Tag: monks

BELOVING OUR MOTHER – EARTH

The transition from “faith-as-experience” to “belief as opinion”

came from poor New Testament translations of the Greek:

in Greek “to believe” is a verb meaning “to trust” or “to belove”

in English it is a noun “My belief is that….”

 

Belief as “beloving” involves sexuality

and this involves the Third Buddhist Ethical Precept:

“Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct

I vow to protect individuals/couples/families/society

by not engaging in sexual relations without love

and a long-term commitment”

 

in order to be more beloving, Brother Teasdale renounced sex

and adopted the lifestyle of a Hindu sannyasin (renunciate)

but one engaged in the world –

his book A Monk in the World

explains how he became a “Warrior-Monk”

which is what the world needs right now:

Prophet-Mystics in our midst right here/right now

 

we cannot hope to have a revival

of meaningful sacramental fundamentals

without a re-education about the necessity

in everyone’s life of the importance of myth/symbol/ritual

that crystallizes our purpose on planet Earth

 

the first Earth-rise above a lunar landscape

broke all the old mythology to pieces as we realized:

Earth and heaven are no longer separate:

Earth is floating in the heavens

Earth is a heavenly body

Earth is no longer the center of the universe –

cosmological centers are now everywhere!

 

Therefore, we can surrender

all our anxieties and ambitions

to the God who is everywhere –

God is no longer “Our Father who art in heaven”

but right here/right now

and therefore will provide what we need

right here/right now

to be happy and holy and loving

of this pale blue dot

this goddess, “Our Mother Earth.”

 

BEING/EMPTYING VS SUFFERING

The Cross and Resurrection are the Christian solution

to the problem of evil – this is far more satisfying

than Carl Jung’s solution of making evil part of God

Zen Buddhists love the “kenosis” passage (Philippians 2:7)

where Christ empties himself – even to death –

death on a cross –

because Zen is all about emptying oneself 

of all attachments/passions/thoughts

and learning to just sit for hours or days

to “waste time with God”

as Christian monks call it –

like old friends who don’t need to speak

they just enjoy BEING together –

this is all God asks of us: “Please BE with me” –

“To just BE alive is sacred, to just BE is holy”

– Abraham Heschel

besides emptying, part and parcel of Zen  

is awareness of suffering

caused by peoples’ unmindful speech/inability to listen

Buddhists therefore vow 

to cultivate loving speech/deep listening 

that alleviates suffering

the intellectual nature of the human person 

is perfected by wisdom 

for the intellectual drive 

is not confined to observable data alone – 

wisdom gently leads all our drives 

beyond the visible world to what is invisible –

what is honestly true/honestly good

without this humble inner quest

without interior spiritual integration

even something as spiritual as a pilgrimage

can turn into a divisive/destructive/alienating journey

just as forsaking of self/emptying of ego 

unites you to God

so giving up external things

brings you peace.

BEWARE THE CHEESE MONKS!

Modern values focus on individualism

postmodern values focus on relativism

and often both result in nihilism and meaninglessness.

We all have limitless wealth –

the whole Creation is given to us by God

but we get so caught up in individualistic or relativistic

competition/defeat/victory

that we no longer see

what is right in front of us.

 

A competitive society is violent

so the apparent passivity Jesus preached

in the Sermon on the Mount –

turn the other cheek – seems absurd

but is actually subversive resistance

which forces perpetrators to face

their own violence.

 

What Thomas Merton rejected in the “world”

was not wealth or ambition

but the world’s triviality –

its fads/advertising/masks of hypocrisy

which even his comrades he disparagingly called

the “cheese monks” got caught up in –

as if their true calling/purpose was to produce

excellent cheeses or liqueurs!

 

The Catholic Church got so off track

that sex scandals broke it –

one third of people raised Catholic

vacated the premises

and with the pandemic

another third departed.

 

If real transformation never happens for Christians

then for professional church staff

their work becomes just a career

and for lay people church becomes something

one just attends, an afterthought

instead of the living Body of Christ

which heals the “world” and its violence

by giving it profundity.

 

 

LIBERATION THROUGH MINDFULNESS

All ‘holons’ (living systems)

have four fundamental capacities:

self-preservation/self-adaptation/

self-transcendence/and self-dissolution.

The 100 billion people who have come and gone

have always been caught up in ‘I’/‘We’/and ’It’ –

and they have always created ‘Its’ –

institutions/governments/religions

to control them and tell them what to do.

 

Persons with an insecure

or particularly avoidant ‘attachment style’

are much more prone to dramatic religious conversion –

out of a deep need for security

they follow religious authorities without question

and become fundamentalists in every religion.

 

However, when people go to retreat centers

often the monks teach them mindfulness

and that everything can be done mindfully

whether praying/walking/eating/working.

This new level of consciousness

liberates those with a fundamentalist bent.

 

Still, shadow projections can prevail

in every human conflict. The need to be

right/get your way/dominate/control others

can cause the breakup of relationships –

friendships/marriages/families.

 

But children and parents at least

help each other by standing together

through hardships at every stage:

infancy to old age –

through every manner of challenge

until death parts them

but even then, wise spouses

bravely accept and esteem widowhood

as a continuation of their marital vocation –

even death can be overcome with mindfulness.

 

3 Big Ideas for April 18, 2019

  1. Every spiritual path begins with a founder who experiences a deep spiritual conversion. Then his followers turn this I-THOU relationship between the founder and God into an I-IT relationship by developing beliefs, creeds, rituals, and institutions. And the gap grows between the founder’s experience and his disciples’ lives as the founder fades away in historical time. We need to constantly try to recapture the founder’s original experience.
  2. D. H. Lawrence, mostly known for his erotic novels, was also a spiritual man who wrote that our deepest religious urge is to come into direct contact with the deep elemental life of the cosmos and to derive energy and life from it. He believed that erotic energy underlies everything in the universe, and that God is not only “agape” (suffering love) but also “eros” (the power of attraction) which expresses itself most fully in human sexuality. When the masculine energy of the universe meets the feminine energy, fire happens.
  3. In his “Discourse on Mindful Breathing,” the Buddha taught “Breathing in, I recognize my feeling. Breathing out, I calm my feeling.” Christian monks teach similar spiritual practices. Medical science has now proven them both right: when you inhale and then slowly let your breath out, the breathing out activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which has a calming effect on your whole body. Science is gradually catching up with and proving wisdom taught by ancient religion.