Are the Saints equivalent to the Bodhisattva in Buddhism?

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If you think about it, both saints and bodhisattva serves to guide people on to the right path.
 
Rutherford2 said:
Bodhisattva lead people to live a saintly life.
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It is to be admired, to live a life that gives honour to oneself and respects and cares for other people.

For Christians, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. The early Christians were called people of “the way.” Jesus came to show us the way to God.
 
For Christians, the way leads to relationship with God, as a child to its father. Jesus is our teacher and model in that relationship.
 
I can see where you could say that, sort of, in a superficial sense, but Buddhist and Catholic theology and cosmology are so different that a deeper study will help you understand why they aren’t a true analog of each other.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
a deeper study will help you understand they aren’t a true analog of each other
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Well, thanks for the condescension, Scarlet, but it so happens I grew up with native Buddhists, in a country where Buddhism isn’t an exotic religion but a home-grown one. I speak their language, I live and work with them. I know their liturgy, their prayers, their rituals, their theology – by heart. And that’s not because I read a thousand books but because I’ve been immersed in it for so long, and these people are my close friends. So at the risk of sounding conceited, I think I’'ll forego the “deeper study”. I know what native Buddhists mean when they speak of Bodhisattvas, and it is identical to the Christian concept of a saint. Western “scholars” may invent distinctions while analyzing Oriental religions from behind their writing tables 10,000 miles away, and their readership may use these fabricated distinctions to bolster their partisanship: “You Buddhist, me Christian. Your Boddhisattva not half-bad. Our saints a little better.” I can’t actually prevent any of this Western patronizing of Oriental religious traditions, but I can speak out and tell you it isn’t true.
 
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Roguish said:
I know what native Buddhists mean when they speak of Bodhisattvas, and it is identical to the Christian concept of a saint.
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To keep on topic I won’t address your many other assertions. Perhaps we talk past each other in our understanding of saints, specifically Catholic saints.

My understanding is, canonized Catholic saints are recognized as having had a deep personal relationship with Jesus as Son of God.

Simply a point of fact, no judgement, no disparagement, no need to take offence at different choices in path of life. Some similarities in surface observations, in quality of life, hardly identical spiritually.
 
@Rutherford2, in your understanding, is this a complete and/or correct definition?
Bodhisattva definition is - a being that compassionately refrains from entering nirvana in order to save others and is worshipped as a deity in Mahayana Buddhism.
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This is definitely not equivalent to Christian saints as we do not worship as deity.
 
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Buddhism is a non-theistic philosophy that doesn’t have a belief in a one-and-done afterlife (or, for that matter, life).

Catholic saints become saints by union with God, not their level of enlightenment.

The two concepts have real differences.

I did, however, enjoy your sarcasm. It was funny and I admit to smiling at it.
🙂
 
Both. They are Bodhisattva when alive. They continue their intercession after they passed away.
 
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