Buddhist Nonduality, Paschal Paradox: A Christian Commentary on The Teaching of Vimalakirti (Vimalakirtinirdesa)

The Teaching of Vimalakirti, treasured in China and Japan and

best known in the West in Canon Etienne Lamotte’s classic translation

from the Tibetan and Chinese, has now surfaced in its original language,

Sanskrit, after two thousand years. Centered on a lay bodhisattva, a

master of paradox, who has no equal in debate except the Buddha and

Manjusri, the embodiment of wisdom, Vimalakirti is the most

humorous and engaging of the major Buddhist scriptures, comparable to

the Book of Job in its dramatic format. In the first commentary on the

recovered text, an Irish theologian reads Vimalakirti and the

Gospels in light of each other, and finds resonances between the

Buddhist wisdom of nonduality and the Christian dynamic of incarnation

and paschal transformation.