What Did Jesus Say? (Excerpt) Kevin Ruffcorn

What Did Jesus Say? (Excerpt)

Kevin Ruffcorn August 1, 2014

https://asanefaith.com/about/

So how did we get the idea that Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins and an eternity in hell?

One of the most common things people do is to confuse John the Baptist’s message with that of Jesus. John prepared the way for Jesus by proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 4:1). When Jesus called people to repentance, it was because the kingdom of God had come near—or arrived (Mark 1:15). Jesus never said anything about believing and being baptized for the forgiveness of sin—Peter did, though. In his first sermon, which is recorded in Acts, Peter calls on people to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin so that they might receive the Holy Spirit (2:38). Paul, on several occasions, links Jesus’ death and resurrection to the forgiveness of sin (Romans 3:23-25).

Certainly, the idea of Jesus saving us from our sin can be found in the New Testament. That theological concept historically has been emphasized by the church. The themes of sin, repentance, forgiveness and salvation are popular in the church today. I do not mean to argue the theological validity of John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul’s claim. I simply want to point out that wasn’t what Jesus understood his life and ministry to be.

Jesus was much more concerned with the present rather than one’s eternal destiny. Jesus focused on announcing that the Kingdom of God had arrived and inviting people to live in the reality of the kingdom. God’s kingdom was a kingdom of love and grace. This kingdom was the antithesis of the Roman Empire. Followers of Jesus were invited to live lives of peace and mercy and turn from the world’s ways of power and judgment. That same invitation is extended to us today.

Christianity

November 30th, 2020

I wrote some notes the other day while listening to the ordinary mind of Sydney zen talk. I really enjoy it and find it valuable teaching and like that they're limited because I often don't have an entire hour to listen to a dharma talk. What interested me besides the comments on spiritual practice was that we are not chasing some special or blissful experience and it gave an example of the Pentecostal service. 

I just heard how compassion in another talk is at the center of Buddhism. While I consider myself a Christian, I think the focus on Jesus is misplaced. In some of my reading Jesus is described as an itinerant, miracle worker and teacher. Upon his death, the community wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Eventually those who saw his death as a moment of salvation one out but that wasn't the only understanding of the meaning of the life of Jesus. To me, this focus on salvation created some of the problems in Christianity and its insensitivity sometimes to the suffering and persecution of people. Salvation of people becomes an obsession and the passion and teachings of Jesus are can be lost.

It is interesting how for both Buddha and Jesus there are no original writings. The tradition was passed down. In Buddhism it was possibly several centuries. In Christianity it was several decades the first writings are Paul's letters which strongly influence the Christian scriptures and then we have four gospels that all hint at a view of Jesus but in slightly different ways. We also have the Gnostic Gospels such as Peter and Thomas which were actively suppressed.

While Christianity looks for transcendence I several ways,  my understanding of Buddhism is staying here and being grounded as exemplified by Buddha touching the earth. We come down into the body rather than hoping to go somewhere else. I can understand why the Black slaves in the south sang, This world is not my home I'm just a passing through, but it is not good theology.

Incomplete notes

There is no such thing as spiritual practice. spirituality. Ex

It is not chasing some special experience or blissful experience. Doing nothing, watching the mind. 

Example: pentecostal services fill the tank with hope, filled with longing but didn't know what to do with it. Many can't stand the silence of the mind. Belonging to life. Need full commitment. No desire to be outside this experience. Craving to be elsewhere drops away. Anything that happens is OK. Fulfilling life.

Zen is the transformation of character

We move from self centered to a more inclusive and altruistic way of being. Koun Yamada

What brings me to Zen practice?

The nature of Zen is that we connect all-over again. It's all about interbeing. We weren't disconnected in the first place. Buddha nature is the interconnectedness of all things. The perfection of all things as they really are Is something that always existed. But we live in the self-centered dream - in our mind. It's not just observing each moment it's being in each moment. Don't just observe your breath, be your breath. Dancing is a metaphor for the Zen life. If you only observe and analyze your moves, you'll never dance. Just like dancing bumble along, make mistakes. It's crazy to ask, why am I dancing? Just walk without this continuous self-reflection, am I doing it right? Send brings us to a sense of perfection, we are just what we are. Suchness, not an ideal self. If we do become more loving and kind, it is because those qualities emerge out of just being the moment.

My notes while listening to Geoff Dawson, Dharma Successor of Charlotte Joko Beck and the teacher of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, Sydney - October 13, 2020

Learned two new words today

I love this review's description of the Jesus in passage below that Thomas Jefferson was not interested in: "Jesus the dusty thaumaturge, the wandering soul-zapper and self-styled son of God,"

Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Bible

The president preferred Jesus’s teachings to his supernatural acts—and edited his copy of the New Testament accordingly. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/peter-manseau-jefferson-bible/616476/

The message minus the mumbo jumbo: that’s what Jefferson was after. The teachings—the “precepts,” he called them—without the supernatural baggage. Jesus the ethicist, Jesus the philosopher, author of “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” Of this Jesus Jefferson was indeed a fan. Of Jesus the dusty thaumaturge, the wandering soul-zapper and self-styled son of God, less so. Jefferson esteemed Jesus as he esteemed Socrates and “our master Epicurus”—as a beautiful mind. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: cringing rustics who had fumbled the story, “forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him … giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves.” Time to dig the real Jesus out from under “the dross of his biographers.” Cut away the walking on water, kicking-out of demons, laying-on of hands, teleportation, claims of divinity, resurrection, etc. Preserve only, in a thousand or so verses, the bare details and pure utterance of a dead-on moralist. “It is as easy to separate those parts,” wrote Jefferson to John Adams in 1814, “as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”

I have mentioned in other posts about how I was never satisfied with the Christian explanation of suffering. It turns out there is a word for that: Theodicy, (from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”), explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil.

How did I get here?

I sometimes think of the things that influenced me to where I've gotten to the point where Zen feels like such a good fit. I found an old box of books from my college and a few years after college. It contained some surprising memories: Manual of Zen Buddhism by DT Suzuki, Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values by Robert M Pursig. Interesting enough, in the same bin was my partner's copies of  Henry David Thoreau - Walden along with the famous essay on Civil Disobedience and Tao de Ching by Lao Tzu.

Dukkha definition

In the Buddhist teachings, there are three forms or levels of suffering: the suffering of suffering (dukkha-dukkhata); the suffering of change (viparinama-dukkhata); and the suffering of conditioned existence or all pervasive suffering (samkhara-dukkhata). Suffering of suffering is gross level suffering, which MBSR and most therapeutic mindfulness modalities address—chronic pain, anxiety, stress, depression. I refer to this form of suffering as “first-level” suffering. The Buddha referred to the “two arrows” of suffering—physical and mental pain, and elaborative mentation about actual pain. Physical and mental pain, as the Buddha pointed out, may at times be unavoidable. Mental elaborative pain, however, is a reactive and judgmental response to unpleasant physical sensations or to situations we deem should not be happening.

The suffering of change, or “second-level” suffering, is apparent in that any phenomena that arises will also pass away, is subject to change, and not permanent. This is sometimes referred to as the suffering derived from a reversal of fortune. Second-level of suffering is poignant when we cling tightly to situations or grasp at pleasurable experiences in the hopes that they will never change. We may also seek pleasure to avoid pain, or chase after experiences we believe will bring us lasting happiness, but they eventually disappoint. Such seeking of hedonic pleasure is itself a source of stress and anxiety.

The suffering of conditioned existence, or “third-level” suffering, is actually the basis of the previous two levels of suffering. It is a much more subtle level of suffering, based on the premise that any phenomena that takes form or birth is subject to the laws of karma and dependent origination. This deepest level of all pervasive suffering is rooted in a fundamental delusion, or fixed view, that the existence of a person in a world is a continuous being from the time of birth (until death). Hence, it is the deepest level of existential suffering, or angst, which is haunted by a sense of lack, or a vague and gnawing feeling, that deep down, a primal fear that self may be groundless, empty, and devoid of a permanent and separate identity. This level of suffering is usually repressed, or covered up, through incessant goal-directed activity that are attempts to make the self feel more secure, grounded and real.

Life has no intrinsic meaning, any more than a piece of music has an intrinsic point. Life is, in zen parlance, yugen – a kind of elevated purposelessness.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is keeping one's consciousness alive to the flow of present reality. Thich Nhat Hanh

Stay aware of the moment by moment. The conscious mind is not the boss. Just show up or the neurotic mind shows up instead. Worry, plan, disappointment.

Trust the body, trust the unconscious. Experience the flow to everyday experience. Joy. Engage with your life.

Empathic attunement

The practice of being a good friend. 

A practice for ourselves in a friendly way and then to others. 

If one didn't get it early in life, seeds can be nurtured later. Enhances our relationship with other people. 

Religious background September 28, 2020

I think about how my experiences paved the way to the Dharma. I also can claim all of my previous religious experiences. As I have journeyed, I have come to feel that it isn't that I was this fixed thing called Christianity and now I am this other thing, Buddhist. As I have mentioned before, I felt welcomed when I heard a person say that you don't have to join anything, just start practicing. My Sangha is clearly the church I attend and serve in leadership roles. I know the language and rituals so I am able to be available to these people. My in-person Buddhist contact is very limited but very welcome. Most is self-study of reading and listening to Dharma talks.

Stop wanting. Get nothing. Zen meditation.

This is merely a manifestation of what consciousness does—it expands and contracts. Self disappears and reappears. This is Tathagata [Buddha-nature] as I understand it—appearing, disappearing, reappearing: suchness. But after the great question comes no great answer. There is just the thing “as is.”

For example, consider the koan “Where does the wind come from?” I suppose if you’re a meteorologist you can come up with all kinds of answers. But for the Zen student, an appropriate response might be: “The tall grass lies down; a crow hovers mid-air.” (At which point, a good Zen master might take the stick and beat you!) The poem begins in silence, makes a little noise, and then ends in silence because there is nothing else to say.

I agree that Zen poems do teach, but what do they teach? They teach nothing. I’ve heard people who have practiced Zen meditation for a while say that they “got nothing out of it” and stopped. The problem is, we already have too much. What more do you want? Stop wanting. Get nothing.

- - - - -

Ignorant people fear silence and solitude. They are afraid of themselves. They don’t want to step back and see. See what? What’s to see? Educated people know what questions to ask. They know what it means to step back, if only to ask a question. These are the people who live an examined life. It takes discipline, effort, perseverance, and concentration to live an examined life in this mass media culture. "The Examined Life" by Seidi Ray Ronci in Tricycle magazine, March 4, 2013

I see myself in this 2nd passage written by a Buddhist monk who works as a college professor. I was so lucky to marry my wife and get the job that became my career.

Divine intervention

As I think about how I would talk about God with someone, I realized the focus is really divine intervention. One of my earliest memories is as a child in the church, I wondered  about the people that lived before Jesus. They couldn't believe in Jesus and be saved so what happened to them? 

As an adult I have grown to dislike the saying, "there but for the grace of God go I." So God lets bad things happen to other people but at least God protects me, really? Picture a stream flowing by that represents people who have cancer, God stands on the bank and occasionally pulls people out but most people float on by. So I've never understood if God is all powerful why all these things happen. I have never found the explanations satisfactory. (See post on Theodicy, (from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”), explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil.)

I realize lots of people find comfort in this but I don't think it is ever comforted me. Since becoming a inquiring student of Buddhism, I realize the Buddhist teachings do impact me in the ways that a lot of people say their Christian faith does. They help me understand the world and how I should live.

Buddhism and Human Flourishing

"Over the years, I have found Buddhist practice to be extraordinarily beneficial. It has helped strengthen and enrich my capacities to be intimately present, to be at home in my body,to accept life's circumstances with equanimity,and to focus on the well-being of others. At the same time, I am aware of Buddhist teachings that I had to alter, modify, are simply disregard in order for Buddhism to make sense to me. I am also aware of the way many contemporary Western Buddhist teachers often alter, ignore, selectively emphasize, or  unwittinglymisunderstand traditional Buddhist teachings, and how their modifications and elisions echo my own difficulties with making sense of the tradition. The things I need to alter-- and which these teachers seem to have made parallel conscious or unconscious alterations on--are not random but conform to a pattern. That pattern--why it occurs and why ought to occur--is the subject of this book." From the introduction in the first chapter of "Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective" by Seth Zuiho Segall

I feel like I've been dealing with some of the same issues. My amateur musings on the intersection and transition between my Christian faith and my Buddhist practice are often on my mind. I no longer fear I am involved in syncretism as I don't feel that my faith is an amalgamation but a legitimate attempt to be faithful. I explain it to myself, thinking I am preparing for a future explanation to someone who asks about it.

He also draws a distinction between the Western abrahamic faith and Buddhism by outlining four points: (1) an all-impowerful, omniscient God who was (2) the creator of the universe, who (3) miraculously intervened in the natural order, and (4) who was the administrator of justice on earth and in the afterlife...

The book’s central thesis is the tensions between traditional Buddhist understandings of enlightenment and Western understandings of well-being are critical factors determining the course of contemporary Western Buddhism’s evolution. The book addresses the general problems that arise whenever one attempts grafting borrowings from another culture onto one’s root culture. It also addresses how all religions that survive over time evolve as they adapt to new cultural realities and existential concerns through creative processes of reinvention and renewal. Lastly, it explores how Western beliefs regarding (1) the continuity of life after death, (2) scientific naturalism and materialism, and (3) the nature of human well-being and flourishing impede the Western assimilation of traditional Buddhist teachings in an unadulterated form.

Zen is like dancing

What if you showed up at dance lessons and asked, "Why are we dancing? Why do you put your foot there?" Zen practice is like that. Get out of the dualistic worldview of success and failure. "No one fails at Zen. No one succeeds at Zen either." The Non Attained Buddha Ordinary Mind Zen School Sydney podcast. Dharma talk given by Geoff Dawson

Howard Thurman - The Genius of Hinduism

Writing in 1938, Thurman would contrast the either-or-nature of Christianity - exclusive, excluding, anathematizing - with Hinduism and would conclude that Hinduism's "genius" seemed "to be synthesis-making. It possesses amazing powers of adjustment and is profoundly elastic." (Thurman's emphasis) from Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence Dixie, Quinton; Eisenstadt, Peter  Beacon Press 2011 isbn = 978-0-8070-0045-8 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/visionsofbetterw00dixi/page/95 95–115]| url the=https://archive.org/details/visionsofbetterw00dixi/page/95

I did not expect this from a black Baptist preacher. With so many resources being put forward during the black lives movement, I started reading about Howard Thurman's meeting with Gandhi. Just before that, thete was a discussion of his meeting with Kshitimohan Sen from which the above quote is taken. Interesting that this aspect of Howard Thurman has not been written up in Wikipedia yet.

Although Thurman would always call himself a Christian, this would always be more of a starting point but a destination, as he would wander, increasingly wider, in a interreligious search to realize the unity of God by transcending artificial cultural barriers.

It is hard to stop reading passages from this book. The discussion of how attractive the Muslim religion was to blacks is fascinating, something I have never understood or thought about much.

Followers of the Way - June 2020

After attending a church legislative conference for 2 days, I find myself thinking about my relationship to the church. This has been a common theme in many of my posts here. I don't know if I discussed being a follower of the way before but that feels so integrative of these two communities. Scholars have said that the earliest Christians were called Followers of the Way. I just listened to the Dharma talk, No high and no low - February 6, 2020 - Geoff Dawson. Following I have written down some of what I found instructive.

Buddhism is a way of life. When we bow to Buddha, it is out of respect, not worship. Inviting us to get in touch with our own Buddha nature. Only delusions and attachments keep us from realizing this and dampen our ability to be one with with the suchness of life. Not a ladder of spirituality to a high point. Just entering a place. Not more spiritual than others. 

US Buddhism

Buddhists make up roughly 1% of the adult population in the United States, and about two-thirds of U.S. Buddhists are Asian Americans, according to Pew Research Center estimates. Among Asian Americans, 43% of Vietnamese Americans and a quarter of Japanese Americans identify as Buddhist, with most of the rest identifying as either Christian or religiously unaffiliated. 5 facts about Buddhists around the world BY KELSEY JO STARR Pew Research Center April 5, 2019

Given those statistics it seems I am part of a very small group of American Buddhists even though it is sometimes ridiculed as part of the '60s. Of course, one does not have to join anything to just start practicing so the influence may be a very hard thing to measure.

More and more I think about how comfortable and challenged I am with Dharma talks. That contrasts with how I feel more and more distant from Christian theology. As I have said before I like the sermons and talks that have suggestions that are very similar to Buddhist practices. But when I think about Jesus dying for our sins or the mystery of the Triune God, that all just seems so distant. I don't think anyone could convince me because I have honestly been trying to convince myself my whole life. As a young person I chose to go to church and I have always been attracted to the study of the Bible and theology. But I remember when Bishop Spong said "Jesus did not die for my sins!" that feeling of liberation from orthodox Christian theology.

I often think also how I would be labeled a heretic in another age. I think to myself how Jesus was another Buddha. After his untimely death following three years of ministry and teaching, it is apparent that there were several schools of Jesus' has thought. I'm sure most Christians don't realize that Paul's letters were the first Christian writings that we have and that the Gospels we're not contemporary accounts but written many decades later. It's clear from Paul's writings that the orthodoxy became important early and the life of what is now known as Christianity. We also know that emperor Constantine wanted a unified faith and we ended up with the Creeds by him forcing the issue. And we have the  Nag Hammadi Codices—13 codices that include complete copies of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip that were obviously hidden by monks because they were supposed to be destroyed. Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century C.E. made sure that there was orthodoxy in biblical texts. So it seems to me that contemplative monks and modern theologians are rediscovering what Jesus was trying to teach. So as I have said before, the church congregation is my Sangha but that has become interesting during this isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jerry Brown

"When people heard he’d studied to be a priest and then gave it up, when people heard he was interested in meditation and then Buddhism, it felt like he was hopscotching around spiritual disciplines. In fact there is a strong through line in all of that, which is that these are disciplines that ask questions about a man’s relationship to nature, man’s relationship to God, the right way of proceeding, humanity’s place on the Earth." 

From an interview of Jim Newton, author of “Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown,”

I think a lot about how I would describe my spiritual journey and my faith currently. While I am not comparing myself to Jerry Brown and his spiritual disciplines, I liked the rejection of hopscotching in this description. I feel a consistency through the life of the young confirmand who wondered about the people who lived before Jesus becoming the older adult who has become interested in Buddhist practices.

Sincerity and just being

I have been listening to The Ordinary Mind Zen School Sydney podcast. The Dharma talks given by Geoff Dawson are fairly short with good audio quality. Three Chords and the Truth comes from a description of country music. Using this to talk about Soto Zen practice, he discusses sincerity. 

That reminded me of what I am trying to say about my Zen practice not intended to be discouraging to fellow Christians who are sincere in their practice. I know there are people who respect my views and I don't want my Zen practice to be a statement against Christianity. This is what it's working for me and I'm glad at what is working for them. 

Another talk was No God, No Governor, No Ego. He mentions how many believe that there must be a God who controls and divides into good and evil. He says, Allow things to just be. Turn up to each moment and let them be. In our life we can pilot and organize but this is not a controlling thing. Think about how we effortlessly walk and breathe. Ego is just a construction that gets in the way. Clean, not cluttered but not controlling.

Fully integrated maturity of the "enlightened self."

In other words, we begin to divine that Zen is not only beyond the formulations of Buddhism but it is also in a certain way "beyond" (and even pointed to) by the revealed message of Christianity. That is to say that when one breaks through the limits of cultural and structural religion - or irreligion - one is liable to end up, by "birth in the Spirit," or just by intellectual awakening, in a simple void where all is liberty because all is the actionless action, called by the Chinese will Wu-wei and by the New Testament the "freedom of the Sons of God." Not that they are theologically one and the same, but they have any rate the same kind of limited limitlessness, the same lack of inhibition, the same psychic fullness of creativity, which mark the fully integrated maturity of the "enlightened self." The "mind of Christ" as described by St. Paul in Philippians 2 maybe theologically worlds apart from the "mind of Buddha" - this have not prepared to discuss. But the utter "self-emptying" of Christ – and the self-emptying which makes the disciple one with Christ in his kenosis – can be understood and has been understood in a very Zen-like sense as far as psychology and experience are concerned. Zen and the birds of appetite Thomas Merton (The study of Zen)

The best way to develop Buddhism

"Usually religion develops itself in the realm of consciousness, seeking to perfect its organization, building beautiful buildings, creating music, evolving a philosophy, and so forth. These are religious activities in the conscious world. But Buddhism emphasizes the world of unconsciousness. The best way to develop Buddhism is to sit in zazen - just to sit, with a firm conviction in our true nature. This way is much better than to read books or study the philosophy of Buddhism. Of course it is necessary to study the philosophy - it will strengthen your conviction. Buddhist philosophy is so universal and logical that it is not just the philosophy of Buddhism, but of life itself. The purpose of Buddhist teaching is the point to life itself existing beyond consciousness in our pure original mind. All Buddhist practices were built up to protect this true teaching, not to propagate Buddhism in some wonderful mystic way." Page 123 Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice by Shunryu Suzuki

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism but to study ourselves

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism but to study ourselves. It is impossible to study ourselves without some teaching. If you want to know what water is you need science, and the scientist needs a laboratory. In the laboratory there are various ways in which to study what water is. Thus it is possible to know what kind of elements water has, the various forms it takes, and it's nature. But it is impossible there by to know water in itself. It is the same thing with us. We need some teaching, but just by studying the teaching alone is impossible to know what "I" in myself am. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki, page 63

In the previous chapter he writes, Our practice has nothing to do with some particular religious belief and for you, there is no need to hesitate to practice our way, because it has nothing to do with Christianity or...

I am finding these readings helpful as I think about my practice especially as it relates to my participation in the Christian church. Of course I have the idea of joining a Sangha with access to monks which is completely unrealistic. After I get over my fantasy, I think about what kind of practice I should have. I met with a Buddhist instructor a few weeks ago and when I sounded critical of Christianity she gently gave me on alternative way to think about it. 

I always appreciate being in the presence of a monk or someone who has training. I can do some studying on my own but I always learn something in the presence of a practitioner. As I look back, I do feel growth in my understanding even though my practice is limited and inconsistent. but it is what happens in the moment and what that practiced looks like in my daily life that is key.

Emergence of secular spirituality

Interview of Krista Tippet

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/13/spirituality-krista-tippett

Books - 

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/14/secular-spirituality-books

Using the internet for kindness

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/16/technology-kindness-spirituality-internet