Does the path begin with "me" or "we"?

Contemplation (Photo credit: Susan Hall Frazier)

No, I'm not answering the question. It's for you.

In the Summer 2012 issue of Tricycle magazine Fleet Maull ponders:

Conventional contemplative wisdom states clearly that the path begins with ourselves, that we have to do our own work of cultivating mindfulness and awareness. We are told that we need to make friends with ourselves and develop loving-kindness and compassion before venturing very far into the sphere of bodhisattva activity or engaged spirituality. But what if this is an unnecessarily limited or even mistaken view? What if the path actually begins with us, the collective us, with interbeing, as Vietnamese peace activist and Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn teaches? What if the paths to both genuine liberation and collective awakening are inseparable and best informed by a social view of spirituality from the beginning?

He does not give an answer. I have no idea how we would actually answer any of these questions. How would you answer them?

The thoughts that initially occurred to me centered on the fact that the traditional teachings of contemplative wisdom were framed in historical and cultural context in which the hyper-individualism of many industrialized nation states, particularly the modern United States, was practically unknown.

The basic precepts of Abrahamic and Dharmic teachings (along with other major and minor religious paradigms), which are heavy on ethics, charity, and introspection, would have assumed a more intimate and collectivistic sense of identity and associated relationships. These basic precepts and the teachings in which they were grounded would have been expected then to be worked out in close relationship to others. In fact, virtually all of them must be worked out in relationship to others. You cannot cultivate (or discover) qualities such as mindfulness, loving-kindness, and compassion in a social vacuum.

In that sense, the work one is supposed to do for herself through an exploration of her inner landscape is directly connected to her perceptions of and behaviors in her outer landscape.

Religious ceremony and the inner landscape

Image via WikipediaEach sacred tradition has some way of connecting what we consider to be the objective, or external world, to the subjective, or internal world. Even those which state that it is all one in God or in Mind or the like.

In Nichiren Buddhism, this is the Gohonzon, a scroll with sacred writing embodying the Lotus Sutra. One is to chant to the scroll, which is a physical representation of the Buddha-nature in the person chanting. The outer representation of the altar and scroll, recalling the Ceremony in the Air, is supposed to merge with the inner landscape of those performing this ritual.

In Shin Buddhism and in the larger realm of Pure Land Buddhism, the same can kind of association can be applied to its ceremonies and to the imagery of Amitabha Buddha and the Pure Land.

In Judaism, this externality was the Ark of the Covenant carrying the tablets of Moses as well as the tent in which it (and the Spirit of God) resided. It was also associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, and after the last demolition of the temple building, it was associated with the scrolls of the Torah itself. In Christianity, after and perhaps prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, this externality was transferred to the person of Jesus of Nazareth and was then extended to the Eucharist. And so on.

And I can hear some mumbling. "So what?"