You Buddhist People - Buddhist Missionaries Page 1 of 2 - Part 2 - Buddhist Monk
The Christian Approach to the Buddhist - George Appleton
BEFORE the Second World War there was little possibility of your ever meeting a Buddhist person, but during the war many thousands of British men and women served with the forces in Ceylon or Burma, and since the war many thousands of people from Burma, Ceylon and other Asian countries have come to this country to serve in embassies and Asian firms, or to study in universities and technical training centres. Television introduces into our homes personalities and scenes from overseas ; for example, in 1956 the B.B.C. organized a television series entitled Men Seeking God, which depicted the beliefs, practices and sacred places of the chief religions of the world. It was estimated that several million people viewed this programme.
The non-Christian religions are undergoing a resurgence of life and their followers are talking about world mission in much the same way that we Christians have been in the habit of talking about the missionary effort of the Church. A year or two back a missionary friend of mine in Ceylon was preparing to come on furlough when he was visited by a Buddhist monk, who asked if he might borrow some short, simple books on the Christian faith. Together the missionary and the monk looked round my friend's library and selected certain books. As they parted my friend said : "I wonder if you would think me rude if I asked your purpose in borrowing these books."
" Well, you see," replied the monk, " my job is to train Buddhist missionaries to go to darkest Europe, and I think it is only right that they should know something about the religion of the natives before they go."
It is therefore possible that you might meet not only meet Buddhist people, but a Buddhist missionary monk, or one of the growing number of Buddhist converts from among our own people. Or you might go overseas in the service of government or commercial enterprise, or as an expert in one of the agencies of the United Nations. To know something of the religion of other people will help you to understand them ; it will also be a challenge to your own religious convictions.
So then let me try to introduce you to a Buddhist. I think of a Buddhist whom I got to know well in Burma, of another Buddhist friend here in London. Both were kindly, friendly people, who made you feel at ease when you were talking to them. The Burmese Buddhist, whether of the town or of the village, whether he be an educated man in the formal sense, or a peasant cultivator, meets you as an equal, with no caste distinctions, with little class consciousness. He is polite, friendly, interested, with nothing forced or servile.
He is hospitable, and will be delighted if you accept an invitation to a meal in his home. If you do, you will find your host dipping his hand in the common bowl of curry and picking out a choice titbit to put on your heaped plate of rice, urging you to eat until you are full, and afterwards enquiring in anxious solicitude " Was it appetizing ? Was it appetizing ? "
During the invasion of Burma I was moving up-country as the Japanese advanced, and in a small country town went into what I assumed was a restaurant. The hostess came to greet me, and in reply to my question told me that chicken curry was cooking, which I ordered with
satisfaction. After making a good meal I asked how much I owed.
" Nothing," was the reply of the smiling Burmese matron.
" But you can't run a business on these lines."
" That is true," and then with a friendly twinkle, " This isn't a restaurant; it's a private house."
Westerners often say that the Burman is lazy, and it is quite true that he is not going to kill himself with hard work just for the sake of a few extra rupees. But when occasion demands, as at ploughing or harvest time, he can work with the best, or when there is some emergency or some exciting task to be done.
Money is not the chief value in life to a Burman. When he gets it, he is quite likely to spend it on making his son a monk, or for the ear-boring ceremony for his daughter, or as an offering to the monastery. Nor is he particularly worried about the repayment of debt; if the moneylender gets a court order against him he shrugs his shoulders, " It's my karma, I suppose " ; to which I am always tempted to reply, " No ! it's your fat-headed good nature! "
Good-natured, unwilling to say the difficult thing, to refuse a request: the Burmans have a word for it—ah-nah-di—I didn't like to . . . hurt his feelings, to seem unkind, to disagree.
Punctuality is another debatable point. Most Eastern people have a word for ' the day after tomorrow ', as well as for ' tomorrow '. In most of the villages which I used to visit as a missionary, it was no good expecting to start the service punctually on the hour. You would sound the gong, which served as a bell, settle down to some prayer or meditation, and begin the service when the congregation arrived, perhaps after another burst on the gong.
The Burmese Buddhist is not generally a logical person. His Buddhist faith tells him that suffering is the chief characteristic of human experience, suffering is the result of past actions which have to be set right by virtue in this and future lives, so that he will no longer be re-born in this vale of tears. The Buddhist ought, by profession, to be a sad, gloomy person ; but he is carefree and happy-go-lucky. He shouldn't feel sympathy with unfortunate friends, for are they not reaping the fruits of past actions ; but he is a compassionate person, ready to sympathize and help the less fortunate, generous in his support of Christian leper hospitals and schools for the blind. He ought to view death as the end of one more coil in the spiral of earthly wanderings, a life's march nearer home ; but it smites him with despair and grief. His creed, in Burma and Southern Buddhism at any rate, says that there is no eternal soul or personality in man, but he insists on looking forward to the next existence with the hope that loved ones and old friends will be near at hand once more. In Pagan, the ancient centre of Buddhist archaeology there is a pagoda, erected by a Burmese king and queen, with a dedicatory inscription which runs something like this—" We erect this pagoda in gratitude for our life together in this existence, and in the hope that in our next life we may be re-born as man and wife."
You Buddhist People - Buddhist Missionaries Page 1 of 2 - Part 2 - Buddhist Monk
The Christian Approach to the Buddhist - George Appleton
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First Missionary Religion and Religious Harmony
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