If Tiger Woods is looking for redemption, he chose the wrong religion.
Many Buddhists “do not recognize a personal god, and there is not one to forgive you,” said Angie Delacroix, a Brooklyn Zen Buddhist organizer.
Katherine Lieberson, co-director of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York in Chelsea, said, “If redemption is defined as being forgiven by a god that is outside of ourselves, Buddhists don’t believe in a god that’s outside of ourselves.”
“It’s a different understanding of this.”
Woods seemed to be making a pitch for redemption yesterday when he said he had “actively practiced my faith from childhood,” but added, “Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.”
Fox News commentator Brit Hume rankled Buddhists last month when he said on air that if Woods wanted forgiveness, he should switch to Christianity.
“That is his interpretation, and I think it’s sad for someone to imagine that god is a footservant . . . and that you can command grace from god,” said Ganden Thurman, executive director of Tibet House in the Flatiron District — and actress Uma Thurman’s brother.
He said Buddhism does have a form of redemption “in the sense that we can do better.”
“It is tremendously forgiving,” he said, “but it doesn’t have a tremendous focus on passing judgment on others.”
Thurman called Woods’ appearance “a very odd scenario” because his apologies seemed to be addressed to the rest of the world “and not to the person he’s wronged” — namely his wife, Elin.
Woods said he needed to “learn restraint” and follow the Buddhist teaching that a “craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.”
“Buddhism is a huge religion,” with many offshoots, but those comments “sounded like fundamental Buddhist principle,” Lieberson said.
The faith has something to say about illicit sex.
Buddhism teaches that good people can make bad choices because they submit to “the three poisons” — which includes lust, Thurman said.
“We accept that people are imperfect,” Delacroix said. “It’s not having sex that is wrong but breaking trust in a relationship.”
Woods’ mother, Kultida, who brought him up as a Buddhist, said yesterday, “Buddhism teaches you to go deep inside your soul . . . and correct the bad thing to the good thing.”
When Tiger realized he needed to change “he said OK and went back to practice Buddhism, and that will make him a much better person,” she said.
Was Woods sincere? His fellow Buddhists were not sure.
“It’s hard to say,” said Delacroix, of the Joyful Humanist and Mindfulness Circle.
“People are very good at saying something and not carrying forward. His future conduct will tell.”