Buddhism – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

UNITING EASTERN AND WESTERN RELIGION

The truly mature attitude is to stop fighting/

trying to eliminate your own shadow

and learning to accept and work with your shadow-energies –

all saints know they are sinners

and all sinners think they are saints

with no shadow.

All world religions including Catholicism and Protestantism

strive for greater spiritual freedom

but the opposite, for example

the Third Buddhist Precept on Sexuality: self-restraint –

what western religions call “chastity” –

is also meant to free individuals and society –

so many children/adults/couples

have been destroyed by sexual misconduct

and enslaved by sexual trafficking.

Many of the same teachings but using different words

are found in all the great religions:

chastity = sexual restraint

karma = sowing and reaping

but the challenge for western pioneers in eastern mysticism

Thomas Merton/Bede Griffiths/Raimundo Panikkar

was uniting Asian meditation

with a deep commitment to Jesus/Scripture/Tradition.

These pioneers who led us into the future

accomplished this union by reaching into the past

rediscovering the Desert Fathers/Mothers

and apophatic mystics like Meister Eckhart/Johannes Tauler/

Teresa of Avila/John of the Cross.

All these mystics, those in the West

and mystics in the East: Gandhi/Aurobindo/Rabindranath Tagore

knew that solitude and service are reciprocal:

true prayer results in service

and true service must be grounded in prayer/solitude.

In both East and West, small base communities

focused on spirituality and political activism

hold great promise for individual/social transformation –

all it took was the smallest base community –

twelve men and their Leader

to transform history and the entire world.

EASTERN AND WESTERN WAYS TO GOD

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.

WAR AND PEACE

In the Torah, Koran, and Aztec records

God was interpreted as being on our side

and therefore, when we go to war

it is a holy war and God’s will.

In the Trojan (Greek) and Mahabharata (East Indian) wars

God is on both sides, but you are called upon to do

your marital duty to free or reclaim a stolen spouse.

Humans always come up with some excuse

to make things better by killing other humans

therefore, we are always in a state of perpetual warfare.

Achieving justice and peace within major institutions

and religions cannot be achieved by individuals

it requires rigorous networking with others.

If not achieved that way, eventually there will be

serious revolt/storming of the barricades that protect power.

In spite of constant warfare and injustice

our lives are a process in which God

transforms us into holiness in ordinary ways –

holiness is God’s work

but requires our constant prayerful attention.

The two Saint Catherines: Genoa and Siena

made it clear that severe penance does not delight God

but rather unflagging reliance on God’s mercy.

The greatest gift of mercy to someone suffering

is your presence – full presence comes from either

Buddhist mindfulness or the Holy Spirit.

Mindfulness is like the Holy Spirit

in that both allow us to touch Ultimate Reality:

Trinity in Christianity and Nirvana in Buddhism.

Christ on the Tree of Redemption

and Buddha under the Bo Tree

are archetypal counterparts of the World Savior.

Whereas scientific truths are communicable

religious truths are not – they must be experienced

in silence and solitude. The solution to perpetual war

is to quietly promote the nonviolence of the Buddha

and the Prince of Peace.

CAST YOUR NETS INTO THE DEEP

The growing gap between theology and science

for five centuries meant religion got relegated

to the backburner of fixed abstract concepts

which couldn’t cope with a universe of dynamic change –

Isaac Newton believed God’s living commands

would be replaced by mathematical laws

and Darwin’s theory of universal evolution

destroyed the immutable world of religion.

We either accept our fixed views/beliefs/assumptions

about reality, or we challenge them –

to remain open and curious, according to Buddha

is the best use of our lives.

Evolution entails a continuous revolution

in consciousness that eventually expresses itself

in deeper religious understanding –

most Christians today are rethinking Augustine

who gave way too much weight to one verse:

“I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin

did my mother conceive me” Psalm 51:5.

The idea we all are sinners

right from the moment of conception

gave birth to the prevailing paradigm of Original Sin

and convenient communal amnesia about the verse

that God originally created everything

including us humans “very good” (Psalm 1:31).

Religious ideas in western Christianity

are now in flux/diverse/non-dogmatic

even in religious America only .05% believe

they or their neighbours will go to hell

and 70% believe many religions lead to eternal life –

contemporary atheists now seem to know more

about traditional Christian beliefs

than most Catholics and Protestants!

The request of Peter by Jesus

to cast his nets into the deep

was a symbolic invitation to us to go deep into our souls

and haul up a treasure of self-knowledge –

that, and communal remembering

and becoming mystics as Karl Rahner advocated

are the only ways we will make Christianity work again.

UNITY SURPASSING MODERNITY

The Perennial Philosophy highlighted

the “Great Nest of Being”

which was the universal worldview of humanity

until modernity reared its methuselah head.

Going beyond modernity

since the turn of the millennium has been

a growing awareness of commonality

between religions, and unity of all sciences –

a general visioning of all things as interrelated.

However major dualisms still persist:

heaven vs Earth/spirit vs body/human vs animal/

sacred vs secular – all these dualisms

which falsify life/nature/God

since God works thru both/and polarities

not either/or dualisms – God is in and beyond

the Earth/body/nature/culture/life.

Photosynthesis, one of the key factors in life

happened when chlorophyll molecules served everything

by capturing solar energy and converting it into

food and energy for others

3,000,000,000 years ago.

Nature serves us and Law serves us

and so our will delights in Law

but we cannot fulfill all laws

so the Cosmic Christ emerged from within the universe

as Jesus the Christ who lived under the Law

and experienced all our temptations/compulsions

in order to redeem/liberate us from the Law

with the Divine Love that goes beyond Law.

Following Jesus, Christian social action

finds God in politics/work/social programs –

anything that betters human life –

because Christ became human

and every human is another Christ

and we cannot let Christ live

in physical/spiritual squalor –

“As you do to the least, you do to Me”

– Jesus the Unitive Thinker in Matthew 25:40.

UNPOSSESSIVENESS

There is the historical Buddha, Guatama

and there is the living Buddha within us all

who, like the Image of God/Cosmic Christ within

transcends all space/time/concepts

and is constantly Present.

Saint Pope John Paul II wrote that Buddhism

is “negative atheism” but the Second Vatican Council

saw that “Buddhism recognizes the radical insufficiency

of this shifting world, and teaches a Way

to absolute freedom and supreme enlightenment

through our own efforts and higher assistance” –

presumably help from Bodhisattvas.

Buddhists practice detachment

but Meister Eckhart taught liberation

thru “unpossessiveness” –

detachment involves rejecting the world

but unpossessiveness makes us lighthearted

and free to follow God.

Even in our daily sufferings/frustration/pain

we can experience God’s action transforming us

if we are faithful to the Inner Calling

of the living Buddha/Image of God/Cosmic Christ.

Canadian poet/singer Leonard Cohen:

“There is a crack in everything –

that’s how the light gets in.”

Canadian folk legend/activist Bruce Cockburn:

“You have to kick at the darkness

till it bleeds daylight.”

You must fight to create the cracks

that let in the light.

But the 81 stanzas

of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

suggest the Way of Peace and Surrender

is always superior to the Way of Force.

THE CHRIST-MIND OF BUDDHA

The nuclear physicist David Bohm clearly explains

how a “particle view of matter”

harms all the sciences

as well as how we think and live

and therefore harms society and its future.

The universe is not a static framework

of separate particles – therefore if Jesu

is the Christ and alive today we need a Christology

that is organic/interrelated/dynamic/cosmic.

Buddhists have this with their cosmic lineage

of wonderful/interconnected/universal Buddhas –

when they say they believe in the Buddha

their faith is in this lineage not in the one

historical Buddha – Gautama – of our era.

The Buddha-mind or Buddha-nature

can be compared to the Image of God within us

or having the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16)/

being one spirit with Christ/the Cosmic Christ within.

This Buddha-mind/Christ-mind/Image of God within

integrates Buddhism/Christianity/Judaism –

we are all talking about the same thing.

A key concept for Meister Eckhart was conformity

to the mind of Christ/conformity to God/deiformity –

this union with God within us transforms our knowledge

of God/births God into the world/transforms the world

so that “our hands become gloves for the hands of God”

– Frederick Buechner

But John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola agree:

mystics open themselves to cosmic forces of good

and evil – many locutions and visions from the devil

are similar to those of God, therefore

constant discernment of spirits is necessary:

is this ecstatic rapture from the Holy One

or from the Father of Lies

and Deception?

HOW RELIGIONS CAN LIVE IN PEACE

If we want world peace, it is becoming increasingly crucial that Christianity and Islam get along. However, how can any religions get along? Religion, by its very nature, tends to take things to the limit, to globalize its beliefs and absolutize its truths. If my truth is absolutely true, your different truth must not be true.

This attitude generates conflict not only between religions, but also within religions. For example, Sunnis and Shiites have a long history of conflict in Islam, as do Protestants and Catholics in Christianity.

One attempt to solve this dilemma is the annual World Day of Prayer wherein the major Christian denominations try to pray together. Another effort is World Religion Day, usually in mid-January, in which the major religions get together and speak their truth about peace.

However, these approaches, while salutary, do not address the basic problem of how to handle conflicting truth claims. On the one hand, the Koran tells us that Islam is the true faith, Buddhism maintains the Buddha taught the true path, Christianity claims the absolute truth is Jesus Christ is Lord, and Hinduism asserts that Lord Krishna was divine.

On the other hand, every world religion also teaches wisdom, compassion, prayer, fasting, taking care of the needy, and avoiding evil. Given this, no one can say that every major religion is all wrong or all evil. All of them have at least some truth or goodness in them. So, how do we reconcile all this? There are four basic approaches to truth.

The first approach is that all religions are equally true and valid. However, this choice has to be rejected when you compare say rabbinic Judaism to Aztec religion with its human sacrifices in order to keep the sun-god rising, or when you compare say Voodoo cults with the sublime theology of Thomas Aquinas.

The second approach is that no religions are true. This is the stance of the atheist or the person who cannot reconcile all the competing assertions of absolute truth, and therefore decides that all religion must be nonsense.

However, this choice is not very satisfying either. Religion expresses the deepest insights of the human heart. To say there is no truth in any religion is to leave humanity in a truly hopeless situation.

The third approach is black and white religious truth. This is the attitude of “we are saints, you are sinners,” “we have all the answers, you don’t have any,” “only Catholics will be in heaven” or conversely “all Catholics are going to hell.”

This approach, when taken to its limit can result in self-righteousness and endless division, hatred, and war between religions and within them. Truth as black and white eventually disintegrates when you start to notice the shortcomings and sin in your own community and the virtue in others.

The fourth approach is degrees of truth. This choice has as its basic premise that there is truth in all the major religions, but some religions are truer than others.

This choice forces you to really study and weigh where you can honestly find the most truth, rather than just accepting or rejecting everything wholesale. This approach also allows you to be completely committed to your own tradition while at the same time being open to whatever degree of truth you find in other traditions. In fact, everyone could enrich their own tradition with the truths they found in other traditions.

Catholics could learn a lot about humble service and justice from the Salvation Army, peacemaking and community from Mennonites, preaching and Bible study from Baptists, and joyous worship from Pentecostals. Protestants could learn from Catholics about the riches of the sacraments, contemplative prayer, the saints, and church history.

Christians in general could learn from non-Christians: love of God’s law from Jews, detachment from Buddhists, a spirit of poverty from Hindus, and zeal for God from Muslims. These traditions could similarly learn a lot about forgiveness from Christians.

An objection from evangelical Christians might be “If we admit there is truth in all the major religions, why reach out to them with the good news of Jesus Christ?” The answer is simply that, if you believe Christianity to be truer than other religions, you will want to reach out to them with your greater truth. In the process you might learn why they believe they have the greater truth, and so understand each other better. This can only be good.

In a degrees of truth approach, every person is given the human right of freedom of religion and is free to believe that their religious tradition is truer than other traditions without absolutizing their tradition as the one and only truth.

“All religions are true” has great tolerance, but no commitment; “no religions are true” has no religious commitment or tolerance; “black and white religious truth” has commitment but no tolerance; only the “degrees of truth” approach has both the religious commitment and religious tolerance which together can lead to world peace.

Bruce Tallman is a spiritual director and religious educator of adults. btallman@rogers.com

WHAT THE POSTMODERN WORLD NEEDS NOW

The most important role for religion in the postmodern world

is to act as a sacred conveyor belt

moving people from myth to reason to trans-reason

that is, to see the limits of reason and transcend it.

Today we need to transcend both reason and science.

Buddhism tells you from day one

to find out for yourself what is true –

it encourages constant seeking –

even the teachings of the Buddha

should be questioned and tested.

For fundamentalist Muslims there is no need to ask questions

for the Koran has all the answers already –

their Sacred Book in its 114 suras (chapters)

is considered by them to be the final revelation

of the final prophet Mohammed

of the final purpose and will of God for humanity.

But mystics/contemplatives/sages of all traditions see

that their viewpoint is just a view from a point –

they have the ability to observe

their own inner dramas and dilemmas

in an egoless way

which is the primary form of “dying to the self”

that Jesus and Buddha lived and taught experientially.

Today however, the self reigns supreme

individualism leads to anti-institutionalism

people think institutions like family and marriage

are too restrictive – no one should have a say in how I live

and so people rail against government taxation

meant for the common good

and church is seen as impeding my spiritual growth –

individuals want to create their own self-religion

and free autonomous individuals get infected

by the pandemic of loneliness

which scourges the postmodern world.

What the postmodern world needs now

is community/togetherness/love/

sweet love.

SPIRITUAL PRIDE/RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE

Medieval pilgrimage was meant to be a cure for violence

but in the Crusades it became a consecration of violence –

if we believe God is only on our side

now we can kill in God’s name

and believe killing infidels is God’s will.

Religious violence comes from hubris –

proudly thinking we know all about God and God’s will

but for theologians like Meister Eckhart

God is better apprehended by negation than affirmation

God is an unspoken word/ineffable/

a light shining in silent stillness

which can be found in all religions

if you dig deep enough.

Hinayana Buddhism, the Lesser Wheel,

regards the Buddha as a human hero/a supreme sage/a saint

but Mahayana Buddhism, the Greater Wheel,

goes deeper and sees him as a world savior/an incarnation

of the principle of Enlightenment: silent light shining everywhere.

In Christianity, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)

reunited spirituality and theology so much

that its treatises are spiritual theology

and can be read as “lectio divina” – “sacred reading/sacred light.”

Jonathan Edwards, a Protestant philosopher and pastor

considered one of America’s most important

philosophical theologians, tried to discern

true religious affection from delusion.

He condemned both emotionalism and intellectualism

in religion because true religion

consists in “holy affections” from the heart

a unitary faculty of love and will

which cures the spiritual hubris

of thinking we can feel what God feels (emotionalism)

and think what God thinks (intellectualism)

which leads to religious violence.

“My ways are not your ways

and my thoughts are not your thoughts”

says the True Lord (Isaiah 55:8-9).