Is there a Taoist influence in Christianity?

[Talishi]

Taoism precedes Christianity by six hundred years and some of the ideas could have reached the Middle-East over the Silk Road. Is there a Taoist influence on Christian teachings, or are there just coincidental overlapping bits of wisdom?

Master Lao said the sage is outside of herself and therefore her self lasts. Jesus taught that we are to forsake earthly treasure and seek treasure in heaven, which never decays or is stolen.

Master Lao said it was through the sage’s selflessness that she is able to perfect herself. The essence of the Christian gospel is that we are called to put the selfish, imperfect ego to death and allow Jesus to live within us for the sanctification of our soul.

Master Lao said the sage stays behind, that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things, that is why she is one with them. Jesus taught that the first would be last, and the last first, and the greatest would be the servant of all.

Master Lao said if you chase after money and security your heart will never unclench and if you only care about people’s approval you will be their prisoner. Jesus taught that it is better to take a lower position and be exalted than to presumptuously take the higher position and be asked to step down in shame.

Master Lao said people who try to take the executioner’s place are like people that try to take the Master Carpenter’s place. If you use the Master’s tools, you will just cut your own hands. Jesus said those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

Master Lao said the soft and yielding will prevail. Jesus said blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

[Divine Insight]

I have pointed out many times that many of the teachings of Jesus appear to have come straight out of Mahayana Buddhism. They certainly didn't come from the Old Testament.

Mahayana Buddhism probably reflects a lot of teachings that are also common to Taoism. The reason I point to Mahayana Buddhism is because this form of Buddhism was at it's peak during the time when Jesus would have lived. If there was a Jewish spiritualist teaching at that time he most likely would have been aware of the principles of Mahayana Buddhism. Also, there would be no conflict between Judaism and Mahayana Buddhism at that time. Mahayana Buddhism didn't care how about a person views "God". They saw that is being irrelevant. So there would be nothing in Mahayana Buddhism that would prevent it from being applied to Judaism.

And from the Jewish side of things it appear that the Jesus described in the Gospels wouldn't have seen a conflict either.

So my guess is that Jesus was most likely trying to bring the higher moral values of Mahayana Buddhism into his home culture of Judaism. It makes perfect sense to me. Even to claim, "I and the Father are One" would be a Mahayana Buddhist view. Mahayana Buddhism was essentially pantheistic viewing human nature as a manifestation of God. So "I and the Father are One" is in perfect harmony with Mahayana Buddhism.

[Monta]

[Replying to Talishi]


"Master Lao said it was through the sage’s selflessness that she is able to perfect herself. The essence of the Christian gospel is that we are called to put the selfish, imperfect ego to death and allow Jesus to live within us for the sanctification of our soul. "

Very nice post, nice comparisons of Taoism and Jesus teaching.

[2Dbunk]

[Replying to Monta]

Perhaps these teachings are inter-related, but it is just as plausible that they are manifestations of plain commonsense -- innately derived from intro-deduction. Great and humble thoughts are the mark of the true philosopher -- no need to compare and rate which thinking came first.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to Talishi]

I think this is like asking if reality influences Christianity, or perhaps does reality influence Christ. I doubt that one influenced the other because this sort of thing happens from time to time. People just sort of wake up to reality and they say these things which sound the same because they're basically looking at the same thing. However, they do speak within the boundaries of their own culture so their will be some variations in how it's presented.

[Hector Barbosa]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

I have pointed out many times that many of the teachings of Jesus appear to have come straight out of Mahayana Buddhism.

Yeah I agree with that too, and some could say Zoroastrianism may have links too, but then again the old testament roots goes back to even before Buddhism.

I wonder if it could not be argued as you have hinted at a few times, that all religions are in a way connected and just different ways of trying to describe and practically live after a "spiritual enlightenment" in a physical world, the dualistic view which dates back to Plato and before.

Its really this dualism all religion is about as I see it. Its about believing in a world outside of this one.

And it is this world which is fascinating from the perspective of someone who lives in this world and see no indefinite evidence of another world, and yet see countless of glimpses of something which might point to its existence.

It feels a bit like looking for the Holy Grail or Captain Kidd's treasure

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

I have pointed out many times that many of the teachings of Jesus appear to have come straight out of Mahayana Buddhism.

Yeah I agree with that too, and some could say Zoroastrianism may have links too, but then again the old testament roots goes back to even before Buddhism.

The way I see it the teachings of Jesus aren't really compatible with the Old Testament anyway. In fact, I see major conflicts between many things attributed to Jesus versus what the Old Testament taught.

It is true that the authors of the Gospels made every attempt to connect Jesus with the God of the Old Testament, not the least of which was proclaiming Jesus to be the virgin-born Son of Mary supposedly prophesied by the Old Testament, along with proclaiming that God himself spoke from the clouds declaring Jesus as his Son, etc. Not to mention the rumors of the resurrection of Jesus and his supposed ascent to heaven to sit at the right-hand of God.

But I question that any of that actually came from Jesus himself. These were all more like rumors made up about Jesus. I also don't blindly accept that everything attributed to Jesus in the New Testament actually came from Jesus. For example, Matthew 5:17-18. That seems to contradict much of what Jesus was said to have taught in any case. Many scholars believe that it is far more likely that Matthew was just trying to convince that Jesus was in harmony with the OT Laws.

But for me, it appears far more likely that Jesus was actually teaching the moral values of Mahayana Buddhism, and not the teachings of the Old Testament.

Having said this, Jesus would have still been a Jew and would have tried to stand behind as much of the Jewish traditions as possible. He probably would have also pointed to stories from the Old Testament to make many of his points since he would know that this is what his fellow Jews would be familiar with.

The main thing to keep in mind with Mahayana Buddhism is that they didn't proclaim to know what God is. So they played that part down and didn't really care how people thought of God. They were more concerned with teaching moral behavior, which is far more what Jesus was about too. And they wouldn't care how you think of "God".

So I don't see where the OT really has anything to do with Jesus other than it was the basis of the religion of the culture he was born and raised in.

In other words, the OT really has nothing at all to do with Jesus outside of the rumors that he was supposedly the demigod Son of Yahweh born through Mother Mary.

But I see no reason to believe any of that. Jesus was as different from Yahweh as day is from night.

Yet, at the same time, the things that Jesus actually taught were far more in harmony with what the Buddha taught than with what the Jewish Old Testament taught.

I'm not saying that the Buddha had anything to do with any God anymore than Jesus did. All I'm saying is that Jesus was most likely teaching the wisdom of Buddhism rather than the ignorance of the OT.

So the fact that fables in the OT predate the Buddha is totally irrelevant. You may as well be talking about the Greek mythology of Zeus, etc.

My point being that there really isn't any valid reason to connect Jesus with the OT other than the fact that he was born and raised in a culture that believed in those myths. But Jesus wasn't anything at all like Yahweh. Yet he was very much like Buddha.

[Hector Barbosa]

[Replying to post 7 by Divine Insight]

The way I see it the teachings of Jesus aren't really compatible with the Old Testament anyway. In fact, I see major conflicts between many things attributed to Jesus versus what the Old Testament taught.

It is true that the authors of the Gospels made every attempt to connect Jesus with the God of the Old Testament, not the least of which was proclaiming Jesus to be the virgin-born Son of Mary supposedly prophesied by the Old Testament, along with proclaiming that God himself spoke from the clouds declaring Jesus as his Son, etc. Not to mention the rumors of the resurrection of Jesus and his supposed ascent to heaven to sit at the right-hand of God.

But I question that any of that actually came from Jesus himself.

Yeah good point, I can certainly see where you are coming from, for you are right the teachings of Jesus and Paul did not seem all that similar to the teachings of the Old Testament. I personally don't really like the Old Testament, but I love the New Testament.

You are right about there seeming to be contradictions or at best a "new law" as Jesus and Paul called it.

But for me, it appears far more likely that Jesus was actually teaching the moral values of Mahayana Buddhism, and not the teachings of the Old Testament.

I could buy that for sure. I agree that Jesus teachings seems closer to Buddhism than the Old Testament, or perhaps an attempt to connect the two.

her than it was the basis of the religion of the culture he was born and raised inThe main thing to keep in mind with Mahayana Buddhism is that they didn't proclaim to know what God is. So they played that part down and didn't really care how people thought of God. They were more concerned with teaching moral behavior, which is far more what Jesus was about too. And they wouldn't care how you think of "God".

So I don't see where the OT really has anything to do with Jesus ot.

I agree with your logic and argument, the only thing lacking I guess is evidence which literally connect Jesus to Buddhism or knowledge from the east. But we don't know what Jesus did between 12 and 30 so there is a lot of room for learning outside of the traditional Jewish teachings in that period.

In other words, the OT really has nothing at all to do with Jesus outside of the rumors that he was supposedly the demigod Son of Yahweh born through Mother Mary.

But I see no reason to believe any of that. Jesus was as different from Yahweh as day is from night.

Yeah though the New Testament does say that Jesus claimed to be the messiah.

I'm not saying that the Buddha had anything to do with any God anymore than Jesus did. All I'm saying is that Jesus was most likely teaching the wisdom of Buddhism rather than the ignorance of the OT.

Yeah I certainly agree that the teachings of Jesus seemed much wiser, kinder and "enlightened" than the teachings of the Old Testament.

My point being that there really isn't any valid reason to connect Jesus with the OT other than the fact that he was born and raised in a culture that believed in those myths. But Jesus wasn't anything at all like Yahweh. Yet he was very much like Buddha.

Yeah I can see the connection you are making about the teachings, I think one of the main differences between Jesus teachings and Buddhism is teaching of "ONE" God, but there are branches within Buddhism which kinda teach that too.

So I think you make a fairly solid argument, though it's tough to conclude without more evidence.

The history that far back is very difficult to make solid conclusions about anyway, so I tend to prefer to look at the teachings rather than the historical evidence when it comes to religion.

There is not enough historically written about Jesus or Buddha outside of religious texts, but their teachings are fascinating for sure and also how they came about.

For even if we conclude there is a connection between them, where did the beliefs come from originally? That's a tough question to answer I think given the lack of "unbiased" information we have about the lives of Jesus and Buddha.

I would love to have met either of them for sure

[Divine Insight]

I agree with your logic and argument, the only thing lacking I guess is evidence which literally connect Jesus to Buddhism or knowledge from the east. But we don't know what Jesus did between 12 and 30 so there is a lot of room for learning outside of the traditional Jewish teachings in that period.

Well, there actually are some interesting connections. Or at least there are reasons to think that their might be connections. I'm not about to claim that this is what actually happened, but I do have some really powerful reasons to suspect this.

One thing you need to understand is that this didn't come to my attention until I took a course on the history of Buddhism. What I learned in that course was a real eye-opener.

To begin with, Jesus would not have been teaching the original teachings of Buddha. Instead he would have been exposed to the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. To understand this you would need to know something of the history of Buddhism. Unfortunately there's a lot to tell and I don't want to get into the details, but let me just try to give a brief summary.

The Buddha himself did not teach of "God" or make any claims about what God might even be. What he did was simply accept his culture's views on this, and it's even unclear exactly what he might have believed in that regard. What he did seem to believe were the following things:

1. Pantheism is the ultimate truth of reality.
2. We are somehow a "dream" in the mind of "God".
3. Our ultimate true nature is therefore that we are a facet of the mind of God.
4. Reincarnation is self-evident (so his culture believed)
5. The idea is to get out of the cycle of reincarnation.
6. Precisely what happens when this is achieved the Buddha did not know, but he accepted that this was the ultimate goal.
7. He believed that he had achieved this goal and was teaching others how to achieve it as well.

From these early teachings of the Buddha, plus the many different cultural beliefs of what "God" might be like, many different forms of Buddhism emerged. These disagreeing sects of Buddhism were not unlike the different sects of Christianity. They become more concerned with arguing with each other over what God supposedly wants from us, rather than focusing on what the Buddha taught for how to end the cycle of reincarnation or Samsara.

Mahayana Buddhism rejected the idea that we should be arguing over what God is like and instead it focused on getting back to the actual teaching of Buddha. The teachings of how our behavior will ultimately lead to our "salvation", (i.e. escape from Samsara).

Mahayana Buddhism was very successful and served to unite many previously disagreeing sects of Buddhism. They all became focused on behavior instead of arguing over what God might be like.

Mahayana means "Great Vehicle". The idea is that Mahayana Buddhism is "The Way" to get to God, it not a sect to argue over what God might be like.

Yeah I can see the connection you are making about the teachings, I think one of the main differences between Jesus teachings and Buddhism is teaching of "ONE" God, but there are branches within Buddhism which kinda teach that too.

Mahayana Buddhism wasn't concerned with how you think of God. They didn't argue for monotheism, or polytheism, or any specific theism. Instead they were focused on what the Buddha actually taught: How to properly behave in order to achieve enlightenment, salvation, or the escape of Samsara.

And these are the teachings that are more in line with what Jesus taught. Jesus wasn't teaching the Jews how to think of God. They already had their idea of what God is like from the OT. So Jesus went with that. God is like the ultimate authoritarian. Instead Jesus focused on how we must behave in order to please God and thus achieve salvation.

It might be interesting to note here that the Mahayana Buddhist also took on disciples and made them promise to continue to teach people what they had been taught. There are many other parallels with the behavior of Jesus and the Beliefs of Mahayana Buddhism.

Keep in mind that even in Mahayana Buddhism Pantheism was still embraced as the foundation of the theism. So teaching "I and God are one" would be a given. And because they also believed in reincarnation, teaching "Before Abraham was, I am". Things like Jesus taught would have been common to Mahayana Buddhism.

The history that far back is very difficult to make solid conclusions about anyway, so I tend to prefer to look at the teachings rather than the historical evidence when it comes to religion.

Exactly. And what I'm comparing are the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism with the teachings of Jesus. And it's a near perfect match in many ways. Especially if we allow that Jesus would have embraced the view of God that his original Jewish Culture had. There would have been no need for him to reject that.

So he was trying to bring the behavioral teaching of Buddhism into his home religion.

As far history, one thing we can know is that Mahayana Buddhism was at its peak right around the time when Jesus would have lived. It was also known to have spread to the far west of India and into what today is called Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. So it would have most likely been known to Jesus due to sages who have traveled to the west.

Also, Jesus was "missing" in the Bible from the age of about 12 to 30. So that gives him 15 years to have possibly traveled east too.

~~~~~

Also, this is on the fringe, but you may be aware the Buddhists have been following the incarnations of the Buddha. Every time the Buddha dies they set out on a journey to find a young child that they believe is the Buddha reincarnated.

You might ask why the Buddha is being reincarnated if he has actually achieved Nirvana or escape from Samsara. But the story is that when you become enlightened you can actually chose to continue to be reincarnated to help others find their way to Nirvana.

Note: Keep in mind that none of this needs to be "true" in reality. All that is important here is that this is what the Buddhists believed.

So, in any case, some Buddhists claim that when their Buddha died they went to search for the Buddha reincarnated. And they found Jesus in Bethlehem. Having been lead to him via divine insight (not me but the real thing).

They even have ancient records in India that supposedly record this event.

Of course, if this is true then Buddhism is True, and Jesus was the Buddha reincarnated. This would also make some sense in the story of the three wise men from the far east who came to worship Jesus.

In any case, I have no clue of any of that is true. My revelation is not that Buddhism is true, but rather than the man named Jesus most likely knew of Mahayana Buddhism and tried to incorporate those teachings into his home religion of Judaism where he would have had to support the Torah or be accused of blaspheme.

Apparently he was crucified on charges of Blaspheme in the end anyway. But he clearly tried to avoid that fate.

Second Note: I think I already told you in another post that these Buddhists from India actually claim that Jesus survived the crucifixion and escaped back to India where they actually have a tomb where they claim his actual body is still buried to this very day.

Again, I don't claim that any of that is true. If it was true then this would surely support that Buddhism is true. By my argument is not that Buddhism is true. My argument is simply that Jesus had learned of Buddhism and was trying to incorporate those teachings into Judaism.

The result was Christianity which would have been a totally false representation entirely. Christianity holds that Jesus was the Son of Yahweh and so ultimately they are using Jesus to prop up the idea that Yahweh is God.

In Christianity Jesus is just a prop holding up Yahweh. And yet the TEACHINGS of Jesus don't match up with the teachings of Yahweh at all.