Metta at the DNC
Tuesday August 26, 2008
This past Sunday an interfaith service was held in the Denver convention center, prior to the Democratic National Convention. The service opened with a reading of the Metta Sutta by University of Colorado student Kathryn Ida.
The Metta Sutta is a favorite for reading at interfaith services, partly because it is beautiful and partly because it doesn't require knowledge of Buddhist doctrines to understand.
Comments
I know Four Immeasurables very well, but I haven’t heard about Metta Sutta before. From your introduction, I guess it is a Theravada scripture. The interfaith service is great. And I especially curious about the Buddhist gathering in the U.S., do you have Buddhists who believe in different schools in one gathering?
Hi, Guan. I don’t know that I’ve ever been to a Buddhism-only interfaith service, but I’ve been to some in which many religions are represented. This is usually done on special occasions and sponsored by groups like the Democratic Party that don’t want to show favoritism to any one religion.
Buddhists make up less than 1 percent of religious people in the U.S., so we’re such a tiny minority it’s unusual for the other religions to remember to invite us.
I change my name from Guan to Manju Guan, for I just found another GUAN in the forum. But you can call me Guan anyway.
I am new here, and start to discuss Buddhism theory in English, which I’ve never done before. I found it very interesting to do this and very hard, because there are so many Buddhism terms that we often say in Chinese but don’t know how to say in English. However, I like here and your forum.
I kept reading your articles these days, and I found it very helpful, thank you~
Thanks for covering this, Barbara. I think that more cities should have regular interfaith services.
Dang! Missed it. That’s what I get for not watching TV. Even among all that chaff there are occasional kernels.