"Take Buddhism, strip out the pre-Buddhist deities.

One now has a religion that claims to have no god, but rather talks about everything being illusion and instead there is a single unifying Buddha nature.

Open the Tanya, and compare to the Alter Rebbe's take on yeish meiAyin (capital "a" intentional). -- I originally threw a lehavdil in there, but how do I say "compare" and "lehavdil" in the same sentence?

For that matter, is a memutzah hamechubar all that different than a buddha?

I'm not saying that L since "Atzmus" actually is Buddhism. However, it's hard to see how one can be Torah and the other altogether avodah zarah.

-micha"

In response, I point out that Eastern religions are generally hard for Westerners to understand and get their heads around. This is because they are not theologically defined, in words, concepts and books, but are rather experiential, with meditation as the tool of this experience. One either knows and understands or not. For someone not brought up within the experiential framework of Buddhism, it will always remain an enigma. With that said, we must remember that, as R. Arye Kaplan used to say, Judaism is also an Eastern religion. If not for its encounter with the Greco-Roman world, would Judiasm possess a well-worked out rational theology, or would it have remained an intensely personal and national religion that one is either brought up in and "gets", or not?

Yes, Zen speaks of Buddha consciousness or Buddha reality, but it is something that is known through experiencing it in meditaton. Attempting to compare it to any Jewish concept is ultimately misleading because words and inner states do not speak the same language.

Finally, even if there were similar or shared concepts in both religions, bringing them together commits the sin of syncretism. I am certain that the Jewish worshippers of Baal also had a way in which their worship of Baal could be joined seamlessly, at least in their own mind, with their Jewish commitments. The bottom line is that seeking for Truth in Buddhism violates many central Jewish beliefs, such as centrality of Torah, Election of Israel, and primacy of Jewish historical and communal experience over individual advancement and salvation.