Buddhism does not subscribe to a creator God, and for that reason many people say that Buddhism is atheistic. I believe it is more accurate to say that Buddhism is non-theistic, and that there is an ever growing body of progressive Christians who are non-theistic as well.
In short, the God of theism is some kind of super-human writ large, the thing of several centuries of bad religious art, the old guy with long white hair and beard. Under this kind of view people image God creating the universe and everything in it out of some kind of physical workshop. These images aren't in the Bible, but they have evolved over millennia of imagining God as a parent figure in the sky. God came first, before all else, and then God created everything that is from Godself. Presumably God was wearing a T-shirt with a very large "God" emblazoned on the front so we knew what to call God. Fast forward to the last fifty years and not only is God presented as all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, and all everything else imaginable but God also has become our little buddy. We have a personal relationship we God, and we invite God, Jesus, or both over to our house for Cheerios in the morning. You might say we have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous without abandoning any of it. If that works for you I think that's just great, but to me and many others it's nothing but a big hot mess.
What if it's really a question of the chicken and the egg? Which came first, our existence or our awareness of God? Mind you, I'm not asking if God existed before us, I am asking if we became conscious before we became aware of that which we call God. Since there aren't any pre-conscious beings hanging around the local coffee shop for me to ask (though I confess there are some who seem to be post-conscious), I have to assume that homo-sapiens became self-aware, then eventually took a look around and marveled at what s/he could not explain and said, "Holy cow, God must have done this!" They must also have realized that some of that which was beyond their ability to explain was a bit frightening, and so they started devising schemes to manipulate God into stopping the scary stuff from happening and replacing it with good stuff. If you have studied behavioral psychology you know how this works. All it takes is one naked guy wandering out into the desert before a rain storm and before long you will have quite a few guys with unfortunate sunburns and the fictional belief that you can make it rain.
On the other hand, what if we abandon the behavior control business and the God control business and spend some time observing our experience? What if we were to set aside judging (as much as humanly possible, anyway) and just watch? I believe we would marvel at the mystery that is the complexity and intricacy of creation and reasonably come to the conclusion that there was some force behind or underneath is all and call that force "God." We might look at the mystery that is the inter-relatedness and inter-connectedness of everything that exists and see something holy at work and so call that "God" as well. We might find something mysterious and beautiful about the dedication of people in a long term relationship that perseveres even through illness and death and know that we see holiness - God - there, too. We don't have this vision of God over for Cheerios in the morning because this God isn't a "person," but we will see God in those Cheerios and the many causes and conditions that had to come together to get them to our breakfast table. Was this God present at the Big Bang? No, this God was the Big Bang. This God is the collective unconscious. This is a non-theistic God, and this is the God of my experience. This isn't God as manipulator, this is God as lover, God as relationship, a God in and through whom we have our being but who has no interest in striking anyone dead or playing cosmic chess games of control and manipulation.
The non-theistic God doesn't care what you call It and certainly doesn't see any need to convert people to another way of understanding It. This God doesn't become angry when you hurt another person, but rather because this God exists in that other person and in the relationships we share this God is injured when you injure another - and you are injured as well because you are a part of that same web of life and interconnectedness. Best of all, that web of life and interconnectedness and every other attribute I have described of God continues to exists even for those who call God by another name or say there is no God at all. In this view worship become community building, improving living conditions throughout the world, working for peace and equality, ending poverty, racism, and hunger. This is a much more demanding God that the old God of punishment and anger because this God demands you give of your very self, abandon selfishness, develop compassion, and truly change your life in an ongoing way. It's a God completely compatible with every religious and spiritual system, but because It requires you to abandon privilege and prestige and see that when we get ahead at the expense of others we in fact damage ourselves deeply. It's a God who leads us toward enlightenment and the action that flows from enlightenment.
Do you have the courage?
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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Increasing Compassion Through Witholding Compassion?
It's important for me to say at the outset I don't endorse the idea in the title of this post - but I do think we need to address it.
There's an article by Mia McKenzie on her website Black Girl Dangerous that spouts a fairly common criticism of white liberals - that many of the problems of people of color are due to white liberals not recognizing white privilege. I can't quote her here because she makes it clear on her website that I would need her permission to do so. I will be the first to tell you that more than a few whites, and not just liberals, are ignorant of the level of privilege they enjoy just by virtue of being white. It has a different quality among liberals because liberals imagine themselves quite welcoming and accepting of marginalized groups until a person of color walks into a room and says "motherfucker," at which point all bets are off.
She also mentions the truth that white people seem (lacking any scientific study I don't think we can go beyond "seem" or "appear") to be more upset when large groups of white people are attacked such as at Sandy Hook or the Boston Marathon than at the larger numbers of children of color who are the cumulative victims of violence in separate incidents. I confess there is a part of me that believes that the size of a single incident does intensify public reaction regardless of the ethnicity of the victims, but I cannot cite studies to substantiate that feeling.
The article goes on to say that because white liberals don't care about children of color who are victims of violence, the compassion and empathy the author and other people of color she knows used to experience when confronted with white suffering has been replaced with anger and resentment because they believe white people don't respond in that way to suffering in their community. This is where her argument falls apart. She says that when white people start feeling compassionate toward the suffering of people of color she and her friends will start returning the favor again. The problem is that isn't how compassion works - it's not a commodity you can choose to withhold and then later flip a switch to turn it back on. Compassion takes decades, perhaps even lifetimes, to develop. What's more, her assumption that white liberals have the power to cause her or her friends to feel anything is flat out wrong. Nobody makes us feel anything. We choose how we feel. To believe otherwise is to assume an external locus of control and believe the world acts on us and we are powerless to change our circumstances. Holding such a belief over an extended period of time creates a certain victim mentality that strips us of our ability to fight injustice.
Of course this won't be popular among angry young people like herself, but it has to be said. As a white, straight, liberal who is in touch with white privilege and who stands with all oppressed people and groups and most especially with his friends who happen to belong to those groups - and as a person who has been oppressed himself because of things beyond his control - I have to say it: Don't paint me with that that one size fits all, "white people (or straight people, or whatever) are all evil and insensitive (or whatever)" brush, because we aren't. When you paint us all with that brush, you eventually lose allies. When you say to me, "oh, we weren't talking about you," I have to remind you that when you say all white people, I are one.
Marginalization and oppression are horrible evils, but the decision to withhold compassion and retreat into anger isn't going to hurt anyone but you. The decision to become cold and callous will destroy your spirit, not the spirit of anyone else. After years and years of watering the seeds of anger and resentment in your consciousness, it isn't going to be a matter of just deciding to drop that act and become your old self because the seeds we water are the seeds that grow. As the Dalai Lama has pointed out, you don't cure hate with hate, you cure it with love.
There's an article by Mia McKenzie on her website Black Girl Dangerous that spouts a fairly common criticism of white liberals - that many of the problems of people of color are due to white liberals not recognizing white privilege. I can't quote her here because she makes it clear on her website that I would need her permission to do so. I will be the first to tell you that more than a few whites, and not just liberals, are ignorant of the level of privilege they enjoy just by virtue of being white. It has a different quality among liberals because liberals imagine themselves quite welcoming and accepting of marginalized groups until a person of color walks into a room and says "motherfucker," at which point all bets are off.
She also mentions the truth that white people seem (lacking any scientific study I don't think we can go beyond "seem" or "appear") to be more upset when large groups of white people are attacked such as at Sandy Hook or the Boston Marathon than at the larger numbers of children of color who are the cumulative victims of violence in separate incidents. I confess there is a part of me that believes that the size of a single incident does intensify public reaction regardless of the ethnicity of the victims, but I cannot cite studies to substantiate that feeling.
The article goes on to say that because white liberals don't care about children of color who are victims of violence, the compassion and empathy the author and other people of color she knows used to experience when confronted with white suffering has been replaced with anger and resentment because they believe white people don't respond in that way to suffering in their community. This is where her argument falls apart. She says that when white people start feeling compassionate toward the suffering of people of color she and her friends will start returning the favor again. The problem is that isn't how compassion works - it's not a commodity you can choose to withhold and then later flip a switch to turn it back on. Compassion takes decades, perhaps even lifetimes, to develop. What's more, her assumption that white liberals have the power to cause her or her friends to feel anything is flat out wrong. Nobody makes us feel anything. We choose how we feel. To believe otherwise is to assume an external locus of control and believe the world acts on us and we are powerless to change our circumstances. Holding such a belief over an extended period of time creates a certain victim mentality that strips us of our ability to fight injustice.
Of course this won't be popular among angry young people like herself, but it has to be said. As a white, straight, liberal who is in touch with white privilege and who stands with all oppressed people and groups and most especially with his friends who happen to belong to those groups - and as a person who has been oppressed himself because of things beyond his control - I have to say it: Don't paint me with that that one size fits all, "white people (or straight people, or whatever) are all evil and insensitive (or whatever)" brush, because we aren't. When you paint us all with that brush, you eventually lose allies. When you say to me, "oh, we weren't talking about you," I have to remind you that when you say all white people, I are one.
Marginalization and oppression are horrible evils, but the decision to withhold compassion and retreat into anger isn't going to hurt anyone but you. The decision to become cold and callous will destroy your spirit, not the spirit of anyone else. After years and years of watering the seeds of anger and resentment in your consciousness, it isn't going to be a matter of just deciding to drop that act and become your old self because the seeds we water are the seeds that grow. As the Dalai Lama has pointed out, you don't cure hate with hate, you cure it with love.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Buddha Nature vs. Original Sin: No Contest
I have always struggled with the idea of Original Sin - the idea that because of Adam and Eve's disobedience in the Garden of Eden that led to their being cast out of Paradise human beings throughout history are born guilty. It is the one of the traditional reasons for Baptism, which is believed to "wash away the stain of Original Sin." It led to such absurd and traumatic ideas that infants who died before being Baptized were destined for a place called "limbo," where they apparently spent eternity dancing under an ever-lowered pole. There have been several explanations offered to counter the whole babies bound for hell business, including one I found particularly amusing while completing my undergraduate work at Wisconsin Lutheran College - the idea that it is rejecting Baptism that is damning. Their theory went that since a baby doesn't have the power to accept or reject Baptism it isn't punished if it dies before being Baptized. That sounds good, as far as it goes, but they also are big believers in Original Sin. Apparently, they, the "stain of Original Sin" must only be detectable when a soul is passed under a black light and the policy in heaven is not to pass babies under the black light? Or maybe the stain doesn't appear until the person rejects Baptism, like some sort of time-released ink?
At the time of the Protestant Reformation the resulting Protestant Churches other than the Anglican, Lutheran, and the later-developing Methodists became part of what is known as the "Reformed" tradition. They apparently didn't feel that Original Sin was depressing enough by itself and so developed an uplifting little concept called the total depravity of man [sic]. This doctrine essentially held that the Fall resulted in there being nothing good or redeemable about human beings, that we were essentially worms waiting for God's grace to save us despite ourselves. To these cheery folks there was no such thing as spiritual growth or development, very little understanding of Sanctification, and no concept of the Deification of Humanity. They could have more accurately called their tradition "You're Screwed."
Can we admit that there are some ideas in every spiritual and religious tradition that were doubtless very helpful at one point in history but aren't helpful any longer? Can we admit that while God doesn't change, our understanding of God certainly does change? When I was a child I remember being told that thunderstorms were caused by God bowling in heaven. Given that a young child doesn't have the ability to understand scientific explanations for thunder I drew comfort from that explanation. As an adult such an explanation wouldn't be helpful at all precisely because I am able, at least to a degree, to understand a scientific understanding of thunder. Humanity's scientific understanding has evolved over time and fairly exploded over the past sixty years. The Bible explains thunder and lightening as well as other weather related and geological events as punishment from God. Contemporary scientific understanding renders such ideas little more than quaint vestiges of a pre-scientific era.
Are we born with stains not related to diapers? Of course not. The concept of Original Sin is not biblical, and Eastern Christianity never endorsed it. It would be little but a benign item in the history of Christian thought were it not for the enormous self-esteem issues in western culture. Religions that continue to teach what I like to call "original brokenness" are in truth agents of suffering and death that feel a need to justify ancient doctrines at the expense of compassion and love. Christians holding such position are in fact completely denying the Incarnation of Jesus, which says that God became human and in doing so once and for all showed that the created order is filled with God. How in the world can a person on the one hand believe in Jesus and on the other continue to prattle on about Original Sin? It's a direct contradiction! Perhaps they feel they lack an alternative.
Back in the 1980s Matthew Fox wrote a book called Original Blessing. Matthew Fox has many gifts, but economy of words is not one of them so I will tell you his premise was that people are born not with guilt but with blessing. Predictably, his book irritated the Roman Catholic Church because it is difficult to control people who are not guilt ridden. While the idea took off in some circles, in my opinion it never really caught on the way it might have - perhaps because of Fox's verbosity. Fortunately for us, Buddhism has had the answer all along.
The answer is Buddha Nature, which says that all of us and born with a Buddha inside. That Buddha gets covered with detritus because of the adventures of life, but it is nonetheless there. Through spiritual practice we clear away the obscurations which hide our Buddha Nature and allow it to shine through. It was there inside us all along, we just couldn't see it. Of course, this is a simplified and condensed explanation appropriate for our context here but hardly the whole story.
When talking to Christian groups I often tell them they have God Nature rather than Buddha Nature, especially if they aren't Interspiritual. I tell them that no creation story from any tradition that has a creation story beings with God creating a parts warehouse, but rather God creates from Godself. That means humans are made up of God parts, so to speak, an inherent God Nature that cannot be removed and is affirmed in the Incarnation. It's actually a quite biblical concept - but one that doesn't become apparent unless one has been exposed to the idea of Buddha Nature. When we sin we obscure our God Nature further, but we can never destroy it. Through spiritual practice, especially silent prayer, we see through our accumulated debris and experience the God within us and everyone else. Through this we experience the Buddhist notion of Interconnectedness, or what Christians call the Body of Christ.
If our goal is to speak to contemporary people, the majority of whom have been raised outside religion and spiritual practice, we are going to have to find ways to discuss our wholeness rather than our temporary brokenness, to support healing rather than kick people when they are down, and use language and examples that connect to every day life. Of all the traditions, I believe Buddhism offers the best tradition of continually finding ways to retell the story for a new generation - and example we all need to learn from. Because it's perfectly possible to be a Buddhist and a member of another tradition, those of us who seek to articulate a contemporary, progressive spirituality as followers of Jesus have a lot to learn from Buddhism!
At the time of the Protestant Reformation the resulting Protestant Churches other than the Anglican, Lutheran, and the later-developing Methodists became part of what is known as the "Reformed" tradition. They apparently didn't feel that Original Sin was depressing enough by itself and so developed an uplifting little concept called the total depravity of man [sic]. This doctrine essentially held that the Fall resulted in there being nothing good or redeemable about human beings, that we were essentially worms waiting for God's grace to save us despite ourselves. To these cheery folks there was no such thing as spiritual growth or development, very little understanding of Sanctification, and no concept of the Deification of Humanity. They could have more accurately called their tradition "You're Screwed."
Can we admit that there are some ideas in every spiritual and religious tradition that were doubtless very helpful at one point in history but aren't helpful any longer? Can we admit that while God doesn't change, our understanding of God certainly does change? When I was a child I remember being told that thunderstorms were caused by God bowling in heaven. Given that a young child doesn't have the ability to understand scientific explanations for thunder I drew comfort from that explanation. As an adult such an explanation wouldn't be helpful at all precisely because I am able, at least to a degree, to understand a scientific understanding of thunder. Humanity's scientific understanding has evolved over time and fairly exploded over the past sixty years. The Bible explains thunder and lightening as well as other weather related and geological events as punishment from God. Contemporary scientific understanding renders such ideas little more than quaint vestiges of a pre-scientific era.
Are we born with stains not related to diapers? Of course not. The concept of Original Sin is not biblical, and Eastern Christianity never endorsed it. It would be little but a benign item in the history of Christian thought were it not for the enormous self-esteem issues in western culture. Religions that continue to teach what I like to call "original brokenness" are in truth agents of suffering and death that feel a need to justify ancient doctrines at the expense of compassion and love. Christians holding such position are in fact completely denying the Incarnation of Jesus, which says that God became human and in doing so once and for all showed that the created order is filled with God. How in the world can a person on the one hand believe in Jesus and on the other continue to prattle on about Original Sin? It's a direct contradiction! Perhaps they feel they lack an alternative.
Back in the 1980s Matthew Fox wrote a book called Original Blessing. Matthew Fox has many gifts, but economy of words is not one of them so I will tell you his premise was that people are born not with guilt but with blessing. Predictably, his book irritated the Roman Catholic Church because it is difficult to control people who are not guilt ridden. While the idea took off in some circles, in my opinion it never really caught on the way it might have - perhaps because of Fox's verbosity. Fortunately for us, Buddhism has had the answer all along.
The answer is Buddha Nature, which says that all of us and born with a Buddha inside. That Buddha gets covered with detritus because of the adventures of life, but it is nonetheless there. Through spiritual practice we clear away the obscurations which hide our Buddha Nature and allow it to shine through. It was there inside us all along, we just couldn't see it. Of course, this is a simplified and condensed explanation appropriate for our context here but hardly the whole story.
When talking to Christian groups I often tell them they have God Nature rather than Buddha Nature, especially if they aren't Interspiritual. I tell them that no creation story from any tradition that has a creation story beings with God creating a parts warehouse, but rather God creates from Godself. That means humans are made up of God parts, so to speak, an inherent God Nature that cannot be removed and is affirmed in the Incarnation. It's actually a quite biblical concept - but one that doesn't become apparent unless one has been exposed to the idea of Buddha Nature. When we sin we obscure our God Nature further, but we can never destroy it. Through spiritual practice, especially silent prayer, we see through our accumulated debris and experience the God within us and everyone else. Through this we experience the Buddhist notion of Interconnectedness, or what Christians call the Body of Christ.
If our goal is to speak to contemporary people, the majority of whom have been raised outside religion and spiritual practice, we are going to have to find ways to discuss our wholeness rather than our temporary brokenness, to support healing rather than kick people when they are down, and use language and examples that connect to every day life. Of all the traditions, I believe Buddhism offers the best tradition of continually finding ways to retell the story for a new generation - and example we all need to learn from. Because it's perfectly possible to be a Buddhist and a member of another tradition, those of us who seek to articulate a contemporary, progressive spirituality as followers of Jesus have a lot to learn from Buddhism!
Friday, March 22, 2013
What's in a Name, God?
Does a name define an experience, or merely give us a way to talk about it? If we call a table a door, does its essence change? If our best friend decides to start using her middle name rather than her first name, does she substantially change or is she the same person?
Once we get to the point on our spiritual journey where we no longer believe that God is Harold, my name for the old guy with the white hair and beard who lives beyond the clouds in an undisclosed and invisible location, and rather understand God to be Spirit rather than embodied I wonder if it really matters what we call God. It's an important question for interspiritual understanding, because if we are attached to a certain name for God than we will automatically dismiss any understanding of what we call God that has a different label attached. If Paul Tillich, among others, is anywhere near right in describing God as the Ground of Being, then the experiential reality of God is so different from what most people associate with "God," I cannot help but wonder if we need to choose another name!
Given that God hasn't knocked on any of our front doors and said, "Hi, I'm God, nice to meet you," the truth is that we don't encounter God in the same way that we usually encounter human beings. Some would rush to say that we "meet" God in the Bible. Though I understand what people mean when they say that, I don't believe that's accurate. I do believe the Bible is the story of several thousand years worth of people's encounter with God, and while it can tell us quite a bit about what other people living in a certain period in history thought about God, it doesn't constitute an encounter with God any more than reading a biography of President Kennedy means that when I have finished I will have met him. The same could be said for Jesus.
An interesting part of the Buddhist-Christian monastic dialogue is that Christian monastics and Buddhist monks report the same experiences in contemplative prayer for the Christians and meditation for the Buddhists. For those who don't know, what Christians call contemplation and what Buddhists call meditation is essentially the same thing - sitting in silence. As you might have guessed, what Christians call meditation and what Buddhists call contemplation is also the same thing - pondering great truths in prayer. It must be said, however, that with Buddhism having come to the west and more Christian monks studying Buddhism it can be harder to know what a Christian means when she says "meditation."
If the Christian monastic tends to call what she encounters in prayer "God" and the Buddhist calls it something else (perhaps "emptiness") but their experiences are largely the same, isn't getting caught up what name is applied a huge exercise in missing the point? I believe it is exactly that, and that insisting we all use the same language can have disastrous consequences. In fact it has caused wars and genocide throughout history, one side having decided the other is heretical simply because we are labeling our common experience differently! Can we get over ourselves, already?
We can broaden the discussion even further when we learn that every major historical religion has encouraged spending time in the silence and every major historical religion has arrived at the same foundational values of love, compassion, non-violence, sexual responsibility and peace making. There is great diversity in how those values are expressed, in the names applied to spiritual experience, and in rules around worship and other rituals, but what comes forth is the same. Does that not seem to indicate that these common values spring from a common source, no matter what that source is called? If we do share a common source, what it there to fight about?
The human capacity for shedding blood over the smallest details of religion has always baffled me. One of us believes Saturday is the Sabbath, the other Sunday, and a third practices every day. You wear a Yarmulke, he wears a Kufi, and I pray with my head uncovered. Clearly, the best thing to do is to kill one another over such obvious and profound transgressions of religious polity. The three Abrahamic faiths tend to lead the way in killing those who see Divinity differently, most likely because we struggle to believe our own religious teachings that we are accepted and loved by an all knowing, all seeing, all loving Deity that created everything that is. Essentially, we don't believe our own story but are perfectly willing to kill you for doing the same. If Harold was God, he would be shaking his head up in the clouds.
Ultimately what is experienced in prayer and meditation is far too large to be described with words. Every attempt to do so falls miserably short, which is why do many mystics resort to poetry in an attempt to do their experience justice. Perhaps we would do better to not name whatever is encountered. That might be why God, when Moses asked God's Name, simply responded "I am." Who is encountered in the silence? That which is. Perhaps even saying that is saying too much.
 | |
| Harold |
Given that God hasn't knocked on any of our front doors and said, "Hi, I'm God, nice to meet you," the truth is that we don't encounter God in the same way that we usually encounter human beings. Some would rush to say that we "meet" God in the Bible. Though I understand what people mean when they say that, I don't believe that's accurate. I do believe the Bible is the story of several thousand years worth of people's encounter with God, and while it can tell us quite a bit about what other people living in a certain period in history thought about God, it doesn't constitute an encounter with God any more than reading a biography of President Kennedy means that when I have finished I will have met him. The same could be said for Jesus.
An interesting part of the Buddhist-Christian monastic dialogue is that Christian monastics and Buddhist monks report the same experiences in contemplative prayer for the Christians and meditation for the Buddhists. For those who don't know, what Christians call contemplation and what Buddhists call meditation is essentially the same thing - sitting in silence. As you might have guessed, what Christians call meditation and what Buddhists call contemplation is also the same thing - pondering great truths in prayer. It must be said, however, that with Buddhism having come to the west and more Christian monks studying Buddhism it can be harder to know what a Christian means when she says "meditation."
If the Christian monastic tends to call what she encounters in prayer "God" and the Buddhist calls it something else (perhaps "emptiness") but their experiences are largely the same, isn't getting caught up what name is applied a huge exercise in missing the point? I believe it is exactly that, and that insisting we all use the same language can have disastrous consequences. In fact it has caused wars and genocide throughout history, one side having decided the other is heretical simply because we are labeling our common experience differently! Can we get over ourselves, already?
We can broaden the discussion even further when we learn that every major historical religion has encouraged spending time in the silence and every major historical religion has arrived at the same foundational values of love, compassion, non-violence, sexual responsibility and peace making. There is great diversity in how those values are expressed, in the names applied to spiritual experience, and in rules around worship and other rituals, but what comes forth is the same. Does that not seem to indicate that these common values spring from a common source, no matter what that source is called? If we do share a common source, what it there to fight about?
The human capacity for shedding blood over the smallest details of religion has always baffled me. One of us believes Saturday is the Sabbath, the other Sunday, and a third practices every day. You wear a Yarmulke, he wears a Kufi, and I pray with my head uncovered. Clearly, the best thing to do is to kill one another over such obvious and profound transgressions of religious polity. The three Abrahamic faiths tend to lead the way in killing those who see Divinity differently, most likely because we struggle to believe our own religious teachings that we are accepted and loved by an all knowing, all seeing, all loving Deity that created everything that is. Essentially, we don't believe our own story but are perfectly willing to kill you for doing the same. If Harold was God, he would be shaking his head up in the clouds.
Ultimately what is experienced in prayer and meditation is far too large to be described with words. Every attempt to do so falls miserably short, which is why do many mystics resort to poetry in an attempt to do their experience justice. Perhaps we would do better to not name whatever is encountered. That might be why God, when Moses asked God's Name, simply responded "I am." Who is encountered in the silence? That which is. Perhaps even saying that is saying too much.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Dual Citizenship
A dear friend used the term "dual citizenship" in response to someone on Facebook who commented that she didn't know I was a Buddhist. When that person wrote "I didn't know Craig was a Buddhist!" she was expressing pleasant surprise, at least as far as I can tell. She has since shared with me some of her Buddhist experiences, and we both are Christian clergy.
The more I reflected on it, the more I came to like the idea of dual citizenship. It doesn't imply split loyalties or that one has themself only partly submerged in each of two traditions. People who enjoy dual citizenship in the US and Canada, for example, aren't seen as half-citizens of each country, they are full citizens. I don't believe that when I am practicing Buddhism I am half a Buddhist, some sort of spiritual schizophrenic, and I would say the same thing about the time I spend practicing Christianity - though I would hasten to add that most of the time my practice has cross-pollinated and it would be very difficult to determine how to unpack the two traditions I inhabit in the same way that it would be hard to separate the sugar, water and drink mix I mix together when I make our grandchildren a pitcher of koolaid. The traditions inform one another, have points of commonality and points of divergence, and so create my rather diverse spiritual perspective.
Traditionally, of course, spiritual traditions have been very territorial and insisted that learning about another tradition for any purpose other than to criticize it constituted a kind spiritual adultery. Such claims remind me of stories my mother told me in an attempt to get me to comply with her wishes. When I was a child and she found me making a funny face she would tell me that one day "the clock would strike twelve" and my face would be stuck in one of those funny faces. I wondered whether she was telling me the truth or not, and gradually worked up the courage one day at 11:59am to watch the second hand sweep up toward twelve with my funny face in place. Needless to say, I survived unscathed and started to wonder what other fictions had been passed off as truths. Eventually, I went through the same process with my church, wondering what spiritual truths were genuine and which were designed to keep membership lists full.
I have heard the arguments that all religions do not lead to the same place. When it comes to particular expressions of religions, that statement may be partially true. I am not convinced that all expressions of a tradition are at all valid. I am thinking of places like People's Temple and Jim Jones, Terry Jones and Dove World Outreach, and the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas. However, if we exclude those expressions of religion that have fallen under control of leaders who are seriously mentally ill I believe religions share more in common, at least in terms of what I want to call "gross spiritual skills" than they would like to admit. For example, all religions subscribe to some form of prayer and/or meditation. All religions seek to answer the "why" questions of life, to offer some explanation of why human beings are on this planet, to investigate what constitutes a meaningful life, and what happens when we depart this life. Though the answers may be different from religion to religion, the questions are strikingly similar. They become even more similar when we factor in cultural differences. What's more, the things that constitute desirable behavior are remarkably similar across traditions. Violence, sexual misconduct, theft, deceit, disrespect, and even bad hygiene are universally rejected across traditions. Peace, non-violence, compassion, love, helping one another, providing comfort to the distressed, and caring for the poor, hungry, and homeless are universally praised. In fact the differences between traditions seem to exist in areas such as theology and doctrine, which are in fact human attempts to explain and replicate the spiritual experiences of religious adherents. As such they are not the experiences themselves and should not be understood to be equivalent, despite the fact that some traditions seem to value human explanations more than actual spiritual experience or practice.
I attended my first Tibetan Buddhist empowerment last Thursday with a friend of mine. It was a powerful (no pun intended) and moving experience on many levels. For those interested, it was a White Tara empowerment from my Buddhist Teacher, Domo Geshe Rinpoche. I first went to a teaching by Rinpoche in 2009. Since then my health and scheduling problems got in the way. If I am honest I also wasn't quite ready. My brain is more suited to the American expression of Vipassana among the Insight Meditation folks because of their unique blending of Buddhism and Psychology. I have a hard time understanding and accepting Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and some aspects of the tradition inherited from Shamanism because they are foreign to me and can seem a little "woo-woo," to use an imprecise but apt term. I have also resisted the idea of Guru yoga, most likely because of my own abuse history and some rather transparent attempts to justify abuse by Gurus such as the one in the book The Guru Question by Mariana Caplan. Why did people continue to follow Chogyam Trungpa despite his alcoholism and womanizing, and why did his wife stay with him? I honestly don't know, and perhaps it isn't important that I know. Misconduct on the part of Buddhist teachers is not limited to Tibetans, as there have been scandalous teachers in Zen as well. What's more, no tradition comes close to approaching the Roman Catholic Church of the late twentieth century when it comes to scandal and cover-up.
There are two things I know. The first is that I have learned that one has to be ready to really dedicate oneself to a teacher, and some people never are. The second is that last week at that empowerment I was told things about myself nobody could possibly know without having spoken extensively with me. Please understand that I have studied psychology and worked in the field, I am very aware that there are ways one can appear to know things about another that are little more than con games and I have been trained to spot them. What I experienced reflected a depth of spiritual practice and mystical insight that I have never encountered before. Is this the experience of the disciples who responded immediately to Jesus' call, or of the woman at the well who went back to her town and described him as a man who told her everything about herself? Mind you I am not anointing people Rinpoche as Messiah, I am looking for commonalities across traditions in an attempt to explain the experience. The ability to do that connecting across traditions is one of the great values of Dual Citizenship, by the way.
You may be thinking that this is all well and good, but you don't have any interest in Dual Citizenship. I'd like to ask you to reassess that idea, because you have read a rather longish blog post on the topic and are still reading. It's perfectly fine to sit with uncertainty and hold it gently. Over time, in your prayer or meditation practice, you may find some clarity arising. It's also fine to investigate other traditions, learn more about them, and decide they aren't for you. Not everyone is going to become what I call a Buddhist Christian. Some may become Hindu Jews, Taoist Muslims, or any of the other possible combinations. After being in a grocery store today that had an aisle labelled "Polish Kosher" I know anything is possible! I encourage you to investigate the possibilities. My experience is that Interspirituality has allowed my spiritual life to become three-dimensional, a quality you have to experience for yourself to understand fully. Why not try? There's nothing to lose!
***********
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The more I reflected on it, the more I came to like the idea of dual citizenship. It doesn't imply split loyalties or that one has themself only partly submerged in each of two traditions. People who enjoy dual citizenship in the US and Canada, for example, aren't seen as half-citizens of each country, they are full citizens. I don't believe that when I am practicing Buddhism I am half a Buddhist, some sort of spiritual schizophrenic, and I would say the same thing about the time I spend practicing Christianity - though I would hasten to add that most of the time my practice has cross-pollinated and it would be very difficult to determine how to unpack the two traditions I inhabit in the same way that it would be hard to separate the sugar, water and drink mix I mix together when I make our grandchildren a pitcher of koolaid. The traditions inform one another, have points of commonality and points of divergence, and so create my rather diverse spiritual perspective.
Traditionally, of course, spiritual traditions have been very territorial and insisted that learning about another tradition for any purpose other than to criticize it constituted a kind spiritual adultery. Such claims remind me of stories my mother told me in an attempt to get me to comply with her wishes. When I was a child and she found me making a funny face she would tell me that one day "the clock would strike twelve" and my face would be stuck in one of those funny faces. I wondered whether she was telling me the truth or not, and gradually worked up the courage one day at 11:59am to watch the second hand sweep up toward twelve with my funny face in place. Needless to say, I survived unscathed and started to wonder what other fictions had been passed off as truths. Eventually, I went through the same process with my church, wondering what spiritual truths were genuine and which were designed to keep membership lists full.
I have heard the arguments that all religions do not lead to the same place. When it comes to particular expressions of religions, that statement may be partially true. I am not convinced that all expressions of a tradition are at all valid. I am thinking of places like People's Temple and Jim Jones, Terry Jones and Dove World Outreach, and the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas. However, if we exclude those expressions of religion that have fallen under control of leaders who are seriously mentally ill I believe religions share more in common, at least in terms of what I want to call "gross spiritual skills" than they would like to admit. For example, all religions subscribe to some form of prayer and/or meditation. All religions seek to answer the "why" questions of life, to offer some explanation of why human beings are on this planet, to investigate what constitutes a meaningful life, and what happens when we depart this life. Though the answers may be different from religion to religion, the questions are strikingly similar. They become even more similar when we factor in cultural differences. What's more, the things that constitute desirable behavior are remarkably similar across traditions. Violence, sexual misconduct, theft, deceit, disrespect, and even bad hygiene are universally rejected across traditions. Peace, non-violence, compassion, love, helping one another, providing comfort to the distressed, and caring for the poor, hungry, and homeless are universally praised. In fact the differences between traditions seem to exist in areas such as theology and doctrine, which are in fact human attempts to explain and replicate the spiritual experiences of religious adherents. As such they are not the experiences themselves and should not be understood to be equivalent, despite the fact that some traditions seem to value human explanations more than actual spiritual experience or practice.
I attended my first Tibetan Buddhist empowerment last Thursday with a friend of mine. It was a powerful (no pun intended) and moving experience on many levels. For those interested, it was a White Tara empowerment from my Buddhist Teacher, Domo Geshe Rinpoche. I first went to a teaching by Rinpoche in 2009. Since then my health and scheduling problems got in the way. If I am honest I also wasn't quite ready. My brain is more suited to the American expression of Vipassana among the Insight Meditation folks because of their unique blending of Buddhism and Psychology. I have a hard time understanding and accepting Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and some aspects of the tradition inherited from Shamanism because they are foreign to me and can seem a little "woo-woo," to use an imprecise but apt term. I have also resisted the idea of Guru yoga, most likely because of my own abuse history and some rather transparent attempts to justify abuse by Gurus such as the one in the book The Guru Question by Mariana Caplan. Why did people continue to follow Chogyam Trungpa despite his alcoholism and womanizing, and why did his wife stay with him? I honestly don't know, and perhaps it isn't important that I know. Misconduct on the part of Buddhist teachers is not limited to Tibetans, as there have been scandalous teachers in Zen as well. What's more, no tradition comes close to approaching the Roman Catholic Church of the late twentieth century when it comes to scandal and cover-up.
There are two things I know. The first is that I have learned that one has to be ready to really dedicate oneself to a teacher, and some people never are. The second is that last week at that empowerment I was told things about myself nobody could possibly know without having spoken extensively with me. Please understand that I have studied psychology and worked in the field, I am very aware that there are ways one can appear to know things about another that are little more than con games and I have been trained to spot them. What I experienced reflected a depth of spiritual practice and mystical insight that I have never encountered before. Is this the experience of the disciples who responded immediately to Jesus' call, or of the woman at the well who went back to her town and described him as a man who told her everything about herself? Mind you I am not anointing people Rinpoche as Messiah, I am looking for commonalities across traditions in an attempt to explain the experience. The ability to do that connecting across traditions is one of the great values of Dual Citizenship, by the way.
You may be thinking that this is all well and good, but you don't have any interest in Dual Citizenship. I'd like to ask you to reassess that idea, because you have read a rather longish blog post on the topic and are still reading. It's perfectly fine to sit with uncertainty and hold it gently. Over time, in your prayer or meditation practice, you may find some clarity arising. It's also fine to investigate other traditions, learn more about them, and decide they aren't for you. Not everyone is going to become what I call a Buddhist Christian. Some may become Hindu Jews, Taoist Muslims, or any of the other possible combinations. After being in a grocery store today that had an aisle labelled "Polish Kosher" I know anything is possible! I encourage you to investigate the possibilities. My experience is that Interspirituality has allowed my spiritual life to become three-dimensional, a quality you have to experience for yourself to understand fully. Why not try? There's nothing to lose!
***********
Subscribe to my free newsletter here!
Friday, December 7, 2012
External, Interventionist Deities
Something about human nature loves the idea of being rescued by larger than life figures, from Superman to Santa Claus to God. There was a time in human history when such beings were perhaps necessary because so much of what happened in the world was beyond human understanding. Thunder and lightening can be pretty frightening even when we understand their cause. Imagine how frightening those events - not to mention earthquakes and tornadoes - would be to someone with no scientific understanding. In order to feel safe, there had to be some hope for protection from outside human knowledge and power.
Two thousand years later, the notion of a micro-managing God-cum-Santa who is keeping track of our deeds and misdeeds seems beyond less necessary, it seems laughable. We understand much of how our world operates, and a detached assessment of life experience should lead us to the conclusion that the sun shines on the good and bad alike. Despite this, many people of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Pure Land Buddhist, and other religious perspectives await rescue and intervention from God, teachers, or prophets. Many within Christianity seem to believe that abandoning the rescuing God is abandoning the faith. They point to the belief that God is unchanging and seem to believe that it means our beliefs about God can never change.
For Christianity to be credible in the 21st century, it simply has to take science into account as an equally valid revelation of God. We need to grow up and take responsibility for our own behavior and consequences - and be willing to save one another when necessary rather than waiting for Divine intervention, because we in fact are Divine. You see, the problem with believing in Divine intervention is that we cannot explain why some people are rescued by God and others apparently are not. That posits a very fickle, unreliable God indeed - hardly one worthy of the Name, one who might be described as evil - and the old "God's logic isn't our logic" isn't very logical at all.
You see, there still can be Divine presence in the universe without a micromanaging interventionist waiting to absolve some of us from responsibility while consigning others to ultimate lack of forgiveness in the Name of an allegedly forgiving God. There can still be something behind love, compassion, and the interconnectedness of everything and everybody, some common link that brings out the best of us in even the most difficult times. There can still be times when we reach deep and transcend even what we thought were our limits in the way we respond to one another in crisis. Of course, we will wonder why we don't always respond with the same level of compassion that we do in crisis, but that is the point of the spiritual journey - learning to live more and more from the best of our humanity. The standard isn't perfection, but rather effort. The fact that we won't be rescued unless we rescue one another doesn't mean there isn't beauty and transcendence - it means that beauty and transcendence is far more lovely than could ever be imagine because it draws us toward one another and dwells within us. And, if you still want to wait for Jesus to descend on a magic carpet to rescue you, that's okay. Until he gets here, we'll be standing by ready to help.
Two thousand years later, the notion of a micro-managing God-cum-Santa who is keeping track of our deeds and misdeeds seems beyond less necessary, it seems laughable. We understand much of how our world operates, and a detached assessment of life experience should lead us to the conclusion that the sun shines on the good and bad alike. Despite this, many people of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Pure Land Buddhist, and other religious perspectives await rescue and intervention from God, teachers, or prophets. Many within Christianity seem to believe that abandoning the rescuing God is abandoning the faith. They point to the belief that God is unchanging and seem to believe that it means our beliefs about God can never change.
For Christianity to be credible in the 21st century, it simply has to take science into account as an equally valid revelation of God. We need to grow up and take responsibility for our own behavior and consequences - and be willing to save one another when necessary rather than waiting for Divine intervention, because we in fact are Divine. You see, the problem with believing in Divine intervention is that we cannot explain why some people are rescued by God and others apparently are not. That posits a very fickle, unreliable God indeed - hardly one worthy of the Name, one who might be described as evil - and the old "God's logic isn't our logic" isn't very logical at all.
You see, there still can be Divine presence in the universe without a micromanaging interventionist waiting to absolve some of us from responsibility while consigning others to ultimate lack of forgiveness in the Name of an allegedly forgiving God. There can still be something behind love, compassion, and the interconnectedness of everything and everybody, some common link that brings out the best of us in even the most difficult times. There can still be times when we reach deep and transcend even what we thought were our limits in the way we respond to one another in crisis. Of course, we will wonder why we don't always respond with the same level of compassion that we do in crisis, but that is the point of the spiritual journey - learning to live more and more from the best of our humanity. The standard isn't perfection, but rather effort. The fact that we won't be rescued unless we rescue one another doesn't mean there isn't beauty and transcendence - it means that beauty and transcendence is far more lovely than could ever be imagine because it draws us toward one another and dwells within us. And, if you still want to wait for Jesus to descend on a magic carpet to rescue you, that's okay. Until he gets here, we'll be standing by ready to help.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Pain and Spirituality
I have often written about chronic pain and physical limitation and its impact on the spiritual journey. I haven't written about it for a while now because I have enjoyed something of a respite from the pain. Over the last few weeks, however, it has returned with a vengeance and with it my limitations have increased, leading me to write about it once again. Nearly half of Americans suffer from chronic pain, but we tend not to talk much about it, leading many of us to believe we are alone. Another consequence of our collective silence is that those of us with chronic pain have no idea of what is common, what might indicate a problem requiring a visit to the doctor or emergency room, and how best to cope.
One of the biggest problems for chronic pain folks is that - despite its prevalence - the medical establishment is often reluctant to prescribe pain medication because of its obsession with addiction while anesthesiologist-led pain clinics do expensive treatment after expensive treatment that they should know from diagnostic imagine aren't going to have any effect but still order. It's a lucrative business, if not a very ethical one. I have had literally tens of thousands of dollars of such treatments - which are often extremely painful -without good result. When I was finally referred to a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, or physiatrist, he told me that he could tell from my MRI that treatments wouldn't be effective.
I have written in the past, and still believe, that pain has been helpful in my journey because it has taught me that I am not invincible. Pain has also forced me to be dependent on others at intervals, something I am inclined to resist. Because I have a history of childhood abuse I am very adept at blocking my pain mentally, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I have learned that pain impacts our body and psyche even when we are ignoring it, and that if I find myself unable to sit still, restless, agitated, and feeling compelled to move that I am in pain even though I may not be aware of the pain sensation. At times like that, I have learned to take some medication, but overall I tend to under medicate myself. I believe I can "tough it out" and work my way through it, even though I should have learned better by now.
Another thing that pain can cause us to do is to recognize that we can no longer comply with society's expectation of what makes a person productive. It's not possible for me to stand, walk, or sit for extended periods. That doesn't really restrict me as a spiritual teacher, however as I look for part time employment to supplement my income it is extremely limiting. What does it mean to still be relatively young at fifty-two but be unable to work at a traditional, forty hour a week job? What does it mean to have significant restrictions but not be eligible for consideration or adaptations in employment due to disability? What it means is that we are forced to define our productivity in a different way. It also affords a unique perspective on politicians who would characterize us as lazy or not interested in working.
I don't mean for a minute to suggest that those of us with chronic pain conditions are enduring anything that we all don't endure if we live long enough. Some of us are, however, coping with chronic pain at a younger age than most. There are bound to be moments when we wonder why this has happened to us, and those moments are never productive because there isn't a good answer. It seems that life happens to each of us differently. Our energy is better spent learning how to cope with life as it is. It seems to me that one of the better ways to spend our energy is on education the public and our politicians about the reality that we all will face eventually. We will become limited, get sick, and eventually die - not because of weakness or lack of anything, but rather because we all get old, get sick, and eventually die. That is a profound spiritual lesson, indeed.
One of the biggest problems for chronic pain folks is that - despite its prevalence - the medical establishment is often reluctant to prescribe pain medication because of its obsession with addiction while anesthesiologist-led pain clinics do expensive treatment after expensive treatment that they should know from diagnostic imagine aren't going to have any effect but still order. It's a lucrative business, if not a very ethical one. I have had literally tens of thousands of dollars of such treatments - which are often extremely painful -without good result. When I was finally referred to a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, or physiatrist, he told me that he could tell from my MRI that treatments wouldn't be effective.
I have written in the past, and still believe, that pain has been helpful in my journey because it has taught me that I am not invincible. Pain has also forced me to be dependent on others at intervals, something I am inclined to resist. Because I have a history of childhood abuse I am very adept at blocking my pain mentally, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I have learned that pain impacts our body and psyche even when we are ignoring it, and that if I find myself unable to sit still, restless, agitated, and feeling compelled to move that I am in pain even though I may not be aware of the pain sensation. At times like that, I have learned to take some medication, but overall I tend to under medicate myself. I believe I can "tough it out" and work my way through it, even though I should have learned better by now.
Another thing that pain can cause us to do is to recognize that we can no longer comply with society's expectation of what makes a person productive. It's not possible for me to stand, walk, or sit for extended periods. That doesn't really restrict me as a spiritual teacher, however as I look for part time employment to supplement my income it is extremely limiting. What does it mean to still be relatively young at fifty-two but be unable to work at a traditional, forty hour a week job? What does it mean to have significant restrictions but not be eligible for consideration or adaptations in employment due to disability? What it means is that we are forced to define our productivity in a different way. It also affords a unique perspective on politicians who would characterize us as lazy or not interested in working.
I don't mean for a minute to suggest that those of us with chronic pain conditions are enduring anything that we all don't endure if we live long enough. Some of us are, however, coping with chronic pain at a younger age than most. There are bound to be moments when we wonder why this has happened to us, and those moments are never productive because there isn't a good answer. It seems that life happens to each of us differently. Our energy is better spent learning how to cope with life as it is. It seems to me that one of the better ways to spend our energy is on education the public and our politicians about the reality that we all will face eventually. We will become limited, get sick, and eventually die - not because of weakness or lack of anything, but rather because we all get old, get sick, and eventually die. That is a profound spiritual lesson, indeed.
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