Justice

For the psychologically mature person, the ills and injustices of life are handled by counter aggression, and which one makes an effort to eliminate the injustice and create justice. Often such efforts are dictatorial, full of anger and self-righteousness. 

In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present hill, fighting to gain adjust result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything.

Always our practice must be the basis for actions. An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from a fight for justice, but from that radical dimension of practice that "passeth is all under standing." It's not easy. Perhaps we go through agonized weeks or months of sitting. But the resolution will come. No person can provide this resolution for us, it can be provided only by our true self if we open wide the gates of practice.

Justice pages 53 to 54, Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

Spiritual Journey

I'm thinking a lot about my spiritual journey lately. I think about how I've chosen it and made many choices but in many ways have been casual and not disciplined. I think about how what I remember about our parents sending us to church without going themselves. I remember my mom saying what a positive experience she had with a Lutheran pastor and she was having difficulties and so that's why they sent us to the local Lutheran Church. I remember being inspired and going down for prayer at a Billy Graham rally. It was a group trip with the church and I remember people wondered where I was and I thought it should have been so obvious. I remember being at camp and waiting for God to speak to me. I think about my involvement in the Jesus Movement and how now I feel like I'm capturing some of the original teachings of Jesus but I remember how that's what they thought also. During my college years, I found scholars (in person and through books) strengthening my faith. Unlike now, I still thought that there was "Truth" out there that some folks had and I wanted to find or understand. Now I've come to understand as Bishop Spong says, "The Bishop of Rome turned the power of his location in that capital city of the known world into the ability to define Christianity and to limit the understanding of the past to his particular interpretation of the past." Since Christianity passed through that narrow funnel, I feel I can still call myself Christian without agreeing with the bishop of Rome's particular understanding and interpretation. 

Practicing alone

There's a practice of maintaining awareness; in that sense, Zen practice exists. But so long as is we're alive, there's the question of awareness. We can't avoid it. In that sense, there's no way to avoid practice, or even to do it. It's just being alive. Though there are certain formal activities that assist us in waking up (which we call Zen practice if we want), real Zen practice is just being here right now and not any adding anything to this.

In a sense, Zen is a religious practice. Religion really means to rejoin that which seems to be separate. Zen practice helps us to do that. But it's not a religion in the sense that there's something outside of ourselves that's going to take care of us. A lot of people who practice and have no formal religious affiliation. I have nothing against formal religion; it all religions there are some remarkable people who truly practice and know what they're doing. But there are also people who have no connection with formal religion whatsoever, yet who practiced just as well. In the end there is no practice except what we're doing each second.

It is more difficult to practice alone, but it's not impossible. It's useful to come to a Zen Center to get a foundation, then maintain some contact long distance and come to sit with others when one can. When one practices alone, it's like swimming against the current. In a community of persons practicing together, we have a mutual language and common understanding of what practice is.

The Promise That is Never Kept page 51 to 52, Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

Practice in Routines

Geoff Dawson, the Ordinary Mind School of Sydney, in his talk called Zen Temple Lockdown, mentions how the routine in a Zen temple assists in the practice. "We are all holding on to something. This is an opportunity to see what it is more clearly so we can let go of it. When we let go of it, we let go of the separate self and embrace the joy of uncertainty. So The zen teaching is, embrace the uncertainty but at the same time it's important to create in our own environment a structure and a routine place. There's nothing like the simple joy that comes from having task completion. . It's important that we get those going. The difference is between a sense of satisfaction as we go through each day and a sense of completion I sense of being scattered and fragmented."  I wrote how I recently started making my bed and that routine has felt like part of my Zen practice. In this talk he also mentions how Alan Watts (also here) influenced him towards Zen and give some quotes from him. The suggestion to create in our own environment a structure and a routine place is being helpful.

--+--

But when it comes to finding ways to help people deal with issues surrounding birth and death, morality and meaning, grief and loss, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn’t have something to offer.

 How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, by David DeSteno

It's not mainly about belief for me as I find Buddhist practice and precepts to be very helpful in dealing with life. I think I always looked for this in Christianity and only found it in the Buddhist-like disciplines. Constantine's Nicene Creed just doesn't do much for me as it leaves out the living Jesus. I'm glad Christianity works for so many people and I don't want to take anything away from that. There seems to be a big emphasis in Christianity in the reading of the Bible to find consistency in history as described and the theology that is promulgated. This consistency was the main desire of Constantine, the ruler of an empire. It made sense for a religion of an empire. So we end up with a lot of commandments and history to guide us. Much of the continuum was lost though we have glimpses through the findings at Qumran and Nag Hammadi. Spiritual teaching almost seems to be an afterthought but I think of the faithful and monastics that have made up for this including in the modern age. Hence the interest in Buddhism by many Christians including myself. I think I've seen the best and the worst of what the religion of empire does in faithful people. This was Laity Sunday at church and I was very impressed by the testimony of the lay speaker. I also heard and encouraged the telling of so many faith stories when I was the Bible study leader at our church. Just in conversation, I am so impressed with the strength that their Christian faith gives to so many people. From the crusades to culture-destroying evangelism, we also have many examples of the worst. This made me think about how the sermons I have given which are much more about concepts than about my personal journey. It's funny I know so much about bible but forget important life details of friends.

Anger and Transformation

When truly experienced, anger is very quiet. It has a certain dignity. There's no display, no acting out. When we truly stay with anger, then the personal and self-centered thoughts separate out and we're left with pure energy, which can be used in a compassionate way That's the whole story of practice A person who can do this with great consistency is a person we call enlightened. A truly enlightened person is one who can transform the energy nearly all the time. It's not that the energy no longer arises; the question is, what do we do with it? Most of us prolong the reaction and enlarge upon it. When the personal element - how I feel about the person - is removed, then there is just energy. When we sit with it with great dignity with this energy, though it is painful at first, it turns into a place of great rest. "Those who would molest me cannot find me here." [Bach]] Why can't they find me here? Because there is no one home. There is no one here. When I am pure energy, I am no longer me. I am a functioning for good. That transformation is why we're sitting. It's not easy. It doesn't happen overnight. But if we sit well, over time we become less and less engaged in interpersonal mischief, harming ourselves and others. Sitting burns up the self-centered element and leaves us with the energy of our emotions, without the destructiveness. Sesshins, regular sitting, and life practice are the best ways to bring about this transformation. Bit by bit there is a shift in our energy... As our self-centered preoccupations drop away, we can't go back to the way we were. A fundamental transformation has taken place. There is a real peace when we rest within that fundamental contraction, just experiencing the body as it is.

The Baseboard, pages 37-38, Nothing Special by Charlotte Joco Beck

Practice is not about having life feel good

Most of us imagine that the enlightened state will feel much better than pushing a rock! Have you ever awakened in the morning and muttered, "I don't even want to think about all the things I have to do today"? But life is as it is. And our practice is not about having life feel good, even though that's a very human hope. We all like things that make us feel good. We especially like partners who make us feel good. If our partner doesn't make us feel good, we assume that things have to be changed, that he or she needs to change! Because we are human we think that feeling good is the aim of life. But if we simply push our current boulder and practice being aware of what goes on with us as we push, we slowly transform.

Sisyphus and the Burden of Life page 19 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

... the benefits to ourselves are incidental. The real point of practice is to serve life as fully and fruitfully as we can. . .

. . In other words, the center of our life is shifting from a preoccupation with ourselves to life itself. Life includes us, of course; we haven't been eliminated in the second viewpoint. But we're no longer the center. Practice is about moving from the first to the second viewpoint.

The Talk Nobody Wants to Hear page 59

Adapting ancient practices and early Christianity

September 7, 2021

In some ways, Buddhist practice seems like a natural to me. I feel like I've been on the path my entire life. I'm not rejecting Christianity, I just have a very different perspective than either mainline Christianity or Fundamentalism on Jesus and the way of life he encouraged us to live. So many of today's fundamentalist pastors seem to have given up on Jesus and the Bible and gone totally political, making friends with the empire. I feel my Buddhist practice is closer to following Jesus than these crazy folks and the congregations they mislead. I joke to myself that the parts of Christianity I like the best are Buddhist. It seems to me that Christian writers that I am attracted to have adopted Buddhist practices. I don't want to be mean but it seems that modern Christianity is grasping at ways to stay relevant and actually help people in this modern life. It seems like Buddhism is able to reach back and adapt ancient practices to the modern day in a systematic way. I think that is how Charlotte Joko Beck has been described. 

Christian theology spends a lot of time trying to harmonize the conflicting views found in the various books of the Bible. Out of that mishmash it tries to come up with a way to be relevant in modern life. I think it's much simpler in that Jesus wanted us to follow "The Way." He wasn't much into theology or even a sacrificial death in the way it's presented today. What went wrong? Jesus was human at his death. The belief that God raised him up (exalted) eventually evolved into divinity. The first writings hint at this transformation from Jesus to Christ. The rich diversity of Christian beliefs was squelched when Christianity became part of the empire in the third century. Constantine wanted a unified belief system and the First Council of Nicaea came up with the Nicene Creed which doesn't mention the life that Jesus encouraged people to live. According to Wikipedia, "Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, mandating uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law." Theologically, it became necessary to invent a triune God. The Nag Hammadi library is a group of books discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945. Scholars speculate that the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture as he ordered all the heretical documents destroyed even though a group found them valuable. These documents include gospels that were banned by early church leaders, who declared them blasphemous.

It is clear before there were any writings, there were various groups who were followers of Jesus. By the time the narrative of Jesus was set down, it had become 12 male disciples, just like the 12 tribes. This ignored the extensive involvement of women which we only get glimpses of in the gospels.

So we have a collection of writings that we call the Bible. We have the writings of early Christian theologians that nobody but other theologians (and I guess some pastors) read. And then we have a large body of hymns which are of questionable theology and life direction. They picked up on martyrdom and the blood of Jesus washing us clean, two crazy ideas. Besides the anti-semetic and sexist problems that developed in Christianity, there is an emphasis on belief and mystery.

The Diversity of Early Christianity - Frontline PBS

The Christian movement probably began not from a single center but from many different centers where different groups of disciples of Jesus gathered and tried to make sense of what they had experienced with him and what had happened to him at the end of his public ministry. Each of those groups probably had a very different take on what the significance of Jesus was.

Elaine Pagels writes in The Gnostic Gospels about who had "seen the risen Lord." "Luke says that they heard that the Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon Peter. What had he said to Peter? Luke's account suggested to Christians in later generations that he named Peter as his successor, delegating the leadership to him." pages 7-8 ... 

The doctrine of bodily resurrection also serves an essential political function: it legitimizes the authority of certain men who claim to exercise exclusive leadership over the churches as the successors of the apostle Peter. From the second century, the doctrine has served to validate the apostolic succession of bishops, the basis of papal authority to this day. Gnostic Christians who interpret resurrection in other ways have a lesser claim to authority: when they claim priority over the orthodox, they are denounced as heretics.

Such political and religious authority developed in a most remarkable way. As we have noted, diverse forms of Christianity flourished in the earlier years of the Christian movement. Hundreds of rival teachers all claim to teach the "true doctrine of Christ" and denounced one another as frauds. Christians in churches scattered from Asia Minor to Greece, Jerusalem, and Rome split into factions, arguing over church leadership. All claim to represent "the authentic tradition." pages 6-7 

According to Wikipedia, "Bart D. Ehrman attributes the rapid spread of Christianity to five factors: (1) the promise of salvation and eternal life for everyone was an attractive alternative to Roman religions; (2) stories of miracles and healings purportedly showed that the one Christian God was more powerful than the many Roman gods; (3) Christianity began as a grassroots movement providing hope of a better future in the next life for the lower classes; (4) Christianity took worshipers away from other religions since converts were expected to give up the worship of other gods, unusual in antiquity where worship of many gods was common; (5) in the Roman world, converting one person often meant converting the whole household—if the head of the household was converted, he decided the religion of his wife, children and slaves."

The crucial difference between fixing and transforming

But it is very hard, if not impossible, to convey with the words the difference between a life that is fixed and one that is transformed. For one thing, there is a blazing physicality in Zen practice that is obvious only within the silence and struggle of zazen. In experiencing without thoughts the bodily tension of emotion, the conditioned self or shell begins to weaken, and the possibility of the satisfying life we all want - the transformed life - begins to be born. A Zen teacher will make it clear to the student when she is not staying with reality, with what's happening right now, but is instead persisting in trying to find a solution based on self-centered, blaming thinking. 

Zen practice can be difficult, frustrating, and slow, but after a time (usually a long time) the student will notice that her emotional reactivity is decreasing and that the ability to act clearly and insanely is increasing. Self-centeredness diminishes, as does being judgmental. Relationships are more intimate and more satisfying. Compassion appears more frequently and is effortless. 

But this practice is a lifetime work and is never done. It is a process of experiencing again and again each thing that enters her life, moment by moment.

Ordinary Mind by Barry Magid, Forward by Charlotte Joko Beck page x

------------------------

It is the explicit acknowledgment and working through of the emotional difficulties of practice that have been the hallmark of Joko Beck's distinctive brand of Zen. Her way of practicing and teaching were borne directly out of the failure of so many of the first generation of Japanese and American teachers here in the United States to adequately deal with their own emotional conflicts, transference reactions, substance abuse, and sexual behavior despite having completed traditional Zen training.

Ordinary Mind by Barry Magid Introduction page 11

----------------

I have arrived in the present moment

I am feeling like I have arrived in the present moment. Reading my entry from April 12, 2006, I see how I was beginning to consciously look at my spiritual journey. Of course, I am riffing on Thich Nhat Hanh: 

I have arrived. I am home.

In the here. In the now.

I am solid. I am free.

In the ultimate I dwell.

Reading "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts, I was getting intimations of what seems much clearer now. I use the word "enthralled" to describe when I heard him speak at college in the 70's. I like my explanation, I feel like I have come full circle in some ways or maybe I never left. In the preface, he says "the various wisdoms of the West, do not offer much guidance to the art of living in the modern world where familiar concepts have dissolved and we find ourselves adrift." I have rediscovered my interest in eastern thought and practice. Recently I have come face to face with my lack of interest in the Christian story of salvation. I love Jesus and what he did and said but don't care much for the structured system of theology that climbed to the top of the heap from early Christian beliefs.

I think a lot about how to describe how I view Christianity and that is a pretty good summary from 2006. I don't want to offend my many friends who are Christian and even pastors by sharing this. I still feel I can support people at church spiritually without having to kick out the bucket that they are standing on. I do feel between two worlds but I am surprised at how clearly I see the truth of Zen Buddhism. In the past weeks, I have extensively quoted from Opening the Hand of Thought. I do feel like I am getting guidance to the art of living.