BUDDHISM

Rather than being a treatise on historical Buddhism or its schools of thought, this book is centred on its main message. It would be almost impossible to condense the richness of over twenty-six centuries in which the Buddha’s teachings developed almost spontaneously, but we shall attempt nevertheless to outline the spirit of these teachings.
The first section of the volume begins with a reflection on the concept of emptiness and fullness in the Buddhist tradition compared with the same concept in the Hindu and Christian traditions, then continues with an ancient Buddhist legend as a contrast to the current technological civilisation and closes with a chapter dealing more specifically with the interpretation of the silence of the Buddha.
The second section features a detailed study entitled The Silence of the Buddha, representing a response to the modern-day approach defined as “religious atheism”, which is neither a mere contrast to all the variously surreptitious forms of theism, nor the affirmation of the non-existence of God. It is, at least in the case of Buddhism, a refined form of religiosity, purified from all hints of idolatry, extremely close to the so-called post-modern intellectual sensitivity. Silence is not the suppression of sound and speech, but the condition of listening and the origin and destiny of the word itself.
In the author’s words from the Preface: “With this book I aim to provide insights and hypotheses from philosophical and theological research that are open to the possibility of bearing new fruit. At the same time, I strive to be faithful to Buddhist intuition while not distancing myself either from the Christian experience or from the contemporary cultural world. According to the first featly, through acceptance of the teachings of the Awakened One I must disappear; the second requires that deep down there must be a personal Trinitarian experience, while the third vocation demands a sacred respect for the actual situation of modern-day Man”.

INDEX OF ORIGINAL TEXTS IN VOLUME V

(Books in bold and italic)

Introduction: The first Image of Buddha. Partly published in Kerygm und Indien. Das erste Bild des Buddha, pp. 91-100, published in Italian as La prima imagine del Buddha, Humanitas, Brescia 1966 pp. 608-622. Translated into English by James Mac Donald.

Void and Fullness in the Buddhist, Hind¥ and Christian Traditions. Â¥nya – P¥r…a – Pleríma: original text Opening Address in Void and Fullness in the Buddhist, Hindu and Christian Traditions. Â¥nya – P¥r…a – Pleríma, B. Bäumer and J.R. Dupuche (edd.), D.K. Printworld Ltd, New Delhi 2005, pp. 11-18; 267-275.

The Destiny of Technological Civilization: an Ancient Buddhist Legend Romavisaya. Revised version of the Fifth Annual Thomas Merton Lecture delivered at the Low Memorial Library, Columbia University, New York, on 23 November 1982.

The Smile of the Buddha. The Silence and the Word. In Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics, Paulist, New York 1979, reprint ATC, Bangalore 1983, Chap. 8.

The silence of Buddha. A Religious a-theism. Based on the new extended Italian version of Il silenzio del Buddha. Un a-teismo religioso, Mondadori, Milano 2006; translated by Geraldine Clarkson and Fabrice Olivier Dubosc. First English publication: The Silence of God. The Answer of the Buddha, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, ny 1989.