by Jay McDaniel
A
small but growing number Christians in the West are turning to Buddhism
for spiritual guidance. Many are reading books about Buddhism, and
some are also meditating, participating in Buddhist retreats, and
studying under Buddhist teachers. They are drawn to Buddhism's emphasis
on "being present" in the present moment; to its recognition of the
interconnectedness of all things; to its emphasis on non-violence; to
its appreciation of a world beyond words, and to its provision of
practical means -- namely meditation -- for growing in one's capacities
for wise and compassionate living in daily life. As they learn from
Buddhism, they do not abandon Christianity. Their hope is that Buddhism
can help them become better Christians. They are Christians influenced
by Buddhism.
1. Julia is typical of one kind of Christian
influenced by Buddhism. She is a hospice worker in New York who, as a
Benedictine sister, turns to Buddhism "to become a better listener and
to become more patient." As a student of Zen she has been practicing
zazen for twenty years under the inspiration of the Vietnamese Zen
teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, whose book Living Buddha/Living Christ gave
her new eyes for Christ, proposing that Jesus himself was "mindful in
the present moment." She practices meditation in order to deepen her
own capacities for mindfulness, particularly as it might help her be
more effective in her life's calling. As a hospice worker she feels
called to listen to dying people, quietly and without judgment, as a way
of extending the healing ministry of Christ. Like many people in
consumer society, she sometimes finds herself too hurried and
distracted, too caught up in her own concerns, to be present to others
in patient and healing ways. She turns to Zen practice because it has
helped her become more patient and attentive in her capacities to be
available to people in a spirit of compassion.
From Julia’s
perspective, “being present” to people in a compassionate way is a
spiritual practice in its own right. She calls this attention
“practicing the presence of God,” and she believes that this listening
participates in a deeper Listening – an all-inclusive Love -- whom she
calls God, and whom she believes is everywhere at once. She turns to
Zen meditation, then, not to escape the world, but to help her drawn
closer to the very God whose face she sees in people in need, and to
help her become gentler and more attentive in her own capacities for
listening. In her words: “I hope that my Zen practice has helped me
become a better Christian.”
2. John, too, is a Christian who
practices meditation, but for different reasons. He suffers from
chronic back pain from a car accident several years ago. He has turned
to meditation as a way of coping more creatively with his pain. “The
pain doesn’t go away,” he says, but it’s so much worse when I fight it.
Meditation has helped me live with the pain, instead of fighting it all
the time.” When people see John, they note that he seems a little more
at peace, and a little more joyful, than he used to seem. Not that
everything is perfect. He has his bad days and his good days. Still,
he finds solace in the fact that, even on the bad days, he can “take a
deep breath” and feel a little more control in his life.
When
John is asked to reflect on the relation between his meditation practice
and Christianity, he reminds his questioner that that the very word
Spirit is connected to the Hebrew word ruach, which means breathing.
John sees physical breathing—the kind that we do each moment of our
lives--as a portable icon for a deeper Breathing, divine in nature,
which supports us in all circumstances, painful and pleasant, and which
allows us to face suffering, our own and that of others, with courage.
“Buddhism has helped me find strength in times of pain; it has helped me
find God’s Breathing.”
3. Sheila is an advertising agent in
Detroit who turns to Buddhism for a different reason. She does not
practice meditation and is temperamentally very active and busy. But
over the years her busyness has become a compulsion and she now risks
losing her husband and children, because she never has time for her
family. As she explains: “Almost all of my daily life has been absorbed
with selling products, making money, and manipulating other people’s
desires. Somewhere in the process I have forgotten what was most
important to me: helping others, being with friends and family, and
appreciating the simple beauties of life. Buddhism speaks to my deeper
side.”
When Sheila reflects on the relationship between Buddhism
and Christianity, she thinks about the lifestyle and values of Jesus.
She recognizes that Jesus himself had little interest in appearance,
affluence, and marketable achievement, and that he was deeply critical
of the very idea that “amassing wealth” should be a central organizing
principle of life. She doubts that Jesus would approve of the business
culture in which she is immersed, in which the accumulation of wealth
seems to be the inordinate concern. For her, then, Buddhism invites her
to rethink the values by which she lives and to turn to values that are
closer to the true teachings of Christ. “I find this simpler way
challenging,” she says, “but also hopeful. I hope that Buddhism can help
me have the courage to follow Christ more truly.
4. Robert is
an unemployed social worker in Texas, who feels unworthy of respect
because he does not have a salaried job like so many of his friends.
He, too, has been reading books on Buddhism, “Most people identify with
their jobs,” he says, “but I don’t have one. Sometimes I feel like a
nothing, a nobody. Sometimes I feel like it is only at church, and
sometimes not even there, that I count for anything.”
Robert
turns to Buddhism as a complement to the kind of support he seeks to
find, but sometimes doesn’t find, in Christianity. Buddhism tells him
that his real identity—his true self, as Buddhists put it—lies more in
the kindness he extends to others, and to himself, than in the making
money and amassing wealth. Like Sheila, he sees this as connected with
the teachings of Jesus. “Jesus tells me that I am made in the image of
God; Buddhism tells me that I possess the Buddha-Nature. I don’t care
what name you use, but somehow you need to know that you are more than
money and wealth.”
5. Jane is a practicing physicist who works
at a laboratory in Maryland who goes to a local Methodist church
regularly. For her, a religious orientation must “make sense”
intellectually, even as it also appeals to a more affective side of
life, as discovered in personal relations, music, and the natural
world. But she also finds God in science and in scientific ways of
understanding the world. She is troubled that, too often, the
atmosphere of church seems to discourage, rather than encourage, the
spirit of enquiry and questioning that are so important in the
scientific life. Jane appreciates the fact that, in Buddhism as she
understands it, this spirit is encouraged.
This non-dogmatic
approach, in which even religious convictions can be subject to
revision, inspires her. In her words: “I plan to remain a Christian and
stay with my Methodist church, but I want to learn more about
Buddhism. I sense that its approach to life can help me see the
spiritual dimensions of doubt and inquiry and help me integrate religion
and science.
6. Sandra is a Roman Catholic nun in Missouri who
leads a retreat center. Twelve months a year she leads retreats for
Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic, who wish to recover the more
contemplative traditions of their prayer life and enter more deeply into
their interior journey with God. At her workshops she offers
spiritual guidance and introduces participants to many of the mystics of
the Christian tradition: John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Meister
Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen. Even as she does this, she herself is on
the very journey to God, and she makes this clear to people who come her
way.
Sandra turns to Buddhism because she believes that its
teaching of no-ego or no-self, when understood experientially and not
just intellectually, is itself an essential dimension of the journey to
God. She sees this teaching as complementary to, and yet enriching,
the teaching of “death and resurrection” that is at the heart of
Christian faith. In her words: “Christianity and Buddhism agree that
the spiritual pilgrimage involves an absolute letting go, or dropping
away, of all that a person knows of self and God. Indeed, this is what
happened in Jesus as he lay dying on the cross, and perhaps at many
moments leading up to the cross. Only after the dying can new life
emerge, in which there is in some sense ‘only God’ and no more ‘me.’ I
see the cross as symbolizing this dying of self and resurrecting of new
life that must occur within each of us. Buddhism helps me enter into
that dying of self.”
As you listen to their stories, perhaps
you hear your own desires in some of them. If so, you have undertaken
an empathy experiment. You need not be “Christian” or “Buddhist” to do
this. There is something to learn from them even if you are not
religious at all. Don’t we all need to live by dying? Don’t we all
need to listen better? Don’t we all need to inquire and seek truth?
There is something deeply human in their searching, and deeply human in our willingness to learn from them, even if we don’t share their faith. And even if we do.
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