A Message from the Editor
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“
he views expressed by the contributors to this publication are not necessarily those of the editors”—so goes the sometimes embarrassed disclaimer often encountered in magazines of opinion. In the case of Religion East & West, however, it is the editors’ express purpose to bring together the expression of views that, at least on their face, may not be in agreement either with the editors’ views or with each other. It is our purpose to provide a safe and welcoming forum for voices from differing traditions. It is only by listening to each other and acknowledging the right of each of us to follow our own paths that we can come to understand each other, honor each other, and so discover that common ground where we can at last lay down our arms. When scholars, linguists, and peace-builders can make themselves heard, differences begin to seem less like differences and more like similarities expressed in unfamiliar languages and couched in unfamiliar metaphors. Thus in this issue of our journal, Douglas Mikkelson, a scholar comfortable in both Latin and Japanese, can report that the instructions given to monks and friars by Thomas Aquinas and by D¯ogen Kigen, two thirteenth-century masters who of course knew nothing whatever of each other, were so similar as to be close to identical. When Giv Nassiri, an historian of medieval Turco-Persian civilization, explains the central role of pious scholars in Islamic governance, the Muslim world of today suddenly becomes clearer. As a few moments of thought make plain, the Vedantic analysis of the spiritual life into four yogas, as described here by Asoke Basu, might be applied to the spiritual life of any other tradition. There is always unity behind the diversity, if one looks for it, and recognition beyond the strangeness, if one is willing to let one’s guard down. In the past and now again in our menacing present, the names of religions are invoked in war. But religions have been, and are now again, equally the inspiration of peace-makers. As the peace scholar Michael Nagler and several other contributors attest in the pages that follow, religions offer the tools for reconciliation. Religions may therefore be our best hope for the establishment of world peace; it was in that belief that the Institute for World Religions, publisher of Religion East & West, was founded by the late Ven. Master Hsüan Hua. By exploring their differences and by celebrating their fundamental congruence in expressing the aspirations of mankind, religions can still become templates for nonviolence, so that, as Master Hua said, “both East and West can be transformed.” —David Rounds issue 4, june 2004
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