Sympathy and Empathy: The Compassionate Bodhisattva and the Love of Christ

John D’Arcy May

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Sympathy and Empathy: The Compassionate Bodhisattva and the Love of Christ

In: Crossroad Discourses between Christianity and Culture

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John D’Arcy May

John D’Arcy May
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 395–411

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789042028647_023

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Compassion is central to Buddhism, as love is to Christianity; but are they the same or even comparable? The Indian and Jewish contexts of the concepts are reflected in their very different frames of reference in Buddhology and Christology. In Christianity, there is an ontological relationship between love of neighbour and love of God, symbolised in the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. The Buddhist paradigm of compassion is the Bodhisattva, the Great Being who postpones his own final liberation for the sake of all suffering beings. Mahayana Buddhism developed this already traditional “other-regarding” figure to counteract what it saw as the “self-regarding” ideal of the Theravada. A phenomenology of sympathy and empathy is proposed as a means of establishing common ground, particularly in view of the exigencies of a “global ethic.”

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Crossroad Discourses between Christianity and Culture

Series: Currents of Encounter, Volume: 38 and Currents of Encounter Online, Volume: 38

E-Book ISBN:: 9789042028647

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2010

Subjects
- Religious Studies
  - Comparative Religion & Religious Studies
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

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Sympathy and Empathy: The Compassionate Bodhisattva and the Love of Christ

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Crossroad Discourses between Christianity and Culture

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