This Mumbai thing has me thinking, once more, about death. A father and his thirteen year-old daughter sit at dinner at a restaurant and death comes crashing through the door in the form of madmen with assault weapons, firing at random among the tables. He's a former art teacher, a long-time meditator, visiting the country of the Buddha's birth in search of spiritual enlightenment. She is, well, just a teenager. Barely a teenager, who came along on her father's quest because she thought the experience would give her good subject matter for an application essay to qualify for entry to a private school. The last thing either expected was this encounter with violent death. So, too, the rabbi from Brooklyn and his young, attractive wife... And dozens of others like them.
And then... five human beings set off in a SUV for some unknown purpose and drive off an overpass somewhere in Colorado, crashing forty feet to their death on the concrete below; a store clerk leaves for his job at a Walmart store, and dies shortly after the store opens, trampled to death by the stampede of post-Thanksgiving shoppers...
It's not only the randomness of these deaths, and the countless others in Mumbai, that got me thinking: it's the seeming finality that accompanied them. As an atheist and a not-quite Buddhist who finds the whole notion of multiple lives too hard to swallow, I read about these deaths with little to comfort me. I would like very much to believe that this one life is not all there is, and I do have some inkling that the life-force or the energy that I feel within will persist in some form after my death. My struggle really is with the ego part, the ME that clings to the peculiarly human individuality that is the current manifestation of my being and on which I hang the story of my life. I am hung up by that face I see in the mirror, and by which others recognize me for who I seem to be.
I realize that my meditation practice has not yet brought me to the point where I can let go of these appearances. No matter how much I may "understand," up here, that clinging and aversion bring with them equal suffering, that understanding fails to register with the same power in the heart and the gut. The fact of the matter is that I really like being who I am, and the thought of not being me any more is a painful one.
Readers of The Buddha Diaries will perhaps remember that other little problem I have with death: I'm really hung up on the story, all stories, any stories, and I have a lot vested in knowing the end of them. Thw father and daughter started their dinner that evening in the full expectation that they would get up and leave the table at the end of it, continuing their journey. The store clerk, perhaps, had had a row with his girlfriend the evening before, and went to work in anticipation of the opportunity to repair the damage before the day was out. As for me, there are multiple strands of story going on in my life right now, and I realize there are many whose end I will not know. I'm absurdly grateful to know the end of this past election story--especially since it ended in precisely the way I would have written it, had I been so empowered. But now I have to wonder how much of the continuation of the political story I'll be given to know; and it's unlikely that I'll ever know if the planet we live on will survive the abuses we have inflicted on it. That this particular and current story should even have a foreseeable end is pretty scary. Then the events in Mumbai come along to remind me of the fragility of our global balance and the real possibility of human history ending in a forest of mushroom clouds.
In this context, of course, my own little life seems small indeed... but I cling to it none the less for the knowledge of its relative insignificance. So this morning I sit and try to bring my wandering attention back to the breath. For too few moments, I manage to bring my mind into the present and breathe past the gravitational mass of my own body. I acknowledge the unique wisdom of the Buddha and the path to happiness he has laid out for those of us who try to follow it. And yet I find it impossible, today, to reach anything that comes near serenity...
Showing posts with label skepticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skepticism. Show all posts
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Stealing America
My friend Bill forwarded this link to the website of Stealing America, a movie about electronic voting and its susceptibility to error and outright fraud. After what happened in the last two presidential elections, NOW might be a good time to start insisting on adequate protections. It was the hanging chads and other egregious failures in Florida that brought us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves; and shenanigans in Ohio and elsewhere that led us deeper into the mire. I for one am grateful for the reminder that, this time, we must not allow ourselves to be caught napping.
On the political front, also, I checked out the New York Times this morning, and found virtually unanimous criticism of the Palin selection; this article may help explain why. The story of her petty tyrannies as mayor of Wasilla reveals an attitude toward executive power that is frankly pretty scary. I don't see how McCain can get away with this one. I'm sure she will rally the forces at the convention tonight, but am doubtful she can stand much further scrutiny in less adulatory circles. I could be wrong, of course--as I often am!--but I think McCain has served himself a large helping of Baked Alaskan trouble for dessert.
Having watched the effect of Gustav on the Republican convention, I now wonder what the imminent arrival of three other tropical storms on our shores might have on delegates who are not predisposed to dismiss the contribution of human activity to climate change. Will the timing of these successive events change any minds, shift any positions? Is the Earth's voice loud and persuasive enough to compete, in the minds of doubters, with what they believe to hear as the voice of God? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
For myself, a disbeliever in deities of all colors and stripes, the dual voices of science and reason are powerful enough. It dismays me to see the current Republican candidate pandering once again to the voices of unreason, who find a way to twist each manifestation of failure into a token of success; who bend their dearly-held principles to fit the contingencies of the moment; and who find justification for their inanities in the supposed approval of an infinitely malleable God.
I heard, today again, the argument that the parties are essentially "the same"--that whichever way you turn, you find mendacity and abuse of power, self-righteousness and intolerance of the opposition. I understand that this argument comes from years of disillusionment and disenchantment. But a look at the policies of each party--and the tone of their politics--suggests to me otherwise. They are not "the same," and the preponderance of fanatical ideology rests clearly on the other side. Bush spoke last night (via satellite, courteously disinvited from his Party's party!) of the "angry left." Does that imply a beatific state of tolerant equanimity on the right?
And finally, watch even a few minutes of the convention as cameras pan across the sea of faces and you can hardly help but notice the nearly universal homogeneity--and its stark contrast with what we saw last week in Denver. Should this not be of pressing concern to us, in a country that prides itself on its founding insistence that all [men] are created equal, and which preaches equality of opportunity for all?
No, these parties are not "the same." Prefer one or the other, as you will. Or neither of them. But I won't be persuaded that they are "the same."
On the political front, also, I checked out the New York Times this morning, and found virtually unanimous criticism of the Palin selection; this article may help explain why. The story of her petty tyrannies as mayor of Wasilla reveals an attitude toward executive power that is frankly pretty scary. I don't see how McCain can get away with this one. I'm sure she will rally the forces at the convention tonight, but am doubtful she can stand much further scrutiny in less adulatory circles. I could be wrong, of course--as I often am!--but I think McCain has served himself a large helping of Baked Alaskan trouble for dessert.
Having watched the effect of Gustav on the Republican convention, I now wonder what the imminent arrival of three other tropical storms on our shores might have on delegates who are not predisposed to dismiss the contribution of human activity to climate change. Will the timing of these successive events change any minds, shift any positions? Is the Earth's voice loud and persuasive enough to compete, in the minds of doubters, with what they believe to hear as the voice of God? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
For myself, a disbeliever in deities of all colors and stripes, the dual voices of science and reason are powerful enough. It dismays me to see the current Republican candidate pandering once again to the voices of unreason, who find a way to twist each manifestation of failure into a token of success; who bend their dearly-held principles to fit the contingencies of the moment; and who find justification for their inanities in the supposed approval of an infinitely malleable God.
I heard, today again, the argument that the parties are essentially "the same"--that whichever way you turn, you find mendacity and abuse of power, self-righteousness and intolerance of the opposition. I understand that this argument comes from years of disillusionment and disenchantment. But a look at the policies of each party--and the tone of their politics--suggests to me otherwise. They are not "the same," and the preponderance of fanatical ideology rests clearly on the other side. Bush spoke last night (via satellite, courteously disinvited from his Party's party!) of the "angry left." Does that imply a beatific state of tolerant equanimity on the right?
And finally, watch even a few minutes of the convention as cameras pan across the sea of faces and you can hardly help but notice the nearly universal homogeneity--and its stark contrast with what we saw last week in Denver. Should this not be of pressing concern to us, in a country that prides itself on its founding insistence that all [men] are created equal, and which preaches equality of opportunity for all?
No, these parties are not "the same." Prefer one or the other, as you will. Or neither of them. But I won't be persuaded that they are "the same."
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Religious Intolerance
I was sorely tempted, this morning, to write once again about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and my dismay at his seemingly intentional subversion of the Obama presidential campaign. In his appearances these past few days--cocky, snide in his remarks, intemperate, self-congratulatory, playing to the gallery--he would have you believe that this whole brouhaha is about religious intolerance, an attack on African-American religion. I don't see it that way. I believe it to be more about monomania, vanity, personal envy and spite.
But I decided to contribute no further to this unseemly and depressing spectacle. Instead, I'm choosing this morning to pass on a story of real religious intolerance, one that I heard just a couple of days ago from a friend about a mutual friend of ours--more an acquaintance, really, than a personal friend of mine, but a man I have known for some forty years, and one whose privacy I would not wish to risk violating in these pages. He will remain, then, anonymous. Call him Greg. And understand that parts of the story are suppositions on my part, based more on guesswork than actual fact.
I'm guessing, then, that Greg was born into a secular Jewish family--refugees, I perhaps, from post-World War II Europe, rather than Holocaust survivors--and was raised in this country as a non-religious, non-practicing Jew. As such, reaching adulthood, he married and became the father of a son, whom he raised, in turn, without any particular religious affiliation or belief. By mid-life, not unlike myself, he found himself searching for some spiritual underpinning for his life and--again, not unlike myself--found in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation a resource for the rational but spirit-yearning mind, a religion that required no suspension of disbelief but, rather, welcomed healthy scepticism and curiosity. He studied the teachings and developed a strong meditation practice.
Greg's son, meanwhile, clearly felt the call of the spirit at a much earlier stage of life and turned to his neglected Jewish heritage. Perhaps because of his sectarian education, he was attracted to the farther extreme, an embrace of increasingly strict orthodoxy that led him, eventually, to religious education in a yeshiva. His enthusiasm even carried his father along--perhaps in part, at least, out of love for his son and respect for this new path that he had chosen. Greg began to rediscover his own Judaism, to study kabala, to venture into kosher eating practices, and to embrace the Jewish faith. He told friends--including, at one point, ourselves--that he had found in Judaism a richer and more rewarding resource than Buddhism, and he seemed committed to a serious change in his affiliation.
We were surprised to learn, then, in that recent conversation with our mutual friend, that Greg had returned to Buddhism and his meditation practice. According to our friend's account--and I remind you, none of this is told first-hand--Greg's son had become increasingly strict and intolerant in his views, to the point that he began to complain, on visits home, about his mother's kitchen habits, to criticize her for not being "kosher enough," and finally to issue threats to the effect that he could not continue to come home to visit unless she would conform to his requirements. Greg, it seems, was willing to risk alienation from his son in defense of his wife, asserting that he, the son, must be willing to accept his parents for who they are, and not for who he imagines or requires them to be. At the same time, he made the decision to return to his Buddhist practice.
A sad story, then, of religious intolerance and its destructive and divisive potential, even in a close and loving family. And this is not about Judaism. The story could equally well have involved Muslims, Catholics, or Protestant Christians. It reminded me of another, similar story, of a very old family friend, a Kindertransport survivor from Austria, who lived for a while in our house as a child and, uprooted from his Jewish origin and partly under the influence of my Anglican minister father, whom he dearly loved, even idolized, became a committed Episcopalian when he arrived in America after the war and was reunited with his parents. The last time I met him, in Chicago, many years ago, I was appalled to learn that he had disowned his daughter because she had decided to become--an Anglican priest! He believed that the priesthood was reserved for men.
I was happy to learn since, from other sources, that this particular rift was eventually healed. But I am saddened by the never-ending evidence that religious beliefs, while purporting to teach us to live better lives and promoting love among human beings as their ideal, continue instead to foster hatred and intolerance in the world. It's another good reason, for me, to value what I have discovered in the tolerant, always skeptical wisdom of the Buddha.
But I decided to contribute no further to this unseemly and depressing spectacle. Instead, I'm choosing this morning to pass on a story of real religious intolerance, one that I heard just a couple of days ago from a friend about a mutual friend of ours--more an acquaintance, really, than a personal friend of mine, but a man I have known for some forty years, and one whose privacy I would not wish to risk violating in these pages. He will remain, then, anonymous. Call him Greg. And understand that parts of the story are suppositions on my part, based more on guesswork than actual fact.
I'm guessing, then, that Greg was born into a secular Jewish family--refugees, I perhaps, from post-World War II Europe, rather than Holocaust survivors--and was raised in this country as a non-religious, non-practicing Jew. As such, reaching adulthood, he married and became the father of a son, whom he raised, in turn, without any particular religious affiliation or belief. By mid-life, not unlike myself, he found himself searching for some spiritual underpinning for his life and--again, not unlike myself--found in the Buddhist teachings and the practice of meditation a resource for the rational but spirit-yearning mind, a religion that required no suspension of disbelief but, rather, welcomed healthy scepticism and curiosity. He studied the teachings and developed a strong meditation practice.
Greg's son, meanwhile, clearly felt the call of the spirit at a much earlier stage of life and turned to his neglected Jewish heritage. Perhaps because of his sectarian education, he was attracted to the farther extreme, an embrace of increasingly strict orthodoxy that led him, eventually, to religious education in a yeshiva. His enthusiasm even carried his father along--perhaps in part, at least, out of love for his son and respect for this new path that he had chosen. Greg began to rediscover his own Judaism, to study kabala, to venture into kosher eating practices, and to embrace the Jewish faith. He told friends--including, at one point, ourselves--that he had found in Judaism a richer and more rewarding resource than Buddhism, and he seemed committed to a serious change in his affiliation.
We were surprised to learn, then, in that recent conversation with our mutual friend, that Greg had returned to Buddhism and his meditation practice. According to our friend's account--and I remind you, none of this is told first-hand--Greg's son had become increasingly strict and intolerant in his views, to the point that he began to complain, on visits home, about his mother's kitchen habits, to criticize her for not being "kosher enough," and finally to issue threats to the effect that he could not continue to come home to visit unless she would conform to his requirements. Greg, it seems, was willing to risk alienation from his son in defense of his wife, asserting that he, the son, must be willing to accept his parents for who they are, and not for who he imagines or requires them to be. At the same time, he made the decision to return to his Buddhist practice.
A sad story, then, of religious intolerance and its destructive and divisive potential, even in a close and loving family. And this is not about Judaism. The story could equally well have involved Muslims, Catholics, or Protestant Christians. It reminded me of another, similar story, of a very old family friend, a Kindertransport survivor from Austria, who lived for a while in our house as a child and, uprooted from his Jewish origin and partly under the influence of my Anglican minister father, whom he dearly loved, even idolized, became a committed Episcopalian when he arrived in America after the war and was reunited with his parents. The last time I met him, in Chicago, many years ago, I was appalled to learn that he had disowned his daughter because she had decided to become--an Anglican priest! He believed that the priesthood was reserved for men.
I was happy to learn since, from other sources, that this particular rift was eventually healed. But I am saddened by the never-ending evidence that religious beliefs, while purporting to teach us to live better lives and promoting love among human beings as their ideal, continue instead to foster hatred and intolerance in the world. It's another good reason, for me, to value what I have discovered in the tolerant, always skeptical wisdom of the Buddha.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Hell
"L'enfer," wrote Jean Paul Sartre in his play, Huis clos ("No Exit"), "c'est les autres." Hell is other people. Mind you, he carefully crafted his characters to prove the point. And then there's the famous "War is hell" quotation from General William Tecumseh Sherman--though if you read the full text of the impassioned letter in which he expands upon this thought, you'll see how inadequate its famous abbreviation sounds. In any event, war--like Sartre's, like every other imaginable hell--is man-made.
My thoughts of hell, this morning, are inspired by watching only a few minutes (sadly, I would have liked to watch more, but my weary head dictated otherwise) of a program about hell on the History Channel. I had surfed there somewhat idly on my way to sleep, and was grabbed by the (man-made) images and words that have defined humanity's view of hell throughout the ages. It seems that most religions preach some form of hell, where the wicked are punished for their evil deeds in an afterlife. Regrettably, Budhhism is no exception. I checked with Access to Insight on the subject, and came upon these faintly risible verses--in translation by none other than Than Geoff. Here's one I thought should be heeded by those generals in Burma:
An ochre robe tied 'round their necks,
many with evil qualities
— unrestrained, evil —
rearise, because of their evil acts,
in hell.
Better to eat an iron ball
— glowing, aflame —
than that, unprincipled &
unrestrained,
you should eat the alms of the country.
It does seems strange to me that those who preach the gospel of a loving God should envision one so cruel and vengeful in the afterlife. There had to be some way, of course, to control the behavior of naturally wayward human beings, and the threat of damnation to an eternity of torture seems like an effective way to maintain the upper hand.
The Evangelical Christians, it seems, have an interesting twist on the Sartrian concept: for them, "Hell is for other people"--i.e., not for me. Unconverted Jews join Muslims, Hindus, atheists--and, presumably, Buddhists--in the fires of hell. They, the Christians, get raptured away to heaven. Although they might want to take note of another of Than Geoff's translations:
Ashamed of what's not shameful,
not ashamed of what is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
Seeing danger where there is none,
& no danger where there is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
Imagining error where there is none,
and seeing no error where there is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
But knowing error as error,
and non-error as non-error,
beings adopting right views
go to a good
destination.
I'm all for heading for the "right destination", of course. But I believe in neither heaven nor hell. Except, of course, those made by man. How about you?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Breaking the Fast
What a lovely evening! Ellie and I did, indeed, observe the Yom Kippur fast from (approximately!) sundown on Friday through sundown on Saturday, and spent the daylight hours quietly at home, giving thought to the past year and the direction of our lives. The fact that Debra and Richard, our good hosts, had done the same brought us together in a special way, and when we arrived at their home we spent the first hour listening to a recorded dharma talk on forgiveness--which opened up the space for us all to go into some intimate depth about our lives and families. It's rare, honestly, to be able to talk with such ease and comfort about things which can seem too personal, in normal social circumstances, to broach, and we enjoyed that opportinuty.
Breaking the fast, after that, was another delightful shared experience. After a day of abstinence, the taste buds seemed that much sharper than usual, and we feasted on a wonderful, fresh salad and a simple rice noodle dish with vegetables and a touch of turkey, followed by a fruit salad that Ellie had prepared and a dollop of Debra's Greek yogurt made rich and creamy by hours of straining through cheesecloth. Accompanied by generous mugs of ginger tea, the whole meal was a pleasure to the palate, and the conversation, having opened up so nicely before dinner, led us into all kinds of common interests and mutual experiences.
Coming from a Jewish background, like Ellie, our friends have begun to embrace the Buddhist teachings as we have done ourselves. One thing the two religions have in common is a healthy skepticism that encourages--no, really, requires--that we continually question the dogma. I wonder if this is why so many of the prominent Buddhist teachers--and so many of those, like ourselves, who have discovered in Buddhism a practice that responds so deeply to our needs--come to the religion from a grounding in Judaism. It may even be that many of those influential Britishers (I think of pioneers like Alan Watts) were attracted by the essential pragmatism of the Buddha's teachings--a pragmatism related, as I see it, to that same skepticism.
Perhaps I'm speaking here--I usually do!--out of my own prejudices and preconceptions. The (again, healthy, I believe) skepticism and pragmatism I inherit in my English genes, along with the dis-belief in God that I have come to in my life, are certainly important factors in my own embrace of the constant intellectual questioning and the growing personal freedom that Buddhism seems to ask of me.
Breaking the fast, after that, was another delightful shared experience. After a day of abstinence, the taste buds seemed that much sharper than usual, and we feasted on a wonderful, fresh salad and a simple rice noodle dish with vegetables and a touch of turkey, followed by a fruit salad that Ellie had prepared and a dollop of Debra's Greek yogurt made rich and creamy by hours of straining through cheesecloth. Accompanied by generous mugs of ginger tea, the whole meal was a pleasure to the palate, and the conversation, having opened up so nicely before dinner, led us into all kinds of common interests and mutual experiences.
Coming from a Jewish background, like Ellie, our friends have begun to embrace the Buddhist teachings as we have done ourselves. One thing the two religions have in common is a healthy skepticism that encourages--no, really, requires--that we continually question the dogma. I wonder if this is why so many of the prominent Buddhist teachers--and so many of those, like ourselves, who have discovered in Buddhism a practice that responds so deeply to our needs--come to the religion from a grounding in Judaism. It may even be that many of those influential Britishers (I think of pioneers like Alan Watts) were attracted by the essential pragmatism of the Buddha's teachings--a pragmatism related, as I see it, to that same skepticism.
Perhaps I'm speaking here--I usually do!--out of my own prejudices and preconceptions. The (again, healthy, I believe) skepticism and pragmatism I inherit in my English genes, along with the dis-belief in God that I have come to in my life, are certainly important factors in my own embrace of the constant intellectual questioning and the growing personal freedom that Buddhism seems to ask of me.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Belief and Disbelief
A new insight. Well, it’s new to me. Like all my “insights,” it has probably been perfectly obvious for years to many other people, but it came to me yesterday with a certain clarity as I was reading a translation of The Heart Sutra by Red Pine, replete with mind-benders like this:
Lovely. But go figure. Anyway, here's my own insight:
Belief and disbelief are not mutually exclusive opposites, they are rather two sides of the same coin. As readers of The Buddha Diaries will likely be aware, I myself have been much attached to disbelief. And what came to me with that certain clarity yesterday was that to be attached to disbelief is really no different than being attached to belief. Disbelief is in itself a form of belief—a belief that the belief of others is somehow wrong-headed or ignorant. The two seem to me, on reflection, to be in balance with each other. The one who desires to follow the Middle Way would steer a path between belief and disbelief, without allowing himself to be attached to either one.
Skepticism is a little different from disbelief. I hold to my skepticism (am I “attached” to it?) because it comes down on neither the side of belief nor, properly, on the side of disbelief. The mind that opens itself to disbelief can surely remain open to belief. If it questions belief, by the same token, it will as honestly question disbelief.
Am I counting the angels as they dance, here, on the head of a pin? Perhaps. But this, it seems to me, is the sense of the Middle Path in the matter of belief and disbelief. And this is my mighty insight for the day. I trust that I will be able to learn from it.
Blessings!
"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness; whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form."
Lovely. But go figure. Anyway, here's my own insight:
Belief and disbelief are not mutually exclusive opposites, they are rather two sides of the same coin. As readers of The Buddha Diaries will likely be aware, I myself have been much attached to disbelief. And what came to me with that certain clarity yesterday was that to be attached to disbelief is really no different than being attached to belief. Disbelief is in itself a form of belief—a belief that the belief of others is somehow wrong-headed or ignorant. The two seem to me, on reflection, to be in balance with each other. The one who desires to follow the Middle Way would steer a path between belief and disbelief, without allowing himself to be attached to either one.
Skepticism is a little different from disbelief. I hold to my skepticism (am I “attached” to it?) because it comes down on neither the side of belief nor, properly, on the side of disbelief. The mind that opens itself to disbelief can surely remain open to belief. If it questions belief, by the same token, it will as honestly question disbelief.
Am I counting the angels as they dance, here, on the head of a pin? Perhaps. But this, it seems to me, is the sense of the Middle Path in the matter of belief and disbelief. And this is my mighty insight for the day. I trust that I will be able to learn from it.
Blessings!
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
God... and Two Teresas
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... 
Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
— addressed by Mother Teresa to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated
I don't believe in God. I think I have made that clear. I don't agonize over my lack of belief. At most, while my father was still alive, I kept my disbelief under wraps for his sake, for the Anglican priest he was, at least when I was in his company, so that I would not disappoint him. I regret that now. I think that we could have had some great discussions, that honesty would have brought us closer--though by that time I had left England for good, and saw him only rarely, once every couple of years or so, for a few hurried days. I went to church on those occasions, out of respect, and perhaps a kind of nostalgia for the ceremony of it, the sights and sounds and smells...
There had been times, I knew, when my father wrestled with doubts about his faith. He lived with chronic stomach problems, chronic health problems of all kinds as he grew older. My father was a great believer in the unity of mind and body, and one who inevitably attributed others' illnesses to "psychosomatic" effects. He loved that word. It must surely have crossed his mind that his own health problems were a symptom of his inner struggle with God. It's a conversation I now wish that I'd had with him--a conversation that might have shed light on my own lack of faith, my own disbelief in the God he worshipped, and taught others--myself included, as a child--to worship with him.
So now we learn about Mother Teresa. The news media are shocked, shocked... and are convinced that we must share their alarm. I don't. It seems to me that the "dark night of the soul" is something every human being is given to experience in one way or another, and that the more sensitive among us will suffer it for longer. For Teresa, it lasted for decades. I see her struggle and read her words as poetry. It doesn't matter to me that they are centered on doubts about the Christian God. In fact, it seems almost irrelevant to me. I have a friend who has suffered it for years, so far as I know a non-believing Jew with a true heart and a fine intelligence. I believe that some few people are given more to suffer than the rest of us. Perhaps it is in some strange way their choice, but it's sad to think of it that way.
There is, of course, as Teresa put it, "such deep longing for God," for some hard evidence that our lives have greater depth and meaning than might seem to be the case, given a brief and sometimes brutish sojourn on this planet Earth. All the beauty in the natural world and in the greater universe is not satisfying for some, who need to project a reason and a justification for these phenomena on some unseen, guiding hand, an "intelligent" designer who oversees their workings and demands obesiance. Should they seek solace from him/her/it in the form of some returned communication--a prayer answered, an intention approved--and should they fail to hear the answer that they seek, they may well find themselves, as Teresa, "repulsed — empty — no faith — no love — no zeal. — [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction — Heaven means nothing — pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything."
It's a piteous plea, and one that sounds a deep emotional truth about the far end of the spectrum between ecstasy and despair. I do not question Mother Teresa's cry of despair any more than I question the ecstasy of that other Teresa,
Teresa of Avila, whose passionate surrender at once to Thanatos and Eros--at least in Bernini's awesome image of her--is also profoundly moving in its sheer humanity, profance, erotic and saintly in the very same breath. It's all poetry to me, and meaningful as such. I don't need God to explain either one to me. I don't even need the "secular spirituality" that
Deepak Chopra would have us embrace if we have abandoned the Christian faith, which seems to me to share the internal squishiness of some New Age simulacra for religion.
So, thank you for those letters, Mother Teresa. I for one don't need you to be a saint. I need you to be the human being you prove yourself to be. Though, without wishing to be cheeky, and with regard to all that suffering, I think you'd have found more comfort in the Buddha's Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path than in your Jesus on the Cross.
Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
— addressed by Mother Teresa to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated
I don't believe in God. I think I have made that clear. I don't agonize over my lack of belief. At most, while my father was still alive, I kept my disbelief under wraps for his sake, for the Anglican priest he was, at least when I was in his company, so that I would not disappoint him. I regret that now. I think that we could have had some great discussions, that honesty would have brought us closer--though by that time I had left England for good, and saw him only rarely, once every couple of years or so, for a few hurried days. I went to church on those occasions, out of respect, and perhaps a kind of nostalgia for the ceremony of it, the sights and sounds and smells...
There had been times, I knew, when my father wrestled with doubts about his faith. He lived with chronic stomach problems, chronic health problems of all kinds as he grew older. My father was a great believer in the unity of mind and body, and one who inevitably attributed others' illnesses to "psychosomatic" effects. He loved that word. It must surely have crossed his mind that his own health problems were a symptom of his inner struggle with God. It's a conversation I now wish that I'd had with him--a conversation that might have shed light on my own lack of faith, my own disbelief in the God he worshipped, and taught others--myself included, as a child--to worship with him.
So now we learn about Mother Teresa. The news media are shocked, shocked... and are convinced that we must share their alarm. I don't. It seems to me that the "dark night of the soul" is something every human being is given to experience in one way or another, and that the more sensitive among us will suffer it for longer. For Teresa, it lasted for decades. I see her struggle and read her words as poetry. It doesn't matter to me that they are centered on doubts about the Christian God. In fact, it seems almost irrelevant to me. I have a friend who has suffered it for years, so far as I know a non-believing Jew with a true heart and a fine intelligence. I believe that some few people are given more to suffer than the rest of us. Perhaps it is in some strange way their choice, but it's sad to think of it that way.
There is, of course, as Teresa put it, "such deep longing for God," for some hard evidence that our lives have greater depth and meaning than might seem to be the case, given a brief and sometimes brutish sojourn on this planet Earth. All the beauty in the natural world and in the greater universe is not satisfying for some, who need to project a reason and a justification for these phenomena on some unseen, guiding hand, an "intelligent" designer who oversees their workings and demands obesiance. Should they seek solace from him/her/it in the form of some returned communication--a prayer answered, an intention approved--and should they fail to hear the answer that they seek, they may well find themselves, as Teresa, "repulsed — empty — no faith — no love — no zeal. — [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction — Heaven means nothing — pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything."
It's a piteous plea, and one that sounds a deep emotional truth about the far end of the spectrum between ecstasy and despair. I do not question Mother Teresa's cry of despair any more than I question the ecstasy of that other Teresa,
Teresa of Avila, whose passionate surrender at once to Thanatos and Eros--at least in Bernini's awesome image of her--is also profoundly moving in its sheer humanity, profance, erotic and saintly in the very same breath. It's all poetry to me, and meaningful as such. I don't need God to explain either one to me. I don't even need the "secular spirituality" that Deepak Chopra would have us embrace if we have abandoned the Christian faith, which seems to me to share the internal squishiness of some New Age simulacra for religion.
So, thank you for those letters, Mother Teresa. I for one don't need you to be a saint. I need you to be the human being you prove yourself to be. Though, without wishing to be cheeky, and with regard to all that suffering, I think you'd have found more comfort in the Buddha's Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path than in your Jesus on the Cross.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Is Religion Necessary? (The Answer)
Okay, you'll all be keen to hear, this morning, how Than Geoff responded to the big question I had been mulling since I woke yesterday: Is religion necessary? I was nervous about asking it for two reasons. First, I tend one of the more vociferous members of the group and invariably have a lot of questions on my mind, and often find myself holding back for fear of hogging time when others might be wanting to step in. And secondly, as I thought about my question during the day, I began to realize that I had asked the same one many times throughout the years, though perhaps in different forms. As I noted yesterday, it springs in part from a long-held emotional aversion to religion that I find hard, if not impossible to shake; and in part from an intellectual skepticism that doubts the existence of a God or a life after death that I have always thought to be the basis of all religions, including--as to the latter--Buddhism.
So what did Thanissaro Bhikkhu have to say? It depends, he said, on your definition of religion, and the definition that he offered will come as a no-surprise surprise to many, as it was to me: religion, as he sees it, is quite simply the pursuit of true happiness. Not happiness. True happiness. Because happiness in the forms in which most of us seek it--material comfort, sexual satisfaction, family, and so on--is the kind that can be taken from us at any moment by the whims of fate. Wealth can evaporate, those close to us can die, we ourselves can be stricken with disease of injury... But no, nothing can deprive us of true happiness, as Than Geoff defines it for us, because it's an inner happiness--one that does not depend others, nor take anything from them. It's the kind of happiness, indeed, that gives us the freedom to be present for others without reservation, since we have nothing to lose and everything to gain from theirs.
I followed up with questions arising from my own understanding of religion--that it requires belief in "transcendence" of some kind, in something beyond the brief span of life between birth and death, a metaphysical dimension that cannot be validated by science or human reason, or even by human experience, but only by faith. Than Geoff was gently insistent in shifting these notions to one side and returning to the simple, pragmatic, experiential view. Asked by another questioner what were the basic tenets of Buddhism as a religion, he was equally uncomplicated in his response: they all boil down to the single belief, he said, that our actions have consequences, and that their quality depends on the quality of our intention in making them.
I asked about skepticism: does it promote unhappiness? Again, a carefully balanced response, to the effect that yes, of course, on the one hand, used unskillfully, it can have that result; but used skillfully, it's an essential ingredient of Buddhist faith, since the Buddha himself taught us to question everything. I asked whether he had read any of the recent books on atheism, and he responded with an amusing story about a nightmare encounter with Sam Harris, in a telephone conference that was to have been published, when Harris immediately went on the attack: religion, he said, was the belief in anything that could not be proved by human reason. End of conversation. Than Geoff decided early on in the interview, he said, that it was absurd to be dragged into that argument.
The subject of prayer came up, along with the question about whether it was based in fear; and remembering that old adage that "there are no atheists in foxholes," I asked Than Geoff what he thought about the human need to turn to some external power or authority in life or death situations, where fear predominates--but another member of our group interjected, without hesitation and with real passion in his voice: "I WAS an antheist in a foxhole." No arguing with a man with that experience behind him. As for atheism, well, we moved on to other topics. A good discussion, though, and I was glad to have raised the issue. I'd be interested to hear responses from readers: Is religion necessary?
So what did Thanissaro Bhikkhu have to say? It depends, he said, on your definition of religion, and the definition that he offered will come as a no-surprise surprise to many, as it was to me: religion, as he sees it, is quite simply the pursuit of true happiness. Not happiness. True happiness. Because happiness in the forms in which most of us seek it--material comfort, sexual satisfaction, family, and so on--is the kind that can be taken from us at any moment by the whims of fate. Wealth can evaporate, those close to us can die, we ourselves can be stricken with disease of injury... But no, nothing can deprive us of true happiness, as Than Geoff defines it for us, because it's an inner happiness--one that does not depend others, nor take anything from them. It's the kind of happiness, indeed, that gives us the freedom to be present for others without reservation, since we have nothing to lose and everything to gain from theirs.
I followed up with questions arising from my own understanding of religion--that it requires belief in "transcendence" of some kind, in something beyond the brief span of life between birth and death, a metaphysical dimension that cannot be validated by science or human reason, or even by human experience, but only by faith. Than Geoff was gently insistent in shifting these notions to one side and returning to the simple, pragmatic, experiential view. Asked by another questioner what were the basic tenets of Buddhism as a religion, he was equally uncomplicated in his response: they all boil down to the single belief, he said, that our actions have consequences, and that their quality depends on the quality of our intention in making them.
I asked about skepticism: does it promote unhappiness? Again, a carefully balanced response, to the effect that yes, of course, on the one hand, used unskillfully, it can have that result; but used skillfully, it's an essential ingredient of Buddhist faith, since the Buddha himself taught us to question everything. I asked whether he had read any of the recent books on atheism, and he responded with an amusing story about a nightmare encounter with Sam Harris, in a telephone conference that was to have been published, when Harris immediately went on the attack: religion, he said, was the belief in anything that could not be proved by human reason. End of conversation. Than Geoff decided early on in the interview, he said, that it was absurd to be dragged into that argument.
The subject of prayer came up, along with the question about whether it was based in fear; and remembering that old adage that "there are no atheists in foxholes," I asked Than Geoff what he thought about the human need to turn to some external power or authority in life or death situations, where fear predominates--but another member of our group interjected, without hesitation and with real passion in his voice: "I WAS an antheist in a foxhole." No arguing with a man with that experience behind him. As for atheism, well, we moved on to other topics. A good discussion, though, and I was glad to have raised the issue. I'd be interested to hear responses from readers: Is religion necessary?
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Is Religion Necessary?
I woke this morning to find myself trying to formulate a question for Thanissaro Bhikkhu, who leads his monthly session with our sangha this afternoon. Than Geoff, as I persist in calling him--I haven't been able to adjust to the more correct Ajaan Geoff (the abbot, rather than the monk) but nor have others in our group, and frankly it does not seem to concern him--Than Geoff asks first for questions after our hour-long sit, and this issue has been on my mind for some time now. I guess I'd put it as a request or an invitation more than a question, and it would go something like this:
I do realize that this question arises from my own deep skepticism about religion. No need, here, to return to that old whine about having it thrust down my throat as a child. That's the emotional part. But I also have an intellectual predisposition toward disbelief. My mind will simply not reach into some imagined realm of continued existence beyond this life. And sadly, perhaps, the concept of an almighty and all-loving God who takes an interest in human affairs seems almost laughable to me in view of the realities of life here on the planet Earth and in the context of so unimaginably vast and unknowable a universe.
And while Buddhism seems to me admirable in not requiring faith in "God," in emphasizing the role of individual responsibility for one's life, and in teaching laudable human values, it leaves me asking myself why it would need to be practiced as a religion.
Was there a threshold of this kind, I want to ask Than Geoff, that you personally had to cross? And, if you did, did it take the form of some "Road to Damascus" moment? Or how did it happen for you?
I wonder if my curiosity derives from looking for such a moment for myself? And if it's the intellect that stands in the way of my ever finding it?
Please talk a little about the threshold between meditation as mind-training practice and meditation as religious practice. At what point, if any, does it become desirable or necessary to step beyond the not-exclusively religious benefits of focus, concentration and mindfulness and into commitment to religion?
I do realize that this question arises from my own deep skepticism about religion. No need, here, to return to that old whine about having it thrust down my throat as a child. That's the emotional part. But I also have an intellectual predisposition toward disbelief. My mind will simply not reach into some imagined realm of continued existence beyond this life. And sadly, perhaps, the concept of an almighty and all-loving God who takes an interest in human affairs seems almost laughable to me in view of the realities of life here on the planet Earth and in the context of so unimaginably vast and unknowable a universe.
And while Buddhism seems to me admirable in not requiring faith in "God," in emphasizing the role of individual responsibility for one's life, and in teaching laudable human values, it leaves me asking myself why it would need to be practiced as a religion.
Was there a threshold of this kind, I want to ask Than Geoff, that you personally had to cross? And, if you did, did it take the form of some "Road to Damascus" moment? Or how did it happen for you?
I wonder if my curiosity derives from looking for such a moment for myself? And if it's the intellect that stands in the way of my ever finding it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
