Meeting of Two Traditions: Jewish-Buddhist Dialogues

Meeting of Two Traditions: Jewish-Buddhist Dialogues

Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections at the University of Colorado Boulder

2013

Stephanie Yuhas, Netanel Miles-Yepez, Deborah Fink, Sue Salinger, David Shneer, Andrew Violet, and Jacob Flaws.

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The 1990 dialogue between Rabbi Zalman Schachter -Shalomi and a representative group of Jewish rabbis and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, in Dharamsala, India was the catalyst for The Jew in the Lotus, an influential book exploring inter-religious dialogue. This meeting ultimately led to Schachter-Shalomi’s appointment as World Wisdom Chair at Naropa University in 1995.

“One day, as I was talking to him about similarities between Jewish mysticism and Tibetan Buddhism, I happened to touch briefly on the topic of angels, substituting the equivalent Sanskrit word, deva, ‘a shining light-being’ for the Hebrew word, sar. Then, just as I was about to continue, the Dalai Lama interrupted and began to question me enthusiastically on the subject of angels and their relationship to deities in his own tradition. An amazing shift in energy swept the room—the Jewish and Tibetan Buddhist traditions had just ‘met’ in the heart-space of analogous realms!”

-Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Deep Ecumenism

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi greeting the 14th Dalai Lama at the Spirituality in Education conference at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. (Foto di Vita, 1997)

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in dialogue with the 14th Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India, 1990.