1 Buddhist Analogues of Sin and Grace: A Dialogue with Augustine 1 by John Makransky Department of Theology, Boston College Published in Interreligious Studies, 2005 ABSTRACT: “By bringing Augustine into dialogue with Buddhist traditions, each highlights aspects of the other in fresh ways. Such comparison also helps uncover ways that Christians and Buddhists have drawn upon very different resources to address similar religious issues. Augustine’s diagnosis of human bondage, the transcendent power that liberates humans so they may delight in the good, and the human link to that liberating power are compared and contrasted with analogous concepts in early and later Buddhist traditions. Active and receptive models of soteriology in Christianity and Buddhism are also compared.” Although I am a Buddhist scholar who has practiced and studied in Tibetan Buddhist traditions for the past two and a half decades, I find many elements of Augustine’s Christian reflections profound and inspiring. In this essay I will try to explain why that is so, even while pointing to fundamental differences. I will draw upon Buddhist teachings to dialogue with Augustine around three basic issues. In Christian terms, these are: the fallen condition of humans (human bondage to sin, vice), the necessity of a transcendent power to be liberated from that bondage (God’s grace), the human capacity to recognize and to respond to that transcendent power. Why engage in such an exercise of comparative theology? By bringing Augustine into dialogue with Buddhism, each dialogue partner poses new questions for the other, focusing our attention on aspects of each that would otherwise not be highlighted. Also, by drawing upon Buddhist perspectives so distant from Augustine in religious culture, history and worldview, it becomes easy to recognize the universality of some of the key issues Augustine engaged, and how profound are the solutions he developed within his own evolving tradition. 1 My thanks to Dr. Joseph Kelley (director of the Center for Augustinian Study at Merrimack College) for arranging my coming to the 2001 Thagaste Symposium from which this essay issued. I would also like to thank Dr. Art Ledoux and Fr. Robert Dodaro for so profoundly fulfilling their roles as dialogue partners within that Symposium.