Building Muslim–Buddhist Understanding
This chapter suggests a new approach for building Muslim–Buddhist understanding through the methodology of parallelism. Recognizing that Islam and Buddhism share the common ground of being directed toward liberation from suffering and hardship caused by inequality, injustice, and oppression, this chapter compares two of their respective teachings to achieve that goal, namely through understanding and applying the Qur’anic teaching of Taqwa—Allah consciousness, that is, recognizing the presence of Divine breath as a means to develop virtuous behavior in a Muslim, and cognizance of Satipatthana/mindfulness, as taught in the Anapanasati Sutta, for development of virtuous behavior in a Buddhist.