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The Understanding and Experience of Compassion: Aquinas and the Dalai Lama

2007; University of Hawaii Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bcs.2007.0002

1527-9472

Judith Barad,

Karl Barth and Christian Theology

His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama writes that the essence of Mahayana Buddhism is compassion.1 Although most people recognize compassion as one of the most admirable virtues, it is not easy find discussions of it by Christian theologians. Instead, Christian theologians tend discuss charity, a virtue infused by God into a person. Some of these theologians, such as Cardinal Henri de Lubac,2 insist that Christian charity and Buddhist compassion are very different from each other. Are they correct? A good source investigate this claim is in Aquinas's Summa Theologica, which contains a very developed discussion of charity. If we look at Aquinas's text and compare it what the current Dalai Lama writes about compassion, we will recognize that they are discussing the same virtue. Moreover, by combining the insights from East and West, as expressed by the thoughts of the current Dalai Lama and St. Thomas Aquinas, we can achieve a better grasp of compassion so that we can more easily practice it in our daily lives. Though remarkably similar, the two accounts offer differing perspectives, which can be incorporated for mutual enrichment. Much of Aquinas's philosophy of compassion derives from his Christian beliefs, just as much of the Dalai Lama's teachings on compassion are based on Tibetan Buddhism. This explains some of the differences in their accounts. Unlike Christians, Buddhists neither believe in a personal God nor in a soul. Yet despite their theological differences, Aquinas and the Dalai Lama generally share a very similar view of compassion. In fact, one could well imagine Aquinas agreeing with the Dalai Lama who, after acknowledging his religious influence, writes that his goal is to appeal for an approach ethics based on universal rather than religious principles.3 It is appropriate, therefore, begin by considering the similarities in their accounts of compassion, starting with their definitions of