The smell of incense envelops you before you even cross the threshold. In the Buddhist temples I have visited in recent months in Asia, monks in saffron or brown robes recite ancient formulas with a concentration that questions. Outside, life flows between crowded markets, scooters, and rice paddies. Buddhism here is not a choice: it is the air you breathe, the language with which a people has been reading the world, pain, hope for 2500 years.
In Cambodia, in the 1970s, the Church was literally erased. Bishops, priests, religious and lay people killed or missing, buildings razed to the ground. There is nothing left, except for a few and sparse Christians. Yet, walking among the Cambodian communities today, I found a Church that is being reborn with surprisingly local roots. Khmer faces, and descendants of Vietnamese, animate the celebrations, local catechists lead small communities with a fresh faith, young religious and friars carry out very important educational works with dedication that moves. Life is stronger than destruction.
But the question burns: how to live and proclaim the Gospel where such an ancient and coherent cosmovision shapes every aspect of existence? Christianity here is perceived as something foreign, "Western". There is a sort of historical impermeability that resists the usual methods.
Moreover, here is the discovery that surprised me. Buddhism lives compassion as a central value: karuṇā, they call it, that ability to feel the suffering of the other as one's own. When Buddhists see Christians practising this same compassion in practice—amongst the sick, the poor, the abandoned children—something opens in their eyes.
I met orphaned children, for example, and some with autism: welcomed and cared for, they found a home and a family with us. It is not a theological reasoning: it is a recognition. "You live what we also seek". In Singapore and elsewhere, I have seen how this silent witness builds very strong bridges, creates trust, and opens unexpected paths towards faith.
St Francis sensed this: he went to the Sultan not with arguments, but with his unarmed presence. Our charism asks us first of all to be present, like evangelical leaven, without haste, ready to speak "when it pleases the Lord", in harmony with everyone, with patience for the long term, acting as a "we" and not as individuals.
After all, the Taoist vision that permeates this part of the world also moves our Christians towards this wisdom. It is not resignation: it is the wisdom of the seed that works in the silence of the earth.
In this Year of St Francis, Buddhist Asia offers us a precious and surprising lesson: we are not called to convince, but to live the Gospel with such intensity that its light becomes visible. The Buddhist karuṇā and the Christian agape look at each other, recognise each other, and question each other. In that space, a dialogue opens up that no book of theology could generate.
We continue to sow. The Lord will make it grow in the times and ways that please Him.
