it’s their pedigree and nature-of-divinity which is in question.
Mitt and Betty each ask their respective Jesus, “Have I been saved?” To which, they get a Yes. Then, on a hunch, they turn to the other Jesus and ask the same question, “Have I been saved?” To which, each gets a No.
Then I walk up to this group with a third Jesus who looks exactly like the other Two. We had been talking before approaching the others, but I won’t get into details about that. I start speaking to the Third Jesus, as Mitt, Betty, and the Other Two listen.
Me – “I can’t tell You that I believe in You, but I can say I have some awareness of You.”
Him – “Tell me about this awareness.”
Me – “I know only that You are one god among untold trillions who has engaged in Buddhist practice for untold trillions of years to become a fully-enlightened Buddha.”
Him – “Tell me what you don’t know.”
Me – “I don’t know how much progress You’ve made or how much farther You’ve yet to go.”
Him – “Do you want to ask Me if you’ve been saved?”
Me – “No, I don’t, for I already know the answer to that: My salvation – like Yours (that is, our attempts to become Buddhas) – is a work in progress.”
Him – “So you don’t want to ask Me if I can save you?”
Me – “No, for I know You can’t – not by Yourself. I want to ask if You think I have done enough in my small capacity as a mortal to save others.”
Him – “That’s funny, for I was about to ask you the same question of My efforts.”
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The Moral
It takes a long time to get it right – far longer than can be done within the space of one lifetime. And our current place in this drama can best be explained by considering lifespan. Here on this Earth, it’s rare for a person to live longer than 100 years. But that relative lack of longevity is a function of our sins. For it is commonly held, among Buddhists at any rate, that the human lifespan has easily exceeded one million years in bygone eons.
So, in spite of the advance of our technology, we are still too petty, mean, self-absorbed, and lacking in compassion. Translated karmically, that means we’ve earned the short lifespans which we, ironically, think of as long – compared to the historical lifespans of which we’re aware. But our shiny gadgets blind us into believing we’re superior to our ancestors. That’s only because we’ve forgotten our ancestors who lived trillions of years ago.
But forgetting is something that has come too naturally to us. There is more and there are ways to remember. One of the ways is to follow the Buddha’s last advice to us: “Don’t follow persons, follow the Law.” He further explained that that Law was to be found in a text called the Lotus Sutra, which he urged future generations to read, recite, ponder, and practice. After having read the Lotus Sutra (aloud, on a daily basis) well over 120 times (all 324-pages of it), I think I’ve solved a mystery. This mystery:
QUOTE:
“…what the Buddha has achieved is the rarest and most difficult-to-understand Law. The true entity of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas.”
:UNQUOTE: (source: The Burton Watson translation)
My question is a fairly obvious one: How can we Seekers of the Way be expected to understand the Buddhist Law, even when expounded directly to us by a Buddha, for that Law “can only be understood and shared between Buddhas?” And yet, the Buddha preaches this Law so that we (who aren’t yet Buddhas) can attain Enlightenment which, by definition, means that we understand this Law.
Then it occurred it me, this…some kind of answer, which I won’t claim to be the final answer but will hope is a work in progress:
The only reason the Buddha preaches to us is that he knows: within each of us a Buddha is already living. This is known as our “Buddha nature.” That’s the one to whom the Buddha is talking when he preaches to us. But since we’re such fragmented and (usually) unfocused people, we don’t connect easily or often to that inner Buddha.
All this takes patience and practice, for which the Lotus Sutra is a necessary guide. It also helps to know that Shakyamuni Buddha is still alive, never having passed away in India over 2,000 years ago as is commonly believed. The Lotus Sutra makes clear why that is so.
But why is that important? Didn’t the Buddha say, “Don’t follow persons, follow the Law?” If he’s so important to our attainment of Buddhahood, are we to assume he’s the Law itself and not a person? Again, the Lotus Sutra makes that clear. Shakyamuni Buddha stopped being a “person,” in the ordinary sense of the word, trillions of years ago. And there’s more than one Shakyamuni Buddha since the Lotus teaches how all Buddhas are capable of creating emanations of themselves (or clones, to use a modern though crude word). Since there’s more than one Shakyamuni Buddha and, for that matter, there are trillions of other Buddhas, we wouldn’t be “following persons” – that is, not in the sense of identifying any one in particular as necessary for our salvation (read: for our attainment of Buddhahood).
Disclaimer: All of this is just my opinion; I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. And even if I would, what difference would it make for, who am I?
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Steven Searle for US President in 2012
Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party
“The only thing that needs saving is ourselves, from ourselves, for our non-selves, which can best be done by trying to save others. And that can be best done incognito” – Steve.
Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com
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