of a question from the study guide said:
3. What are some of the common grounds that we have with people of different faith experiences?
I first ran across these in a book by the late Br. Wayne Teasdale (which were cited from another book, Speaking of Silence: Christian and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way by Fr. Thomas Keating,). I felt they might be of some interest in addressing one of the questions from the study guide for Point 2.
The Snowmass Conference's Guidelines for Interreligious Understanding
- The world religions bear witness to the experience of the Ultimate Reality to which they give various names: Brahman, the Absolute, God, Allah, (the) Great Spirit, the Transcendent.
- The Ultimate Reality surpasses any name or concept that can be given to It.
- The Ultimate Reality is the source (ground of being) of all existence.
- Faith is opening, surrendering, and responding to the Ultimate Reality. This relationship precedes every belief system.
- The potential for human wholeness -- or in other frames of reference, liberation, self-transcendence, enlightenment, salvation, transforming union, moksha, nirvana, fana -- is present in every human person.
- The Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships and service to others.
- The differences among belief systems should be presented as facts that distinguish them, not as points of superiority.
- In the light of the globalization of life and culture now in process, the personal and social ethical principles proposed by the world religions in the past need to be re-thought and re-expressed.

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