In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

19 9 17 Buddhists and Baptists In Conversation into Our Common Future In the past fifty years or so Baptists have witnessed strands within the Southern Baptist Convention developing a fundamentalist strategy entirely foreign to foundational Baptist distinctives long cherished by Baptists in Europe and elsewhere in North America. Reflective Baptists have long held to the soteriological efficacy of the abiding presence of God, the freedom of conscience of all persons, and the dignity of the human personality. Buddhists and Baptists, in colloquia, will see common affirmations and orientations about living life religiously. BECOMING INDEBTED TO ANOTHER IN THE PARTICULARITY OF OUR LIVES Surely, one might say, the title of this chapter is awry! What in the world, or beyond the world, have Buddhists to do with Baptists, and vice versa? Has it not been the case that Baptists have sought to convert Buddhists, and this for well over a century, and that Buddhists have been somewhat less than kind to Baptists by asserting that they hold, at best, inadequate views? What on earth do Buddhists and Baptists (could one even say in our particular context, Southern Buddhists and Southern Baptists or Theravāda Buddhists and Texas Baptists) have in common that would even remotely suggest there might be a future for them in some sense common, other than, of course, one of mere temporal coexistence? And further, one would surmise that Buddhists, on the whole, know very little about Baptists, and Baptists are generally uninformed about Buddhists. Why then have I chosen this title and its implied topic?1 Let me say the subject of this chapter arises from particularity because a Buddhist became a Baptist’s friend. I remember well meeting Professor O. H. de A. Wijesekera at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard more 20 0 I n t he C om p a ny of Fr ie nd s than four decades ago. The occasion of our first meeting was one of failure on my part. It was my pleasant assignment to meet him at the train station in Boston, to bring him to the Center. I was there ahead of time, met the arriving train and waited for what I mistakenly took to be long enough. I returned to the Center and announced that he was not on the train, to be informed that he had, indeed, arrived and was on his way by taxi. Well, how does one extend an apology as a greeting? One of the first qualities I discerned in Professor Wijesekera, this Buddhist scholar and gentleman, was his graciousness. We were together at the Center for a semester, in the fall of 1965, my wife joining me in our delight in coming to know also Mabel Wijesekera. We found our way to Sri Lanka in the fall of 1968, under the auspices of the Fulbright-Hayes Program, and it was not long before we were warmly welcomed in the Wijesekera home, by parents and children, on High Level Road just south of the Nugegoda intersection and north of the Gangodawila junction. Being received as friends when one is on the other side of the globe from one’s home is no flippant event in one’s life. We remain grateful for this reception. I recognized another quality in Professor and Mrs. Wijesekera—hospitality. In the fall of 1970, I was still in Sri Lanka under the auspices of the Fulbright-Hayes Program, slow learner that I am, while Professor Wijesekera was teaching two courses at Colgate University: one on Hinduism and one on Buddhism, as our records have it. He had been at Colgate, had taught there, before I had ever seen the place. And now Colgate has become an important part of my life, and this for very nearly forty years. I warmly recall the hours spent with Professor Wijesekera in his home on High Level Road, working through portions of the Pali Aṭṭhakavagga of the Sutta-nipāta. A Buddhist and a Baptist were working together in an old Indian language, studying ancient words of wisdom, ever new and refreshing. A teacher was also being patient with an appreciative pupil. When I entered the house, he would always receive me warmly. Almost on every occasion during those afternoon sessions he would be in his sarong, cigar sometimes lit, sometimes not, ever enjoyed. Partially reclining in his chair, a leg comfortably raised and resting on a leg-brace swung from beneath his chair’s right...

Share