New Seeds Priory...in a nutshell.

This past Sunday at New Seeds Priory, we were visited by two gentlemen (a couple), who stayed after the conclusion of our Contemplative Celtic Eucharist service and shared some conversation with me.  I had met one member of this couple when I stopped by a local dharma center to introduce myself and share information about the Priory.  After visiting the Priory website, he and his partner decided to join us for services.  During our after-Eucharist conversation, the second member of this couple asked some very weighty, insightful questions…I felt a little as if I were being interrogated.  But I took it all as an opportunity to clarify and articulate just what it is this New Seeds Priory is all about with someone who was perhaps genuinely seeking a meaningful community in which to participate and find place and have a voice.  It was a good conversation.  It wasn’t until the end of this conversation that this fellow revealed himself to be a retired episcopal priest!

He emailed me today to thank me for sharing service and for entertaining his salvo of questions.  (I think I passed the test!)  

What follows is an excerpt from my email reply to this retired priest.  I share it with you because it offers what I hope is a clear and concise explanation of what I want New Seeds Priory to be about…

“One thing I would like to share with you about my Christian-Buddhist practice that didn’t segue into our conversation is my understanding of the Diamond Sutra, or at least one portion of the Diamond Sutra.  The sutra is a dialogue of question and responses between Buddha and the disciple Subhuti (much like our exchange on Sunday!).  In one exchange, Buddha explains to Subhuti, ‘That which you call the Highest Truth, may not be the Highest Truth.  It is only what you conceive of as the Highest Truth, therefore you call it the Highest Truth.’

“In a nutshell, I take this to mean that no matter what we think of as the highest truth, it is still only our conceptualization of what the highest truth is.  As a Christian, I see that this teaching is true of almost everything the Church has offered me as “the truth”.  As Christians, we have a two thousand year inheritance of other people’s conceptualization of “the highest truth”, from Paul to the Gospel Authors all the way to today, with each author or commentator interjecting their own political, theological, or societal agendas.  I’ve come to see that no matter how much authoritative weight one wishes to throw behind biblical scripture, it’s still just someone else’s conceptualization of God and of the teachings of Jesus.  If I’ve learned anything in my few years of study and experiment, it is that God is ineffable and well beyond my finite conceptualization, and that my conceptualizations are a means of putting God in a neat little box.  How can God fit in my box or anyone else’s box?  (For our sharing on Easter Sunday here at the Priory, I offered my point of view on the Easter story as an allegory for how God, no matter how we may try to conceptualize God, will not be contained by our boxes!)  

“The practice of Buddhism, Zen in particular, is to have an experience; a direct, clear, awake, experience.  Mindfulness training is about becoming fully awake and fully present with the reality of each moment, without conceptualization, without agenda, without a preconceived meaning or outcome.  In this regard, the practice of Zen is not a ‘religion’, but rather a practice of empirical spirituality.

“So what I hope I’m doing is creating a space at the Priory where people can feel free and comfortable in letting go of their theological boxes and move beyond the theological conceptualization they were given by ‘the church’.  I want people to feel free to drop their doctrinal conditioning and engage in an experiment and have their own direct, empirical experience of ‘the highest truth’.  To do this, I hope to open a door for people to participate with Christianity not as a list of doctrinal ‘beliefs’, but as a spiritual practice.  A practice grounded in humility, love, service, forgiveness, and mercy.  I like to think that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was headed in this direction when he speaks of ‘New Monasticism’ and ‘Religion-less Christianity’.  Participating as a ‘New Monastic’ with the Lindisfarne Community is my way of experimenting and hopefully making a small contribution to continuing some of his work.” 

 

I am wishing you a pleasant and cool evening,

fr. Scott+