[Buddha-l] Bhagwan, etc.

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 14:58 -0500, Whitney Bodman wrote:

> Perhaps this is the danger of anecdotal evidence.  When Christians say
> "Lord," they can be referring to Jesus Christ, or to God, or to a vague
> amalgamation of the two, which the doctrine of the Trinity permist.

It's especially dangerous for me to collect anecdotal evidence, since
most of my church experience these days is at the local Unitarian
church, which rejects the trinity altogether. The Unitarians belief
there is only one (hence the name), but they can't quite decide whether
the One is God, Goddess, Buddha, Dao, Brahman, Orenda, Changing Woman,
Earth, Nature, or Agnosis. 

On occasions when I attend Catholic churches in these parts, a phrase
one hears fairly often is Jésu Señor, but maybe if I kept my ears more
open I hear that El Señor refers to Díos as well as to Jésu. Among
ardent Second Vatican Council ecumenists, I suppose one might even here
references to Señor Buddha. 

Speaking of the term "lord", I once had a very good friend who was an
evangelical protestant from North Carolina, and because he liked me a
lot, he wanted to read about Buddhism. I gave him a couple of books to
read, after which he invariably spoke to me about Lord Buddha. When
saying grace before a meal in my company, he always mentioned Lord
Buddha right along with Lord Jesus. I can't tell you how much I
appreciated these beaux gestes, which I took as excellent examples of
Christian love in action.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico