American Buddhist Perspectives
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a fan of Bill O’Reilly. But I’ll give him credit for this response to a letter on his show (via WORLD Mag):
“Religion is such a deeply personal issue and it is wrong to discuss what another person should believe. Mr. Hume should have contacted Tiger Woods privately instead of taking it public.”
“That’s not a bad point,” O’Reilly responded. “I’m sure Hume had noble intentions when he addressed the golfer publicly, but it was a deeply personal assessment of Woods’ predicament. We are all sinners. How many of us want to be told how to achieve forgiveness in a public forum?”
I agree that Hume probably had the best of intentions; perhaps we could even say that his words were compassionate, to use Buddhist lingo. However the inappropriateness (which came out on many levels) shows Mr. Hume’s lack of wisdom in this matter.
Agreeing further with Mr. O’Reilly in my own fashion, I will say that indeed we are all ignorant, we all make mistakes.
Forgiveness, the issue Hume originally raised, is about accepting this with compassion and realizing deeply with wisdom that all are capable of change – there is no solid core or Self upon which we can pin permanent labels of any kind. I still thank Brit Hume for raising some good questions, even if unintentionally, and hope that people have used this as an opportunity to gain knowledge of both Buddhism and Christianity.
* PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KRIEG BARRIE via WORLD Mag.
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