ABSTRACT
I am honored to contribute to this volume a revised version of my 2547 Spirit in Education Movement lecture, which I was invited to give by Acharn Sulak.3 We have been friends since 2511 (1968 CE). That year I was studying the writings of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, and Sulak kindly offered to accompany me to Wat Suan Mokkh, Buddhadasa’s monastery near Chaiya, to meet Than Acharn. That visit to Suan Mokkh proved to be a memorable event in my life. Even though I was born and raised a Christian, the Buddhist philosopher, Buddhadasa, became an intellectual guide and spiritual inspiration. That same year Sulak, who was then the editor of Visakha Puja, published the first of several essays I have written about Buddhadasa Bhikkhu over the forty years of my professional career as a teacher of comparative religions. It seems fitting that as I approach retirement from Swarthmore College thirty-six years after meeting Buddhadasa, I once again reflect on the subject I addressed at that time, namely Buddhadasa’s dialogue with Christianity.
