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.
01: 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.”
02: 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.”
03: 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.
04: 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.”
05: 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.
06: 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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