Six Examples 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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