Each tradition, each must therefore be kept distinctive
even as it reaches a universal diffusion among humans.
For any tradition to withhold itself from the other societies of humankind or
for any to exclude the other traditions is to vitiate and
stultify its own tradition and development, to condemn itself to sterile
isolation from the only forces that can give it life and creativity.
All human traditions are dimensions of each other.
It's a, the last line is almost a mantra, or
a phrase that has deeper meanings in Thomas's thought,
this sense that all human traditions are dimensions of each other.
>> Yeah, and it's been such a joy, I think, for us to teach world religions for
nearly 40 years, and to realize that they are feeding the human community still.
These are wisdom traditions, they're constantly changing.
They're processes in fact, and that's what Thomas helped us to understand,
they're not static.
They're changing, they're responding.
And eventually, this is where he would bring us all to understand the need to
respond to the ecological and social crises of our time.
>> Exactly, and Thomas would use the image of the rose window,
those beautiful windows in Gothic cathedrals.
And reflecting upon, them and
talking about the central window in relation to the outer windows.
Say for example the window altar at St.
Peter's Basilica in Rome, the sense of this spirit image in the middle, the bird.
And then these beautiful outer windows.
And he would talk about the inner window as the core spiritual religion.
Often a religious tradition that one is given, and
sometimes not a religious tradition.
But a deep spiritual value or ethical value and
outside it then the world religions.
And then a person can become fixated on the middle and
that's what I think he's after in this quote also.
And that's the sense of what is lost by binding one's self,
simply to what one has been given in youth?
And not to understand that the beauty and the delight of these other traditions.
And of course we're also aware that some people play in
the field of these beautiful traditions and lose their central core.
So Thomas is interested in exploring these very subtle psychological realities also,
how traditions speak to one another.
And yet we have to be very aware and nurture that central window of ourselves,
to the outer window and central windows and their relationship to one another.
>> Well I think that brings us to this final section here where he says,
there are presently four main religious issues facing the human
community in its spiritual aspect.
The first is the grounding of the various spiritual traditions,
just as John was saying.
There's a sense, they are grounded in their own particular belief systems,
worldviews.
>> Yes.
Scriptures, traditions, history, dogma, even.
So there's a grounding of these particular traditions, and
that's what we need to study.
At the same time, as so many of them are interacting, they're syncretic.
The spread of Buddhism across Asia from India through Afghanistan and
the Silk Road all the way to China and Korea and Japan and how it changed.
But there's this sense of a shared understanding of Buddhists' beliefs and
values and practices >> Yes, this is a very good point,
this first one of grounding and
the place-space character of traditions that are still able to move beyond.
Thomas was himself grappling with some of these deep methodological issues or
approaches in the study of religions.
About how they form particularity but they're also interacting with one another.
And this second point then is the activation of the macrophase of each
tradition.
And again you can sense in these earlier quotes when they encounter one another,
how they begin to realize and
reflect upon dimensions of themselves that are reaching out.
The sense of inner creativity towards a larger calling.
>> Right, and even at that macrophase, sometimes we see this complementarity,
a sense of cosmic Christ of the Universe that 's in Saint Paul.
And the sense of the Buddha nature and all things.
And that becomes interesting for
this comparative study of world religions as well.
>> Yes.
>> His third point was this intercommunion of traditions,
which we've spoken a great deal about in this talk right now.
But I think we still have to emphasise that this is not easy.
That these traditions are committed often to their own path and
therefore there's obstacles to this intercommunion.
>> Yes and we've emphasised the particularity in relationship to
the universality.
and that particularity we might also describe as a subjectivity,
that Thomas was very aware of the unique voices within a tradition.
That the tradition as a whole,
Buddhism as a whole might be described as having a subjectivity.
But within that are these many different voices, the great scholars of Buddhism,
the great missionaries who carry Buddhism both across Asia.
And then from Asia, from China especially the rediscovery of traditions by
Chinese monks returning to India.
That this intercommunion then, is situating Thomas to understand
subjectivity as embedded in the grounding of these traditions and
how this subjectivity is speaking across traditions.
>> And the final point here- >> Is the entry of the traditions
into alliance with the newly developed cosmological myth of modern science.
This is a major step that Thomas would take in the late 60s and early 70s.
>> Right, and it brings us, as well to our next talk on Teilhard.
Because Thomas realized the religions were insufficient for
our times that they needed to be in dialogue with science.
And that's exactly what Teilhard was doing.
>> That's it, that's the increasing attention that Thomas saw,
not simply again, in the dialogue, or
speaking across from separated positions and trying to find a realm of tolerance.
But rather this exchange, which lead to an intercommunion and
a deeper meeting of the subjectivities, the voices of this tradition.
Leading towards a new expression of these traditions,
a macro phase of these traditions.
