Christianity And Buddhism Essay, Research Paper
Several times toward the terminal of Zen retreats we have made together, you
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hold asked, “ But what does my Christianity attention deficit disorder to my Buddhism? ” And the
reply you received was, “ Nothing. It ’ s all traveling the other manner right now. ”
I understand that incredulity about Christianity ’ s “ adding ” to Buddhism.
Both of us know many fellow-Christians who are drawn to Buddhist pattern,
either because of an disaffection from the church, or, as I believe is true
for ourselves, because we find in the zendo something we believe we can non
discovery in the church.
I would non name myself a “ Buddhist ” ; even “ Buddhist-Christian ” has its
troubles. Although Thich Nhat Hanh has statues of Buddha and Jesus on
his communion table, the Dalai Lama has said that blending Buddhism and Christianity is
like “ seeking to set a yack ’ s caput on a cow ’ s body. ” Even Thomas Merton, who
did so much to further Buddhist-Christian duologue, says in Zen and the
Birds of Appetite that “ studied as constructions, as systems and faiths,
Zen and Catholicism don ’ t blend any better than oil and water.
”
Despite these and other cautiousnesss, I believe that my attempts at Buddhist
pattern, and my reading in Buddhist literature, have subtly and
significantly influenced my Christian religion – and, I would state, for the
better. In traveling from church to zendo and back once more, I know that I have
been able to react more and more “ heartily ” to the Gospel. It is non that
I have set up a parallel spiritual pattern ( no statues of Jesus and Buddha
side by side on my communion table – no statues at all, come to believe of it ) , but in
“ Buddhist ” pattern I have somehow come place in a new manner to my Christian
religion.
What I have found in the zendo is a deeper silence than I expect to happen in
the church, at least in my life-time.
As you know, for Buddhists, particularly in the Zen tradition, the first measure
in “ merely sitting ” is to allow travel of all “ positions, ” that is, softly but steadfastly
to put aside all self-generated and not-so-spontaneous discriminating
judgements of right and incorrect, good and bad – all judgements whatsoever, even
those which might do up “ Buddhism. ” ( This, I think, is the basic significance
of the ill-famed Buddhist pronouncement, “ If you meet the Buddha on the route, kill
him. ” ) I would non state that this “ emptying of the head ” is the kernel of
Buddhism, but Thich Nhat Hanh would surely set as the first measure for the
heedfulness pattern which is at the bosom of Zen life.
As our ain Empty Hand Zendo ( zen community ) manual describes it, “ Seated
speculation is the nucleus of our pattern. This involves working with the
organic structure, breath, and head, come ining into deep silence and hush, and
opening to a fresh consciousness minute after moment. ” In short, no “ positions ” to
be clung to here!
It is this silence that many of us, including practising Christians, have
experienced as a “ coming home. ” On one degree, holding set aside so much of
our usual hum, one might state that we have come place merely to ourselves,
or to what some folks would name our “ center. ” That is surely true, but
in the Buddhist tradition I think it would be more accurate to state that we
seek to go “ decentered, ” less concerned with ourselves and with the
judgements, strong beliefs, semblances, and biass that we so frequently use to
prop up those “ selves. ”
Raimondo Panikkar titled his major survey of Buddhism The Silence of God:
The Answer of the Buddha ( Orbis ) , and one of the things the Buddha was most
silent about was “ God. ” I think the Buddha has something to learn us on
that point. I was introduced at an early age into the tradition of
“ negative divinity, ” which stresses the bounds, or even the dislocation, of
all our constructs of God. And it is still a really of import portion of my
spiritual mentality. If anything, I have become over clip more positive that
our ecclesial garrulity, and particularly our all-too-facile “ God-talk, ”
can go a existent obstruction to personal religion. ( No 1 can state that we
haven ’ t been cautioned about the dangers of garrulity. Equally early as the
3rd century, Origen warned that “ to state even true things about God
involves no little hazard, ” and Henri de Lubac emphasized that hazard once more.
R / & gt ;
Even earlier, Ignatius of Antioch described God as “ the silence out of
which the word comes forth. ” When Karl Rahner began talking of God as
“ Mystery, ” he was pressing us to be more cautious. And yet we keep speaking
about “ God ” with indecent easiness. No admiration T. S. Eliot protested in “ Ash
Wednesday ” that there is non adequate silence for the word to be heard. )
I would non state that one has to travel to a Buddhist zendo to retrieve an
appropriate spiritual silence, nor would I say that all the alterations that
have taken topographic point in my religion are the consequence of “ merely sitting. ” But, in
fact, the Buddhists are better at this spiritual silence than we
Christians. Regularly traveling into this silence has made my faith freer, more
exploratory, and more personal. I have become more of a “ listener ” to our
ain tradition, someway more receptive to it and certainly less defensive about
it.
What I have come to listen to in this manner is, rather merely, “ the Christian
story. ” More and more I have come to believe of Christian religion non chiefly
as a credo or as a mystical journey but as duty for a narrative: the
narrative of “ God, ” with all its Immigration and Naturalization Services and outs, even as Jack Miles has most
late retold it in God: A Biography ( Knopf ) , and the narrative of Jesus, in
all its New Testament versions, even as deconstructed by John Dominic
Crossan and Marcus Borg. It is a really old narrative. It has been told once more and
once more – at Nicaea and Chalcedon ; by Athanasius and Augustine and Aquinas ; by
Eckhart and Ignatius and Newman. I like some versions better than others,
but I respect all the versions, even as I realize I must take
duty for my ain deconstruction and retelling of the narrative. In all
the brooding authorship Thomas Merton has done on Buddhism ( particularly Zen )
and Christianity, the repeating line is, “ I live, now non I, but Christ
lives in me. ” The “ narrative, ” God help us, is now bodied in me. Or so Saint
Paul claims, and I ’ m willing to prove it out with him.
Even as I describe a religion still in advancement, I besides find myself in
understanding with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ’ s call on the carpeting
1989 missive on “ Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. ” I don ’ t see the
dangers of Eastern mysticism that worry the fold, but I do see that
the words of Bible are the carriers of the Christian narrative and the
sacraments are the dramatic reenactment of the go oning narrative. If you let
Bible, Holy Eucharist, and sacraments travel and seek to “ vanish into the sea of
the Absolute, ” as the fold concerns, you may still be portion of some
narrative but non any longer the Christian 1. So I find that even as I get
deeper into Buddhist pattern, Scripture survey, the Holy Eucharist, and particularly
the Eucharist become non less but more of import to me. That ’ s precisely what
I listen to and somehow “ hear ” in a new manner across the silence.
In seeking to keep Scripture, sacraments, and Buddhist silence together, I
hold found the Hagiographas of John P. Keenan, a Buddhist bookman and an
Episcopal priest, really helpful. He has shown how, in at least one Buddhist
model, the Mahayana ( the mystical “ Great Vehicle ” tradition of Indian
Buddhism, of which Zen is in a particular manner “ the speculation school ” ) , it
might be possible to read Christology ( ” the Word ” ) in a manner that respects
“ the silence ” about which Ignatius of Antioch speaks. Keenan has proposed
that reading the Christian tradition through a Buddhist lens will enable
theologists to turn up the philosophy of the Incarnation in the context of
God ’ s ultimate “ unknowability ” – the Godhead darkness – which is besides portion of
the reliable Christian mystical tradition ( The Meaning of Christ: Angstrom
Mahayana Theology, Orbis ; and The Gospel of Mark: A Mahayana Reading,
Orbis ) .
Keenan makes usage of two subjects: the individuality between “ emptiness ” and
“ dependent co-arising ” and the “ distinction between the two truths of
ultimate significance and worldly convention. ” The first of these subjects applies
“ horizontally ” to our being in the universe and says that nil we
experience in our ordinary lives has a world independent of the fragile
web of “ causes and conditions ” that convey our experient worlds
approximately. The 2nd subject is “ perpendicular ” and
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