The (Buddhist) Prayer of St. Francis

Steven Goodheart (FB); Gary Saunders, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

St. Francis, Essenes, earliest Christians lived like Buddhist monastics (gardenvisit.com)

Kwan Yin/Virgin with child shows evidence of religious syncretism (Dale in China)

 

Good St. Francis and the animals

May I be an agent of love in this world.
Where there is hatred, let me bring loving-kindness;
Where there is injury, forgiveness;

Where there is doubt, insight;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
May I console as well as be consoled.
May I understand as well as be understood;
May I love as well as be loved;
For in giving we receive;
In forgiving, we are forgiven;
In dying to self-centeredness, we are born to the deathless.

• Nirvana is the "deathless"
• Forgiveness (khanti) is one of the Ten Perfections
• Christ was like St. Francis: brother sun, sister moon
• Discovering Guan Yin, Buddhism's Virgin Mary
• Environmental ethics, Christianity and Buddhism

...Buddhas only point the way (hkoppdelaney)

The Buddha: "As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with toward all beings. With a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world" (SN I, 8).