Some of you may know that I am engaged in a Chaplain Residency at a large regional hospital…and in addition to visiting patients and families, my fellow residents and interns and I have lots of class-work, reading, paperwork, and group sharing. The whole thing is a tremendous opportunity to encounter suffering (the suffering of others and one’s own suffering) and to learn about one’s self in the midst of all that.
Anyway, in a recent class discussion on a book we’re all reading called “God & Human Suffering”, I was invited to comment on my experience of the intersection of my Christian practice and my Buddhist practice. At the time, I was exhausted; I had been on call for 24 hours and hadn’t had any sleep. I really couldn’t put two sentences together. But after I was able to go home and get some sleep, I came back the next day and shared this with the group…
What I’ve come to experience in Christianity, at least in its “traditional” expressions, is a spiritual system that primarily keeps its focus on how things “should” be. Traditional church systems do a good job of teaching people what to believe…about God, about Jesus, about “the kingdom”, about how the world is “supposed” to work. This traditional expression of Christianity provides us with an “ideology” to believe in and attach to. And what I’d like to point out is that the root of the word “ideology” is “idea”…that is, what we have been taught as Christians to believe in is just that: a bit of a fantasy, a construct of our imaginations, an IDEA.
Now, I’m not saying that having ideas or living out a life of “faith” is wrong. And if I sound critical, I really don’t mean to. I’m simply pointing out something I observe to be kind of true. Our invitation as Christians, at least as far as I can remember about what I’ve been taught, is to live out a life of “faith”. Again, having ideas or “beliefs” isn’t inherently wrong or bad. It just is what it is. It's good to have faith and hope, especially if our faith and hope is something that helps us function in the world and put one foot in front of the other. Where I think we get into trouble, though, is when we become attached to those beliefs and when we confuse our ideas with reality. Our egos fool us into thinking that because things “should” be a certain way, that they are that way. And I've encountered some Christians who have been taught that if we have enough "faith" or if we believe in something strongly enough, it will become true...as if God were Jiminy Cricket telling us that if we just did the right things and believed hard enough or had enough faith we could someday turn into "real" boys and girls. And that is simply not the case.
But I’ve come to understand that we all do this to some degree, we all create narratives for ourselves about who we are and what we believe; and that we all do it for a similar reason…to protect ourselves from overwhelming emotions like fear, anger or pain; or on a deeper level, clinging to our ideology protects us from facing the biggest fear of all: our own mortality and impermanence. Living in our ideology provides us with a welcome escape from the unbearable suffering in the world and inside of us and from a world that is constantly changing and finite. But constantly living in a state of denial about reality, or living in a world entirely composed of our ideas, can bring us into conflict with how the world actually is. Which sets us up for all kinds of trouble. I believe the psychological term for this is “psychosis”. I hate to say it, but a Christianity that is focused solely on adherence to an ideology at the expense of reality creates a kind of psychosis. Hhhmm…I'd better be careful, I'm one step away from calling Christianity psychotic. Luckily, this is where my Buddhist practice steps in…
But I’ve come to understand that we all do this to some degree, we all create narratives for ourselves about who we are and what we believe; and that we all do it for a similar reason…to protect ourselves from overwhelming emotions like fear, anger or pain; or on a deeper level, clinging to our ideology protects us from facing the biggest fear of all: our own mortality and impermanence. Living in our ideology provides us with a welcome escape from the unbearable suffering in the world and inside of us and from a world that is constantly changing and finite. But constantly living in a state of denial about reality, or living in a world entirely composed of our ideas, can bring us into conflict with how the world actually is. Which sets us up for all kinds of trouble. I believe the psychological term for this is “psychosis”. I hate to say it, but a Christianity that is focused solely on adherence to an ideology at the expense of reality creates a kind of psychosis. Hhhmm…I'd better be careful, I'm one step away from calling Christianity psychotic. Luckily, this is where my Buddhist practice steps in…
The invitation of the Buddha's teachings, that is the “practice” of Buddhism, is to let go of these fantasies, let go of these ideologies, and awaken to “reality”. Buddha invites us to simply sit and conduct the experiment of observation and analysis of what is “real” and “not real”...internally as well as externally. Zen Master Dogen was able to ofer a most profound summary of the entirety of the Buddha's Teaching in just three simple words: "Not Always So".
When I sit on my meditation cushion and focus on my breath and settle into a gentle, focused awareness, things come up: anger, pain, sadness, joy, fear, lust, rejection, attraction, loneliness, inclusion…all kinds of things come up into my consciousness for me to look at, feel, and investigate. I dialogue with these things and ask them, “where did you come from”?, “where are you going”?, “what are you all about?”, “what are you teaching me”?, “what do you need from me”?, “what do you have to say about me”?, “what do you have to say about reality”? And as these things come up, fear, anger, pain, joy, etc., I invite myself to remain present with them and not turn away. I spend time with my fear. I spend time with my anger. I spend time with my sadness and my joy, and I allow them to become familiar. As they become familiar parts of me, I learn that they arise from within me and that they do not come from outside. And as they become familiar, I see that they lose their power to control me. I learn to differentiate these conditioned states of emotion and thought from any external reality. I am liberated from my own ideology and the ideology of others. I learn that there is a big difference between ideology and reality. And I learn to live in a world that is constantly changing. I learn to bravely accept the reality of impermanence without retreating to a fantasy about “eternal life”, because there is no such thing.
And this is where I see the beautiful intersection of these traditions…right in the spot where my hope for a better world meets the reality of the world we have.
I’ve been a Christian all of my life, and I’ve been thoroughly steeped in its mythology and its ideology. But by sitting on my cushion and cultivating a brave but gentle practice of really examining the nature of myself and reality, I have been able to discover a beautiful, meaningful practice of Christianity based not on fantasy and ideology, but on reality. I’ve slowly been able to extricate Christ from Christianity. What I mean is, by trying to understand this Jesus dude outside of the ideology and mythology of things like the immaculate conception, royal Davidic lineage, walking on water, “miracles” and even the resurrection, and letting go of those things that for most people define their Christianity, I’ve discovered something I feel is truer, more authentic, more healing and more empowering (for me, anyway). I’ve tried to look beyond the ideology and the mythology and look directly at the life and teachings of this man called Jesus. What I see is a man with a deep understanding and appreciation for the transcendent divine. I see a guy who understood both the spiritual and religious life of his people and the role that spirituality and religion played in their lives. But I think he also understood the reality of a brutal life in first century Palestine. He understood the crushing poverty, brutality and oppression of life under Roman occupation. He understood the corrupt, inhumane governance of Herrodian rule. And he understood the hypocrisy and impotence of strict religious life under the Pharisees. And he was pissed off about it! He taught empowering lessons of a different, compassionate spiritual life in relationship with a loving compassionate God and lived out a life of selfless care of the poor, the sick, the homeless and the oppressed. He never really required people to “believe” in him, he asked people to “follow” him and to love. Jesus, as a true spiritual master, gave us his own summary of the spiritual laws of his own time and culture: "Love God, Love your Neighbor as Yourself". But I think more importantly, Jesus gave us an example…an example of how to practice loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. He gave us something more powerful than ideology and more powerful that beliefs, He gave us a practice. Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha saw the same things in his world and gave us the same thing: a practice of seeing reality and generating compassion for and in that reality.
I can hope for a better world. I can believe that things should be different. But hope doesn’t change anything. My hope doesn’t change the reality of a suffering world. I still have to do something about it. If I want a better world, I have to make it happen. If I want the “kingdom of heaven”, I have to make it here and now. My hope doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to love and to do the work required of loving. In the world of suffering, at the intersection of Christianity and Buddhism I discover a powerful practice...a practice of compassion in the midst of a reality of suffering and of joy.
And so this is where I try to abide and work and discover the kingdom, at the intersection of hope and reality...at the crossroads of "Love Your Neighbor" and "Not Always So".
Scott+
