What Would Jesus Think About Buddhism?

An 8-week interfaith book club on Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, read through a Christian lens
Sundays, 8 pm Eastern, on Zoom · October 4 – November 22

How this curriculum is built

Week 1 needs no reading. It lays the groundwork: why Buddhism comes in so many numbered lists, how each tradition understands the relationship between mind and body, and the basic metaphysics of each: Creator and creation on one side, confusion and right understanding on the other.

Weeks 2 through 8 move through the book in order, roughly 35–45 pages a week. Every week follows the same shape, and every week stands on its own. Someone who comes only once should still be able to join in.

Each week also includes New Testament passages to gesture toward. Each passage comes with a one-line note on how it connects to that week's Buddhist teaching. Some are close parallels, and some show an honest difference. Quotations are from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation, so they can be copied into slides or handouts freely.

There are more questions each week than any group will get through. In a 60-minute session, plan on about three questions and two or three passages. Mark your picks before the meeting, and let the conversation go where it goes. The rest are there for when a question falls flat.

A suggested shape for each 60-minute session

TimeWhat happens
0:00–0:02Three slow breaths together. A single chime shared on Zoom works well.
0:02–0:10Opening go-around: one sentence each in answer to the week's opening question. In a group larger than about 10, ask for a few volunteers instead.
0:10–0:50Discussion. Pick about 3 questions and 2 or 3 New Testament passages. A good rhythm: one question on the text, then one deeper question, then read a passage aloud and take one Christian-conversation question.
0:50–0:55Introduce the practice for the week. Try it together for one minute.
0:55–1:00Closing: one word from each person. Preview next week's reading.

Reading schedule at a glance

WeekDateReadingTheme
1Oct 4No readingFoundations: frameworks, mind and body, two metaphysics
2Oct 11Part One, Ch. 1–5The diagnosis: the Four Noble Truths
3Oct 18Ch. 6–9Stopping, healing, and Right View
4Oct 25Ch. 10–13Thinking, mindfulness, speech, action
5Nov 1Ch. 14–18Finishing the Path; the Two Truths and the Three Seals
6Nov 8Ch. 19–23Liberation, refuge, love, and the Five Aggregates
7Nov 15Ch. 24–28The Perfections and Interdependent Co-Arising
8Nov 22Part Four: DiscoursesHearing the Buddha directly; looking back

Week 8 falls on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. If the group would rather not meet that week, Weeks 7 and 8 can be combined, or Week 8 can move to November 29.

Week 1 — Foundations

October 4 · No reading required · Introductions, frameworks, mind and body, and two metaphysics

Goals for the evening

  • Meet each other, and name what each person hopes to get out of these eight weeks.
  • Speak openly about any worry that studying Buddhism might pull against Christian faith.
  • Give everyone the three maps they'll need for the whole book: the frameworks, the mind–body question, and the two metaphysics.

Opening go-around (0:00–0:10)

  • Your name, where you're joining from, and one word for where your spiritual life is right now.
  • What drew you to a Christian book club about a Buddhist book?

Part A — Is this safe ground? (0:10–0:18)

Thich Nhat Hanh kept the Buddha and Jesus side by side on his altar. He also told Western students not to give up the religion they were raised in. Set that next to the honest worry some members may bring.

  1. Is anyone worried that studying Buddhism could threaten their faith or their salvation? What, specifically, would it put at risk?
  2. Is there a difference between learning about another tradition, learning from it, and adopting it? Where is the line for you?
  3. Paul tells the Thessalonians to "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thess 5:21). What would it look like to read this book that way?

Part B — Why so many lists? The frameworks (0:18–0:25)

Talking points for the leader. The book is built from numbered lists: Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, Three Dharma Seals, Five Aggregates, Six Paramitas, Twelve Links. Newcomers find them overlapping and confusing. Three things help:

  • They began as an oral tradition. The teachings were memorized and chanted for centuries before anyone wrote them down, and numbered lists are how you memorize. (The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes work the same way.)
  • The Four Noble Truths work like a doctor's visit. Here is the illness, here is its cause, here is the good news that it can be cured, and here is the treatment plan. Every other list in the book sits inside that structure.
  • Each list asks a different question. The Four Noble Truths ask "What's wrong?" The Eightfold Path asks "How do I live?" The Six Paramitas ask "Who am I becoming?" The Five Aggregates ask "What am I made of?" The Twelve Links ask "How does suffering keep itself going?" The same truths come up again and again, seen from a different angle each time.

Hand out the Buddhist Frameworks Cross-Reference chart as a map for the weeks ahead.

  1. Christianity has its own lists: the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the fruit of the Spirit, faith-hope-love. Do they work the way the Buddhist lists do?
  2. The doctor's-visit structure begins with the patient's illness. The Christian story usually begins with God. What difference does it make where a tradition starts?
  3. Which question speaks to you most right now: what's wrong, how should I live, who am I becoming, or what am I made of?

Part C — The mind–body problem (0:25–0:40)

Talking points for the leader.

The Western question

Descartes split the person into two kinds of thing: a thinking mind and an extended body. The question has been with us ever since: how does something non-physical move something physical? Modern materialism answers by saying there is only the body and the brain.

Many Christians assume Descartes' picture is the biblical one: an immortal soul living inside a body. It isn't, quite.

The biblical and Christian answer

In Hebrew thought a person doesn't have a soul (nephesh); a person is a living soul (Gen 2:7). The creeds confess the resurrection of the body, not the escape of a soul. Thomas Aquinas called the soul the "form" of the body, the pattern that makes this matter a living person. Paul's "flesh" vs. "spirit" is not body vs. mind; it is life turned away from God vs. life turned toward God.

The Buddhist answer

Buddhism doesn't start with two substances. It starts with a process. A person is five streams flowing together: form (the body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. These are the Five Aggregates (Week 6). Ancient texts pair "name and form" (nama-rupa), mind and body, and treat them as leaning on each other like two sheaves of reeds. Neither stands on its own. Thich Nhat Hanh says mind and body are not two separate things. What Buddhism denies is a permanent self standing behind the five streams as their owner.

  1. Before tonight, did you think of yourself as a soul that has a body, or as a body that is alive? Where did that picture come from?
  2. Both Christianity, with its bodily resurrection, and Buddhism, with its five streams, push back against a ghost-in-a-machine picture. Why might each tradition care so much about the body?
  3. If there is no permanent self behind the five aggregates, who or what is responsible for my actions? How might a Christian answer, and how might a Buddhist?
  4. Paul writes, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). Is that a kind of "non-self" teaching? How is it different?

Part D — Two metaphysics: Creator and creation; confusion and right understanding (0:40–0:55)

Talking points for the leader.

Christianity: God and creation

  • God is the uncreated source of everything. The world is created from nothing, and it is good.
  • Creatures are contingent: they exist only because God holds them in being. "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
  • God is personal. The deepest reality loves, speaks, and acts in history.
  • The basic problem is sin, a broken relationship. The remedy is grace, received in faith.
  • Time has a direction: creation, fall, redemption, new creation.

Buddhism: confusion and right understanding

  • No creator, and no interest in a first cause. The Buddha set aside questions about the beginning of the world as not useful for ending suffering. (His image is a man struck by an arrow who won't let the doctor treat him until he knows who shot it.)
  • Everything is interdependent: it arises from conditions and is "empty" of a separate self. Thich Nhat Hanh's word for this is interbeing.
  • The basic problem is ignorance, seeing wrongly. The remedy is right understanding, reached through practice.
  • Nirvana isn't a place or a God. It is the extinguishing of wrong views and of the suffering they cause.

Where they meet and where they part. Both say that nothing in the world is self-sufficient. Christianity says everything depends on God. Buddhism says everything depends on everything else, all the way down, with no ground underneath. Thich Nhat Hanh himself compared nirvana to the theologian Paul Tillich's idea of God as the "ground of being." Whether that comparison holds is a good question to keep open all eight weeks.

  1. What do we mean by "God," with a capital G? Is it a being among other beings, the greatest one, or the ground of all being? Does your answer change how Buddhism looks to you?
  2. Christianity says our deepest problem is sin. Buddhism says it is ignorance. Are those two diagnoses of the same illness, or different illnesses?
  3. Can a tradition with no creator still teach real things about how the human heart works? Can Christians receive those insights without taking on the metaphysics?
  4. Christianity insists that persons, both God and us, are ultimately real and ultimately loved. Buddhism says the separate self is a misunderstanding. Is this the deepest difference between the two? Is it a deal-breaker?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Acts 17:22–23Men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.Paul's own model for engaging another tradition: he looks closely and respectfully, and then speaks from his faith. A good frame for the whole club.
1 Thessalonians 5:21Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.Permission, and a method, for reading a Buddhist book as a Christian.
Acts 17:28For in him we live, move, and have our being.The Christian metaphysic in one line: everything is contingent on God. Compare with interdependence, where everything is contingent on everything else.
Colossians 1:16–17All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.Creator and creation. In Christianity, what holds all things together is a Person. In Buddhism, nothing outside the web holds it.
1 Corinthians 15:42–44The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable… It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.The mind–body question: Christian hope is a raised and transformed body, not an escaped soul.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.The body matters spiritually, a point where both traditions push back on mind-over-matter dualism.
Galatians 2:20I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me.The New Testament's closest approach to “non-self.” The self is not dissolved here; it is replaced by Christ.
Practice for the week: three conscious breaths Before each meal, take three slow breaths and notice that you are breathing. Christians can pair this with grace before meals. Next week, notice whether the breathing and the praying felt like the same act or two different ones.
Leader's notes In 60 minutes this is a full evening, so keep the leader's talking points to 3–4 minutes per part and take one question per part. Part B can shrink to just the doctor's-visit idea, since the handout covers the rest. If you fall behind, carry the mind–body questions into Week 6, where the Five Aggregates bring them back. Use the last 5 minutes (0:55–1:00) to introduce the practice and the reading. Give everyone the reading for Week 2 (Ch. 1–5) and the three reference charts.

Week 2 — The Diagnosis

October 11 · Reading: Part One, Chapters 1–5
Reading: 1. Entering the Heart of the Buddha · 2. The First Dharma Talk · 3. The Four Noble Truths · 4. Understanding the Buddha's Teachings · 5. Is Everything Suffering?

The big idea

The Buddha was a teacher, not a god, and his teaching is a raft for getting across the river, not something to carry on your back afterward. His first sermon offered a middle way between indulgence and harsh self-denial, and it named four truths: suffering exists, it has causes, it can end, and there is a path. Thich Nhat Hanh also corrects a common misunderstanding. Buddhism doesn't say that everything is suffering. Well-being is just as real.

Key terms

DharmaDukkha (suffering)The Middle WayFour Noble TruthsThe raftFinger pointing at the moon

Opening question

Name one thing in your life right now that you would call suffering, even a small one.

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. Thich Nhat Hanh says the teachings are like a finger pointing at the moon. What goes wrong when we mistake the finger for the moon? Have you seen that happen with Scripture or doctrine?
  2. The Middle Way rejects both indulgence and extreme self-denial. Where in your own life do you swing between those two?
  3. Why does the Buddha start with suffering instead of with God, or with happiness? Is that pessimistic or honest?
  4. "Is everything suffering?" What is Thich Nhat Hanh's answer, and why does he think the misunderstanding matters?

Going deeper

  1. Suffering is something to be recognized, then understood, then transformed. Which of those three steps do you most often skip?
  2. Thich Nhat Hanh says we have to understand our suffering before we can be free of it. Is understanding enough? What else is needed?

The Christian conversation

  1. Set the Four Noble Truths next to the Christian story: sin, its root, redemption, discipleship (see the New Testament Parallels chart). Where does the parallel fit well, and where does it strain?
  2. Jesus also refused a cramped literalism: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6). How does that compare with the raft teaching? Is there anything in Christianity you could never put down like a raft?
  3. Ecclesiastes and Job take suffering seriously. Do they sound more like the First Noble Truth than Christians usually admit?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Romans 8:22–23For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also… groan within ourselves, waiting for… the redemption of our body.Paul's First Noble Truth: suffering is universal and honestly named.
Romans 7:15For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.The Second Truth from the inside: we are driven by forces we don't fully understand or control.
Matthew 11:28–30Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.The Third and Fourth Truths in Christian voice: relief is possible, and there is a way. Note that the way is a Person.
Luke 7:33–34For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine… The Son of Man has come eating and drinking.Jesus' own middle way, between John's austerity and indulgence.
Colossians 2:21–23'Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch'… which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and severity to the body, but aren't of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.Paul, like the Buddha, finds that harsh self-denial does not free us.
2 Corinthians 3:6For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.The raft and the finger pointing at the moon: teachings serve life, not the reverse.
Mark 2:27The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.A teaching is a tool for human flourishing, much as the Buddha's raft is.
Practice for the week: name it When something painful comes up, a worry or an irritation or a grief, quietly name it: "Hello, worry. I know you are there." Don't try to fix it. Just recognize it. This is the first step of the First Noble Truth.
Leader's notes Some members may hear "suffering" as only physical pain. The Pali word dukkha is broader: unsatisfactoriness, things never quite fitting, like a wheel slightly off its axle.

Week 3 — Stopping, Healing, and Seeing Clearly

October 18 · Reading: Chapters 6–9
Reading: 6. Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing · 7. Touching Our Suffering · 8. Realizing Well-Being · 9. Right View (the start of Part Two)

The big idea

Before anything can heal, we have to stop running. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that we feed our suffering through what we consume: food, but also what we see, hear, read, and dwell on. He calls these the four kinds of nutriment. He insists that happiness is available now, not in some future. Right View, the first step on the Path, starts with knowing which seeds we are watering in the mind.

Key terms

Shamatha (stopping / calming)The Four NutrimentsSeeds & store consciousnessWatering wholesome seedsRight View

Opening question

When was the last time you truly stopped, not just paused before the next thing?

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. Why does Thich Nhat Hanh put stopping before insight? What happens when we try to understand our suffering while we are still running from it?
  2. The four nutriments: edible food, sense impressions, volition (what we want), and consciousness. Which of the four is feeding your suffering most right now?
  3. He describes the mind as a storehouse of seeds: anger, joy, fear, compassion. Whichever ones we water grow. What seeds got watered in you this past week? By whom, or by what?
  4. Right View, he says, is finally not a correct opinion at all but freedom from clinging to any view. Is that possible? Is it desirable?

Going deeper

  1. If happiness is available in the present moment, why do we keep postponing it?
  2. Is "you are what you consume" fair? Where does personal responsibility end and the environment we live in begin, from news feeds to family to culture?

The Christian conversation

  1. Sabbath is a commandment to stop. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10). How does Sabbath compare with shamatha?
  2. Philippians 4:8 ("whatever is true, whatever is honorable … think about these things") sounds a lot like watering wholesome seeds. Is Paul teaching the same practice?
  3. Jesus: "Do not worry about tomorrow" (Matt 6:34). Is that the same invitation as "happiness is available now," or does it rest on something different, namely trust in a Father?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Mark 6:31Come away into a deserted place, and rest awhile.Jesus prescribing stopping (shamatha) to his exhausted disciples.
Luke 10:41–42Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed.Busyness against presence. Mary has stopped; Martha has not.
Matthew 6:34Therefore don't be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.The present moment as the place where life happens.
Matthew 6:22–23The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness.Sense impressions as nutriment: what we take in through the eyes shapes the whole person.
Mark 7:15There is nothing from outside of the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.A useful tension with the Four Nutriments. Jesus locates the problem inside the heart, not in what we consume. Can both be true?
Mark 4:26–28The Kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed on the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he doesn't know how. For the earth bears fruit by itself.Seeds and store consciousness. Jesus also thinks in seeds, but the growth is God's work.
Philippians 4:8Whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely… think about these things.Watering wholesome seeds, in Paul's words.
Practice for the week: a media fast Choose one stream you consume (news, social media, a certain podcast) and fast from it for three days. Notice what seeds stop getting watered, and what grows in the space.
Leader's notes The book calls this chapter "Right View," while some charts list "Right Understanding." It is the same step. The seed-and-storehouse image will come back often, so it is worth making sure everyone has it.

Week 4 — Mind, Speech, and Action

October 25 · Reading: Chapters 10–13
Reading: 10. Right Thinking · 11. Right Mindfulness · 12. Right Speech · 13. Right Action

The big idea

This is the heart of the practical teaching. Right Thinking means questioning our own perceptions ("Are you sure?"). Right Mindfulness is the energy that recognizes, embraces, and calms whatever arises, applied to the body, the feelings, the mind, and its objects. Right Speech means deep listening and loving speech. Right Action is spelled out in the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Thich Nhat Hanh's modern version of the Buddhist precepts.

Key terms

"Are you sure?"Habit energyThe Four Establishments of MindfulnessDeep listeningLoving speechThe Five Mindfulness Trainings

Opening question

Tell about a time you were absolutely sure about something, or someone, and were wrong.

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. "Are you sure?" Where would that question have saved you some grief this month?
  2. Thich Nhat Hanh doesn't tell us to fight our anger. He tells us to hold it the way a mother holds a crying baby. Does that make sense to you? Does it work?
  3. Deep listening means listening with one purpose: to relieve the other person's suffering, even if they say things that are unfair. How is that different from ordinary listening? From agreeing?
  4. Read the Five Mindfulness Trainings aloud. Which one is hardest for our culture? Which is hardest for you?

Going deeper

  1. Mindfulness has become a secular wellness product. What is lost when it is pulled out of the ethics that surround it in this book: speech, action, livelihood?
  2. The Trainings are phrased as things we commit to cultivate, not only as "thou shalt nots." What is the difference in practice?

The Christian conversation

  1. "Take every thought captive" (2 Cor 10:5) and "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). Is Paul describing Right Thinking? What is he taking thoughts captive to?
  2. James 1:19: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger." James 3 calls the tongue a fire. Put these next to Right Speech. Does the Christian tradition have a practice of deep listening?
  3. Compare the Five Mindfulness Trainings with the second table of the Ten Commandments and with the Sermon on the Mount. Where does Jesus go further? Where does Thich Nhat Hanh?
  4. Brother Lawrence's "practice of the presence of God" and the Jesus Prayer are both Christian ways of continuous awareness. Are they mindfulness? What is the difference when the awareness is directed toward someone?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Matthew 7:3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but don't consider the beam that is in your own eye?Jesus' version of “Are you sure?” Question your own perception first.
Romans 12:2Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.Right Thinking as an ongoing transformation of the mind.
Matthew 26:41Watch and pray, that you don't enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.“Watch” is the New Testament's word for mindfulness: alert, wakeful attention.
1 Thessalonians 5:16–18Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.Continuous awareness, directed toward God. Compare with continuous mindfulness.
Ephesians 4:26Be angry, and don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath.Paul does not deny anger. He tells us to tend it quickly, which is close to Thich Nhat Hanh's “embrace your anger.”
James 1:19–20Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God.Deep listening, nearly word for word.
James 3:5So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest!Why Right Speech matters so much.
Ephesians 4:29Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but only what is good for building others up… that it may give grace to those who hear.Loving speech: words aimed at the other person's good.
Practice for the week: a bell of mindfulness Pick an everyday sound, such as your phone ringing, a car horn, or a church bell. Each time you hear it, stop and take one breath before responding. Christians might add a one-line prayer.

Week 5 — Finishing the Path; Two Truths and Three Seals

November 1 · Reading: Chapters 14–18
Reading: 14. Right Diligence · 15. Right Concentration · 16. Right Livelihood · 17. The Two Truths · 18. The Three Dharma Seals

The big idea

The last three steps of the Path concern effort without strain (like a string tuned neither too tight nor too loose), deep and steady concentration, and earning a living without doing harm. Then Part Three opens up the metaphysics. The Two Truths: there is a relative, everyday truth and an ultimate truth, like a wave that is also water. The Three Dharma Seals are impermanence, non-self, and nirvana. Thich Nhat Hanh treats impermanence as good news: because everything changes, everything is possible.

Key terms

Right DiligenceSamadhiRight LivelihoodRelative & ultimate truthWave and waterImpermanenceNon-selfNirvana

Opening question

Name one change in your life you once dreaded that turned out to be a gift.

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. Right Diligence includes watering good seeds, not only uprooting bad ones. Is your own spiritual effort mostly fighting sin, or mostly growing virtue? What is the difference?
  2. Right Livelihood: can anyone in a global economy earn a living without doing some harm? How does Thich Nhat Hanh handle that tension?
  3. The wave and the water: a wave is born and dies, yet it is water the whole time. Put the image in your own words. Is it comforting? Unsettling?
  4. "Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible." Why might impermanence be good news and not only bad news?

Going deeper

  1. If there is no permanent self (the second seal), what is it that practices, changes, and awakens?
  2. Thich Nhat Hanh says nirvana is not a place to get to but the extinguishing of wrong ideas, including ideas of birth and death. Is that a hope you could live by?

The Christian conversation

  1. "We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary" (2 Cor 4:18). Is that a Christian version of the Two Truths? What is the "water" in the Christian picture: God, or something else?
  2. Christianity agrees that the world is impermanent ("the grass withers," 1 Pet 1:24), but it insists that God is not. Does Buddhism have anything that does not change? Is nirvana like God in this respect?
  3. Jesus' teaching on treasure (Matt 6:19–21) and the rich young man (Mark 10) concern livelihood and wealth. How do they compare with Right Livelihood?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Philippians 2:12–13Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.Right Diligence, with a Christian twist: our effort and God's work at the same time. Compare with the string tuned neither too tight nor too loose.
Galatians 6:9Let's not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season if we don't give up.Patient, sustained effort that does not burn out.
Luke 3:12–14Tax collectors also came to be baptized… He said to them, 'Collect no more than that which is appointed to you.' Soldiers also asked him… He said to them, 'Extort from no one by violence, neither accuse anyone wrongfully. Be content with your wages.'John the Baptist on Right Livelihood: repentance looks like how you earn your living.
Matthew 6:24No one can serve two masters… You can't serve both God and Mammon.Livelihood and the heart's true allegiance.
2 Corinthians 4:18We don't look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.Paul's two truths: the visible and temporary, and the invisible and eternal.
James 4:14What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.Impermanence, the first Dharma Seal, in plain New Testament words.
2 Corinthians 5:17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.” Change is the condition of new life.
Hebrews 13:8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.The honest difference: Christianity holds that something does not change. Does Buddhism?
Practice for the week: wave and water Once a day, look at something ending (a leaf, a meal, a day) and ask, "What is the water here?" Christians might ask, "Where is God holding this?"
Leader's notes The book calls step six "Right Diligence," while many lists say "Right Effort." It is the same step. This week brings back Week 1's metaphysics conversation, so it may help to briefly remind the group of the Creator/creation vs. interdependence contrast.

Week 6 — Liberation, Refuge, Love, and What We Are Made Of

November 8 · Reading: Chapters 19–23
Reading: 19. The Three Doors of Liberation · 20. The Three Bodies of Buddha · 21. The Three Jewels · 22. The Four Immeasurable Minds · 23. The Five Aggregates

The big idea

The three doors of liberation are emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness: freedom from clinging to separate selves, to appearances, and to always chasing somewhere else. The Three Bodies describe the Buddha as teaching, as joy, and as living manifestation. The Three Jewels are refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Four Immeasurable Minds are love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. The Five Aggregates bring back Week 1's mind–body question: what a person actually is.

Key terms

EmptinessSignlessnessAimlessnessDharmakayaTaking refugeSanghaLove, compassion, joy, equanimityFive Aggregates

Opening question

Where do you go when you need refuge? It might be a place, a person, or a practice.

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. Thich Nhat Hanh's cloud never dies. It becomes rain, then tea. What is he saying about death through signlessness? Does it console you?
  2. Aimlessness doesn't mean having no direction. It means not being always elsewhere. How can someone have goals and still be "aimless" in this sense?
  3. In Thich Nhat Hanh's telling, love includes understanding: you can't love someone you don't understand. Do you agree?
  4. He says equanimity is not indifference. What is the difference?

Going deeper: back to mind and body

  1. Walk through the Five Aggregates on yourself, right now: form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness. Did you find a "self" anywhere in the list? Did you find one standing outside it?
  2. Thich Nhat Hanh compares the aggregates to a river: always flowing, never the same water. Is a river "real"? Is a person?
  3. After Week 1, which picture fits your experience better: soul and body, the five aggregates, or the Hebrew "living soul"? Has your answer changed?

The Christian conversation

  1. Set the Four Immeasurable Minds next to 1 Corinthians 13 and the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22). Where is the overlap almost exact? What does Christian love (agape) add, or ask, that metta doesn't?
  2. The parallels chart maps the Three Bodies of Buddha onto the Trinity. Most theologians would say the mapping doesn't hold, since the Trinity is three Persons in one God, not three levels of manifestation. Talk it through. Where does the comparison help, and where does it mislead?
  3. Buddha–Dharma–Sangha and Christ–Scripture–Church. Is "taking refuge" the same thing as faith? Do Christians need a sangha?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

John 12:24Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.Thich Nhat Hanh's cloud that never dies, only becomes rain, set beside Jesus' grain of wheat. Death as transformation, not ending.
Matthew 16:25For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.The door of emptiness: letting go of the grasping self.
John 7:24Don't judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.Signlessness: freedom from being captured by appearances.
Romans 12:15Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.Two of the Four Immeasurable Minds in one verse: sympathetic joy (mudita) and compassion (karuna).
1 John 4:7–8Beloved, let's love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.Loving-kindness (maitri), but grounded in the nature of God.
Philippians 4:11–12I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it… I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry.Equanimity (upeksha): steady through abundance and lack.
Matthew 18:20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them.Taking refuge in the Sangha. Christ is present in the community itself.
Mark 12:30You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.A many-part anthropology of its own: heart, soul, mind, strength. Compare with the Five Aggregates.
Practice for the week: loving-kindness, in widening circles Each day, quietly wish well to: yourself, someone you love, someone neutral, and someone difficult. ("May you be peaceful. May you be safe. May you be free from suffering.") Christians may recognize "pray for those who persecute you" (Matt 5:44) as the hardest circle.

Week 7 — The Perfections and Interdependent Co-Arising

November 15 · Reading: Chapters 24–28
Reading: 24. The Five Powers · 25. The Six Paramitas · 26. The Seven Factors of Awakening · 27. The Links of Interdependent Co-Arising · 28. Touching the Buddha Within

The big idea

Three more lists describe the person being transformed. The Five Powers are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. The Six Paramitas, or "perfections," are generosity, mindfulness trainings, inclusiveness, diligence, meditation, and understanding. The Seven Factors of Awakening run from mindfulness through investigation, energy, joy, ease, and concentration to letting go. Then comes the deepest teaching in the book: the Twelve Links, which show how ignorance gives rise, step by step, to craving, grasping, birth, and death. Thich Nhat Hanh reads the links as each containing all the others, not as a simple line of dominoes. The book closes by turning inward: the Buddha is not far away but a seed within us.

Key terms

Paramita ("crossing over")Inclusiveness (ksanti)Seven Factors of AwakeningTwelve LinksInterbeingBuddha nature

Opening question

Which of this week's lists did you find yourself most drawn to, and why?

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. Faith is the first of the Five Powers. What does Buddhist faith rest on, given that there is no creator to trust? How is it like and unlike Christian faith?
  2. "Paramita" means crossing to the other shore. Thich Nhat Hanh renders ksanti, usually translated "patience," as inclusiveness: a heart big enough to hold what hurts us. How does that change the virtue?
  3. Walk through the Twelve Links using an ordinary craving, like a second helping of dessert or checking your phone again. Where in the chain could you have stepped out?
  4. "Name and form" (mind and body) is Link 4. How does the chain's treatment of mind and body connect to our Week 1 conversation?

Going deeper

  1. If each link contains all the others, then breaking one breaks them all. Does that make liberation easier or harder?
  2. "Touching the Buddha within": is this a claim about human nature, that we are basically good, awake, and whole underneath? How would you test it?

The Christian conversation

  1. James 1:14–15 has its own chain: desire conceives, gives birth to sin, and sin gives birth to death. Compare it with the Twelve Links. What breaks the chain in each tradition: insight, grace, or both?
  2. Set the Six Paramitas next to 2 Peter 1:5–7 ("add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge…"). Are these both ladders? Who does the climbing?
  3. "The Buddha within" versus "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27) and "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). Are these the same claim? What does Christianity mean by the image of God in every person, and is that close to Buddha nature?
  4. Christian theology speaks of original sin. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of an original Buddha nature, covered over. Which matches your experience of people better? Must we choose?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

James 1:14–15Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.The New Testament's own chain of links: desire, then sin, then death. Compare with craving, grasping, becoming, death.
Romans 5:3–5We also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn't disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts.A chain that runs the other way. Suffering becomes the first link toward liberation.
Matthew 5:48Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.The “perfections” (paramitas). What does Jesus mean by perfect (Greek teleios: complete, mature)?
2 Peter 1:5–7Adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge; and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control, perseverance; and in perseverance, godliness; and in godliness, brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love.A Christian list of perfections, built one on another, like the Five Powers or the Seven Factors.
Galatians 5:22–23But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.Note the word fruit. These grow by the Spirit, not by effort alone. Compare with the role of diligence in the paramitas.
2 Corinthians 9:7Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.Dana, the first paramita: generosity given freely.
Luke 17:20–21God's Kingdom doesn't come with observation; neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, God's Kingdom is within you.“Touching the Buddha within” set beside the Kingdom within. (Some translations read “in your midst.” That difference is worth discussing.)
Colossians 1:27Christ in you, the hope of glory.Buddha nature and the indwelling Christ: alike, or different in kind?
Practice for the week: one link Pick one recurring craving. Each time it arises, pause at the moment of feeling, before it becomes craving, and simply notice it: "pleasant," "unpleasant," or "neutral." Then decide.
Leader's notes This is the densest reading of the eight weeks. If the group is behind, Chapter 27 is the one to protect. One of the reference charts describes Link 3 as consciousness carrying karma "from life to life," which is the traditional reading. Thich Nhat Hanh is more interested in how the chain works moment by moment, in this life, so it is worth comparing the two.

Week 8 — Hearing the Buddha Directly; Looking Back

November 22 · Reading: Part Four, Discourses
Reading: Part Four, the Discourses. These are Thich Nhat Hanh's translations of the original sutras behind the book. At a minimum, read the first two: Turning the Wheel of the Dharma (the Buddha's first sermon, which we met in Chapter 2) and The Great Forty. Skim the rest and bring one passage that struck you.

The big idea

After seven weeks of a modern teacher explaining the tradition, we hear the old texts themselves. They are repetitive, formal, and chant-like, much as the Psalms and the Gospels were shaped for hearing aloud. Then we look back over the eight weeks: what has changed, what has deepened, and what remains different.

Opening question

Read aloud the one passage from the Discourses that struck you, and say why.

Discussion questions

Understanding the text

  1. How does it feel to read the Buddha's first sermon now, after reading Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on it in Chapter 2? What did he add? What did he leave out?
  2. "The Great Forty" sets Right View in relation to the other steps of the Path. Why does Right View come first? Does belief come before practice, or practice before belief?
  3. The repetition in the sutras can feel tedious. What might it be doing for a listener, as opposed to a reader?

Looking back over the eight weeks

  1. Return to Week 1's worry: did studying Buddhism threaten your faith, deepen it, complicate it, or leave it untouched?
  2. Which practice from these weeks will you keep: the three breaths, naming feelings, the media fast, the bell, loving-kindness, or catching the moment of feeling?
  3. Where did you find the deepest convergence between the two traditions? Where did you find a real difference, one that it would be dishonest to paper over?
  4. Back to Week 1's metaphysics: Creator and creation, or interdependence all the way down? Has eight weeks with this book changed how you hear the word "God"?
  5. Thich Nhat Hanh kept Jesus and the Buddha side by side on his altar. After eight weeks, what would you say to him about that?
  6. Title question: what would Jesus think about Buddhism?

New Testament passages to gesture toward

Luke 4:18–19The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed.Jesus' first sermon, set beside the Buddha's first sermon. Both announce release from suffering. Note “recovering of sight”: awakening.
Matthew 5:3–9Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven… Blessed are the merciful… Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers…Jesus' great discourse. Read it aloud next to the Buddha's discourse and compare their shape and tone.
Matthew 7:24Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock.Both teachers insist that teaching is for practice, not only for hearing.
Acts 10:34–35Truly I perceive that God doesn't show favoritism; but in every nation he who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.One pole of the Christian conversation about other traditions: openness.
Mark 9:38–40Teacher, we saw someone who doesn't follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him… But Jesus said, 'Don't forbid him… For whoever is not against us is on our side.'Jesus refuses to police the boundary too tightly.
John 14:6I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.The other pole: Christianity's claim of uniqueness. An honest closing conversation holds this verse and Acts 10 together.
1 Corinthians 13:12–13For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face… But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.A humble place to end: partial sight, with love as the measure.
Closing practice: a shared gatha Close with three breaths together, then go around once, each person finishing the sentence: "From these eight weeks I am taking…" End with a blessing or prayer of the leader's choosing.
Leader's notes For anyone who wants to keep going, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote directly about the two traditions in Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995). It makes a natural next book for the group, or a recommendation for individuals.

Handouts that go with this curriculum