"Don't get caught in Indra's net": A Response to The Celestial Web
In this article, I provide observations on Perry Schmidt-Leukel's book, The Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity: A Different Comparison, from my position as a scholar of Buddhist ethics and an instructor at an undergraduate university in Canada. I applaud the book's well-informed scho...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2026
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| In: |
Buddhist Christian studies
Year: 2026, Volume: 45, Pages: 87-91 |
| Further subjects: | B
Comparative Religion
B Confirmation bias B Nāgārjuna B emptiness (śūnyatā) |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In this article, I provide observations on Perry Schmidt-Leukel's book, The Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity: A Different Comparison, from my position as a scholar of Buddhist ethics and an instructor at an undergraduate university in Canada. I applaud the book's well-informed scholarship and concur with the author in his defense of the value of careful comparative religious method, which I suggest his book exemplifies. I concur with Schmidt-Leukel that the fractal - symbolized by the image of the jeweled net of Indra - is a compelling metaphor for understanding and envisioning both inter- and intra-religious diversity, and I am persuaded by his book that in general one can see, as he put it, "a mutual presence of similar differences," at least as far as Christianity and Buddhism are concerned. However, I raise the concern that one would have to have a fairly sophisticated understanding of each of Christianity and Buddhism before using this model to make comparisons without overlooking subtle but important differences between traditions, which leads to the question of the intended audience for this framework. This relates to the problem of confirmation bias, and how in looking for similar patterns of differences between and within religions, one might tend to highlight the phenomena that fit this fractal pattern and overlook the phenomena that do not. I discuss Schmidt-Leukel’s treatment of ultimate reality in Buddhism as a case in point, where the author rejects the Buddhist traditions, such as those associated with Nāgārjuna and emptiness, that negate any notion of transcendent reality. I suggest that to do so risks transforming the fractal metaphor from a skillful means for interreligious learning into a "view" (dṛṣṭi) or theory that might limit our understanding. |
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| ISSN: | 1527-9472 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Buddhist Christian studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/bcs.2026.a979823 |
