This is an excerpt taken from the essay ‘The One Vehicle of Emancipation: Buddhism and Other Religions’ published in Transcendent Philosophy: International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism (Volume 25, December 2024).
Buddhism offers a unique lens through which to appreciate other religions. Its understanding of ultimate reality, along with its notion of skillful means, allows for a comprehensive scope of salvation that extends to all beings—not just adherents of Śākyamuni's teaching. While this tradition certainly shares a number of features with other faiths, the uniqueness it exhibits (i.e., its non-theism and rejection of a substantial ‘soul’)[[1]] has often led to its exclusion from discussions about the perennial philosophy, even though it offers valuable insights regarding the plurality of religious forms. It goes without saying that certain traditions are far from generous in acknowledging the value of spiritual paths other than their own; nevertheless, Buddhism presents the possibility of a higher resolution (even if this is likely to be beyond the pale for many).[[2]]
It is quite apparent therefore, especially in the Mahāyāna, that Buddhism openly acknowledges the existence of a supreme reality distinguished by the attributes of “eternity, bliss, true self and purity” (nitya-sukha-ātma-śubha), as stated in a renowned text, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna.[[3]] Not only is it known as Nirvāṇa—the state of complete liberation (vimukti) from ignorance and suffering—but also the Dharma-Body, viewed as the Absolute or noumenon[[4]] (although not in the sense of a remote, omnipotent being that brings about a ‘willed’ creation).
Accordingly, Buddhism does not attribute grossly anthropomorphic characteristics to this reality,[[5]] though this should not lead one to suppose that it lacks conspicuous features in common with other religions.[[6]] As Lord Chalmers once remarked regarding certain parallels between the Christian and Buddhist traditions: “There is here no question of one creed borrowing from the other; the relationship goes deeper than that.”[[7]]
The widespread assertion that Buddhism should not be considered a religious phenomenon but, rather, a variation of the scientific method applied to our mundane psychology, grossly misrepresents the tradition and should not be used as a pretext to ignore its ‘perennial’ dimensions.[[8]] Many forms of Buddhism in the modern world are, in fact, but a reductionist—and de-sacralized—aberration in light of its teachings considered in toto.[[9]]
A plenary revelation provides non-worldly means of deliverance from the anguish of our human condition. Its objective is a transcendent satisfaction of all human desire and a steadfast spiritual equanimity, along with an adequate (albeit limited) metaphysical framework. In this respect, every upāya revealed by the Dharma-Body is equally efficacious, even though some may be more indirect than others in their approach. Accordingly, they embody insights that are true in the sense of capturing an authentic dimension of ultimate reality.[[10]]
So, despite considerable resistance to this claim, Buddhism does indeed share a number of notable features in common with other religions—how could it not?—but it also stands out from them in very important ways that are quite distinctive. As mentioned earlier, Mahāyānists have largely been inclined to accept that all religions have their origin in the Dharma-Body, which has dispensed its liberating teachings in a way that conforms to the innumerable needs of humanity.
The widespread assertion that Buddhism should not be considered a religious phenomenon but, rather, a variation of the scientific method applied to our mundane psychology, grossly misrepresents the tradition and should not be used as a pretext to ignore its ‘perennial’ dimensions.[[8]] Many forms of Buddhism in the modern world are, in fact, but a reductionist—and de-sacralized—aberration in light of its teachings considered in toto
Once that which is formless takes on specific forms, through which to express itself in response to salvific exigencies, it must also engender imperfections that come with assuming a restrictive finitude, such that differences—often deep-seated—are inevitable.[[11]] Therefore, despite the shortcomings we find in all religious doctrines (given that they are intended for the plane of relativity), it suffices that they are commensurate with the mentalities to which they are addressed.[[12]]
This also applies to the doctrines of Buddhism which, to be sure, has its own lacunae. That is why any kind of unanimity can only emerge at a higher level of apprehension which, properly speaking, is ineffable, thereby eluding the unavoidable confinement of dogmatic forms which can only preclude other possible (though similarly incomplete) articulations of the same truth.[[13]]
If the highest reality is truly compassionate, it will leave no sector of humankind without guidance and illumination, despite the strife, conflict and mutual incomprehension to which the varied religious forms often give rise. In this sense, much more separates Buddhism from contemporary atheism than from other faiths, which—at the very least—acknowledge primacy of the spiritual and its attendant truths.[[14]]
[[1]]: “If one accepts that ‘the kingdom of Heaven is within you’, then one cannot logically reproach Buddhism for conceiving the Divine Principle in this respect alone. The ‘Void’ or ‘Extinction’ is God—the supra-ontological Real seen ‘inwardly’—within ourselves; not in our thought or in our ego, of course, but starting from that ‘geometrical point’ within us whereby we are mysteriously linked to the Infinite. Buddhist ‘atheism’ consists in a refusal to objectivize or exteriorize the ‘God within’ in a dogmatic form.” Schuon (2018), 19
[[2]]: “The exoteric’s assessment of the esoteric is likely to be less charitable, not because exoterics are less endowed with that virtue, but because a portion of the esoteric position being obscured from him, he cannot honor it without betraying the truth he does see.” Huston Smith – ‘Introduction’, Schuon (1993), xvi
[[3]]: Hakeda (1967), p. 65
[[4]]: “The noumenon is the substratum of phenomena, while the latter are attributes of the former … It is the reason, life, and norm of all particular existences … the formative principle which gave and still gives shape to the world”. Sōgen (1912), 252, 254 & 302
[[5]]: “Buddhism, inasmuch as it is a characteristic perspective and independently of its modes, is necessary: it could not but come to be, given that a non-anthropomorphic, impersonal, and ‘static’ consideration of the Infinite is in itself a possibility; such a perspective had therefore to be manifested at a particular cyclical moment and in a human setting that rendered it opportune, for the existence of a given receptacle calls for that of a given content.” Schuon (2018), 16-17
[[6]]: “Many Westerners attracted to Buddhism, often unaware of its close affinities with the Christian tradition which they have repudiated, laud it as ‘rational’, ‘empirical’, ‘scientific’, humanistic’, and the like, and disavow its religious ‘trappings’.” Oldmeadow (2021), viii
[[7]]: Chalmers (1932), xx
[[8]]: “Buddhism, which is so often reduced to the level of a base philosophical empiricism, has in fact nothing to do with an ideology that is purely human and thus devoid of any enlightening or salvific quality; to deny the celestial character of Śākyamuni and his message is tantamount to saying that there can be effects without a cause.” Schuon (2018), 15
[[9]]: “The claims sometimes made by Orientalists and Western converts that Buddhism is simply a ‘philosophy’ or ‘natural religion’ have more to say about modern prejudices than about Buddhism properly understood.” Oldmeadow (2021), x
[[10]]: “These truths … are not the exclusive possession of any school or individual: were it otherwise they would not be truths, for these cannot be invented, but must necessarily be known in every integral traditional civilization.” Schuon (1993), xxxiii
[[11]]: “The Druze view about the various religious forms is that their movement of separation over time from the divine source leads to their eventual decline. A religion is an integral whole that is subject to necessary laws of change like any living organism.” Adnan Kasamanie, ‘Druze gnosis and the mystery of time’ in Trompf (2019), 351
[[12]]: “The formal homogeneity of a religion requires not only truth but also errors—though these are only in form … Religions are ‘mythologies’ which, as such, are based on real aspects of the Divine and on sacred facts—hence on realities, but on aspects alone; this limitation is at once inevitable and completely effective.” Schuon (2007), 72
[[13]]: “Intrinsically ‘orthodox’ dogmas, that is, those established in view of salvation, differ from one religion to another; consequently they cannot all be objectively true. However, all dogmas are symbolically true and subjectively efficacious, which is to say that their purpose is to create human attitudes that contribute in their way to the divine miracle of salvation. This, in practice, is the meaning of the Buddhist term upāya, ‘skillful means’ or ‘spiritual stratagem’, and it is thanks to this efficient intention—or this virtually liberating ‘truth’—that all dogmas are justified and, in the final analysis, compatible despite their antagonisms.” Schuon (2018), 186
[[14]]: “If an idea is true, it belongs equally to all who are capable of understanding it; if it is false, there is no credit in having invented it. A true idea cannot be ‘new’, for truth is not a product of the human mind; it exists independently of us, and all we have to do is to take cognizance of it; outside this knowledge there can be nothing but error.” Guénon (2004), 56–57
