THEO1725 · Complex Problems and Enduring Questions

Contemplative Responses to Suffering: Buddhism and Christianity

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This is an Enduring Question course and is open to FRESHMAN only. You must also register for the accompanying ARTH1725 How do we respond in healing ways to sufferingboth our own and those of others? Buddhism and Christianity both offer profound contemplative answers to this question: Meditation and contemplative prayer are a part of this healing response. Both traditions offer diagnoses of the inner causes of our individual and collective suffering, and both outline practical paths for transforming those causes through meditation, prayer, and ethical practice. And both give witness (though differently) to the possibility of the radical transformation of human consciousness: from isolation, fear, and self-clinging to communion, peace, and self-gift; from the ups-and-downs of emotional life to a radiant joy, unshakeable even in suffering. On the Buddhist side, we study basic Buddhist doctrine, meditation, nirvana, the bodhisattva, compassion, Zen, and Buddhist thought on ethics and peace. On the Christian theological side, we cover topics from God, creation, incarnation, sin, Jesus preaching, the cross, deification, baptism, Eucharist, contemplation, and Christian responses to violence. No background in Buddhism is required.