hello again

 

There is either quite a lot to say or not much at all.

This blog was much more active between 2005 and 2014. I was going to start writing more in again in 2016, then midway through the year I started a new job that took up much of my time and the political and religious environment started becoming much darker. When I logged on to write, criticism and frustration emerged.

There has been much to criticize the past four years, but I didn't want to be bitter or give an impression of bitterness to others. I also found myself just being very, very tired in many ways - physically, mentally, emotionally, socially. And, to be honest, I wasn't sure what to write beyond pointing out the hypocrisy and harm of those who substitute idolatry for faith.

When I became tinythinker many years ago, I was coming from a somewhat American fundamentalist Christian background. I had already left all of that behind and was still near the beginning of my graduate school days, studying evolutionary theory, cultures from the past and present around the world, and so much more. I started using the name for message boards back then, where I encountered some interesting Buddhists on forms otherwise full of Christian and atheists going at it. Sometimes with respect or some kind of boundaries, and sometimes not. So even before I brought my net handle to this blog, I had developed a curiosity in things like Unitarian Universalism, Buddhism, and even mystical Christianity.

I continued exploring such things to varying degrees between 2005 and 2014, as evidenced by the content from that period. But it wasn't just those thing in of themselves, though that was also intriguing, but also what they might mean for questions people tend to wrestle with and the answers that they fight over. Still, for me much of it was also self-image and construction, solving intellectual puzzles, and just finding out about different views that seemed so interesting.

Around 2010, having gotten into readings the preceding couple of years on contemplative and mystical Christianity, and with no Buddhist groups around, I tried attending a nearby church for a while. It was interesting, and I participated pretty well, but after a couple of years my curiosity and interest expired. So my attendance and participation drifted off. Still, I had been able to go beyond a lot of what I had previously experienced and known in my youth, through books and actual live services.

Which left a question.

What then?

New eyes for reading the Bible: God

English: Bible in candlelight. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is one of those ideas, like my brief taxonomy of spirituality and religion, that I had a good while ago and then didn't get the chance to compose or finish composing. It is almost certainly true some of it has been forgotten or altered since the original inspiration.

A few points to make. This is not about a complex theological argument--it is not about debating theology in any way. It isn't about academic or left-brained discursive analysis. Nor is it about trying to get people to accept, convert to, or practice any form of Christianity. If you are overly argumentative or hyper-sensitive about religion, please refer back to these points if you feel the urge to complain.

I am not endorsing this perspective personally as something that I deeply believe, it just seems like a better/more interesting way to read the Bible. If you don't care for it, that's fine. I have no interest in arguing anyone into using this perspective. I am not endorsing Christianity or the Bible, nor am I trying to ignore or paint over the rough parts of either. But I do think if you are going to read the Bible, it's best to do so in a way that is going to make more sense to a modern audience and that challenges your comfortable (or uncomfortable) pre-conceptions.

So, this is basically a substitution system. Kind of like a translation, but without me actually reproducing the texts of the Bible with all of these changes awkwardly inserted. If you want to try this out, you'll have to remember or print the list and do the conversion mentally while you are reading something from the Bible or something from the Christian liturgy.

Oh, and while I develop things, you can just read the first descriptive paragraph of each major section entry in the series to get the basic translation. But you get much more if you read the rest. We begin by looking at God as Creator, God as Prophetic Authority, and God as Karma. But if you only pick one, try this first one...



God as the Creator

Try reading this as "the source or potentiality from which all energy and matter arises", especially if we are discussing God as "the Lord" or as "the Father".  In other words, read it as something beyond human comprehension or direct detection but whose effects can be observed in the manifestation of what we call existence, reality, etc. In more poetic terms, this also can be: "the invisible light by which all things can be seen", "the utter silence by which all things can be heard", "the unfelt presence by which all things can detected", "the inconceivable consciousness by which awareness and though are possible", and so on.   

God is emptiness (the transcendence of God)

This is part of a series reflecting on God-talk and Buddhist terminology. It is an opening to dialogue, not a final word on the subject.

Emptiness. If you are ever going to get tired of hearing people talk about a Buddhist concept this has to be a front runner.

If you spend time reading about emptiness in popular magazines and books or popular websites, you will learn that some older translations into English included "void", and that this negative impression still remains with emptiness.

In attempting to correct this, other images are sometimes suggested. Emptiness refers to a lack of something, but what? One expression popularized by Tibetan Buddhists is that things don't exist "on their own side". Chan/Zen Buddhists favor "lack of intrinsic existence". Pure Land Buddhists, Nichiren Buddhists, and others have similar variations on this theme.

Another way to approach the matter is to turn the negative into a positive. If something does not exist under its own power or will (emptiness), but is instead made up of and connected to other things (dependent co-arising), then everything must be subject to change (impermanence) and hence can only exist because they are not permanent and independent objects (no-self). The capacity for change, the formless ground from which phenomena emerges, can be thought of as the essence of potential itself. The power of possibility. 

That sounds much more affirming and exciting than talking about what things are not. Yet it is precisely in emphasizing what things, including our basic categories of perception and thought, are not that emptiness does its best work. This is probably because emptiness itself is not a thing at all, but an insight about things.

Simple, right?

The two-truths model applied to Jesus and the Cross

Image via Wikipedia

The two-truths model in Buddhism suggests that we must look at any spiritual reading and discern whether it is referring to an ahistorical, or timeless, truth which is only approached indirectly through mythic language and metaphor or whether it is referring to a more mundane truth about particular events as seen with ordinary eyes. The former is sometimes referred to as belonging to a deeper and more inclusive view of reality, while the latter is confined to a narrower empirical view reinforced by our general understanding of how things are supposed to be.

This does not mean that a religious view is always on the level of the mythical/mystical level of understanding or that secular views are always generic/mundane. Someone who takes miraculous language literally (it says Jesus turned water into wine and therefore actual water became actual wine) is rendering that teaching in an ordinary mode of perception, while someone who takes everyday language poetically (such as someone who feels a new sense of depth and interconnectedness upon hearing that we are all made of star dust) is rendering that teaching in an extraordinary mode of perception.

The more inclusive mode has been referred to by teachers such as Thich Nhat Hahn as the ultimate perspective and the more restrictive mode has been dubbed the relative perspective. The challenge for interpreting Biblical texts with this approach to determine which passages and images should be taken from the ultimate perspective and which from the relative.

Take the figure of Jesus and the symbolism of his Cross, for example.

God is form (the immanence of God)

This is part of a series reflecting on God-talk and Buddhist terminology. It is an opening to dialogue, not a final word on the subject.


There is a quite a bit of discussion in Western Buddhism about form and emptiness, as these concepts are featured prominently in the Heart Sutra which in turn has a close association with Zen. This invites comparisons between the Buddhist teaching of non-duality and the concepts of transcendence and immanence. The emphasis today is on form.

Form seems simple enough, given the Western emphasis on materialism. Everything that exists can be reduced to some measurable form of matter or energy, so form is anything composed of these things. Many English-language books on Buddhism use this frame of reference as an analogy to explain emptiness by pointing to subtler and subtler forms of energy until one gets to the fuzzy level of what has been dubbed the quantum field (or in some versions the quantum foam), which itself is compared to emptiness.

This can be misleading as it places the emphasis on an external process rooted in a strictly materialist paradigm. It is fine as an analogy, but prudence suggests it is risky and and unnecessary to draw a direct equivalence. Form is a phenomenological concept that precedes any explanation of the basis of what is being described. Form is, in a sense, anything which can be described and is hence born of discrimination and labeling by the mind. Feeling, intuitions, imaginings, logical musings, judgements, and the like are forms as much as tables, chairs, and chew bones.

In other words, whatever mind is or isn't, wherever and however mind originates, it is itself the origin of form.

In the presence of Christ and beyond Christ: the contigent and the universal within Christianity

Image via Wikipedia

The following was initially written as a reply summarizing and clarifying how I would describe certain aspects of Christianity in relation to the transcendent and immanent, specifically how the historical aspects of the life of Jesus relate to themes that are found in spiritual insights around the world. I therefore write in broad terms, especially in terms of the history of the church. I oversimply and over-extend. But it does give a rough and raw overview.

The reality of the present moment is at the convergence of transcendent and immanent. It transcends concepts, observations, opinion, preferences, assumptions, and the like, but it does so because it is grounded in itself, the basis of all of that is immanent, or even "immanence itself" as some theologian might say. It is the here and now.

Not the idea of here and now, nor a mindless stupor, but a deep awareness. The ego assumes awareness, i.e. the presence of God, the peace of the Lord, etc, is cold and inhuman because it cannot conceive that there is anything other than itself, so if it isn't running the show, it presumes there will be some lifeless void. But the (Tibetan) Buddhists describe it as luminous. In the West it is called divine. The Japanese Buddhist and community organizer Jose Toda said it (the nature of the Buddha) was life itself. There is no need to "try to get" anywhere, and certainly not outside of history and context, as these are relative and take place within the absolute.

Instead, the idea is to not see history and context as fixed or as the total of reality, but as a passing reflection of a fraction of it's full depth. There can be no true "dynamic and changing process" if we live our lives in the psychological past or future. That is, we don't see what is but rather characters and feelings from the past, or we constantly worry about what we think will happen based on that same script. The script that says who we've been, who we are supposed to be now, and who we are supposed to be in the future. Throw away the script. Learn from the past, plan for the future, but transcend the script. The aspect of oneself that has a historical thread (our physical bodies, memories, ideas, etc) can be a vehicle for manifesting such depth, and isn't to be rejected, but when it becomes an end unto itself and tries to cling to something for a permanent sense of identity, that's when the trouble begins. There is then no winnowing away, there is the discovery of depth.

Does Jesus represent one of the 84,000 Dharma doors?

                                         Image via Wikipedia

I would guess that at least some long time visitors and friends for this site, as well as new visitors who look at some of the site's history, will notice that the theme was mostly Buddhist in nature and is less so over the past 12-18 months.  At least overtly Buddhist, as in bearing the trappings of (East) Asian culture. There are still posts that are "Buddhist" even by this standard, but there has been much more on general spirituality and religion, interfaith issues, and Christian themes.  Some of this is partially explained by the background page I created.

As I alluded to there and elsewhere, I am not trying to "put a yak's head on a cow's body".  I don't think Christianity are Buddhism are the same religion or that should be stitched together as one; they clearly have different perspectives, backgrounds, and methods. They come from different cultures and have developed around specific concerns.  That does not mean that they cannot both reflect touching or learning from the same ground of wisdom, or that they aren't sisters.  They can be unique and still have the same mother.  In fact, we can see examples of how they both approach similar concerns very differently, yet underneath may be lurking a common thread.  In fact, it is the fact that they each diverge widely in some ways while retaining some key fundamental similarities that makes them more compatible to me.  Rather than trying to cover the same ground, and hence being directly in conflict, there distinctiveness allows them to be complementary. This gives them quite a bit they can learn from each other, an interesting interconnection between East and West. In it much like the yin and yang combining in the classic Taoist symbol, as I am holding both traditions in a dynamic tension.

I have always found Buddhist sutras, poetry and prayers, particularly of the East Asian/Mahayana traditions, to be very inspiring and moving.  The affirmation they offer, the consistently peaceful and empowering imagery and message, on occasion provokes a faint but endearing sense approaching what I imagine the sacred is like.  But I sometimes get fatigued with some elements of Western Buddhism, which ever so lightly imply they or their tradition is better than those "religious people" (there are those deny Buddhism is a religion because of the baggage they associate with that term), especially those from Western/Abrahamic religions.  I admit to once being tempted to feel the same way, to feel bodhier than thou. And while I may not look down on Christianity as a whole anymore, I am still tempted to be less than charitable towards those who have been loosely labeled fundamentalists.

On the other hand, I've been drawn to several traditions in East Asian Buddhism (Chinese Pure Land, Shin, Chan, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, etc), and have had a hard time consistently following one or finding groups to meet with. That of course can be seen as providing an opportunity to create new inroads and build something, but it also means much less support for someone who needs it.  There is also a kind of energy in Buddhism as it propagates out of Asia, a vitality and an enthusiasm that captures the imagination and the heart.  Ironically, in places like Japan, Buddhism is said to be slowly turning into a funeral religion. That is, people turn to it for major occasions in life; since those who practice it tend to be older, the most common occasion is, of course, the end of life. This trend is also seen in the Christian equivalent of East Asia for Buddhism. i.e. Europe (and by extension the United States). Old school and mainline Christian denominations have been on the decline for decades. Yet newer incarnations that have their roots in the first half of the 20th century such as Pentecostalism are making waves in the old territories, much like groups such as the Soka Gakkai have in Japan. And these Christian movements also have quite the vitality as they spread into places like Latin America and Africa.

We know Jesus, and the Buddha, and the rest too well

Or to put it more accurately, in many ways we don't really know them at all.

I have alluded before to something that many theologians have known for a long time, something I didn't come up with on my own, that in many ways Jesus was a radical.  That isn't to say he was a raving ideologue, or some kind of Jewish anarchist.  From the depictions we have of him he favored quiet, peace and rest as well as good times with friends and family.  He also appears to have been very observant, going to the temple, singing the Psalms, and reading from the Torah.  Yet he saw past clinging blindly to the letter of the law and ignoring its spirit, in which he revealed its source and intent: love for God and for neighbor.  No interpretation of religious law that defied this mandate could be genuine and no secular law that ignored it could be just.

Then there were the early churches.  I've heard they initially shunned the iconography of the cross.  It isn't surprising.  The cross in that era was a sign of shame, terror and agony.  It was the visible symbol of what happened to those who defied Rome and its Emperor.  To look at a cross was to look at the power of the largest known empire in the world and its dominion over your life.  To have taken up the cross as their own symbol, the members of the church would have been doing what so much of the Gospels did, inverting familiar signs of power and meaning.  It was an act of defiance.  What you proclaim as death we proclaim as life.  What you intended to cause despair has become a source of hope.  But how can that symbol carry the same impact today?

The tension between tradition and revelation

***Note: I thought I'd published this months ago and I've been going mad looking for it.  It may or may not appear to be congruent with the development of my thoughts,  but it was intended to be up around July 4, 2010.***

Following up on previous thoughts on the tension between received wisdom and unfolding revelation I examine that tension in the issue of salvation as it is framed by Christianity. Note that my thoughts on these matters, especially what it means to know or follow Jesus, will almost certainly offend or unhinge someone, so if you are really wound uptight on such issues, be forewarned.

There are some common/popular traditional ideas to be addressed, so let's look at each of them in turn:

Solid rock or shifting sand?

Image via Wikipedia

How does one have faith in events such as the Christian teaching of the resurrection of Jesus?  Is it just agreeing because other people say they believe it?  Is belief in such a case solely matter of accepting or rejecting an idea?  A historical proposition? Or is it a matter of heartfelt trust and experience-inspired insight?

To try to make such an event into a mere historical fact or a mere historical falsehood or just a metaphor or any other easily accepted and comprehended label is a stumbling block because it denies or ignores the mystery at the heart of the matter.

As I am slowly coming to see it, if it were a simple thing that could be fully comprehended and conclusively decided at the level of our ordinary intellect, then it would just be an idea to reject or accept based on everyday standards for ideas. Instead, events such the Paschal mystery (including that of the Resurrection and the Ascension) are explored by living them out through liturgy and charity.

Oh, They've Encased Jesus in Carbonite

[Yes, this post is long by blog standards and in a world of twittering and texting, but I've examined the matter and breaking this up into smaller posts really screws up its flow and cohesion, so suck it up and wade in... :o) ]

People have long used images like keeping God in a little wooden box, so I thought I would use an image more familiar to my generation. Jesus is alive, and in perfect hibernation. Frozen forever in a familiar form, easily pictured and understood. Come and kneel - pray before the Carbonite Jesus. He always looks the same, an image inert in time and space - oh how we love thee, Carbonite Jesus.

For those not familiar with my reference, Jesus was a first century Rabbi in Palestine who was executed for sedition. A holy man and reported miracle worker, many of his followers would claim he was/is the son of God. The other reference is to a process by which Darth Vader planned to immobilize his son, Luke Skywalker, for transport his master Emperor Palpatine in the film The Empire Strikes Back.

What is known about the teachings of Jesus emphasize the Hebrew prophetic tradition of emphasizing that obedience to God is to love God and to love others, and that the other Jewish laws must be understood in this context. Hence Jesus took up a call similar to the prophets recorded in the "Old" Testament to be humble and to identify with and serve the weak and the powerless. After his death his followers reported he had been resurrected (not resuscitated, merely bringing his old body back to life). Further, many of his followers claimed he had ascended to Heaven.The early Christian community argued over whether he was a man who had become a god or who had achieved union with God and therefore divinity, or whether he was just God pretending to be a human in a flesh suit. Later his followers would reject both ideas, suggesting he was fully human and fully divine as an aspect of the Trinity. The specific details were left as a mystery of faith. Still others argued whether he arose in his old body, a new body, a body of matter, a body of spirit, or something else. The early community simply said he was resurrected and left an empty tomb. The specific details of his bodily resurrection were left as a mystery of faith.

Many of his followers saw his death and resurrection as an indication of God's solidarity with humanity, an opportunity to participate in divinity as fellow children of God. Trusting in the insights offered by the Gospels and following the example of Jesus were seen as a means of salvation, of transcending a limited life characterized by alienation from an appreciation of the intimate presence and unyielding love of God. Early on, following Jesus was often to defy tradition and what was comfortable and conventional, to be liberated in a way that even death could not taint or corrupt. Such joy and freedom saw Christianity spread and eventually become a state religion, and after this marriage of tradition and politics it became a world religion.

Throughout the centuries as Western history marched on, Christianity became the primary religion of Europe, subject to the influences of politics, bureaucracy, tribalism, racism, regionalism, and eventually nationalism. As the currency of power and control it attracted both noble and ignoble leaders and challengers. Councils were held to formalize and standardize the religion, schisms formed, reformations erupted, and in the background of war and peace and justice and injustice was the crucifix, the cross, and the statues and paintings of Christ and his family and followers. Like all religions and human institutions, the hopes and fears of hundreds of generations became woven into the theologies and practices of those receiving the tradition.

But what ever became of Jesus?

I don't think that provincialism or tribalism is a great way to assess the universal validity of something, so after I left conservative fundamentalist Protestantism and went in and out of anti-spiritual/anti-religious atheism, I got to know a lot more about other world religions as well as some indigenous/Earth-based traditions. I studied Buddhism broadly and centered my specific focus on East Asian (especially Japanese) forms of Mahayana Buddhism, though I had and keep a soft spot for the incredible writings and teachings of figures like the 14th Dalai Lama. And like the hundreds, possibly thousands of others in this kind of situation, having matured a bit about the nature and importance of religion and spirituality, and how it is (in)appropriately expressed in various ways, I naturally got interested in interfaith efforts and insights. This led me to find figures and ideas in historical and contemporary Christianity I hadn't been aware of before, especially the contemplative and mystical dimensions and the broader view of the value of the Gospels and the liturgies of the more sacramental forms of Christianity and the power of practicing forms of devotion.

These authors* - Br. Wayne Teasdale, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. Thomas Keating, Br. David Steindl-Rast, and those like them were/are not trying to rewrite Catholicism or Christianity, but rather express the vision of Church and Christ and God that they had received from the Church and presumably from their devotion to Jesus. In addition I benefited from reading about the encounters and dialogues between accomplished Buddhist teachers and their Christian counterparts, as well from as those who had journeyed from one tradition to the other (and sometimes back again). The result may strike some as trying to recast Jesus and his ministry or his relevance to their theological views on life and death. That is not my intent.

Instead, the question that starts to take shape has to do with the essentials or fundamentals of Christianity. Obviously, the Orthodox, Roman Catholics and their primary offshoots can point to their catechism or the set of creeds to which they adhere, and the Fundamentalists were so named because of the pamphlet their ideological forebearers produced outlining what they viewed as the fundamentals of proper Christianity. I appreciate the importance of trying to have standards about important teachings so that they can be faithfully passed on and properly received from generation to generation, and I have no wish here to denigrate such efforts. Obviously, they were useful in guiding the spiritual development of past saints and visionaries often lauded by those who favor the mystic/contemplative dimensions of the Gospel like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, etc, as well as those contemporary Christian authors mentioned before.

But that only begs the question - are such traditions meant to guide and influence spiritual growth or to curtail it and box it in? How much latitude is there in interpretation and what is the value of practical personal experience? These questions have stirred controversy and dissent note only throughout the history of Christianity but also throughout the history of every major world religion. And is the goal of a religion merely to perpetuate itself intact from age to age or is it to remind us of the transformative insights and experiences of its founder(s) so that others may be guided and inspired in their own spiritual journey? I take the latter view.

Again, the earliest and most consistently enduring valued aspects of the Gospels (as far as I can tell) include the belief that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is an indication of God's solidarity with humanity and an opportunity to participate in his divinity as fellow children of God. To know God not as a distant, alien ruler or tyrant but as Abba - our Father. That trusting in the insights offered by the Gospels and following the example of Jesus are a means of salvation, of transcending a limited life characterized by alienation from an appreciation of the intimate presence and unyielding love of God. That following Jesus often means to defy convention and tradition in order to be liberated in a way that even death could not taint or corrupt.

This is what my intellect, my heart, and my conscience tell me is the most relevant and essential aspects of the Gospels and the Christian tradition. Everything else either points back to these basic beliefs or attempts to explain, rationalize, or justify them. Some of these additional efforts are useful for many, some are useful for a few. Some are logical and consistent with the values expressed in the basic beliefs mentioned above, others or inconsistent or tangential, either because they are anachronisms, culturally inappropriate, or because they came from a human need to control and exclude along tribal, regional, racial, economic, ethnic, or political lines.

Both Jesus and his apostles chose different ways of speaking to the people's understanding, to bridge the definitions/perception of divinity and humanity they work with. In Buddhism this is known as skillful or expedient means - sharing an essential truth in a way that is suitable to the audience. There were many stories that kings and rulers used to justify their legitimacy. Many of the ways of telling Christ's story inverted these standard tropes - for example being born in a manger. In other cases well-understood symbols were crossed or exaggerated to try to make a particular point to the audience. This was also true of the stories told after Christ's death.

Take substitutionary atonement. It works up to a point as a metaphor, but if it doesn't get you to the bigger picture, it leads to the strongest forms of Calvinism, of extreme judgmentalism and exlucisivism. The way I understand that particular theological model is that we are all already embraced by God but we cannot see it or accept it. It is our duality of thinking, of God and not-God, of exaggerating the objective reality of good and evil, that keeps us from accepting this truth and resting in God. This way of thinking, of a cosmic struggle, of us and them, is clearly expressed in the most concrete of terms in the Bible as the view of God alternates between a jealous and insecure sky-deity and an all-embracing Source of all that is becoming.

But that doesn't mean we are just supposed to accept that view without further thought or reflection, as the flat-thinking folks would have us believe. I believe it does however, when combined with what Christ taught, ask us to follow through. Christ had to die because we are the ones who see a distance between ourselves and God, because we give our faith to such distinctions. We are the source of alienation, and we don't know how to truly love ourselves and each other, to forgive ourselves and each other, to heal and allow ourselves to be healed. It isn't God's sense of justice that must be satisfied - it isn't God's sense of isolation and intrinsic autonomy that has caused the perception of a rift between ourselves and God (that is, it isn't God's sin) - it isn't God who ate from the fruit of the tree and divided the world into good and evil -it is our own doing. That is a fuller picture of how to appreciate substitutionary atonement in my humble opinion. In our sin we don't just act bad, we fail to achieve our full goodness - our full potential.

So what does all of this suggest about what happened to Jesus? From a panentheistic point of view, everything is Divine. A wave is made of water, but it isn't the entire ocean. If you get rid of all of the waves, eventually there is no more ocean, so to get to know the ocean, become familiar with the waves. The ocean itself is too vast to comprehend in an intellectual sense, but we can still go float in it and experience it directly (which is especially meaningful when we realize we are part of the ocean). The other half, that we can know the ocean by knowing a wave, is important to your question. It is reflected in the Jewish teaching that Jesus taught was supreme - that to know and love God is to know and love others. The Gospels paint a picture of someone who embraces and embodies this Wisdom and lives the teaching every day, every moment, including his willingness to give up his life.

Jesus reminds us we are not lost and dies to make sure we know we are found - that any possible reason we might cling to that we think would keep us from God is no longer an obstacle. Details about his divinity and his resurrection are generally considered mysteries of the faith. Points where we can never receive a complete or satisfactory answer and which are therefore left as a matter of faith. Panentheism, for example, is just as good an analogy as any but like all such systems it is ultimately incomplete and just a useful guide marker on the spiritual journey. Yet we also have the ascension. In this Jesus returns to God/goes to Heaven. To the heart of Creation, which is constantly unfolding. To the Ground of Being and the Source of Becoming. In other traditions this might be referred to as the non dual coexistence of Shunyata and the Pure Land, the Dharmakaya, the Tao.

In this sense, historically, as the stories of the resurrection and ascension spread and became incorporated into The Way (which would later become better known as Christianity), and symbolically, Jesus in the Christian tradition comes to be understood in cosmic terms, as the face and substance of the phenomenological aspect of reality (or of form, to use the Buddhist equivalent). Hence, as folks such as Fr. Keating like to describe it (adding in Mystic/Buddhist subtitles), the Father (Ground of Being/Source of Becoming) empties himself into the Son (the phenomenological or historical dimensions of existence), and the Son empties himself into the Father. Or as the Heart Surtra frames it, form is no other than emptiness**, emptiness no other than form - form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. They are not really two, but one. Of course in Christian tradition there is a trinity that is one, not a duality. In such a scenario the third part of the trinity is in found in the act of transformation itself - that which helps to define the other two elements and which demonstrates they are simply different aspects of the same. Hence it is supposedly what we "receive" when we realize our own connection to God through the person of Jesus.

There are loads of implications for what it means to have the symbol of love and peace and God's solidarity with Creation being at the heart of Creation as it is constantly formed and reformed. Many of have been pondered ceaselessly, and others likely have yet to be realized. But among them is the denial that "the world", as used in a pejorative sense in the Christian tradition, simply means the physical world, because Christ is at the heart of it. (Again, I think it is the false world we make for ourselves in our delusion, samsara; I also have a thought on what this could mean for sacraments like the Eucharist.) It would also entail a respect for all things inspiring peace and love, since these also must come from Christ. Hence Christ can be heard when a Buddhist chants Nam(u) Myoho Renge Kyo, or Nam(u) Amitofo/Amida, or Om Mane Padme Hung, and in that moment the Buddhist cultivates a respect for all living things or an awareness of his own connection to a larger reality filled with wisdom and compassion. Hence Christ can be seen when a professed atheist works to teach poor children to read out of respect and love for humanity.

But too often, however we have heard of Christ, either from a traditional or non-traditional perspective, as a King, as a Redeemer, or even as a dashboard Buddy, we tend to lock him into a fixed and familiar form. To follow him is often reduced to following a rigid prescription of activities using the right materials and affirming the right beliefs without question, and to reject him is to reject this setup. To grow our understanding of God and Jesus by going beyond the Bible and the cross or whatever we have attached to our fixed image of Jesus is unthinkable, even when this doesn't mean rejecting the Bible or the cross, even when this enhances and builds on our understanding of the Bible and the cross. Clark Strand suggests in his book (How to Believe in God) that often such folks are half-believers, that is, they aren't secure enough or deep enough into the insights of their own faith to be able to appreciate other perspectives. They limit God and they limit Jesus to working only within the familiar and traditional confines of the religion humans created to honor and follow Jesus, which in a way is tragically ironic. This isn't an insult towards the Church, but an observation of successes and failures of the institutions of the Church (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, etc) in creating and correcting such phobia of anything that doesn't officially "look" or "sound" properly "Christian".

[Anecdote: I recently observed a Protestant Fundamentalist reacting with horror to a Catholic suggesting that those who don't truly know Christ and his saving grace can still realize salvation because the truth, if not overt Christianity, is written in their hearts. The Fundamentalist was, at least in his typed reply, almost apoplectic. I would, theoretically at least for the sake of argument, go a little further (given this premise and assuming a less limited view of Jesus) and suggest that even ex-Christians, who knew all the theology and felt joy and power in their lives, who believed all the creeds etc, may not have fully known or understood, in a personal way, what Jesus really represents and who he is. This is not a lame attempt to say they were never really Christians, etc, but rather to suggest that any Jesus or God we can truly and completely dump in our heart of hearts and live without doesn't seem like it would be the complete and full legit article, does it? And the ones who go to Hell are supposedly the ones how are truly aware of Christ and the fullness of his grace and mercy and reject him anyway. This in turn to me implies again the universalist view of Christ. Rather than suggesting that these people are going to Hell because they don't believe in Jesus, we can argue they are not because they haven't actually rejected Jesus. That the point of such a teaching would actually seem to be that no one can possibly reject the actual full and genuine experience of the grace of God, whatever package it comes in (or conversely we could say that so long as we do reject such grace the state we live in would be Hell). And that the package doesn't have to come stamped with a little Cross and a Bible verse. I didn't mention these potential extrapolation of their debate though as I was afraid the one fellow might blow a gasket!]

Each of us has the temptation to take what we think about some revelation we perceive as being from God, in this case the life, example, and status of Jesus, and turn it into an idol. Something convenient. Something comfortable. Something we think we can control. Each of us at some point or another has given into this urge, even if we never used the language of religion or spirituality. And for those whose understanding of God is centered in the person of Jesus, we have all taken our turn at freezing him in carbonite. But Christ's message above all was about liberation, whether couched in terms of salvation or redemption, and perhaps one of the most difficult things one can do if one is inspired by and wants to follow Jesus is to let go of the confining certainty of a few scraps of dogma and scripture for the entire package of tradition AND the living Christ.

It's always best to use practical concrete examples, and great case in point can be found in this recent story about the concern over an Episcopal priest who practices Zen, in which people focus on form and emptiness and generate compassion for all living things...

Unofficial tallies show that an Episcopal priest who practices Zen Buddhist meditation and holds controversial theological views will not likely be consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Northern Michigan.


James Tonkowich, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, however, argued, "The issue is not whether meditation is good, it is what is being meditated on."


"While church leaders may respect other faiths, their vow of Christian ordination has always meant an exclusive commitment to Jesus Christ and the Christian faith."


Responding to criticisms of Thew Forrester's Buddhist meditation, Rustin Kimsey, retired bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Oregon, said, "[W]hen did the way in which we are deepened into the presence of God become a litmus test for being a follower of Jesus Christ?"


Source

Excellent question, Bishop Kimsey, excellent question.


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*It should not be assumed that because these or other author's mentioned may have helped inspire or flesh out the theology and Christology presented here that they would actually agree with my views.

**form refers to phenomena, including anything we can perceive with our senses or conceptualize in our minds; emptiness refers to lack of intrinsic or inherent qualities, that is, it refers to the fact that all form is inter-dependent and transient. Emptiness also refers to potential, the potential upon which existence is based. Hence all forms are interconnected through cause and effect by way of emptiness. The upshot is that all things, including all people and every moment, are fleeting and unique, irreplaceable and therefore valuable beyond measure; it also implies a fundamental equality of all people as well.

Mahayana Buddhist (or Mystical Christian) Available. All offers considered.

I am into (and you can readily search for scads of posts in which I elaborate on the following):

• the idea that salvation of the Bodhisattva (or any other kind of the spiritual variety) cannot be complete unless all are saved, and that the implication of stories abiut figures like Dharmakara becoming Amida suggest that we are all already resting in the wisdom and compassion of the Ultimate, of Becoming, or God, however you like to phrase it.

• following that line, things like grave offenses aren't unforgiveable or an excuse to exclude some from salvation - it simply means one who is in that kind of deluded state is not able to perceive the truth underlying liberation at that moment.

• the underlying nature of liberation is the appreciation that there is only Buddhanature and that all else is delusion, hence the teaching that "samsara is nirvana", implying in the contradiction that there is in truth only nirvana except for those deluded into believing in a separate, distinct, intrinsic existence of any phenomena from the source of all phenomena. In other parlance, we are all already saved and hell and suffering is something we inflict on ourselves and each other - so stop it already!

• focusing on transforming desire from selfish cravings that come from a sense of isolation/uncertain incompleteness into a positive motivation to improve the world and assist others born from a sense of unity/inherent wholeness, from the insecurity of a deluded being to the confidence of Bodhisattva. This is sometimes phrased as another seeming contradiction, "passions/desires are enlightenment".

• the claim that it can benefit people to pray for whatever they want. It may seem like a contradiction of the last statement about transforming desire, but it is actually a corollary, and perhaps a necessary one. A major obstacle to spiritual transformation is the fact that we find it hard to be honest. To really face up to what is in our hearts. So instead we put up a nice facade, even for ourselves, especially for ourselves, so we can try to think and say and so what we suppose we ought to think and say and do. But look at the Bible, especially the Psalms. Many of those prayers reveal selfishness, fear, anger, haughtiness, intolerance, impatience, etc. That is because true prayer involves pouring out your heart, not just making, stale, formal offerings.
  
  [The same is true for Buddhist prayer. If we aren't brutally honest about what is really in our heart, and if we don't pour it out, how can we then be filled with something else, something nobler? If we can't accept who we are, how can we become who we want to be? Of course, if we just pray or chant as if the object of our devotion was just a cosmic vending machine and hold something back, or fail to take in the examples of teachings of generosity and faith in our inherent wholeness/Buddhanature, then we will never experience transformation, but will remain at an infantile or juvenile phase of spiritual growth. Either we trust in the whole process or we simply become attached to some part of it, and not only do we fail to benefit but the would be cure becomes a poison. (Yes, it works both ways, poison to medicine, and vice versa.) Eventually our prayers come to more and more reflect our growing spiritual maturity and what is truly in our deepest heart of hearts as we excavate further and further with our practice into our true limitless compassion and wisdom at the root of our Being.]

• the idea you don't have to be explicitly Buddhist to appreciate or discover these ideas, nor use Buddhist terminology. In fact, getting too hung up on "Buddhism" can actually be very counterproductive. Many of these teachings are expressed in other sacred traditions, especially among those who practice what may be dubbed "contemplative/apophatic mysticism".

• the idea that focusing on these kinds of things as intellectual philosophy can lead one to a mistaken sense of accomplishment and a misleading arrogance, and that if you can't appreciate the more basic teachings at the more literal level, then you are missing out on necessary growth and expansion of nuanced perspective. It can lead to attachment to (presumptions about) emptiness, which is far worse than attachment to form. Far better to take the simple road and cultivate great faith than to be too clever to allow a true surrender of the lesser self ("ego") and an acceptance of that self (in its proper role) as as a part of a whole being/Buddha.

I guess that means that I am cleared to practice most major forms of Mahayana Buddhism, especially Nichiren Buddhism, Shin Buddhism, and whatever blend is present at the Buddhist Society of Compassionate Wisdom, which suggests that the five major pronouncements of Mahayana teachings include:

1. All sentient beings are buddhas.


2. Samsara is Nirvana.


3. One's passions are enlightenment.


4. We are an interrelated whole.


5. Everyday life is the Way.

I am also open to Christianity via my appreciation of Panentheism and my appreciation of Christ in that faith as the premier incarnation/avatar of the Divine in his role as the Cosmic Christ, with God (the Ultimate/Source of Becoming) seen as a father and in which Jesus represent form/the phenomenal world, linked by each giving utterly of each other through love (i.e. the Holy Spirit). The Gospels then are a revelation of God's solidarity with humanity in all things, including the worst suffering, and of course the death of the limited self to reborn to our greater nature, the example of the law of love through sacrifice, etc, etc, and many other similar signs and lessons in the life of Christ. It may sound complicated, but it isn't as far from many roots of contemporary and historical theology as some might suspect.

So yay. But I really wish I had a home base, if you will, to operate from. Anyone want to make any suggestions or offers? Oh where do I belong?

The changing tone of (God as presented in) the Bible

I first saw this verse in the film Into Great Silence, a documentary video about life among a group of Carthusian monks...

And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:

And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

1 Kings 19:11-12

In the New International Version "still small voice" is translated as "gentle whisper".

Take four water bottles. Pour out differing amount of water from each and have the same person blow their breath equally over the top of each bottle. Now take the bottles and freeze them and repeat the experiment. Now crush them and repeat the experiment. The same gentle breath produces wildly different tones depending on the condition of each bottle.

The gentle breath is the Divine. The bottles are individual people. The tones are how people experience the Divine. So some here a loud a violent sound, others a proud and judgmental sound, others mocking a echo. But it isn't the wind that is different, it is the condition of the bottle. In other words, it isn't the Divine that produces these differences, but the state of the individual. The state of the mind, of the heart. Thus some perceive the Divine in one way, and some in another, depending on how well the Divine resonates within them. An obstructed or damaged vessel will not be able to produce a pure sound. And this does not reflect an imperfection in the individual, per se, but rather a limitation in being fully open to the Divine. By the time the sound filters through the doubt, self-centeredness and delusion, if it is heard at all it may sound harsh, or terrible, or shrill. So it's more about losing the obstructions rather than gaining perfection.

This can be expanded to suggest that "the soul" is the lens or perspective through which we experience God, which explains the calls in Judaism and early Christianity to heal or sooth the soul, and it generates some interesting ways to understand terms such as Kingdom of God, Heaven and Hell.

This lens is the aspect of ourselves with which we consciously experience the Divine. It's another way of describing what is discussed above in terms of perception and reception. A wounded soul would be like the damaged vessel through which the Divine may sound harsh, terrible, etc. So healing or soothing the soul would refer to clearing and calming this lens - the depth of the heart. Hence a healed or soothed soul can truly hear/experience the Divine in a more complete, wholesome, and virtuous way.

As mentioned this also has interesting implications for concepts such as the Kingdom of God, Heaven, and Hell, especially as states of being. In Buddhism it is said that the world of suffering and delusion and the world of bliss and perfection are not two separate world but one world. In one state (of delusion) the world is a place of suffering, while in another state (of perfection, or freedom from delusion) is a place of bliss. In one view we only see the worst of ourselves and others, while in another we experience their true wonder and beauty as well as our own, hidden from our normal sight. Which isn't a denial of the horrible things people may do, but rather an insight that this is a tragic aberration born of ignorance of our true natures, a condition which is gradually irresistibly being transformed and overcome.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
(The following was added months later as an addendum...)

To elaborate then, if you have vengeance in your heart, you will want a God of terrible retribution. Maybe a neighboring culture speaks of such a deity, so you borrow that and add it to your own religion. The Old Testament itself as well as Biblical scholars point to such influences from other cultures in the region. These influences are thought to be responsible for the most repugnant of the images and passages in these part of scripture.

Then there are prophetic passages which imply that our actions have consequences. In this case, it isn't that God is threatening anyone, but saying "Hey, if you do X then Y will come to pass." Sometimes Y is literal and sometimes Y is metaphorical or figurative. But they are warning for our own benefit. Many of the claims for bullying or intimidation in the OT are of this variety. In some cases, God is proactive. In the story of Babel, people like to look at elements like "God had to go down to see the tower" and ask how that makes sense for an omnipresent being. Which of course misses the point - the story isn't a blow for blow recap but a warning about the dangers of vanity. In this case, it is a story that is as relevant today as ever. The people were trying to build a tower to get to God, i.e., to use their cleverness, technology, and other mental gifts to find God. Just like some people today think they can use science to either prove or disprove God, as if God could be contained in human conceptions or formulas. He destroys the tower and scatters the people for their own good. The story also suggests that one language or culture doesn't have a stranglehold on knowing God.

Closely related to this is the most direct point of the lesson about the heart that I mentioned above - in other words, the message is, if you think or act like that, God will (appear to be) like this. Some interpret the scariest pat of the New Testament - the Book of Revelations, in this fashion with the latter perspective. Humans who are ignorant and deluded and sinful will feel they are pitted against God and like God is giving them tribulations and punishments. Because they cannot forgive or open their heart they give in to unreal fantasies and terrors, but in their actions based on such paranoia and distortion they are truly capable of bringing destruction and devastation and a very real hell on earth. Those who surrender their delusion and suffering and enter the Kingdom see the world in a completely new and different way as per the end of Revelations. [See How to Believe in God (Whether or Not You Believe in Religion) for a more complete view of this interpretation.]

And yes, in the place of or in addition to all of this there are those who see the Bible as an ongoing dialogue, a conversation between humans and God, and that as culture's mature the visions of God that are acceptable also changes.

Contemplative Prayer and God

Contemplative prayer "can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized." It is "the experiential grasp of reality as subjective, not so much 'mine' (which would signify 'belonging to the external self') but 'myself' in existential mystery..." and "the humble realization of our mysterious being as persons in whom God dwells, with our infinite sweetness and inalienable power." It is not "mere inertia, a tendency to inactivity, to psychic peace", it is not "trance or ecstasy, nor the hearing of sudden unutterable words, nor the imagination of lights", and neither is it "the emotional fire and sweetness that come with religious exaltation" nor "the sense of being 'seized' by an elemental force and swept into mystical liberation by mystical frenzy." One shouldn't expect "an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. Contemplative prayer is not a form of 'spiritual anesthesia.' " In fact "the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is." Rather one discovers that "there is no 'what' that can be called God" and instead God "is the the 'Thou' before whom our inmost 'I' springs into awareness."

-originally quoted from New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, pp.6, 8, 9-13, 15; excerpts taken from Prayer for People Who Think Too Much by Mitch Finley

"It is just this idea of religion which makes any understanding of religion impossible. If you start with the question whether God does or does not exist, you can never reach Him; and if you assert that He does exist, you can reach Him even less than if you assert that he does not exist. A God whose existence or nonexistence you can argue is a thing beside others within the universe of existing things... It is regrettable that scientists believe that they have refuted religion when they rightly have shown that there is no evidence whatsoever for the assumption that such a being exists. Actually, they have not only not refuted religion, but they have done it a considerable service. They have forced it to reconsider and to restate the meaning of the tremendous word God. Unfortunately, many theologians make the same mistake. They begin their message with the assertion that there is a highest being called God, whose authoritative revelations they have received. They are more dangerous for religion than the so-called atheistic scientists. They take the first step on the road which inescapably leads to what is called atheism. Theologians who make of God a highest being who has given some people information about Himself, provoke inescapably the resistance of those who are told they must subject themselves to the authority of this information."

-Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, pp.3

"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him."

-Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, volume 1, pp.206

What to do when there is nothing to attain?

The blog Echoes of the Name recently published a great quote about authentic religion not addressing our "self-seeking demands." This is true for all such demands or desires, even the notion of attaining Buddhahood. I have a nice list of quotes I keep around. They talk about Buddha-nature and its pervasive presence. They emphasize that you are never really separate from Buddha-nature, and imply that you therefore cannot somehow earn it or work towards it.

This idea has been discussed before. It is really popular on English-speaking blogs and message boards concerning Buddhism. It is a major aspect of (Mahayana) Buddhist teachings as they are being transmitted to the west. In response to the quote at Echoes, I commented:

Which is why it is so hard for us. We always want to fix, to solve, to reconcile, to mend, to complete… And, of course, when a Zen monk or a Shin teacher or other Buddhist guide on the path (or even someone from another tradition such as a contemplative Christian religious) tells us that, in ultimate terms, there is nothing to attain and nothing to grasp, many of us tend to become despondent, or suspicious, or frustrated (nor are those mutually exclusive reactions).


“What is wrong with this moment?” asks the Zen teacher.


“Rest in the Vow of Amida,” suggests the Shin lay minister.


“Let go and let God,” offers the Christian priest.


“Yeah, but– but–” we reply.


That would mean transcending the small-self (ego) is accepting small-self, which requires sacrificing the small-self, which is an act of surrender.

If you search the blog archive here you will find a substantial amount about the idea of surrender. In a recent post I talked about some of the commonalities of many Buddhist practices which are relevant to the idea of "non-attainment" and "non-separation". I wrote, "In Chan/Zen, there is nothing to attain. In Shin, there is nothing to do. In Nichiren Buddhism, one must not seek enlightenment outside of oneself. In Dzogchen, one is to experience 'natural great perfection.' And on and on it goes." This of course related to a post I have been citing written at the Amida-Ji-Retreat-Temple-Romania blog written by Josho Adrian Cirlea (as one can easily discover I like to frequently recycle quotes I find useful):

Many Buddhist practitioners are like a man staring at the sun, but with his body in a hole full of shit. He is always looking at the sun, but he never realizes that his body is drowned in shit. Here the sun represents the ideal – Buddhahood to be attained through his own powers. This ideal is of course very beautiful and the practitioner always like to stare at it and to take delight in many beautiful words about Enlightenment, emptiness, Buddha-nature, that we are all Buddhas-to-be, etc. The hole of shit is his true reality of the here and now, his deep karmic evil, his limitations, attachments and blind passions that cover all his body and mind...

I often meet with people that talk a lot of the fact that we all posses Buddha-nature and because of this there is nothing that we have to do, but just realize this truth in our mind. They are always full of wise quotes from Buddhist masters and sages of the past from various schools, about Buddha-nature, emptiness, etc. Usually this kind of people try many types of practices, always going here and there, never being totally satisfied with any school or teacher...

I once tried to write about why, then, there is any point to practice if there is nothing to attain. Ironically, the way some advocates of Shin seem to describe their faith, there is no point. But I think it might be more accurate to say that there is no point to do practices intended to accomplish or done with the objective of "obtaining enlightenment". Otherwise, I might agree with the notion that once you have realized something like "shinjin" you are better off not getting into "practices" such as seated meditation.

Of course, many (most? all?) Zen teachers will remind their students that there is no "good" or "bad" practice, just practice. Throw away the mental yardstick of progress. Let go of the blinders of expectations. Coming from this perspective there is nothing to attain - only to accept, only to realize. And we could go on with other traditions. Yet that still leaves the question - why practice? Not just formal liturgical observances, but even our "every day" practice? If the practices aren't to "get us" to enlightenment, then what the heck are we doing?

Having mentioned here the importance of acceptance and surrendering the ego, I refer now to something else that reflects my attempts to clarify these issues in my own mind, particularly an small addendum I wrote after describing seated meditation as a form of surrender:

I am not suggesting there is nothing else “to do”. In fact, it would be closer to the other way around. That is, such meditation, whether done while seated, while standing, while walking, while brushing our teeth, etc, doesn’t get us anywhere, it just reminds us where we are. The result to which I am alluding then, the peace in the turmoil, is not “the end” either (a concept which, when related to our practice, we could all do without). Again, that is about remembering what, who, and where we are. Nor is it escapism – it is not a static blissed-out obliviousness to the world around us.

There is still work we can do, but not for the “sake of” attaining such abiding confidence. The work of the Bodhisattva path, as this ego-centric, un-ordained, and overly outspoken lay Buddhist currently understands it, rests on this all-embracing affirmation that is beyond any concepts like attainment. That work rests on it, it abides with it, and the Bodhisattva finds the will and energy to do this work through it: to cultivate ethics, concentration, and wisdom through the Eightfold Path, to embody the six paramitas, to uphold the foundation of the three Pure Precepts.

Looking back at an earlier attempt to answer the question, "Why practice if there is nothing to attain?", I find the following conclusion:

To expand a little, one means of expressing teaching about Buddha-nature is to say we all have access to it/are unified with it, but not everyone actualizes/realizes it. Some people then think, 'Oh, so I'm a Buddha, great, then I don't need to practice, because there is nothing to attain.' Which, in a way, I believe, is correct. There is nothing to attain. The problem is that while it is true we already are/possess/have access to Buddha-nature, that there is nothing to attain, we still do strive to attain the things we crave, the things that validate the tiny ego of the selfish mind. So while it would be nice if people really did grasp the need for/directly experience non-attainment in actualizing/realizing Buddha-nature just by hearing that they are Buddhas, our ingrained tendencies and unrealistic views about ourselves unfortunately require some weeding of our hearts and minds (the middle line of the proverb about the mountains and the rivers is not inconsequential). So then the cultivation spoken of in Buddhism isn't to try to "get" or "grow" the seeds of Bodhi, but to keep out the weeds so that what is already always growing in our hearts can bloom. Hence my recent citation in another recent post of the saying "The Way doesn't need cultivation. Just don't pollute it" (Ch'an ancestor Mazu)

I find now that this answer simply begs the question, why should we care about our grasping?

Looking just above at my quote about the work of a Bodhisattva resting in and being powered by "this all-embracing affirmation" of our Buddha-nature, then the reason for practice isn't self-powered salvation, as some may view it, but rather an act of deep compassion. The practices aren't selfish or strictly for ourselves and our own attainment, but, as the Bodhisattva Vows remind us and challenge us, they really are for the benefit of all sentient beings. The practices then can be seen as an outpouring of our gratitude and realization and a desire to limit or end any further harm we may be causing.

The grace of Buddhanature, of Dharmakaya, of the Inconceivable Clear Light of Ultimate Reality, manifests from the realm of the unconditioned as compassion in the conditioned world (the historical realm of time and space) through the wisdom perceived by finite, karmically bound sentient beings. By those receptive to such insight, not in spite of their failings but at least in part because of them. The story repeats itself in various religious and spiritual paths. In the end, it may be that genuine practice, whether it is through mantra/dharini recitation, focused concentration, etc, is not done because we want to (so we can feed the ego) or because we feel obligated to (so we can feed the ego), but because we are compelled to do so. Not because we are driven to complete or correct our imperfections through our own efforts at self-improvement but because we are grateful for seeing that we are (all) capable of accepting and transforming such "flaws" through faith. Faith in Mind. Faith in Amida. For some, perhaps faith in a figure from another spiritual tradition. Or as Sharon Salzberg memorably phrased it, faith in "the possibility of our own awakening."

Buddhism and the Divine

From a book I recently finished reading...

When the Buddha was asked if God exists, he responded by smiling and simply holding up a lotus flower. I believe that the Buddha's enigmatic response holds immense significance, but its meaning must be gleaned from the Hindu tradition, out of which the Buddha taught. When the Buddha responded to this important question, he was drawing on his knowledge of the great Chandogya Upanishad. This oldest of the 108 Upanishads was composed 1,200 years before the Buddha's birth, and in its oral tradition, may be a thousand years older:

In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within that can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there, and we should want to know him. And if anyone asks, "Who is he who dwells in a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower in the center of the castle of Brahman? Whom should we want to find and know?" We can answer: "The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars; fire and lightning and winds are there; and all that now is and all that is not; for the whole universe is in Him and he dwells within our heart."

This Upanishad, I suggest, was the very text the Buddha had in mind. The Buddha was communicating a simple truth: God does exist but is a matter of experience accessed through meditation. The Buddha was directing his listeners' attention not simply to this text, but more basically to the experience of looking within, to the lotus of the heart, where the Divine dwells.

-Wayne Teasdale, A Monk In The World, pp.194-195

Three quick points:

• For those who don't like "Him", I think it would work just as well with "this One" instead
• Based on his writings, Teasdale's view of God is dynamic via process theology and often sounds more like the Tao or a personification of shunyata (emptiness) rather than an all-powerful static superbeing concerned with titles and honors.
• Teasdale isn't saying Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism, but rather that the Buddha's cultural references would be rooted in this literary tradition

Given these considerations, what do you think of this idea?

Might be a good responsive reading for an interfaith congregation.

Then I ran across a Beliefnet article from a Trappist monk, James Finley, who studied with Thomas Merton and with a connection to the Christian interfaith dialogue with the sacred traditions of the East. The essay, "Your Journey Into God", is an excerpt from his book Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God. Much of the excerpt sounds like a Buddhist monk talking about Bodhi or awakening to the Highest Perfect Wisdom...

"The path to God is like that. God is already here, all about us and within us—the very source, ground, and fulfillment of our being. But, subject to the limitations of ego consciousness, we tend not to experience the divine mystery..."

for example, or even...

"As you sit given over to this simple intention of being present, open, and awake, neither clinging to nor rejecting anything, you are likely to experience just how inept we human beings are at doing such a simple thing as being simply present in the present moment..."

Do you find this inspiring? depressing? suspicious? Do you find it easy to accept this as a valid aspect of Christian practice? Buddhist practice? Does the validity of the practice rest on being "properly" Christian or Buddhist?