Perceptions of danger and co-occurring metaphors in Buddhist dhamma talks and Christian sermons

Abstract

This article focuses on an analysis of the perception of danger in a sample of conservative Evangelical Christian sermons and Thai Forest Tradition dhamma talks. Through the analysis of keywords, frames, conceptual metaphors, and patterns of agency in the use of metaphor, it seeks to explore how one Christian believer and one Buddhist practitioner conceptualize their ways of being religious. We argue that this specific set of dhamma talks has a primary focus on an individual actively progressing within the practice of meditation while interacting with elements that may be beneficial or harmful to that progress. In contrast, this particular sample of sermons has a primary focus on two groups or categories of people, fallen sinners and true Christians, and their strictly defined hierarchical relationship to God. Aspects of this relationship are often defined in terms of power, fear, and danger, with shifting intersections between active behavior and being acted upon by greater forces or powers. We conclude that a cognitive linguistic approach to analyzing perceptions of danger within a specified genre of religious discourse can be useful in producing a picture of how an individual religious believer within a particular context and moment in time views reality, their position within it, and their progression through it.