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23 3 Interreligious Understanding as a Religious Quest Among the many profound concepts involved in interreligious understanding are truth, which is of such quality that one can discern it, find it alluring, and know that it finally exceeds one’s grasp both cognitively and personally, qualitatively, and also history, which also exceeds one’s grasp, the ever-changing arena and events of human activity. Our quest for truth is ancient but the setting in which we are now working is new, enhanced by our knowledge of our one global religious heritage. Our task is not to know all the answers but to be responsible for what we know. “ Iunderstand” are welcomed words whenever one hears them from another. The phrase does not necessarily indicate an agreement between or among persons. When spoken in good faith the phrase suggests an ability on the part of the speaker to find coherence in information provided that relates to one’s life experience and to discern continuity in ideas that introduce one to new interpretations of human events. “I understand” is among the first and most fundamental statements of our being discerning beings, human, homo sapiens. With the sincere repetition of the phrase when new information is assimilated, new dimensions of inquiry are launched and, through the years of one’s life, one learns more and the horizons of one’s intelligible life-context are ever expanded. Interreligious understanding establishes rapport among persons of faith leading to an appreciation of each other. This understanding requires both intellectual honesty and moral sincerity. When these associated qualities combine in a person of faith seeking to understand religious men and women, a religious activity is underway. We continue our preliminary inquiry, launched in our preceding chapters, to consider the process of interreligious understanding as a religious activity. The scope of the inquiry is enormous; one would anticipate a thorough and an 24 I n t he C om p a ny of Fr ie nd s inclusive investigation to involve contributions by psychologists and philosophers , historians and theologians, major authorities working in several more recent intellectual pursuits, even neurology. What I am proposing, however, in this brief chapter is that we pause to consider preliminarily what might be occurring when we speak of ourselves as reaching an understanding; an understanding of a proposition, a mathematical formula, a musical score, an instruction given to us, or a carpenter’s skill, and, more particularly, of another person, especially another person in that person’s religious life, especially, in this case, in the religious life of Theravāda Buddhists and Christians. Let it be known at the outset, that this preliminary inquiry will remain incomplete, will hardly offer a definition of “to understand,” surely will remain inconclusive. Its objective will have been achieved if serious consideration is given to the human process of understanding as a distinctively and authentically human activity, as a religious activity , not solely as a cognitive enterprise posing an epistemological issue, as David Hume (1711–1776) and subsequent generations of competent thinkers have considered it to be in the canon of the received tradition in the Western philosophical heritage.1 This kind of understanding is central in understanding a religious tradition other than one’s own, and in achieving this understanding one becomes religiously self-conscious not unlike the dawning of self-consciousness in the developmental process and growth of the human personality. Consider this. A student ponders over and memorizes a mathematical formula but cannot see the principle involved, fails to align the sequence of steps leading to the integration of the formula, and cannot discern the comprehensive structure of the formula or the foundation provided, consequently, by the formula for the next, more advanced, sequencing of mathematical principles. Now, consider a student who, with insight, sees the point of it all and realizes a delightful sense of contentment. Or, try as one might, a raga remains opaque—a disconnected cluster of ad hoc sounds incapable of being discerned as providing musical structure, cadence, and counterpoint in temporal sequence. Yet one marvels at a sitar or vina player who soars, as it were, with impressive freedom of improvisation entirely taken up in a delicate sense of joy, apparently unimpeded by scale or rhythmic beat. What makes the difference between an arithmetician and a mathematician, between a musician and an accomplished performing artist ? In both cases, while the former can reproduce what others have discerned, even created, the latter understands, sees through to the point of...

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