Jul 302013
 

I’ve been involved in many conversations that touched on whether or not Christianity stands, or should stand, in opposition to other belief systems.  This is a topic I feel moved to write and speak about from time to time, as in a previous blog post, “The Challenge of Scriptural Hatred and Violence.”

In this post, I’d like to share a *poem on this theme that I wrote many years ago.  At the time, I was particularly fascinated with the Knights Templar and how they might have been related to some of the esoteric movements in the Christian world. I had been meditating on this matter in various ways when it came to me to simply imagine myself as a Templar knight in the Crusades. In a flash, I received all the imagery and insight of this poem.

The Sword and Trowel

Due to an oath of service
It has come that I must stand
Within this foreign country
On this strange enchanted land,
To raise the ancient Temple
So long lost beneath the sand
Of time and Man’s corruption,
And thus must I have at hand
Both sword and mason’s trowel,
So to serve the Lord’s command.

Princes, kings and potentates
Sent us all across the shore
To cut down the infidels
In a bloody holy war.
They promised righteous glory,
Even life forevermore,
And so we’ve battled inward
Boldly taking on the chore,
Serving up our enemy
To the mercy of our Lord.

But in a lonely vigil
On a cold and eerie night,
Blew a moaning mournful wind
That filled my heart with fright.
I, glimpsing an invader,
Thrust my sword with all my might
Into an airy phantom,
My own shadow by moonlight,
And thus my eyes were opened
And my soul was given sight.

Within that silent moment
I was graced with Light shot through,
And for what seemed an hour,
Yet within a breath or two,
I was freed from all my sin
And stood with the Christ anew
As he vanquished my true foe,
Not pagan, Muslim or Jew,
But the hubris, hate and greed
Sitting on my heart’s back pew.

And now I know my duties
Are most truly to protect
The Cross from all dishonor
And the Temple to erect.
Not with metal sword or tool,
But by love must I perfect
The site of Christ’s next coming
Where His Light shall intersect
The heart of a true brother
Though he’s of another sect.

So I take the sword and trowel
As the tools that I must test,
Not upon a foreign land
But within this human breast,
To conquer evil forces
And intolerance arrest,
Building a fraternity
That will serve the noble quest
To spread illumination
And True Glory manifest.

So, what might we take from this imagery? At one level, it suggests some knights of the Crusades might have been inspired to return to Europe and form secret societies of a more tolerant and universal faith. At another level, I take it as a reflection on how the collective consciousness of Christianity was troubled by its own behavior in the Crusades, and how that disillusionment helped pave the way for broad cultural developments like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Finally, I suspect most of us can relate to the shock and horror of awakening to our own hostility, arrogance, and intolerance, as well as the remorse and resolve to change. Let us be accepting and forgiving of ourselves in that resolve, understanding that “To conquer evil forces / And intolerance arrest,” means to overwhelm them with love.

Agape


* This poem was previously posted on my poetry blog, The Incomplete Works…

Nov 212012
 

Over the years, Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday.  Part of my Thanksgiving practice is to approach the word ‘thanksgiving’ anew, meditating upon it without assuming I have plumbed all its depths.  Those meditations have led me to explore some of its meaning in previous Thanksgiving posts.  This year I want to begin by highlighting its universality.   On Thanksgiving Day, we unite our hearts and minds around a single theme that we can all value, regardless of our religious, political, and ethnic differences.  It requires no air of nationalism, patriotism, or allegiance to any cause.  Rich and poor alike can feel the glow of thankfulness in their hearts, and know the joy of expressing it.  It is simply and fundamentally human to know and share gratitude.  Therefore this day is a very natural opportunity to remember our unity in the spirit of humanity.*

Rather than say much more on the universality in thanksgiving, this year I want to invite you to ponder its universality for yourself, and to include that theme along with some other questions and ideas about thanksgiving.  What does the word ‘thanksgiving’ mean to you?  Does it mean to remember people and things for which you are or might be thankful?  Does it mean to offer up your thanks in prayer and praise to God?  Does it mean to share your gratitude openly with others?  All of the above?  Is there something else?  How does it affect your understanding of thanksgiving if you apply Matthew 25:40?

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Who will you directly, personally, and sincerely thank for being who and what they are?

Here are some words from others that I find worth pondering, and I offer them for your meditations as well.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Melody Beattie

Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.
Psalm 50:14 (NLT)

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
Albert Schweitzer

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
John Milton

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 (NLT)

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

A person however learned and qualified in his life’s work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.
Colossians 4:2 (NLT)

‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.
Alice Walker

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
Karl Barth

Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks.
1 Timothy 4:4(NLT)

God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Evelyn Underhill

In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.
Thomas Erskine

My thanks to you, dear reader, for being someone who visits this blog and ChristianMystics.com, meeting others and me in spirit whether you comment or not.  May you know the deepest blessings of thankfulness and gratitude, where giver and receiver meet and realize their unity, and thus giving and receiving are one.   In the comments section, please share anything that comes to you while you meditate upon thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Agape

* Even though I view thankfulness as universal, and this holiday as an opportunity to remember and celebrate the spiritual unity of humanity, it is nonetheless true that many Native Americans consider Thanksgiving Day as a National Day of Mourning.  In my thankfulness, I also remember that much for which I am thankful has come with the cost of horrible atrocities.  I wish to honor the many contributions, willing and unwilling, Native American people have made to the USA and the world.

Sep 012012
 

(Click here to view Part One)

John Miller 2John, what counsel or advice would you give to someone who came to you for help with developing his or her spirituality?

Spirituality has, at its first step, morality:  spirituality presupposes morality.  In the ancient mystery schools, one was not given access to the spiritual teacher until and unless the initiate showed evidence of moral maturity.  As far as I know, this is standard in the spiritual traditions.  But what does this mean?

First, it means taking stock of oneself, examining one’s “baggage,” seeing where one needs to “work on oneself.”  The well-known Buddhist insight is that our sense of separate ego leads to desires, which in themselves are harmless enough until we become attached to them and expect them to be fulfilled.  Philosopher Ken Keyes wrote:  “We automatically trigger feelings of unhappiness when the people and circumstances around us do not meet our expectations.”  Expectations lead often to disappointment, then frustration and anger, and finally violence, whether mental or emotional or physical.  Second, kindness:  spiritual people must develop the virtue of kindness.  The Dalai Lama says it quite succinctly: “My religion is kindness.”  Third, it is important to attempt to develop agape, unconditional love.  Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ research into near-death experience led her to conclude, from the experiences of those who had died and been resuscitated, that loving unconditionally and finding a way to be of service to others are, in large measure, what makes life meaningful and worthwhile.  Fourth, the person on the spiritual path should strive to see the Divine (or Christ, Buddha-nature) in everyone. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me,” Jesus supposedly said (Matt. 25:40).

The next step beyond developing a moral nature is to develop an intellectual understanding of the spiritual worldview or worldviews. This places moral action within a context larger than the ordinary conception of life.

And finally, I would say, to develop spiritually is to develop spiritual disciplines and techniques, among them prayer and meditation. It is one thing to intellectually understand the nature of the spiritual, and it is quite another to experience the spiritual “realities” for oneself.  Ultimately, knowing, in so far as it is possible, must be done oneself, wherein one becomes one’s own authority, grounded in the authenticity of one’s own spiritual experience.

Thus, quite simply, there are three steps to the spiritual:  moral, intellectual, and inward “spiritual” discipline yielding experiences of the “higher order” or spiritual realities.

I should add that it is important, if not essential, for a spiritual aspirant to become a member of a community.  The Buddhist tradition emphasizes the importance of the sangha or community, and the same seems to be true of other spiritual traditions.  You know, from your own experience, the importance of the Masonic tradition in your own spirituality.  The same is true for those for whom Theosophy or the Rosicrucians offer similar communities of believers.

You highlighted the importance of developing moral maturity.  How does one go about doing so, and what are some signs that it is being attained?  You also spoke of developing intellectual understanding of spiritual worldviews.  Which specific philosophers, theorists, or authorities have you found to be especially helpful in your work with students, regardless of the particular traditions they may adhere to?  Could you also share a little about what makes each so valuable? Finally, how does one differentiate between genuine experience of the “higher order,” or spiritual realities, and delusions?

First, regarding developing moral maturity, I would say that it is important to develop what are called “virtues”: respect, kindness, compassion, generosity, forgiveness, love, empathy, patience, and the like.  The more one develops these, the more loving one becomes; and this I take to be a sign of moral maturity.

You ask about developing an intellectual understanding of the spiritual world.  What convinced me immediately to the “truth” of the spiritual (metaphysical) world view was the fact that I could fit my the conclusions (knowledge) of many years of reading and studding into that world view.  If there are different levels of experienced Reality (physical level, emotional or astral level, mental levels, and spiritual levels), then I could fit the imagery of Homer’s Odyssey, which I so deeply respect, into those levels.  The journey of Odysseus is a journey through these levels and the lessons that each teaches.  But it would lead us astray if I were to go into detail.  The empiricists, like materialists, were describing the physical world; the ethics of the Stoics, the astral world; Aristotle and empiricists like Hume and Hobbes the visible world; Plato and Hegel and Leibniz, among others, the spiritual world or conception of reality.  But that’s too much of an oversimplification.

My introduction to the metaphysical world view was through Theosophy; but later I studied the Oriental traditions and taught them.  What are some major spiritual works? The Bhagavad Gita, and the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali, for the Hindu tradition; the Tao Te Ching; the general Buddhist tradition; Goethe’s Faust, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and Homer’s Odyssey, for the literary tradition.  Of course, for Christians, the New Testament, particularly the Gospels of Matthew and John are central as illustrations of ways of loving (Matthew) and Christian metaphysics (John).  But the literature must be interpreted spiritually, so one needs a spiritual (metaphysical) framework in which to understand the great literature of the world.  I have taught all these works, in one course or another, and students who are spiritually awakened respond to them all.

Yoga, or union with God, is best discussed in the Yoga-Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.  The understanding of how ego, with its fearful and desiring nature, leads to violence is beautifully detailed in the Buddhist tradition:  ego leads to desire, desire to expectation, expectation to disappointment, disappointment to frustration, frustration to anger, and anger to violence.  The 25th chapter of Matthew illustrates how to be loving and ultimately to see the divine in each person, and the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) is central to Christian spiritual teachings.  Sophocles’ Oedipus story, of one who kills his father (God) and marries his mother (Matter) tells the story of us all:  we “kill” the divine nature in us in order to serve our material interests (rule our lives in our own manner).  For philosophy, I naturally gravitate toward Plato and particularly his metaphors and allegories:  the allegory of the Cave (Republic VII), the myth of the soldier Er who dies and goes into the underworld, only to return to tell us what happens (Republic X), among others.

Which did I find most important?  The Bhagavad Gita, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex understood as explained above, and the Gospel of Matthew (chapters cited).  And for philosophical works, the Republic of Plato and (and this is one you love, too) his Symposium, the delightful and informatively insightful dialog on love.

You ask, finally, how one differentiates between genuine and perhaps spurious (delusional) spiritual experiences of a “higher order.”  My own personal experience is that there is a “noetic” (knowledge-inspired) quality to genuine experiences.  When the experiences break into one’s normal consciousness, or in a meditative state, there would seem to be a self-authenticating quality about them. I am wary of experiences induced by, or produced by, emotional states; but I recognize that there are ecstatic states of bliss and joy, peace and love, that arise in a spiritual context (such as Sufi dancing).  One might also say, “By their fruits they are known.”  So the effect in the lives of those who have had a genuine experience may be a sign.

Yes, I’m thankful you introduced me to Plato and his dialogues on love, such as the Symposium.  It’s interesting that the fruits of spiritual and mystical experience bring us spiraling back to more naturally express the virtues and moral maturity of a more fully loving soul.

John, thank you so much for your time and thoughtfulness.  We could easily go on and on, and so perhaps we’ll do something like this again.  In closing, is there anything else you want to share with our readers?

About you, Chuck:  in my forty-five years of college and university teaching, I have been privileged to befriend a number of intelligent and caring students who have become successful and wonderful people, but none more loving, more intelligent, more dedicated to spirituality or serving others than you.  It has been a privilege and honor to have been a part of your life since you and Susan were students of mine so many years ago.  To your readers:  you are truly in the presence of a man whose dedication to truth and whose love for humanity mark him as genuinely wise.

Those words are more than kind, John. Thank you. The next time we meet, dinner and drinks are on me!  To our readers, I confess to a bit of an inner struggle over whether to include them or not, but obviously I chose to do so.  It’s John’s answer to my question, and I hope it illustrates to you the very gracious person he is.  If you would like to correspond with John, please tell me and I will connect you with him.

Aug 312012
 

INTRODUCTION

John Miller 2The following interview is with John F. Miller, III, Ph.D., who was my first meditation teacher and is my primary mentor in philosophy and spirituality.  More importantly, he is a very dear friend.  If there is one lesson that I have come to most cherish from John, it is the centrality of love, not only as we experience it emotionally and behaviorally, but as the very nature of being itself.  I trust you will hear his beautiful spirit, big heart, and keen intellect coming through his words.

Here’s a little background information on John:  He graduated  Phi Beta Kappa from Gettysburg College in 1960, with majors in both Greek and philosophy.  Earning an MA at the University of Maryland (1963) and a Ph.D. at New York University (1969), John taught for forty-five years at various colleges and universities, including three years at the University of South Florida, twenty years at North Texas (where I was one of his students), and since 1991 at local community colleges in Tampa and St. Petersburg.  Author of some thirty articles published in philosophical, theological, and para-psychological journals, he was for three years the president of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research (now the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, Inc.).  For four decades, John has spoken at conferences as well.

Dr. Leroy Howe dedicated  his book, Seeking a God to Glorify, to John. Dr. Howe has held three pastorates, a university chaplaincy, and served 29 years as a faculty member of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, teaching courses in both theology and pastoral care.  In personal correspondence between Dr. Howe and myself, he once said this about John:

When I was in college, and continuing to search for the Truth that underlay the Christian truths with which I was struggling, I came across Paul Tillich’s book, The Protestant Era. In it, he drew an enormously illuminating distinction for me in discussing the doctrine of justification by faith. He extended justification in our sins to justification in our doubts. I read everything Tillich wrote after that, had some conversations with him during graduate school years, and almost wrote a dissertation on him, had my friend David Kelsey not beaten me to it. Over the years, I’ve encountered a number of people who, like me, “read Tillich in college” and were transformed intellectually by the experience.

I think encountering John Miller is something like that. Humble as he is, he is also a numinous figure in so many peoples’ lives, including my own.

* * * * * * *

(In the following dialogue, my statements and questions are in italics, and John’s are in normal font.  I’ve inserted links to certain references along the way.)

John, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview.  I’ve known so many people whose lives have been touched and even transformed through their relationships with you, and I’m grateful to count myself among them.  One of the things I’ve learned that comes with gratitude for a blessing is the desire to share that blessing with others.  I hope that our readers will find something useful in our dialogue.

Thank you for your  love and friendship over all these years.  It is I, dear friend, who feel deeply blessed.   Any way that I can cooperate with you would please me.

One of the first things I learned with you is the importance of not assuming that a word means the same to others as to oneself, even if we participate in the same culture, tradition, or school of thought.  So what does the term “God” mean to you?

For me, the word “God” has so many connotations that I reject, that I would prefer not to use the word.  But that’s hard to do in our culture and in my philosophy classes as well.

The terms “God” or “gods” and “goddesses” arose in a pre-scientific/pre-modern era, when the earth was generally believed to be the center of creation.  The gods lived in the mountains and waters, and provided the explanation for phenomena not understood in natural terms.  Among other things, they offered comfort from the feeling of helplessness that we all feel in the midst of a natural world that, as the Existentialists say, seems utterly indifferent to human desires and needs.

In our scientific understanding of the universe as consisting of a billion galaxies, many of which have perhaps a billion stars, the gods seem “mythological” or an “illusion” (Freud: The Future of an Illusion).  As Protestant theologian Paul Tillich argues, there is a “God beyond God”: the Reality of the Divine lies beyond our ability to conceptualize it.  The opening line of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching cautions that the Tao (Ultimate Reality, God) that can be put into words is not the Eternal Reality (God).  During the Sixties, there was a movement among some young American Protestant theologians, known as “the Death-of-God movement,” which argued and called for the letting go of the traditional concept of God.  I can appreciate the wisdom of that proposal.

So what does “God” mean to me?  First, I must confess that I have never had a personal experience of that Reality denoted by the term “God,” but that is not to deny that others might have had such an experience or that God can be experienced as a Person.  But such is not my experience.  I can conceive of God as a spiritual Presence and Power, a creative Force, expressing itself as Love and Wisdom, at once immanent in the universe and yet transcendent to it, the Source of Life and Consciousness or, better,  Life Itself and Awareness/Consciousness Itself, expressing Itself as Nature, yet being not merely identical to the universe, at once the entirety of reality (Brahman), yet in essence one with our own human spiritual nature.  As Jesus said, “I and my father are one.”  As John writes in his Prologue to his Gospel: the Logos, the creative expression of God, is the “light” within everyone who comes into the world.

You conceive of God as not only transcendent but also immanent, a Presence and Power, a creative Force, expressing itself as Love and Wisdom, Life Itself and Awareness/Consciousness Itself, expressing Itself as Nature.  How would you describe your relationship with God, which you also refer to as a Reality, and how does that differ from the personal experience you say you have never had?

I have had two exceptionally profound experiences during a technique that is termed “re-birthing,” where one breathes rhythmically for an hour or more, going deeper into one’s own being.  If God dwells within us as our deepest Self, then my experience of Self in those occasions was one of overwhelming Love, in the first experience, and of profoundly and utterly Being Loved, in the second.  I had a similar feeling of what I can describe only as “Cosmic or Divine Love,” which poured through me, fifty years ago, when I saw again a beloved friend whom I had known since the second grade but had not seen in years.  It was as though the crown of my head opened, and “Divine or Cosmic Love” poured through me and out of my chest.  I’ve never felt such love for another person in quite that way since.

In an exceptional experience, on the occasion of walking to school  (North Texas) deliberately without judging, I was suddenly overcome by a state of ecstatic consciousness in which I heard these words: “God veils Himself in many forms of Love.”  It was as though everything that I experienced that morning walking to school, in a state of non-judgment, was the concrete expression of God, expressing Himself as Love.  The use of “Him” is, of course, metaphorical.

I have experienced what I take to be “soul consciousness” on more than one occasion.  If the soul is the repository of our spirit, which is one with the Divine Spirit, then I would reason that I have experienced the Divine as it manifests at the soul level.  In the Hindu and Yogic (and Theosophical) traditions, the soul is termed the “anandamaya kosha,” the body or vehicle (kosha) through which Reality (Sat) is experienced as “Ananda”: joy, peace, love, bliss, and ecstasy.  One experience of this state of consciousness occurred when I was watching a student performance, at North Texas, of “The Man of La Mancha.”  Suddenly I realized that Don Quixote was the Christ figure, loving without judgment Aldonza who was experienced as “Dolcinea,” the pure and beautiful soul that is all our souls’ nature.  I was raptured into this state of soul-awareness of bliss, which lasted for some three hours.  So if the experience of one’s soul, and the divinity within it, is an experience of God manifest in limited form, then I have had that experience.

When I meditate, there are times when I feel the presence of the “Masters,” who themselves are expressions of the Divine, individualized however.  So I would not count those experiences as experiences of God.

For years I have said a mantra, expressing that the Divine power lies within me, the Divine Love expresses through me, and the Divine Wisdom manifests in my life.  But saying a mantra is not experiencing God.

From time to time I pray, saying words of a prayer I learned in church when I was a child. But saying words, even in prayer, is not experiencing God.  Recently, because I have friends with lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and ovarian cancer, I’ve been saying a long and formulated (by religious science) prayer, pausing between each verse, saying the names of those friends whose healing I implore of Spirit.  But, again, I can go into a somewhat altered state of consciousness, but not one that I would identify as experiencing God.  I am careful to distinguish a feeling with an experience of God.  Maybe for most people they are the same.  For me, I’d not make that identity.

This is hardly a brief answer, Chuck, but there may not be even one experience of God; or, depending on how one interprets them, I may have had more than one such experience.

(End of Part One.  Part Two addresses the development of spirituality.)

Nov 222011
 

Friendship is the theme that has arisen for me in this time of thanksgiving,  a time for offering and sharing our gratitude.   For much of my life I considered the highest blessings to be those exceptional ecstatic or contemplative moments in which consciousness fills with, or is blown out by, awareness of God’s immediate presence.  However, with time  I came to see that the blessing of friendship is even more important.  If we would only realize it, friendship is one of the most direct and beautiful ways that God is present to us, whether or not we are engaged in any “spiritual” practice.

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  1st John 4:16

It’s that simple!  Yet some of us have the notion that the more enlightened, illuminated, sanctified, holy, or, well, “mystical” we are then the less regard we give to friendship as an important and worthwhile experience in human life.  Doesn’t it seem odd that sometimes our obsessions with things like philosophy, theology, and mysticism should lead us into places where we feel a need to justify enjoying something as natural and beautiful as friendship?  Yet it happens, and it happens because somehow we come to believe that our great teachers are pointing us in that direction.  With the rest of this post I hope to show that this is not actually the case, and that friendship is not only okay, it’s highly recommended!

As someone who feels a certain affinity with Buddhism, and who values the dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism, I lament that people often consider the Buddha and his followers as models of this disregard for friendship.  I find a number of things in Buddhist scripture that challenge that belief.

Consider this conversation between the Buddha and his disciple, attendant, and friend, Ananda, where Ananda begins:

This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.

The Buddha replies:

Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & comrades, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.002.than.html

On another occasion, the Buddha teaches:

With regard to external factors, I don’t envision any other single factor like admirable friendship as doing so much for a monk in training, who has not attained the heart’s goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed safety from bondage. A monk who is a friend with admirable people abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillful. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.1.001-027.than.html#iti-017

And again:

And what is meant by admirable friendship? There is the case where a layperson, in whatever town or village he may dwell, spends time with householders or householders’ sons, young or old, who are advanced in virtue. He talks with them, engages them in discussions. He emulates consummate conviction in those who are consummate in conviction, consummate virtue in those who are consummate in virtue, consummate generosity in those who are consummate in generosity, and consummate discernment in those who are consummate in discernment. This is called admirable friendship. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.054.than.html

Yes, friendship does, at least for most of us, include greater attachment, and the Buddha acknowledges this when he says to a grieving woman, “’Those who have a hundred dear ones have a hundred pains.”

He then sings:

The sorrows, lamentations,
the many kinds of suffering in the world,
exist dependent on something dear.
They don’t exist when there’s nothing dear.
And thus blissful and sorrowless
are those for whom nothing
in the world is dear anywhere.
So one who aspires to be stainless and sorrowless
shouldn’t make anything
in the world dear anywhere.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.8.08.than.html

Notice that he did not tell her to give up having dear ones.  Rather he solemnly reflects on the profundity of what we all know in common sense, which is that personal suffering accompanies personal love.  If you aspire to be free of that suffering, he says, then you have to free yourself from personal love, and I swear I can hear the Buddha in the subtext saying, “So, is that the kind of bliss you really want? Hey, if it is then knock yourself out.”

With these scriptures in mind, listen to the poetry written by Ananda after the death of his friend and teacher, the Buddha:

All the quarters are bedimmed
And the Path is not clear to me,
Indeed my noble friend has gone
And all about seems dark.

The friend has passed away,
The Master, too, has gone.
There is no friendship now that equals this:
The mindfulness directed bodywards.

The old ones now have passed away,
The new ones do not please me much,
Today alone I meditate
Like a bird gone to its nest.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thag/thag.17.03.hekh.html

We can hear both Ananda’s suffering and his awareness that his suffering points him back toward the practice of mindfulness, acceptance, and letting go; it bears awareness of both his personal love and a transcendent love.  For all of Buddhism’s apparent renunciation of personal attachment, it is not an effort to induce psychological denial.  It is not an either/or dichotomy in which attachment is a “wrong” to be avoided at all costs and an emotionally disconnected detachment is a “good” to be purchased at any expense.  Rather, I hear an acknowledgment that all at once we can know both the suffering of our personal losses and the bliss of that which transcends holding and losing.

As followers of the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have a number of scriptures that actually extol friendship.

The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life;
a wise person wins friends.  Proverbs 11:30

The heartfelt counsel of a friend
is as sweet as perfume and incense. Proverbs 27:9-10

Jesus speaks of friendship as a special relationship:

Greater love has no one than this, to lay day one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  John 15:13

Both the Gospels and the apocrypha also allude to Jesus having closer relationships with some of his disciples than others, perhaps even what we might call “favorites” or “best friends,” such as Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, and James.

And there is this classic teaching from St. Paul about the kind of friends Christians should be with each other:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.  Romans 12:9-13

In the first sentence, agape is the word Paul uses for love.  Christians conventionally understand agape to be a love that is unconditional and charitable in the broadest sense.   The word translated as “devoted” is philostorgos, which means to love each other like family, which is emphasized by the word philadelphia, the love of siblings or the closest of friends.  Koinoneo, meaning “to partner with,” is translated here as “share with” pointing to the commitment and depth of hospitality, philoxenia, we should practice even with those we would regard as strangers.

The writers of the New Testament epistles often speak with terms of warmest affection and personal endearment for their colleagues and followers, frequently referring to them as friends, siblings, and children.   They apparently found no shame at all in this, and even saw the cultivation of such relationships as central to living their faith.  As John says at the end of his third letter:

Peace be with you. Your friends here send you their greetings. Please give my personal greetings to each of our friends there.

Can you imagine the feelings that our earliest siblings in Christ must have felt for each other?  It seems to me that the apostles must have missed each other dearly as they each headed off on their missions to spread the Good News of God’s infinite love and grace. They suffered the cruelties and injustices inflicted upon each other, celebrated each other’s accomplishments, and grieved sorely when they heard of each other’s passing, even as they rejoiced at the ascension of their souls.  They were human after all, and they loved as humans filled with faith in a love that transcends but does not negate the temporary joys and pains of personal affections.

So, I close this post with gratitude for the blessings of friendship by sharing the words of one of my favorite mystics of the 19th century, Albert Pike:

That I can be a friend, that I can have a friend, though it were but one in the world: that fact, that wondrous good fortune, we may set against all the sufferings of our social nature.

May you all enjoy a beautiful Thanksgiving, whenever, wherever, and with whomever you may celebrate it.

Nov 292010
 

Here are two dialogues between a Christian mystic and Buddhists.  They are not shared as an attempt to define either religion or to hold one up as superior to the other.  What is important to me is the fraternal meeting of minds, the exposure of mystical and non-dualist perspectives in Christianity, and the  achievement of greater understanding between people of significantly different traditions.

Dialogue #1: The Ultimate Personal Relationship

They were discussing the nature of the Ultimate, beginning at what seemed to be a classic impasse:  The Christian spoke of the Ultimate as a personal God, and the a-theistic Buddhist spoke of the Ultimate as the impersonal principle of Being that gives rise to all things, yet is not contained by all things.

In their discussion, the Christian typically asserted that God is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving.  The Buddhist countered that if this is so, then God would be impossible for a human being to understand, that God must also be all-mysterious.  The Christian agreed, yet held that while God could not be understood, God could still be experienced as the great mystery of life itself.  The Buddhist smiled, apparently thinking that he now had the upper hand in the debate.  He asked the Christian how, if God is all-mysterious, one could rightly refer to God as “personal.”

The Christian had two responses:  First, he clarified that when many mystical theologians speak of God as a person, or a trinity of three persons, they are speaking in metaphors that only address ways God can be experienced by human beings.  Second, he said that since we are persons, it only makes sense that one of the most powerful and meaningful ways of experiencing God is as a person too.  So, while speaking of God as a person may be understood to be a metaphor, speaking of one’s experience with God as a personal relationship is entirely fitting.

Well, the Buddhist furrowed his brow for a moment, looking like a chess player trying to salvage his gambit from an unexpected move.  Suddenly he looked up with an idea.  He said that if experiencing God as a person is only a way of experiencing the Ultimate, then wouldn’t a purer, simpler way to experience the Ultimate be as the impersonal principle of Being?

The Christian asked if the Buddhist was one who thinks of the Ultimate as beyond all oppositions and thus non-dual.  The Buddhist said that he did.  Then the Christian said that if we are going to regard the Ultimate as non-dual, it is just as inaccurate to speak of It as impersonal as to speak of It as personal.  He said that personal and impersonal fall into the categories of either/or, neither/nor as well as both/and when speaking of the Ultimate, or God, and that what makes the difference is simply the kinds of experience one is open to.

The Buddhist was nodding with a blank face for moment, and then he laughed.   He said that now he could finally understand Christianity, but he wondered how many Christians do.  The Christian asked how many Buddhists really understand Buddhism, and they both laughed together.

Dialogue #2: If You Meet the Dharmakaya on the Via Negativa….

Zen Buddhist (ZB): “I would be very grateful if you could explain your interest in Zen.”

Christian Mystic (CM): “Zen is of interest because of its acceptance of this moment, right here, right now, just as it is.  The interconnected complexity of everything is permeated by this simplicity.  This explanation isn’t adequate.”

ZB: “Very interesting.  The shift of consciousness, from that of the periphery, to that of the ‘central’ position of the Mind, is, as I understand it, the essential thrust of the Ch’an-Zen teaching – a Buddhism, without the requirement for ‘Buddhism’, so-to-speak.

“In a sense, the Buddha’s own teaching, even within the Pali Canon, advocates the ‘letting go’ of even the method that gets one to the destination – the Dhammapada uses the allusion of a ‘raft’, and another shore being reached, etc.  One question that intrigues me is this; is it possible to reconcile the teaching of ’emptiness’ (sunyata), with that of the existence of a theistic entity creating and controlling all things?”

CM: “Yes, Zen [and Christian mysticism, for that matter] may be thought of as a tool.  About letting go of the raft, the limitation of this metaphor is the notion of a destination, which is not to say that such a notion is not useful.

“The teaching of sunyata can be likened to the Via Negativa of Western mysticism, in which it is acknowledged that the concept of God as a supremely active and intentional intelligence is only one way to think about and relate to God.  In the Via Negativa we continually strip our minds of such concepts to abide in the utter mystery of God, knowing that such thoughts are only limited creations of the mind or, if you will, fingers pointing at God.  In effect, we acknowledge the emptiness of such notions.  One effect of this practice can be to return back to simple awareness of this passing moment.

“So it is that, among many Western mystics, words about God have much in common with the Buddhist concept of Dharmakaya, which suggests a non-duality that is at once empty and full, no-thing and every-thing, impersonal and personal, unintentional and intentional, etc.  [In essence, “God” is the word we use for the Great Mysterious Truth of reality.]  For one in such a position, relating to God as a theistic entity can become a kind of artistic experience and expression of life.  [It is a way to express our love of the Great Mystery.]”

ZB: “Interesting, and well thought out.

“I am reminded of Matthew Fox, and his Original Blessing book, which deals with concepts such as ‘via negativa’, (as juxtaposed with ‘via positiva‘).  In that sense, a binary system that reconciles into an experiential ‘whole-ness’, realised within the spiritual being.  Allusions to similar systems, such as ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’, ‘yin’ and ‘yang’, are obvious.

“Of course, a ‘reconciliation’ does imply some kind of ‘third’ other, that actually realises the ‘reconciliation’.  The Dharmakaya (body of truth) is one candidate, and this is often presented in the Mahayana as part of a triad – (usually in conjunction with the nirmanakaya and the sambhogakaya).  Whether it could equally be said to be representative of a theistic entity, is problematic.  As none of the bodies of the Buddha originate ‘outside’ of the Mind.

“And this, (I sense), is where the breakdown of language raises its head!  God can not possibly be ‘God’, if God is in any way ‘real’.  As ‘God’ is a construct of the human Mind.  What lies beyond the construct, would in theory, also lie beyond the dualistic schemes that attempt to organise and explain nature in one, convenient philosophical presentation.

“The practice of Zen would eventually require the ‘giving-up’ of notions of ‘God’, and ‘Zen’, as well as any idea of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’.  As you say, a ‘timeless’, and ever ‘present’ moment of perfect being – free from discursive thinking and emotional over-lay.”

CM: “Peace.”

ZB: “Peace to you also.”

Nov 152010
 

The Good Heart:  A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus

In 1994, the Dalai Lama was invited by Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB to lead the John Main Seminar sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation.  The Dalai Lama, seminar panelists, and other participants meditated together and discussed eight key scriptures from the Gospels:

  1. Love Your Enemy, Matthew 5:38-48
  2. The Sermon on the Mount: The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-10
  3. Equanimity, Mark 3:31-35
  4. The Kingdom of God, Mark 4:26-34
  5. The Transfiguration, Luke 9:28-36
  6. The Mission, Luke 9:1-6
  7. Faith, John 12:44-50
  8. The Resurrection, John 20:10-18

This book is a record of their dialogue, and presents fascinating reflections on parallels, intersections and differences between Christianity and Buddhism.  While the focus is on Christianity, both traditions are represented authentically and respected as living embodiments of truth.  The Dalai Lama makes it clear, as he has often done in other venues, that he has no intentions of converting Christians to Buddhism or attempting to blend them into an amorphous universal religion.  Instead, he encourages people to plumb the depths of the religions to which they were born.  At no point does he presume to tell Christians what their scriptures should mean to them, but asserts that his views are only interpretations from an outsider.  It’s obvious that he admires Christianity and intends to speak in support of its followers.

Here is a beautiful story the Dalai Lama shared about his experience of Christianity through Christians he has known:

…on a visit to the great monastery at Montserrat, in Spain, I met a Benedictine monk there.  … After lunch, we spent some time alone, face to face, and I was informed that this monk had spent a few years in the mountains just behind the monastery.  I asked him what kind of contemplation he had practiced during those years of solitude.  His answer was simple: ‘Love, love, love.”  How wonderful! I suppose that sometimes he also slept.  But during all those years he meditated simply on love. And he was not meditating on just the word.  When I looked into his eyes, I saw evidence of profound spirituality and love — as I had during my meetings with Thomas Merton. … These two encounters have helped me develop a genuine reverence for the Christian tradition and its capacity to create people of such goodness.   I believe the purpose of all the major religions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

One of the most interesting things about this book may be how much it offers in the way of fresh and penetrating insight into some of the most well known Christian scriptures, and their implications for doctrine and spiritual living.  Not only are the Dalai Lama’s reflections poignant, but Fr. Freeman consistently offers views on Christianity that lead us well beyond the literalism that tends to dominate mainstream ideas about the Christian faith, and in so doing points toward freedom from many of the absurdities, self-contradictions, and oversimplifications that tend to characterize such ideas.   Consider this excerpt:

Dalai Lama: So that means we need not think of heaven and hell in terms of an external environment?

Fr. Freeman: No.  Hell would be the experience of separation from God, which in itself is unreal.  It is illusory because nothing can be separated from God.  However, if we think we are separated from God, then we are in Hell.  …  There is a poetical metaphor in the Bible in which God punishes humanity for its sins.  But I think the image of Jesus takes us beyond that image of God and replaces it with an image of God as one who loves unconditionally.  Sin remains. Sin is a fact. Evil is a fact. But the punishment that is associated with sin is inherent in sin itself.

This book is highly recommended for anyone with a dawning interest in Christian-Buddhist dialogue, for how it can enrich a Christian’s understanding and living of our faith, and for suggesting how we can embrace each other as spiritual siblings serving many of the same values and principles.  For the most part it is a light and easy read, and those who are looking for more extensive probing of intellectual depths or considerations of spiritual practice and service may be disappointed.  Even so, it’s a good starting place in its genre, and more seasoned thinkers in this area may enjoy it like a refreshing cup of tea.