A Buddhist response to a Christians book on Buddhism

This is an interesting book by a Thai Buddhist who became a Christian and then wrote a book from his perspective critiquing Buddhism and teaching Christians how they can better reach Buddhists. I found the book helpful but Cioccolanti pushes some non-evangelical views which are unhelpful and distracting from the book's main purpose. You can find a more thorough review by a more experienced missionary here. What was interesting though was a comment left by a Buddhist on Karl's blog which gives a Buddhist perspective on the book and Christianity.

"Hi Everyone,
I’m a practising Buddhist but I do learn from the Bible.

All I can say about this book is that I think the author has very superficial understanding of the religion.

I think it’s quite silly of him to go around converting Buddhist to Christians because it is such a waste of time. Considering the fact that there are so many countries living below the poverty line, I feel that Buddhist are the least of his concern. Just look at Mother Theresa. She didn’t go around converting people. All she did was to help people regardless of all religions.

I think the author is very sly, as he got a number of reviews that were quite positive. However, if u look at it carefully, the reviewers are all Christians… Of course, they do not know what’s going on. If a Buddhist said that it is a good book about Buddha, then it will be a true review. Unfortunately it is not..

Sometimes, I think that because of all these “definition” it separates people and that is the cause of all the problems in the world. I have realized long ago that one has to be objective, learn from ALL religions, pick out the best and apply it to one’s own life.

After reading the scriptures and text from both religions, I think that Buddha is more defined. He will define what he says. But he’ll always say that one must practise because words cannot describe the experience that he has experienced.

I think the Jesus’s teaching are more cryptic and more open to interpretation. So one needs to let go of his ego in order to receive his teachings. I could go on for days but I think that’s all for now.

I suggest to all not to take his book so literally. I think there’s a very good book (although it’s not suitable for beginners) titled: In Buddha’s Words edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi. I’ve read this book and I think it’s great.

I think one has to have a certain depth to comment about the different aspects of religion. Unfortuantely, the author doesn't have any depth at all. One must understand that one will only see what he wants to see. So, unless your background is clear, you will not be able to see the truth about things."

This is very typical of how Buddhists view Christianity and why it is so hard for Buddhists to become Christians. They find no issue with taking the good bits out of all religions and believe that Buddhism is superior to Christianity.

This is fishing

Bonito (tuna family) 47cm

4 large sized Bonito

Our family holiday in Avoca (NSW Central Coast) provided an opportunity to do some rock fishing at Avoca Beach. I've never been rock fishing before. The first day was a complete failure. I just got snagged on the rocks nearly every time. Most other fisher were using bobby floats so I made a note of buying some before coming back. The second day, I caught one slimy mackerel of decent size, probably around 40cm. The biggest fish I'd ever caught anyway. By the end of the week I was getting better and I caught a Kingfish about 55cm (which I had to let go as the legal size limit is a whopping 65cm) and plenty of large sized Bonito. We had plenty of fish for sashimi and pan fried.

It was so much fun with plenty of fish to be caught. The real fishermen were catching up to 30 Bonito a day. I don't know whether I can be content with the undersized bream I normally catch now and have release on the rivers I have been going to.

First sermon in 4 years

This morning I preached my first sermon in 4 years I think. I didn't preach at all in our first term in Thailand and I'm glad I didn't in one sense as my Thai really isn't good enough, though it would have stretched my Thai a lot in doing it. I can't actually remember the last time I preach before this, though I do remember the long nights in preparing sermons. Not preaching week in week out, each sermon probably took more than 40 hours at least in preparation time. Thankfully, this sermon took less than 40 hours (not that I was counting but it deal feel shorter than previous occasions). Next month I will be preaching twice at Ashfield Presbyterian so will have another opportunity to preach.

Opinions differ amongst missionaries as to whether it is a good thing or not to be asked to preached at a church because of the amount of time it takes in preparation and the lack of response in the congregation. Some think that going to Bible Studies and sharing to a smaller group which can interact with you is much more effective.

I know some missionaries with 6 or more supporting churches and they are preaching to all 5 congregations on a Sunday and I can imagine how tired they must be if they had to do that a couple of times.

Anyway, I don't preach that often so it was good to be able to spend several weeks thinking over Luke 8:40-56 (Jairus' daughter and the bleeding woman) which was a passage which was very helpful to me in Thailand.

I'm working on my next sermon on Romans 12:3-8, and what it means for a church to be a community.

Bee sting therapy

I hurt my back again just after Christmas (but not as badly as before) and while I was at my uncle's house for New Years he introduced me to his bees which he keeps in his back yard. He uses the bees for his back pain. According to him, a bee sting is 100 times stronger than morphine as a pain killer. I have never been bitten by a bee before so I hoped I wasn't going to have an anaphylatic reaction. He stunned the bee first which apparently reduces the pain of the bee sting and then put the stinger against my back. It hurt but was bearable. My uncle recommended one more. This time though the pain was extreme. He didn't stun the bee this time and so I felt the full force of the sting. The pain lasted for around 10 minutes. I still had swelling from the bee sting a week later. I don't think I'll do that again.

On another note, we are itching to get back to Thailand. Home assignment has been great to catch up with family and friend, but we feel a little bit in limbo here.

Last week I was in the city meeting up with someone and on the way home I happened to hear some Thai behind me. I slowed down so that this Thai couple went past me and then I followed close behind them listening to their Thai. They spoke such beautiful Thai.

We've also had emails from our neighbour and friend in Thailand. I'm getting up the courage to write back in Thai. Even a short email can take over an hour so I've been putting it off.

Fishing - a new evangelism idea

Is this a Luderick?

Lately I've been really getting into fishing. I did a little bit of fishing in my childhood (probably less than 10 times) but haven't been fishing for at least 15 or more years. However, our oldest son wanted to go fishing when we were in Thailand and we made it an aim to take him when on home assignment in Australia. Then on our holiday we went again a couple of times after buying some cheap kids fishing rods. Since then I've made a few trips to Brooklyn on the Hawksberry River and Bobbin Head with the kids.

I've found fishing to be one of the few activities which I can take the kids and be with them for up to 4 hours without going crazy. A great father and son activity which is very enjoyable.

But I have been starting to think about how effective it would be in evangelism in Lampang. I'm pretty sure that Thais are into fishing. It is a great way to meet new people and start a conversation with them. Normally you are fishing for hours at the same spot and if you are by yourself it is good to have company (and also show off your big catch). I'm eager to try it to out when we return.

I'm booked in for some fishing lessons in coming weeks to so that I'm not such a novice.

Avatar Movie and its pantheistic push

Yesterday I had a chance to watch "Avatar" in 3D at the movies, the latest hollywood mega blockbuster which is starting to break box office records. It was an enjoyable movie and entertaining as you'd expected. Two nagging thoughts lingered in my mind after the movie though. You could see the post-modern influence - man with it's technological advances, fighting a primitive alien tribal group. It is the primitive tribal group which triumphs and portrayed as more noble. Secondly, the pantheism in the movie. The object of worship of the Navi (the alien tribal group) is a tree which has life giving properties. It reminds me of the movies by Japan's most well known and respected movie director, Miyazaki Hayao ("Spirited Away" and other animated movies) which has a similar pantheistic push.

It is sad to see people to reject the true creator of this universe to worship a tree.

"When people cease to believe in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in everything" G.K. Chesteron

Christmas 2009

Lisa's family Boxing Day

With my family Christmas Day

We weren't expecting to be in Sydney this Christmas so it was an wonderful blessing to be with family and friends this Christmas. There was lots of food, time with family and too many presents.

Target Asia

Last month we shared at the OMF Target Asia meeting along with other missionaries on home assignment, missionaries preparing to leave for the field and short-termers who had recently returned. OMF Australia organise 4 Target Asia meetings per year. I find them extremely helpful in finding out what God is doing in other parts of Asia and working in the lives of people. Unfortunately, the majority of the attendees (apart from those who were there to share) were older people. What would be do without these faithful and prayerful older people? How can we get younger people to attend these great meetings?

The next Target Asia meeting is on Saturday 20 February. I encourage you to go if you live in Sydney. The meeting is for the morning only and concludes with Lunch together. Contact OMF Australia for details.

Kiama. The best place in the world?

Last week we had a week's holiday in Kiama, which is about 2 hours drive south of Sydney. Lisa's parent's were able to join us for the first 3 days and my parents for the final 3. It was so good to be able to have our parents on holidays with us to help look after the children and help with cooking and cleaning so that it actually could be a sort of holiday for us and not just looking after the children.

Lisa's parents met an English couple on holidays in Kiama and they claimed that it was the best place in the world! I don't know about that but we certainly had a lovely time there and there were plenty of things to do with a young family. We went to beach most days were our eldest son started to get into body surfing. There were great parks and paths for the kids to scoot on. In the last couple of days we went fishing which was great fun (for me and hopefully for everyone else too). At night with the washing up done by our mother's while we were putting the kids to bed, we could actually have a couple of hours at night to relax. Nice.

All in all it was a fantastic holiday and it ended all too quickly.

Pain and the Chinese acupuncture man

Last Sunday morning I was helping one of sons in the bathroom and I just leaned forward when I felt a jolt of excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn't get back up again so I had to drag myself across the floor and spent some time resting on my back. I've never had any problems with my back apart from some minor niggles which always went away so I was hoping that within a couple of hours I'd be o.k. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I was able to start walking again but with considerable pain. My parents called a Chinese man who'd helped my uncle's back with acupuncture and he was able to come that evening. I was willing to try anything at that stage if it would fix the problem.

He told me to lie on my stomach. He dug into my back with his thumbs to see where the pain was and then started to stick the pins in for acupuncture. That wasn't too bad until he started to twirl the pins around while they were still in my back and then it started to hurt. I thought I was just in for acupuncture, but then he starts grabbing my legs and twists my back to manipulate my spine. It was the most pain I've felt in my life and I was screaming in pain. The kids had been watching up until that stage but then they were led away. At that point I thought calling this man might have been a grave mistake. I was concerned that he was doing more harm than good. All would have been forgiven if at the end all my pain had disappeared. Unfortunately, I was a little better but still in considerable pain. I'm slowly getting better but there is still a lot of pain when walking and my mum notices that my right hip is higher than my left when I walk. Fortunately, Lisa's back is not too bad right now, otherwise we'd be in a lot of bother. I'm praying that it continues to get better day by day.