Christ and Other Gods Part 2: Is Buddha a Different Christ?

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

- Romans 8:18

A review of Marcus Borg’s book Jesus and Buddha concludes that “On many levels, Jesus and Buddha talked about the same experience of transformation. In the end, all spirituality really is about transformation, dying before we die and being reborn as our True Selves in Love” (Rohr). Are the teachings of Buddhism and Christianity really so similar? This is a question many Christians struggle with today. Buddhism is one of the world’s largest religions, comprising about 488 million people, though it is expected to rise to 511 million by 2060 (Pew Research Center). This estimation only includes those who claim to be Buddhist, but it does not take into account those who have unknowingly adopted some Buddhist beliefs (Buddhist teachings can be an underlying factor in many humanitarian circles), or people who consider their philosophy to be very similar to Buddha. It is less of a religion than a secular way of life. There are many atheists, polytheists, and monotheists alike who adhere to Buddhist beliefs. However, there are many who believe that Buddhism shares many similarities, some even saying that Buddha is just another name for Jesus. Is there any truth to this? Would we benefit as Christians from looking to some Buddhist practices? Is it really necessary to evangelize to our Buddhist neighbor, or is Buddhism another road to salvation? To answer these questions, we will first look at the foundational beliefs of Buddhists before applying the doctrines of Christianity for comparison and understanding.

Is Buddha a god?

According to The Buddhist Society website, Buddha is translated as “awakened one,” though Buddhists explain that the historical Buddha was an ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life, created a path of life for ordinary people, but lived and died as a human being. He did not teach that a god existed. In fact, Buddha taught that there is no such thing as permanence, so no unchanging god, no personal eternal soul, or eternity in general. Everything is subject to changing and going. Instead of a god or eternal greater being, there is a law/Dharma (the noble truths and eightfold path) that is a part of the whole universe, and people can escape the suffering of the world by living by this Dharma. This does not necessarily mean that all Buddhists do not believe in a god, but believing in god or eternity is not necessary to be a Buddhist (especially since Buddhism found its roots in the polytheistic religion known as Hinduism).

Origin and Beliefs of Buddhism

The Asia Society website provides the history and general principles of Buddhism. Going back to the late 6th century BC, there was a prince named Siddahrtha Gautama (Buddha). As the story goes, his father gave him many riches and comforts so that his son would stay in the palace with royalty. However, one day he traveled outside, and he witnessed human suffering (death, pain, and aging). When comparing his own life to the lives of those who were suffering, he decided that earthly pleasures could only mask over the pain experienced by humanity. So he escaped to a forest to reject the pleasures and his desire for them to the point of nearly starving to death until he attained Nirvana, a state of enlightenment that provided him with the answer to suffering and how to escape it. This enlightenment brought his teachings of the four noble truths:

1. Life is suffering. Though there are moments of happiness, these moments eventually fade (remember, nothing in existence is fixed).

2. Suffering is caused by craving for pleasures or for one’s circumstance to be different than it is.

3. Suffering has an end.

4. To end this suffering, one can use the eight-fold path to reach the state of Nirvana, which provides all-knowledge, and only peace and joy to the individual.

What is the eight-fold path? The Asia Society website describes it this way:

“The Eight-Fold Path—often pictorially represented by an eight-spoked wheel (the Wheel of Dhamma) includes: Right Views (the Four Noble Truths), Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood/Occupation, Right Endeavor, Right Mindfulness (total concentration in activity), and Right Concentration (meditation). The Eight-fold Path is pervaded by the principle of the Middle Way, which characterizes the Buddha's life. The Middle Way represents a rejection of all extremes of thought, emotion, action, and lifestyle” (Vail).

The Buddhist way of life is made up of knowing the noble truths and living in the “balance”. Is there a heaven for the Buddhists who adhere to this way of life? Well, sort of. According to BBC, Buddhism teaches that the afterlife has two possibilities: rebirth and Nirvana. When you die, you are reborn into something else based on how good (or bad) you did in the previous life. It is a continuous cycle of “rebirth”, so the person goes from life to life, never free from suffering. The “Buddhist heaven” isn’t really a place, it is a state of being that I mentioned earlier in this article called “Nirvana,” which is not only a state of having all-wisdom and joy, but it also allows a person to break the cycle of reincarnation so that they can essentially cease to exist, never experiencing suffering, or anything really, ever again. By practicing the eight-fold path and getting rid of all human desire, one is able to reach this enlightened state of Nirvana.

These are the core beliefs of Buddhism, representing the dhamma or darma (terms that mean the essence of Buddha’s teachings) of what Buddha shared with others. However, we must keep in mind that there are people who claim to be Buddhists and might reject or change some of these beliefs. Like Hinduism, it is a very “flexible” religion in that sense. Buddhism is founded on the concern of human suffering in the world and how it can be ended, which is rooted in controlling our desires and finding a perfect balance/harmony instead.

Aligning Buddhism with Reality

When looking through the lens offered by Buddhism, reality is distorted, and there is no hope or ultimate purpose in life, although these are the very things that Buddhism claims to offer people. Reality is distorted because the answer to the suffering of humanity is within ourselves. It is like when people tell you that “you are enough,” but the truth is, you are not enough. Otherwise, you would not experience suffering - ever - because all happiness can be found in you. Also, you would not need anything. No friends, food, kind words, a stable home, etc., everything you need can be found in yourself. We know this is not true because we are not happy in every circumstance, yet we still have ourselves. Essentially, we are turned into gods in the Buddhist lens. So if the answer to suffering is in ourselves because we must commit to certain practices and philosophies to reach enlightenment, then what holds us back from being in that state already? We know that we are flawed human beings, yet we cannot know what flaws or faults are when there is no idea of sin, no absolute truth of right and wrong, so karma is really a matter of opinion of what is good or bad. Buddhism also teaches that you must reach this enlightenment by getting rid of all desire, so should I get rid of my desire to be enlightened and escape suffering as well? And how do I know if I’ve reached Nirvana? The point is that the lens of buddhism only leaves room for more questions by providing very vague answers that vary based on who you’re talking to. I say this not to humiliate those who are Buddhists but out of a desire that they would find true eternal hope and joy, and that they would base their life on something that is truly worth living for, especially when their eternity is at stake.

Comparing Buddhism to Christ and Christianity

When comparing Buddhism to Christianity, it is very clear that Buddha offers an entirely different lens of viewing the world than Christ. Buddha, a man, offers a lens that can only see the current, momentary affliction, the troubles of the world and how to escape these troubles, but Christ, God in the flesh of man (John 1:14), offers a lens of eternal hope that is greater than this world. As we discussed earlier, one of the noble truths of life according to Buddha is that “life is suffering”, mostly due to our discontentment and desire for something other than what we have. Christianity teaches that suffering is not only the result of our sin and the sin of others, but suffering is also a part of life (the loss of a loved one, persecution, illness, etc.) and although sin does bring suffering and hurt to the world, experiencing suffering does not always mean that we sinned or that there is something we are supposed to be doing differently. Consider Job, a man who was deemed by God to be an upright man who turned from evil (Job 1:8). Yet when his family, children, and livestock were no more, he worshiped God, saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord,” (Job 1:21), and his friends “saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13). Consider Jesus, who is our holy God in the flesh Himself - completely without sin. Yet before being crucified on the cross, He told Peter, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” before he prayed to God the Father “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will,” and “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done” (Matthew 26:38-39, 42). What do we make of this? It was not sinful for Job or Christ to suffer, and their suffering was not brought upon them because of some sin. God did not answer them by saying that they were suffering because they had not learned to remove their desire for different circumstances. Instead, the word of God acknowledges that their suffering was a valid response to the overwhelming emotional, physical, and spiritual pain they experienced without pronouncing any condemnation of it. The response of Christ and Job was submission to God, knowing that He is the One who has determined all things for a purpose, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). The meaning behind suffering is not to teach us ways to overcome suffering, but it teaches us to see God more clearly, to draw us nearer to the God who guides us and provides for us more than anything in the world (1 Peter 5:10). As Christians, we are able to say that we are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” because God is with us in all trials and has determined that all things should happen out of His good will, no matter how hard that is to accept in the moment (2 Corinthians 6:10). So we are able to have joy even in the midst of suffering because our joy is founded in the eternal things above with Christ, where our joy cannot be diminished with the rest of the world (Matthew 6:19-21; Romans 8:28).

Buddhism teaches that our purpose on earth is to make peace with all and within ourselves so that we can be enlightened and end suffering, and there are many who say that Christianity teaches the same thing, since Jesus taught that we ought to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and that we should be peaceful with one another (Mark 12:3; Matthew 5:9). However, while these are fruits of the love of Christ within us, this is not our ultimate purpose in life. In the book of Ecclesiastes, the preacher makes several laments about how vain and fleeting our world is as he questions whether our lives and existence are worth anything:

• “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

• “Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness” (Ecclesiastes 3:16).

• What happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage of the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to the dust all return” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20).

• “In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in evildoing” (Ecclesiastes 7:15).

Most of the book is filled with how meaningless life seems to be. Even the person who does good things perishes like the person who does evil, and the person who is kind and generous is still hurt by others. Everyone goes through suffering, everyone will leave behind what they worked their entire lives for, and our names and good deeds will one day be forgotten as if we never existed. What purpose is there in living if everything will die and perish anyway?

In the midst of his laments, the preacher explains, “I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out” (Ecclesiastes 8:17), and he continued, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). We do not know what God is doing through our actions, our mundane conversations, working from 9-5 for 40 years. How can we say that all is meaningless when we do not have the knowledge and wisdom to know all that God plans to do through us? Yet we do not have to stumble around in the dark wondering what we are supposed to do to make life meaningful. We must fear God - loving Him above all things and living for Him. Out of love and a desire to honor Him, we pursue the righteousness He has laid out for us in His word, and we are enabled to do so because of the work of Christ within us, who is the living water that washes all of our sin and who is Himself our righteousness, and the Spirit of God within us, Who leads us from darkness into His marvelous light (John 14:26; 1 Peter 2:9; Titus 3:5). As Christians, our purpose is to love God and proclaim His glory wherever we are, knowing that He will never perish and change, but we will one day be with Him forever and ever (Malachi 3:6; John 3:16). That is our deepest desire - to see Him as He truly is when we are with Him (1 John 3:2). Buddhism seeks to find our purpose in ourselves and in a world that is ever changing and fading, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Works Cited

“Buddhists.” Pew Research Center, 2015, https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/buddhists/. Accessed September 21, 2021.

“Fundamental Teachings.” The Buddhist Society, https://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/fundamental-teachings. Accessed September 21, 2021.

Rohr, Richard. “Jesus and Buddha”. Center for Action and Contemplation, 2017,

https://cac.org/jesus-and-buddha-2017-12-08/. Accessed September 21, 2021.

Vail, Lise F. “The Origins of Buddhism.” Asia Society, https://asiasociety.org/education/origins-buddhism. Accessed September 21, 2021.

“What does Buddhism teach about life after death?” BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zfts4wx/revision/3. Accessed September 21, 2021.

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/buddha-statue-2873473/