Buddhists should not leave the Sangha, the community
just like Christians should not leave the Church
for it is hard to practice the faith without others.
The Sangha has arhats similar to Christian saints –
both arhats and saints can help us live fully.
But Sangha and Church leaders can serve or dominate you –
dominator hierarchies such as caste systems
exploit people and prevent individual/collective growth.
Growth/developmental/actualization hierarchies
lead humans from ego/ to ethnic/ to world/ to cosmos-centrism.
Many people, particularly men, are stuck in their lives:
afraid of introspection/pleasure/repressed emotion
disconnected from their bodies
asleep in patriarchal theocracies
but starting to wake up to their vulnerability/sensitivity.
Fear of being human
and information overload, a total head trip
is making Western Civilization neurotic –
the Asian belief in the richness of silence/
wordless wisdom/human wonder
is necessary and appealing
but fast disappearing.
However, bad discontent and good discontent exist in the West –
discontent with never having enough possessions/
always wanting more
and discontent with all the injustices in the world
that call one to take action.
In the East there are three main ways to God:
the way of the head – the way of intellect/knowledge/truth
the way of the heart – the way of emotion/devotion/beauty
the way of the gut – the way of will/action/goodness.
To Jurgen Moltmann, a European theologian
Christ’s death and resurrection, according to Colossians
reconciles and unites all three ways/all Creation/all creatures
so that the Cosmic Christ flows through all
and Creation, as Eastern Orthodox theologians say
is deified/filled with/fulfilled through
the Divine.
Intelligent Christian Spirituality 